February 2006

http://alawda.newjerseysolidarity.org

Organizing the Palestinian Diaspora: The View from North America

In December, 2005, Palestinian exiles from around the world met in Geneva to work to develop a program and a plan for the expansion and reactivation of structures to organize the Palestinian exile community and activate its political presence within the Palestinian national liberation movement. The following document was prepared by the North American delegation to Geneva, for discussions there, and to guide the work that will be taking place in the coming months to build community organizing and institutions among Palestinian exiles in North America. -Al-Awda Newspaper

It is our hope that this conference in Geneva will prove to be a milestone in the struggle for a free Palestine, and an important step towards improving the Palestinian state of affairs. Only through affecting internal, revolutionary changes would the Palestinians and their representative institutions are able to move forward.

GENERAL PRINCIPLES
Political Principles

The conflict with Zionism and Israel ought to be framed as a struggle for national liberation. This is based on the undeniable fact that the entirety of Palestine continues to be occupied by Zionist settlers. Hence, all the documents emanating from this conference must reflect those realities. They must reaffirm our adherence to:
1.the program of national liberation;
2.the Palestinian people's right to resist occupation by legitimate means;
3.the PLO's Palestinian National Charter, which represents the Palestinian consensus;
4.the inalienable right of return for all Palestinian refugees;
5.the establishment of a Palestine as an indivisible part of a unified, free and prosperous Arab homeland;
6.the oneness of the Palestinian people, both within and outside historic Palestine;
7.the fact that Return (Alawdah) and Liberation (Tahrir) are dialectically linked to one another;
8.the conviction that the struggle for a free Palestine is first and foremost an Arab project, which, like Iraq today, is a manifestation of the historical conflict between the Pan Arab program of unity, liberation and development, on the one side, and the imperialist-Zionist project and its ongoing attempts to fragment the Arab Homeland (Al-Watan Al-Arabi), people and identity.

Organizational Principles

Attaining the objectives delineated above requires the development of mechanisms and frameworks of implementation. These, in turn, must be based on a number of principles.
1. All Palestinian institutions, be they official, popular, syndicate or community-based, must adhere to the doctrine of collective and democratic decision-making.
2. Corruption within the Palestinian body politic coupled with the existing tendency towards favoritism and tribalism, must be replaced with more institutionalized, democratic, and transparent methods.
3. Equal participation of Palestinian women in all aspects of the struggle, and at all levels, is an imperative.

THE PLO: PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE

Several factors contributed to the PLO's gaining of regional and international legitimacy during the first half of the 1970s.

The birth of the PLO in 1964 on the basis of the Palestinian National (Qawmi) Charter constituted a defining milestone in the history of the modern Palestinian national movement. In 1968, and in the wake of the occupation of the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, the Golan Heights, and the Sinai Desert, the PLO replaced the Qawmi Charter with the Palestinian National (Watani) Charter. This was due to two developments: the ascendancy of the armed factions, and the PLO's emphasis on Popular War and Armed Struggle as the main method to achieving and victory.

These developments were followed by increased regional and international recognition of the PLO as the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinians. The process culminated with Yaser Arafat's address to the General Assembly of the United Nations, following the PNC's adoption of the Ten-Points Program in June, 1974. It was during that period that the PLO attained most of its diplomatic successes on the international arena.

However, the broad international recognition which the PLO enjoyed during the 1970s and 1980s took place in the context of the organization’s acceptance of significant concessions, including the de facto abandonment of the strategy of Armed Struggle as the primary means to attaining liberation and Return. Those were the first in a long series of political retreats undertaken by the official Palestinian leadership in its quest for international legitimacy.

Today, and for the aforementioned reasons, the popular legitimacy once enjoyed by the PLO has been dissipated. The organization's poor performance, coupled with the marginalizing and weakening of its institutions by an autocratic leadership, served to further undermine its credibility and effectiveness. The present confusion over the PLO's relationship with the Palestinian Authority is but one example of the predicament facing the Palestinian national movement today. This prevailing sense of uncertainty and paralysis plaguing the organization had caused many Palestinians people to switch their allegiance to the Islamic movements.

Yet, despite the paralysis of Palestinian politics, the Palestinian people possess other options besides having to throw its lot either behind the PA, or the remnants of the PLO's leadership. It is essential to keep in mind that the destiny of our people and its struggle are inextricably linked to the destiny and struggle of the Arab Nation.

