Khalil Nakhleh – How Must We Explain Our Century-old Struggle to a Foreign Audience?

Khalil Nakhleh

Personal reflections on my forthcoming lecture

Since the date for my new lecture became fixed, a few months back, at my alma mater university in the State of Minnesota, USA, where I received my first 4 years of higher education, and earned my Bachelor’s degree, I was in a quandary.  Certainly, this would not be the first lecture I give to an American academic audience in my long career, but since I chose the topic of “Whither Palestine/Israel: What Future?  I have been preoccupied almost constantly with this lecture.  Whatever else I was doing, researching, writing, attending conferences, workshops, meetings, etc, or being involved in domestic and manual chores at home, and so forth, this forthcoming lecture dominated my mind.  It was my nagging concern, and I kept pushing to have it become my wife’s nagging concern too.  Why?

Whatever I read on this broad subject during this period (and I read a lot!); whatever came into my “in box”—reports, studies, analyses, position papers, book reviews, articles, petitions to sign, etc., all was perused; and some was read thoroughly and carefully, with the forthcoming lecture in mind! Why? What was I looking for?

The audience to whom I will be speaking, who is not unfamiliar to me (because I taught there for seven years) was firmly nestled in the back of my mind … my memory.  Basically, this is an audience of privileged Catholic young men and women; the product of middle and upper economic classes; well-bred and well-immersed in the so-called “Judeo-Christian tradition”; and who do well financially when they graduate.  They succeed in gravitating voluntarily and enthusiastically, with unmatched conviction, nurtured by a deep sense of Catholic loyalty (avoiding the wrath of generations of cumulative Catholic guilt), to good job opportunities in mainstream sectors that reproduce and sustain prevalent American culture.  My recollection of this audience (at least in the mid to late 1970’s and through the review of the “Alumni magazine”, which I receive regularly) is that they are not much interested in knowing and analyzing the changing state of the world beyond US borders, unless they happen to have been somehow affected by it, or participating in it through the direct occupation of other countries, e.g., Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, Haiti, etc, or indirectly, e.g., Palestine.

Therein lays my quandary.  My main and nagging concern was this: How can I constrict more than a century-old Palestinian struggle for liberation and against foreign colonialism in a lecture of about 30-40 minutes, to such an audience, without “force spoon-feeding” them; without suffocating them with reams and reams of information; and without thrusting them into the realm of history, to where they would be very reluctant to go on their own volition? How best to etch in their brains one or two deep insights that they will not forget, and that they would keep coming back to for reference, even if they naturally resist doing so?

At the same time, doesn’t this quandary apply in speaking to any audience who identifies and supports the illegal American invasion and occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan as their patriotic duty? Wouldn’t this require at least two to three “pruning” attempts before you can get to the core of the issues, and before you can get such an audience to see and acknowledge the core?

Initially, and as a way out of my predicament, I began working on a basic premise that I need to find and cast in front of them bits of critical data, strung in a somewhat coherent logical chain that can be verified empirically, without requiring leaps of a different system of logic.  I started squeezing my mind, and everything I read and re-read.  I wanted to come up with some type of a list of what is important (for them to know) and what is less important?

I concluded, readily, that they needed to have a visual image of how the land of Palestine was effectively eviscerated, decimated, dismembered … since 1947.  So, I worked on providing maps revealing the gradual obliteration of the land of Palestine.  This is easy to show, because such maps abound.  But this, in itself, wasn’t satisfactory to me.  Should I, then, refer them to basic good references that document this process of genocidal tragedy? But, then, how I can bring them from there to today? How can I entice them to cross with me, quickly and without major diversions, the last century of the Zionist colonial onslaught on Palestine?
How much detail should I expose them to, while introducing the entire “Oslo process”, for example? But, regardless of the level of detail I would provide them, what essence would they retain from these “Oslo” details? And what essence I want them to hold on to and, hopefully, internalize? Should I, for example, highlight the fragmentation of the land (the essence of coherent geography and space)? Should I underscore the acquiescence to a continued military colonial occupation, as it is driven and encouraged by the emergence of a Quisling “Palestinian Authority” in its role as a sub-agent for Israeli control and oppression? Or, should I give more attention to the pre-designed role of “Oslo” in the total fragmentation of the Palestinian people, and the dissolution of their struggle for liberation and freedom, etc ? Or, should I deal with all the above components as constituting the elements of an insidious plan? And finally, is my audience opposed, in principle, to military occupation and colonization of another people?

