February 2006

http://alawda.newjerseysolidarity.org

Building Solidarity: Where are We Going?

The Palestine solidarity movement stands today at an important historical moment. Five and one-half years into the Al-Aqsa Intifada, a defensive movement of Palestinians against an ongoing assault and encroachment upon their national existence, amid the U.S. occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan and threats issued daily to Iran and Syria, and following January's important elections in the West Bank and Gaza, Palestine remains under attack, and its people continue to resist. It is imperative that the solidarity movement in North America strengthen itself, build its organizations and institutions and develop a coherent political strategy that works to build support for the national liberation movement of the Palestinian people in their entirety, and stands to meet the historical challenges of the day.

Today's solidarity movement is very much a product of this Intifada. After the Oslo accords of 1993, much as the institutions of the Palestine Liberation Organization were dramatically weakened, the national entities linking Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, in Palestine 48 and in exile often becoming mere sectors of the Palestinian Authority, and the concomitant localized institutions of Palestinian communities in exile often dispersed , the organizations of the solidarity movement in North America - led by such national entities as the Palestine Solidarity Committee - fell aside. Post-Oslo illusions about the "peace process" combined with the demobilization of the PLO and community institutions combined to produce a dramatic effect upon the organizing and even existence of the solidarity movement in North America.

With the failures of the so-called "peace process" soon evident to many, those most specifically excluded from this process - the Palestinians in exile, whose fundamental right to return was repeatedly relegated to "final status negotiations" - began to reassert the need for Palestinian organizing for national liberation among the Palestinian diaspora. The right to return movement, drawing together right to return committees in refugee camps in Palestine and throughout the Arab homeland, and similar committees and organizations created among Palestinian exiles around the world - in Europe, Asia, Africa, Latin America, Australia and North America, is fundamentally based upon the central issue in Palestine - the right of all Palestinians to return to all of historic Palestine, the liberation of the land of Palestine and the full self-determination of all Palestinians in determining the future of their nation. In an age in which the Palestinian movement was defined as a state-building process, the right to return movement returned attention internationally to the core and unaddressed issues in Palestine and served as a striking reminder that the "statebuilding" process had not supplanted the fundamental character of the Palestinian struggle as a national liberation movement.

The right to return movement placed the central issue in Palestine at the center of Palestinian and Palestine solidarity activism, moving away from slogans that addressed solely the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza without addressing the fundamental injustice of Zionist occupation and the creation of the Zionist entity in 1948, asserting a Palestinian discourse that rejected the marginalization of Palestinian exiles and the normalization of Zionism, and that affirmed the fundamental right of the Palestinian people to liberate all of historic Palestine and the nature of Palestine as an Arab land, and that centralized the struggle for the right to return. In doing so, the right to return movement propagated a coherent discourse that returned to the original basis of the Palestinian movement - the right to return, the illegitimacy of Zionist occupation of Arab land, full self-determination for the Palestinian Arab people, and the liberation of all of historic Palestine. Rather than focusing its fundamental advocacy on "intermediate" issues, it focused upon the core issues, making key demands that focused upon the political and ethical center of the Palestinian movement for national liberation.

Amid the rise of this intifada, and the brutal repression visited upon the Palestinians of the West Bank and Gaza by the Sharon regime, the right to return movement and the nascent solidarity movement quickly became visible and active, organizing demonstrations, events and activities across North America. After the better part of a decade of quietude, the movement burst into activity. At the same time, U.S. threats against Afghanistan, Iraq and other Arab and Muslim countries were increasing in intensity and danger. As an antiwar movement grew to combat those wars and eventual occupations, Palestinian activists and the Palestine solidarity movement were centrally involved in the development of that movement, and the struggle of the Palestinian people represented, for the overall movement, the continuing resilience of a people's ability to fight imperialism and continue to resist despite all costs. On April 20, 2002, over a hundred thousand demonstrators poured into the streets of Washington, DC, in what was initially called as a general antiwar demonstration but that quickly became a broad expression of solidarity with Palestine. Palestinian flags flew above the crowds and speaker after speaker addressed the urgent need to support the Palestinian struggle. Palestinian and Arab communities organized and turned out en masse for the demonstration. It was an unmistakable sign that the Palestinian movement, and the Palestine solidarity movement, were present and growing.

