The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine expressed harsh condemnation of Palestinian figures who participated in a conference in Tel Aviv alongside Zionist war criminals, military figures, settlers and officials on February 16-17. The conference, “Israel in a Turbulent Region,” was organized by the Institute for National Security Studies, a so-called think tank that is at the heart of high-level political and military officialdom and international propaganda campaigns to promote a “national security agenda” for the further repression, dispossession, and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians. At the conference, Avigdor Lieberman announced his plans for the execution of Palestinian prisoners and freedom fighters through the introduction of the “death penalty” in Israeli military courts – kangaroo courts that convict over 99% of the Palestinians brought before them and serve solely as a mechanism of mass imprisonment and oppression of Palestinians.
By participating in this conference alongside notorious war criminals and supporters of genocide, Rami Nasrallah, Sami Abu Shehadeh, and Asma Aghbaria-Zahalka have exceeded simple “normalization.” They have violated every principle of the Palestinian and international boycott of Israel and its institutions, betraying and distorting the image of the Palestinian people and the Palestinian struggle for justice and liberation. In addition to the confirmed presentations of these three individuals, the conference’s programpromised presentations by Qaddoura Fares, Jamal Zahalka and Ali Salem; it is unclear why they apparently did not appear in person and have issued no statements regarding the conference.
Rather than boycott this gathering of racists and war criminals at the highest level of the Zionist military machine, these Palestinian figures joined such figures as Naftali Bennett, Avigdor Lieberman, Moshe Ya’alon, settler spokesperson Tamar Asraf, Danny Tirza (the architect of the apartheid wall), Tzipi Livni, Gilad Erdan, Martin Indyk, Udi Dekel, Amos Gilad and Pnina Sharvit Baruch on a series of panels designed to examine and intensify Zionist efforts to undermine Palestinian resistance, displace the Palestinian people and destroy Palestinian rights.
The INSS as an institution is deeply rooted in the Zionist state and its academic and military institutions. Its ranks are replete with retired military officials, and describes itself as “Israel’s foremost research institute in national security affairs,” planning activities and organizing closely with the Zionist state, its officials and military leaders. It played a major role in international propaganda campaigns to defend and justify the Zionist aggression against Gaza in summer 2014, killing over 2,000 Palestinians. Participating in a conference convened by such an institution is not only blatant normalization, but providing a Palestinian cover and legitimacy to some of the most notorious war criminals and advocates for genocide in the Zionist state.
Every Palestinian organization and the Palestinian movement as a whole – and particularly those organizations associated with the figures who spoke at this conference – must immediately take action to hold them accountable for this traitorous engagement with Zionist war criminals.
Rami Nasrallah, of the International Peace and Cooperation Center, a US and European funded center in Jerusalem that promotes normalization, providing cover for the ongoing Zionization and ethnic cleansing in Jerusalem, appeared on a panel on Jerusalem alongside Danny Tirza, the Zionist military architect of the apartheid wall devastating Palestinian lives and an array of Zionist spokespeople on Jerusalem. Rather than defend the Palestinian people of Jerusalem who are facing home demolitions, settler attacks, ID revocations on a daily basis while their very identity is excluded from their city, Nasrallah provided cover and “dialogue” to the officials planning the destruction of Arab Palestinian Jerusalem.
It must be noted that a central panel at the conference, opened by war criminal Tzipi Livni, focused on “The BDS Campaign Against Israel: Why, How and What Can Be Done?” planning and strategizing to defeat the Palestinian consensus for Palestinian, Arab and international boycott, divestment and sanctions of the occupation state. By their participation in such a conference, these Palestinian figures are participating in an attack on the Palestinian consensus that is represented in the boycott movement and betraying the Palestinian people at all levels. The INSS is no mere forum – it is actively involved in efforts internationally to attempt to stop the growing international economic, cultural and academic boycott of the occupation state.