Yet, it is our right and duty to pose the following questions:

• Who is responsible for the destruction of the PLO?
• What are the causes behind the predicament which the Palestinian national liberation movement is facing today?
• Why did the PLO participate in the Madrid Conference, which came on the heels of the attack on Iraq?
• Who is responsible for the Oslo Agreements and their disastrous consequences vis-à-vis the PLO and the strategic rights and aspirations of the Palestinian people?
• Why did the Palestinian leadership alter and undermine the Palestinian National Charter?
• How could we trust the PLO's Executive Committee and its current chairman, or any of the organization's leaders, both inside and outside Palestine, who lack the will and/or the means to reform the organization?

Finally, the de facto collapse of the official Palestinian institutions, coupled with the factions' inability to effectively address the multifaceted problems confronting the Palestinian people, had led to the spread of NGOs within Palestinian society, particularly in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. This is an alarming development, especially in light of the NGOs' objectives, which include:

• strengthening the culture of defeat at the expense of the culture of resistance;
• legitimizing the Zionist entity;
• undermining the Palestinian national liberation discourse and program;
• replacing the decaying PLO;
• drawing into their ranks of large numbers of progressive political cadres, intellectuals and activists.

The foregoing represents our diagnosis of the condition of the PLO today. The organization has been transformed from a national liberation movement into an organization that is subservient to morally and politically bankrupt Arab regimes, who owe their continued survival to their role as clients and tools of a US-controlled capitalist world order. This transformation was began in 1974 and culminated with the Madrid Conference, the signing of the various Oslo Accords, and the deletion of sections of the Palestinian National Charter.

There is a tendency amongst some to blame the PA for the disastrous consequences of the Oslo process. This is not only historically inaccurate; it is also morally and politically deceitful. It was the PLO leadership who negotiated and signed the Oslo Accords and their various extensions and derivatives. It is this deceitfulness and disrespect for the sacrifices of the Palestinian people that makes it exceedingly difficult to have any faith or trust in the current leadership. That is why we believe that this conference must remain free of PA and PLO influence. And that is why were wary about having the PLO present with us today, even as an observer. This is due both to its well-documented unwillingness or inability to acquiesce to playing such a role in any Palestinian gathering.

That said, we emphasize our respect the decision by the Preparatory Committee to invite members of the PNC and the PLO's Political Department. At the same time, we demand that their participation be based on their clear and explicit adherence to the Palestinian National Charter in its unmodified, 1968 version, excluding all the illegal amendments made in 1996 and 1998. We also ask that all the conference's documents condition acceptance of the PLO as the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people on its full adherence to

• the 1968 National Charter of 1968,
• the National Liberation program,
• the rights of the Palestinian people, first and foremost the Right of Return.

Defining Our Future Relationship with the PLO

Restoring the various organs of the PLO to its role as the leader of the Palestinian national liberation movement is the task of the Palestinian people everywhere. It must be preceded by democratic and transparent elections for a new Palestinian National Council (PNC).These elections must encompass all Palestinians, including members of the exiled communities, who must be involved in all efforts aimed at rejuvenating the organization as the only representative of the Palestinian people. To be successful, however, this rebuilding process which all of us have been demanding for years, must be guided by, and consist ant with the letter and spirit of the Palestinian National Charter. For we firmly believe that al-Mithaq al-Watani al-Falastini, in its un-amended version, is the anchor of Palestinian national unity.

History shows that those who have been at the helm of the Palestinian leadership for decades have failed to accomplish our people's strategic objectives, particularly the right of Palestinian refugees to return to their villages and towns in historic Palestine. Instead, they had shattered most of the political gains which our people through decades of blood and tears. Yet, they refuse to own up to their blunders. Nor are they willing to be held accountable by the people for their failures. Such endemic lack of accountability within the PA and forces us to conclude that that the present Palestinian leadership is part of the problem. As such, it can't be part of the solution.