This period also saw the rise of the divestment and boycott movement; Students for Justice in Palestine chapters sprouted across the country, as, taking their cue from students at Berkeley, who organized a national conference in February 2002 calling for an organized movement for divestment from the apartheid colonial settler state of "Israel," they called for university divestment. Institutional divestment, community boycott and calls for an end to U.S. aid to the Zionist state became mechanisms for materializing solidarity with the Palestinian movement.

Looking back upon this period, it is clear that while this intifada was, by and large, a defensive mobilization that attempted to hold off continuing Zionist assaults against the very existence of the Palestinian people - perhaps most poignantly represented by the Apartheid Wall and the destruction of Jenin, it also represented a rising period of reassertion of Palestinian mobilization and, also, international solidarity with the Palestinian movement.

At the same time, however, the political discourse of the solidarity movement was neither unified nor coherent. As the Palestinian national institutions of the PLO had been dismantled and weakened, the clear source of data for the Palestinian consensus program was, largely, not present. In addition, the assertion of some forces within the Palestinian Authority or NGO-related organizations that the right to return was less central than addressing the occupation of 1967 was used to justify the implementation of such advocacy within the solidarity movement. In the immediate pre-Oslo years, the emphasis on statehood in advocacy left memories of such a focus that carried on into later organizing.

In addition, the presence of "Left" Zionists within the U.S. Left and progressive movements, as well as those who sought to assuage them, led to advocacy that focused on making a "better Israel," providing for "Israeli security," and "two states for two peoples." Such forces, which accepted and supported the fundamental legitimacy of the Zionist project in Palestine, rejected Palestinian resistance and the right to return - sometimes openly, as "threats" to the Zionist state, and sometimes covertly - as "not realistic," or "divisive". In reality, refusing to address the right to return and to support Palestinians' fundamental right to resist occupation and oppression by any means necessary was both divisive and damaging. It attempted to create a U.S.-based movement that rejected or marginalized fundamental Palestinian concerns and demands and demanded political adherence to a minimalist program of "two states" and "two peoples."

Such advocacy, that sought to replace Palestinian demands with those of Zionist reformists, was and is fundamentally contradictory to the nature of a solidarity movement. Solidarity movements do not bring about national liberation - the people struggling for their own liberation achieve those victories. In South Africa, the African people obtained victory; in Vietnam, the Vietnamese; in Cuba, the Cubans; and in every other national liberation movement. In Palestine, the Palestinian people - in their entirety, in exile, in the West Bank and Gaza and in Palestine 48 - will achieve liberation. It is the duty of the solidarity movement to provide needed and wanted political and moral support, open space for organizing, advocacy and resistance, and unite people from various backgrounds and areas in common interest against occupation and oppression, taking political leadership and direction from the demands and goals of those who are on the front lines of struggle.

The recent elections in the West Bank and Gaza speak sharply to the question of minimalist demands and the popularity and necessity of a program that addresses core issues - the right to return for all Palestinians to all of historic Palestine, self-determination and independence for Palestinians, and the right to and continuation of resistance against an illegitimate colonial state dedicated to the extermination of Palestinian Arabs as a people. Its results can, in many ways, be read as a rejection of the principles of the Oslo agreement and its disastrous aftermath, and an affirmation of basic principles - including the necessity of internal Palestinian organizing, and strengthening and rebuilding Palestinian institutions that are representative, without corruption, as part of the struggle for national liberation - in Palestine and in the diaspora. This return to basic principles is steadfast, bold and confident; in the face of threats from the Zionist state, the U.S. and the EU to starve the Palestinian people into submission and to militarily attack the West Bank and Gaza.

Despite these threats, the Palestinians voting in the West Bank and Gaza stated clearly that their rights were not for sale and, just as they have struggled for fifty-eight years, they will continue to struggle for their national liberation despite brutality and oppression.