Zionist officials and political party leaders presented their racist programs to the attendees, competing in their racist and colonialist anti-Palestinian propaganda, including Gilad Erdan, who has revoked Palestinians’ residency rights in Jerusalem while strategizing to escalate this policy to stripping Palestinians of citizenship; Naftali Bennett, whose entire political career is based on the escalation of racism (including boasting of having “killed lots of Arabs“); and numerous other Zionist officials. The conference also featured international advocates for Zionism and against Palestinian and Arab rights, including Indyk, Dennis Ross and Bernard-Henri Levy.
Sami Abu Shehadeh, general secretary of the Balad party in Jaffa,, joined a panel on “Arabs and Jews in Israel.” The appearance of this panel at this “national security” event makes it clear that the presence of Palestinians in ’48 is viewed as a matter of security rather than one of rights, humanity and justice. Participating in a panel on Palestinians in ’48 alongside the likes of Naftali Bennett only provides cover for the ongoing and massive racist attack by the Zionist state which is fundamentally based on the racist exclusion and oppression of Palestinians. Originally scheduled to participate on this panel was Jamal Zahalka, member of the Knesset for Balad party, who apparently did not participate in the final program. The participation of Abu Shehadeh confirms that the Balad party did not reject institutional participation in the conference but merely substituted one speaker for another.
The Balad party’s participation illustrates the fundamental problem with Palestinian participation in the Knesset – just as running candidates for the Knesset promotes the involvement of Palestinians with the state based on their exclusion while providing a “democratic” cover for its ongoing crimes, it leads to the justification of ongoing engagement with Zionist war criminals and racists. The reality is that there is no justification for such participation – in such a conference or in the Knesset – and it is contradictory to the rights of the Palestinian people. Building a “joint list” of Palestinians in ’48 to run for the Knesset is no step forward for Palestinian politics – on the contrary, it is an attempt to further embroil Palestinians in Zionist politics and undermines true Palestinian national unity that rejects Zionism at all levels.
Alongside Abu Shehadeh and Zionist academics and “security” experts Mordechai Kremnitzer and Asher Susser on the panel was Asma Aghbarieh Zahalka of Da’am Workers Party.Aghbarieh-Zahalka’s participation in this showcase of the Zionist racist “national security” state exposes the fundamental flaw in the political approach that claims to see only class struggle as relevant while dismissing the Palestinian and Arab national liberation struggle confronting racist settler colonialism as largely irrelevant or external to the struggle of Palestinians in ’48. In reality, such an approach obscures the actual class politics of settler colonial society, rather than clarifying them. There is no reason for any advocate of “socialism” to join a conference centered around the fascist and racist Zionist military and security enterprise.
Ali Salem, the mayor of Nazareth, was also scheduled to speak on this panel but apparently did not appear; Salem is the same official who, in the summer of 2014, denounced the mass protests in his city following the settler murder and burning of Palestinian teen, the martyr Mohammed Abu Khdeir as “rioting carried out by thugs,” demanding an end to the Palestinian popular movement in his city and calling for “calm” and an “end to the vandalism,” his description of the uprising of Palestinians in ’48.
The program also listed Qaddoura Fares as a participant as the sole Palestinian on a panel on “Israel and the Palestinians,” representing the Fateh movement. Fares, a leader in Fateh and the Palestinian Prisoners’ Society, has a lengthy history of normalization, from his support of the so-called “Geneva Initiative” meant to undermine Palestinian refugees’ right to return to engaging in international pro-normalization efforts with Knesset members.
The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine demands immediate clarifications on the participation of Nasrallah, Abu Shehadeh and Aghbarieh-Zahalka, as well as the situation of Fares, Zahalka and Salem. In particular, there is a need for accountability in particular from the Balad party for its participation in the conference, as well as from the Fateh movement on the ongoing normalization activities engaged in by Fares. Through their participation in this event, these individuals have made it clear that they do not and are not appropriate representatives for the Palestinian people and have no qualms of trampling over the Palestinian popular demand for boycott and against normalization. Any Palestinian leader or spokesperson should be struggling to bring Ya’alon, Livni, Lieberman, Bennett and their ilk before international courts to be put on trial for war crimes, not joining them at “national security” conferences meant to strategize the destruction of Palestine.
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