Or, on the other hand, should I start with the now and telescope it back into its historical context? Why not, it occurred to me, start shocking them by focusing, for example, on the most recent racist genocidal calls to “curb Palestinian births” by one Martin Kramer of Harvard’s Weatherhead Center for International Affairs? Or, by the Israeli decision to erase the 800 years old Palestinian Mamilla Cemetery in Jerusalem to make room for a Jewish so-called “Museum of Tolerance” in its stead?  Or, by the multitude of stories of Palestinian daily human sufferings and humiliation on the military checkpoints, in all Palestinian areas under occupation (Gaza, West Bank, Jerusalem)?  Or, should I focus on the rise in numbers and percentages (since 2001) of attempted suicides among Palestinian young people (18 – 30 years of age), mostly women (about 80%), because of the absence of hope, blocked horizons, and evaporating alternatives for decent human and free existence? Etc, etc.

As always, I attempted to engage my wife in this process of mental deliberations.  She was instrumental in helping me get out of this predicament.  “This is important, but not shocking ”, she advised.  “Why don’t you focus on the real basics? It is about time, at this critical stage, to re-focus on the real essentials of the entire struggle, and to forcefully engage your American audience to reflect on these essentials.” And this is what I am doing.  I “shifted gears” to go faster towards the target! What are the real essentials, and where do we go from here? This will be the core of my forthcoming lecture.

Essential one:

The creation of Israel, as a result of the “Partition Resolution” (UNGA 181) in 29 November 1947 is illegal and has no legitimacy, just like the invasion and occupation of Iraq by American forces.
*  “Israel was created, mainly, by Zionist terrorism and ethnic cleansing – a pre-planned process that saw three-quarters of the indigenous Arab inhabitants of Palestine dispossessed of their homes, their land and their rights.” 
*  The assertion that Israel’s birth certificate and legitimacy was given by the UN Partition Resolution is pure Zionist propaganda, because: 
“In the first place the UN without the consent of the majority of the people of Palestine did not have the right to decide to partition Palestine or assign any part of its territory to a minority of alien immigrants in order for them to establish a state of their own.”

• “The UN General Assembly did pass a resolution to partition Palestine and create two states, one Arab, one Jewish, with Jerusalem not part of either. But the General Assembly resolution was only a recommendation – meaning that it could have no effect, would not become policy, unless approved by the Security Council.”
• “The General Assembly's recommendation never went to the Security Council for consideration because the U.S. knew that, if approved, it could only be implemented by force given the extent of Arab and other Muslim opposition to it; and President Truman was not prepared to use force to partition Palestine.  So the partition plan was vitiated.”