There are several important effects and lessons of these elections for the solidarity movement. First, the threats from the U.S. government that have continued unabated since the elections must be addressed. The solidarity movement must make clear that, just as it is unacceptable that our tax dollars go to fund the ongoing oppression of the Palestinian people and the dispossession of Palestinian refugees, it is similarly unacceptable to threaten the Palestinian people with further oppression and with starvation for daring to exercise their democratic rights to choose their own representation. As the U.S. hypocritically portrays itself as a beacon of "democracy" to Arab nations, as it occupies Iraq and attempts to set up a proxy regime, it has done everything it can to undermine the democratic processes in the West Bank and Gaza and to directly threaten the Palestinians of those territories for choosing their own path of representation and resistance. Palestinians have been building their own institutions and representative democratic structures for a very long time; that the U.S. and its allies in the EU, the leadership of the UN and elsewhere see fit to lecture Arabs and Palestinians about democracy while threatening them for practicing it is the height of hypocrisy, and it is up to the solidarity movement to educate people on a grassroots basis about the reality of Palestinian politics and Palestinian democracy, and to build a viable counter-force that can make itself clearly heard in opposition to these threats against the Palestinian people.

In addition, the elections evidenced a bold, confident result and advocacy that is much-needed within the solidarity movement. In many ways, the choice presented was that between the continuation of a "peace process" that has brought nothing but continued violence and repression into Palestinian lives, and the continuation of resistance until liberation, and the latter was the clear winner. The clarity of a national liberation movement that upholds the fundamental principles of the Palestinian movement as not only possible, but necessary, for justice, provides a clear ethical and moral discourse that rejects racist, exclusionary ideologies such as Zionism, rejects colonialism and imperialism in all of its forms, and affirms the fundamental right of people to self-determination and the right of the displaced to return to their homes, properties and lands.

Rather than being "unrealistic," solidarity advocacy that embraces the full rights of Palestinians, on Palestinians' terms, rather than seeking those acceptable to their oppressors, provides a clear discourse for understanding Palestinian history and supporting the ongoing national liberation movement.

These principles do not apply only in addressing the Palestinians within Palestine, but to the entire Palestinian people. The recent conference of Palestinian exiles in Geneva, combined with the initiatives of the right to return movement, speak to the urgent need of revitalizing and rebuilding the institutions of the PLO, and organizing the Palestinian community in exile. This focus on a return to the community and building institutions that represent those communities speaks to new responsibilities for the solidarity movement. As Palestinian exile communities organize themselves to build Palestinian institutions, it is imperative that solidarity activists provide full solidarity and support to these initiatives. Just as Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, and in Palestine 48, are struggling for national liberation, so are Palestinians in exile. The majority of the Palestinian population is in exile, and political, social and community institutions that represent and address the needs and interests of this sector of the Palestinian nation require the full support of the solidarity movement. Community centers, youth programs and community meetings are the direct practice of the Palestinian national liberation movement and the rebuilding of Palestinian national institutions. Many Palestinians in exile are active in the solidarity movement as well as the community movement; non-Palestinians also have a duty to be active in building support and sustenance for these community structures, as well as continuing public advocacy among the broad public in support of the Palestinian movement for liberation and return.

It is often fashionable to consider direct action in support of Palestine to be that which takes place in the West Bank and Gaza, and while Palestinians there are certainly on the front lines of both oppression and resistance, it is also direct action in support of Palestinian organizing to help fundraise for a community center, to recruit Palestinian and Arab youth for a youth program, or to help call meetings that rebuild representative structures of the Palestinian community. The unity of the Palestinian Arab people in all of their sectors and the need for revitalization of their institutions in all sectors has perhaps never been more clear, and solidarity activists are also part of supporting and providing solidarity to that process.