THE ARAB DIMENSION OF THE STRUGGLE FOR RETURN

It goes without saying that the Arab dimension of the struggle for Palestinian rights, including the Right of Return, must be brought to the fore, both in deed and word. This is the case more so today than during any time in the past. Suffice it to say that the intensification during the past few years of the Zionist-US attempts to force a Palestinian surrender is proceeding today within the context of an Euro-American campaign to fragment, hegemonize and balkanize the Arab Homeland. In other words, framing the struggle for Palestine in Palestinian nationalist (Watani) terms must to be replaced with a framework that emphasizes its pan-Arab (Qawmi) nature. The need for a strategy and an analysis that situate Palestine at the heart of Arab resistance against the encroaching neo-colonialism under the garb of a "New Middle East" or "democracy" is no longer an option; it is a necessity. The organic, albeit deemphasized, relationship between the struggle for Palestine and the struggle for Arab independence, development, and unity must be reasserted. The recent events in Iraq, Palestine, Syria, and Lebanon all but confirm such necessity.

THE PREPARATORY CONFERENCE

We envision the following to constitute the conference's objectives, as well as the building blocks of its program:
1. Defending the Right of Return— The Right to Return, in conjunction with the right to self-determination within the context of an independent, democratic and secular state comprising the entirety of historic Palestine, with Holy Jerusalem as its capital, are and must always be the anchors of our struggle and the foundations of our unity. Therefore, we urge the conference to propose tools and mechanisms to transform the numerous efforts on behalf of the Right of Return in the Shataat into a unified, popular movement. This requires devising campaigns to educate the young generations of Palestinians and Arabs, especially those born or residing in non-Arab countries, about the centrality of this right.
2. Bolstering the participation of Al-Shataat in realizing Palestinian national goals—US, Zionist, European and official Arab, including Palestinian, attempts to marginalize the rights and role of Palestinian communities in exile continue today unabated. These efforts, which intensified with Israel's invasion of Lebanon in 1982 and after, reached their peak with the Oslo betrayal.
3. Increasing the level of participation in efforts and campaigns on behalf of Palestinian rights by members of expatriate communities. It is high time that the Palestinian communities in exile rise to the challenges facing the cause of Palestine today by rebuilding their shattered, national and syndicate institutions and organizations (e.g. labor, student, artist and women unions) on democratic and transparent basis. The Palestinian masses, who sacrificed for liberation and return, and who continue to do so readily and eagerly, deserve to elect their leaders, instead of having them installed by the different political factions.
4. Defending the civil rights of the expatriate Palestinian communities—The Arab-Palestinian identity, along with the social, economic and cultural rights of Palestinians in the Shataat must be safeguarded against all forms of racism and prejudice irrespective of their source.
5. Bolstering the steadfastness of our people in Occupied Palestine—this requires the channeling of material, political and moral support to the Palestinians whose lives continue to be ravages by the Zionist occupiers.
6. We must ensure that any organizational body that may result from this conference be a democratic and transparent one, with a clear and unifiying political message that reflects the Palestinian Thawabet (fundamentals) of Liberation and Return.
7. Devising and implementing effective media and independent fundraising campaigns. The latter must be guided by the values and norms of frugality and fiscal self -sufficiency. Expenses related to the present and upcoming, founding conference must be kept to the bare minimum. We need to learn from past experience when poor financial management was the norm. Therefore, we suggest that a committee is established for the purpose of fundraising for the founding conference and in order to ensure sound and transparent fiscal practices.

The following are general suggestions to consider in relation to possible income sources:

• Donations from conference participants.
• Donations (with no strings attached) from expatriate Palestinian and Arab communities.
• Donations (with no strings attached) from any Palestinian, Arab or foreign institutions.
• The Palestine National Fund.

8. The conference must lay the grounds for the process which will result in the drafting of a political program and a set of bylaws. We suggest that all participants submit their input on both issues in a written form. They must do so before November 25 in order to allow ample time for reading by other members of the preparatory committee. The conference would then appoint a committee to draft the final documents, which would then be presented for discussion, amending and adoption at the founding convention, which we envision to take place within a year.

CONCLUSION

We know that the burden is heavy and the times are trying. But, we are certain that the Palestinian and Arab people will emerge victorious. This is not a rhetorical statement. Rather, it is a one that is based on a reading of modern Palestinian and Arab history.

It is from the perseverance, sacrifices, and unyielding optimism of the Palestinian people that we seek the determination to continue on the path treaded by our forebears.