*  Hence, the push and pressure on the Palestinians to recognize the Zionist state.  “In international law only the Palestinians could give Israel the legitimacy it craved.”  (See Alan Hart, “ Zionism Unmasked" , Palestine Think Tank, 13 February 2010.)
*  “The vote was 33 in favor, 13 against and 10 abstentions, with a requirement for a 2/3 majority. Is that a large majority? Abstentions obviously were not counted, but why and under what pressure of ideals were those abstentions made? And what about the other countries, more than the fifty-six voting within the UN, and probably more including the many colonies that were probably excluded at the time?”
*  “The UN Partition Plan of 1947 is of dubious validity … based as it was on a limited and perhaps contrived vote count. … Further questions arise from the Plan itself in which it says: ‘The Security Council determine as a threat to the peace, breach of the peace or act of aggression, in accordance with Article 39 of the Charter, any attempt to alter by force the settlement envisaged by this resolution;’
*  The historical record documents clearly that there was a large "attempt to alter by force the settlement envisaged by this resolution," and that “rose immediately from the Israeli ‘defence' forces who quickly set about the ethnic cleansing of over 400 towns using tactics which today would be considered terror.”  (For the above, see Jim Miles, “ Shlaim's Israel and Palestine”,, 18 January 2010,  Jim Miles's ZSpace Page).
*  Although I accept the position of those who argue that “Israel exists and the vote is irrelevant”, it is, nevertheless, imperative to keep reminding that Israel, as a state, was created by Zionist colonialism and terror, not a political peaceful entity along side of Palestine, but a settler colonial entity on top of Palestine, and obliterating it.
*  It is vital to keep questioning “What is the true nature of this state of Israel that commands the allegiance of the American people and is now seeking to enlist the governments of the world against its perceived ‘existential’ enemy, Iran?” and that may ignite a third world war!
*  It is vital to keep reminding that this rogue state is in defiance of international law, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Geneva Conventions that apply to occupying powers.  This is a state “that possesses weapons of mass destruction, including hundreds of nuclear weapons, and refuses to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty”, not to mention stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons;
*  It is crucial to keep reminding that this State “has defied more than 160 UNGA and 39 UNSC resolutions, demanding it act as a civilized state abiding by international law and protocol”;
* It is fundamental to keep reminding that this is “a state that has systematically confiscated, appropriated, annexed, and assimilated virtually all land belonging to the Palestinians in a sixty-year period of time, leaving them approximately 14 percent of their original land, making it the greatest visible land theft known to human kind in our day”;
*  It is important to keep reminding that this is “ a state that proclaims itself a democracy but is not and, with malicious intent, confiscates the money belonging to a democratically elected government in Palestine and arrests their representatives without charge or trial.” (See William A. Cook,  “The Unstated Script of the Wiesel Open Letter to President Obama”,  23  February 2010, Information Clearing House. 

Essential Two:

The “Oslo Process” with all its accords, starting with the “Declaration of Principles” in September 1993, is an international plan, inspired, devised and supported by the very Western powers that created the illegitimate state of Israel.  It was imposed on the Palestinians for the simple reason to force them to acquiesce to the status quo of Israeli colonialism and occupation of the entire land of Palestine. “By mortgaging the Palestinian leadership to US and Israeli sponsorship, by creating and maintaining administrative, legal and financial structures that will ensure this dependence, Oslo has been what it was designed to be from the start: the mechanism of ending the Palestinian quest to end Israeli colonialism and occupation, and the legitimation of Israel's racist nature by the very people over whom it exercises its colonial and racist dominion.”
The main pillars of this process, as it has been shown in actual application and results, are the following:

• The fragmentation of Palestinian political leadership, and the obfuscation and destruction of the principle of “representation”, namely, the relationship between the PLO and the PA;
• The fragmentation of the Palestinian people into unconnected pieces and geographies: West Bank, Gaza, Jerusalem, Areas occupied in 1948, refugees in camps, “shatat” (Diaspora) Palestinians, Areas “A”, “B”, and “C” in the West Bank, etc ;
• The Palestinian dependence on international aid for their basic physical survival, the daily running of the administrative governing apparatus, with emphasis on security rather than on the productivity of agricultural lands for food security, etc;
• The creation of distorted and corrupt social and economic classes who usurped power and economic resources, rendering society more pauperized: “A political class”, “A policing class”, “A bureaucratic class”, “An NGO class”, and “A business class”;
• The continued international legitimation of Israel’s racist nature.  (For the above, See Joseph Massad, “Oslo and the end of Palestinian independence”, Al-Ahram Weekly Online, 21-27 January 2010). 