Solidarity is, of course, not charity. Rather, it is the unification of people and movements in support of common interests and against common enemies. Every dollar spent to prop up the Zionist occupation in Palestine is a dollar not spent on education, health care and housing. The power obtained through the maintenance of the Zionist entity in Palestine - and the occupation of Iraq - and the resulting disruption and repression of Arab political unity and strength is the same power that allows imperialist threats and oppression of other nations around the world. The people of the U.S. don't benefit from oppressing Palestinians - but the small elite who also profit from racism and oppression around the world and at home do benefit. There is great power to be found in building alliances with oppressed communities and nations and people of color groups and communities in solidarity with Palestine. The nature of the racist Zionist state, as an illegitimate colonial entity practicing apartheid, is not dissimilar to that of apartheid South Africa, nor to the U.S. or Canada as against their indigenous populations. Indigenous groups struggling for their national rights, oppressed communities struggling for their national rights, and movements working to support anti-imperialist forces internationally all can draw strength from the support of the Palestinian and Palestine solidarity movement, just as it is imperative that our movement receive the full support and alliance of these communities. We have common enemies, and, more importantly, common goals - freedom from racism, colonialism and oppression.

Within the antiwar movement and the broad progressive movement, the same forces that would label Palestine extraneous or divisive are those who would leave aside addressing fundamental issues of racism and oppression within the U.S. or who would label an anti-imperialist approach "unrealistic." On the contrary, an anti-imperialist approach to solidarity organizing addresses a fundamental issue - why the Zionist project in Palestine is backed by the full support of the U.S. government, why it continues to be critical for their strategy, and what provides the means to stand in opposition to that support. As progressive forces internationally, particularly in Latin America - Venezuela and Bolivia are particularly striking examples - gather strength, our movement can draw strength from their victories against imperialism, as theirs can build strength from ours. Recognizing the international character of the Palestinian movement as a key struggle against imperialism, and the Palestinian national liberation movement as a longtime bulwark against the total victory of imperialism in the Arab nation, provides a mechanism to recognize and establish true international solidarity among national liberation movements. This solidarity is anything but unrealistic - it is achievable, powerful, and necessary, and enables the growth and strengthening of a meaningful progressive movement in the U.S. that rejects imperialist discourse in its entirety and embraces full support for national liberation, in Palestine and everywhere.

An antiwar movement that fails to recognize that the ongoing occupation of Palestine is integrally connected with the occupation of Iraq - both parts of one assault on the Arab nation, designed to splinter Arab political strength and unity, provide a constant military threat against Arab mobilization and maintain economic and political power - in a country whose government provides $15 million daily to fund that occupation, is not an antiwar movement. A social justice movement that refuses to recognize the justice of the Palestinian movement is not a social justice movement. It is our duty as solidarity activists to ensure that such is not the case in the United States, and to ensure that the centrality of Palestine is properly recognized and that the forces who try to silence that centrality are isolated.

Solidarity activists are often subject to threats, intimidation and repression. From the outright jailing of Palestinian activists like Sami al-Arian and the ongoing prosecution of the Los Angeles 8 to the daily struggles on campuses and in communities to obtain space against constant Zionist and administrative threats and repression, to the threats of death and bodily harm regularly inveighed against activists for Palestine, the Zionist movement has attempted a campaign of intimidation in order to silence the Palestine solidarity movement. It is time to meet that intimidation with boldness - not with apologies, hesitation, or silence, but with confidence and assurance that justice, liberation and return can, and will, prevail. The Zionists have, and will continue to repeatedly attempt to demand that solidarity activists condemn or disassociate themselves from Palestinian resistance, or "acknowledge the legitimacy" of the Zionist entity. Conceding to their threats and demands will achieve nothing for the movement but standing aside from the very people with which it claims to support.

Despite fifty-eight years of oppression and dispossession, the Palestinian people have continued to struggle, and to resist, in Palestine and in exile. We can do no less now. Solidarity activists owe it to the Palestinian people to support Palestinian resistance in Palestine in all of its forms, and to build resistance within North America - demonstrations, events, lectures, community organizing - that works within to build solidarity with the total liberation of all of historic Palestine, to rebuild and revitalize the institutions that will lead that liberation struggle, and to popularize a vision of justice in Palestine - a vision of return, of liberation, and of a truly free Palestine.