Essential Three:
The only way to ensure Palestinian emancipation from this system of occupation, colonialism and apartheid is to work towards establishing a free, democratic, secular and non-racist country in the entire land of historic Palestine, while Israeli Jews embark on self-liberation from the dominant racist Zionist ideology.  The cardinal question is this:  How to break this vicious cycle of colonial occupation and apartheid, and to expose the various measures of “managing the conflict” as delusionary substitutes for a just, lasting and democratic solution targeting the entire people of the historical land of Palestine? How to really seize the initiative for freedom and democracy? What should be our guiding principles?
To start with, what’s the situation today in Palestine/Israel?

• The status quo on the ground reveals the presence of 3.8 million Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, about 40% of whom live in, what has been described, an open air prison in Gaza; nearly half a million illegal Zionist colonists (called “settlers”)living in the West Bank; and 1.3 million Palestinians living as a subjugated minority on their land, inside Israel, among nearly 6.0 million Israeli Jews.
   
• At the end of 2008, at least 7.1 million Palestinians, representing 67 percent of the entire Palestinian population (10.6 million) worldwide were displaced persons (6.6 million refugees and 427,000 IDPs). This makes Palestinian refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs) the largest and longest-standing case of displaced persons in the world today. 
• Starting sometime un the late 1980s, “the number of settlements, and even the size of their population, became immaterial because the apparatus of Israeli rule was perfected to such a degree that the distinction between Israel proper[Areas occupied in 1948] and the occupied territories [Areas occupied in 1967]—and between settlements in the West Bank and Gaza Strip and Jewish communities inside Israel—was totally blurred.   Similarly, the takeover of land ceased to be chiefly for the purpose of settlement construction and became primarily a means of constricting the movements of the Palestinian populace and of appropriating their physical space”. 
• “As far as Israeli citizens and their range of interests are concerned, the annexation of the territories is a fait accompli. …  The continuation of the status quo creates a quasi-stable situation: the Jewish community, a loose framework of cultures and ethnic tribes in constant tension, is held together by enmity to the Palestinian “Other”, and by a determination to rule them. … Fragmentation became the major tool of Israeli control, to preserve their rule over Israel/Palestine from the river to the sea. … The ruling Jewish community will continue, even when it becomes a minority, to force this split on the Palestinians with the usual carrots and  sticks, dictating the agenda, presenting threats, imposing collective punishments and bribery. … The ‘peace process’ serves as a curtain behind which divide and rule is entrenched”. 
• “They have invented a unique concept of a ‘state’: its ‘sovereignty’ will be scattered, lacking any cohesive physical infrastructure, with no direct connection to the outside world. …  The airspace and the water resources will remain under Israeli control.  Helicopter patrols, the airwaves, the hands on the water pumps and the electrical switches, the registration of residents and the issue of identity cards, as well as passes to enter and leave, will all be controlled (directly or indirectly) by the Israelis.” 
• “The status quo will endure as long as the forces wishing to preserve it are stronger than those wishing to undermine it, and that is the situation today in Israel/Palestine.” 
• Several factors sustain the current status quo and ensure its survivability.  These include the high level of fragmentation of Palestinian society and the ongoing incitement of the fragments against each other; the “mobilization of the Jewish community into support for the occupation regime, which is perceived as safeguarding its very existence”; the sustained funding of the status quo by the so-called “donor countries”, which “frees Israel from the burden of coping with the enormous cost of maintaining the control over the Palestinians and creates a system of corruption and vested interests” ; the ongoing delusion that “negotiations” will end the status quo, thus rendering it a temporary state; and “the silencing of all criticism as an expression of hatred and anti-Semitism”.
• The status quo is characterized by a huge gap in GDP between Palestinians under occupation and the occupying Israelis, of a magnitude of 1:20. “This gap cannot endure without the force of arms … which enforces a draconic control system. … All the economic, social and spatial systems of governance in the occupied territories are designed to maintain and safeguard Israeli privileges and prosperity on both sides of the ‘Green Line’, at the expense of millions of captive, impoverished Palestinians”. 
• This status quo is labeled, by Benvenisti, as “de facto bi-national regime” , a term stressing  “the total dominance of the Jewish-Israeli nation, which controls a Palestinian nation that is fragmented both territorially and socially.” (For the above quotes, see Meron Benvenisti, “The Inevitable Bi-national Regime”, January 2010).

To work strategically on our liberation process, we need to instill an appropriate discourse that embodies our future strategic vision.  This discourse should start by purging itself from the language of  “two-state solution”,  “two states for two people”, “West Bank and Gaza”, “East Jerusalem”, “peacemaking”, “direct or indirect negotiations”, “state building”, “legal or illegal settlements”, etc.  Our language should focus on means of resistance to achieve our liberation towards living in a free, non-racist, secular country in the entire land of historical Palestine; on emancipation from occupation and economic dependency; on individual and collective rights; on international law; on responsive and accountable leadership; on self-reliance and productivity; and on the right of all the refugees and displaced persons, who were ethnically cleansed from their homes and country by the Zionist colonial movement, to return to Palestine.
To embark on this course, we should be committed to struggle, with anti-Zionist Jews, for:

• “The dismantlement of the existing system of colonial apartheid, and all forms of racist political, spatial, economic, and psychological separation on the historical land of Palestine”, on the premise that: “all activities resulting from the illegal and criminal Zionist-Western colonization of Palestine, since Palestine was targeted at the turn of the twentieth century, including land and water theft for exclusive Jewish-Zionist settlements, political and legal structures, displacement and replacement of indigenous populations, privileged access and exploitation of natural resources, etc, are null and void, and should be dismantled.”

• “The unhindered return of all Palestinian individuals and groups who were forced by the Zionist colonial enterprise, with the active support of the Western imperialist centers, to abandon their homes and properties; and to exercise their inalienable natural right to acquire these properties back;”
• “The unobstructed productive use of their lands and other natural resources for the indigenous development of the society;”
• “The total freedom of all the people of historical Palestine to chose the type of their governance system, without any coercion or prejudice;”
• “The safeguarding of the seminal principle of separating religious beliefs from the political system, and the use of religion as the basis of government;”
• “The legal guarantee of equal rights of individuals and groups for all minorities living in the new Palestinian Society;”
• “The insistence on the basic principle that majority-minority relations must be based on equality and non-exploitation.” 

Such a worthwhile, justified, and difficult but legitimate struggle would:

• “Rectify the historical and continuous evil and injustice done to the Palestinian people;
• Preserve the geographical and territorial integrity of the land of Palestine, and will work as a counterweight to the insidious process of fragmentation;
• Insist on the Right of Return of all Palestinians to their lands and properties from which they were forcefully and criminally evicted;
• Dismantle all Zionist and Jewish-Israeli structures and laws that were built on inequality and on the exclusion of Palestinian Arabs, with the purpose of imposing and maintaining a hegemonic control of the Zionist-Ashkenazi state over the entire region;
• Allow and encourage mutual living and existence between the Palestinian Arabs and Israeli anti-Zionist Jews in the historical land of Palestine, within a democratic, non-sectarian, equal, non-repressive, non-exploitative, just and open society;
• Promise genuine and sustainable development of the territory of Palestine, for the benefit of all its inhabitants, especially the poor and the marginalized, by focusing on the effective, productive and purposeful use of land and water, for the full employment potential of its workers;

Set an important human example of how antagonists may live together harmoniously in a delineated physical space, once racist and exclusionary ideology and practices are expunged.”
(For the above quotes, see Khalil Nakhleh, “Thinking the Thinkable”, 20 August 2008,  http://www.kanaanonline.org/articles/01633.pdf).
Khalil Nakhleh, Ph.D.
Independent Researcher and Writer
Ramallah, Palestine/Israel
(Struggling to Transform Our Homeland)

River to Sea
 Uprooted Palestinian