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From marginalized identity to resisting
colonization:
The Palestinians of the Inside
Ibrahim Makkawi, Ph.D.
Makkawi48@yahoo.com
Paper presented at the:
“Third North American
Student Conference on the Palestine Solidarity Movement”
Rutgers University,
New Brunswick, New Jersey, (October 10 -12, 2003)
Context
Since its
inception, the Zionist-settler project in Palestine has been an integral part,
in fact a central part, of western capitalist colonialism and its quest for
domination, fragmentation and exploitation of the Arab homeland. Palestine was
selected by the colonialist of the day (Britain) to be settled by Zionist Jewish
settlers due to its strategic location in the heart of the Arab homeland,
separating geographically its eastern (Mashriq) and western (Maghrib)
parts.
It must be
clear to all of us, that speaking about the liberation of Palestine and the
Palestinian refugee’s Right of Return, without placing it within the
appropriate context of the conflict is misleading and simplifying. The real conflict is between the
Imperialist-Zionist camp on one hand, and the Arab nation on the other, where
Palestine is only the focal point of the conflict. It is becoming more obvious
than ever before, that our main struggle is with the capitalist center and its
expansionist imperial policy throughout its various forms: starting with
colonialism, imperialism and now globalization. It is this capitalist interest
in the Arab homeland and resources, which gave birth to Zionist-settler project
at the first place, and continues to maintain its existence.
In
the same sense that the Zionist-settler project in Palestine can be understood
only as an advanced military base for western capitalism in the heart of the
Arab homeland, we also cannot understand the Palestinian question and the
refugees issue outside the context of the pan-Arab National (Qawmi)
struggle. It is the Arab homeland in its entirety, but more specifically the
popular classes, which is the target of western capitalism and globalization.
The
Two Myths
First: The most fundamental myth and historical deception
created and propagated by the Zionist movement in its attempt to establish a
pure Jewish state in Palestine, has been its systematic denial of the existence
of the Palestinian people in the same land it had targeted for settlement.
Palestine was “a land without people for people without land”, declares the
Zionist argument. The Zionists realized the undeniable fact that the native
Arab people of Palestine aspiring for their own independence and
self-determination had populated the country throughout their recorded history.
The ultimate
clash between the Zionist-settler colonialist project, and the national
aspirations of the Arab-Palestinian people resulted in turning the majority of
them into refugees. This could not happen without a systematic campaign of
ethnic cleansing, the destruction of over five hundred of their towns and
villages and building new Jewish settlements on their ruins. The historic names,
as well as the structures of most places throughout the country, were changed
overnight in the most barbaric act of historical rape.
In its
resolution 194, the UN asserted the immediate return of the Palestinian
refugees to their homes and property and insisted that the acceptance of the
Zionist Entity among its members would be pending upon its implementation of
the resolution 194. After more than half a century, the Zionist Entity still
enjoys full membership of the UN along with its continued denial of the
Palestinian refugees’ Right of Return.
Second: The second myth, which has been advanced by the
Zionist propaganda is the Zionist Entity’s claim for being a western democracy.
The common practice among western political leaders and scholars alike is their
tendency to single it out as the exception in a region otherwise lacking in
democratic and representative regimes. It is a strange hypocrisy for a settler
colonialist entity known as the “state of Israel” to claim itself as a “Jewish
state” and a “democracy” at the same time, when (a) religion and democracy are
inherently contradictory, (b) 20% of the states population are Palestinians,
and (c) the entire state was established on the runes of another people. Unlike
many ethnic minorities living in western societies, the insider Palestinians
did not immigrate to the new system; rather, the system was imposed on them
after the destruction of their society and the disposition of the rest of their
people.
Today,
the insider Palestinians (1948 Palestine) live as second-class citizens in a
colonial-apartheid regime that does not lose any opportunity to politically
marginalize them, economically exploit them, and culturally manipulate their
national identity according to the needs of the Jewish majority. Although a
clear analogy can be made between the regime of the Zionist Entity and the
Apartheid regime of South Africa, with regard to the status of the insider
Palestinians, we must remember that while the entire native population of South
Africa remained in their homeland, the native Palestinians have been literally
uprooted leaving a small minority of them behind. The relationship between the
Zionist Entity and the Palestinians in the occupied WBG is far more complicated
than could be compared to the Apartheid regime of South Africa[i].
To
drive the point home, it is suffice to remember the fact that the Zionist
Entity does not have a constitution. As a settler-colonial entity falsely
claiming to represent the aspirations of the Jews all over the world, the
“Jewish state in Palestine” has been unable to draft a constitution, which
would simultaneously define its relationship with its non-Jewish Palestinian
citizens and the Jews around the world, let alone the Palestinian refugees it
expelled out of their homeland. Not only that, but “Israel” is the only state
in the world that does not have defined boarders as well.[ii]
Instead,
the Zionist Entity has what is so called “basic laws”, two of which illustrate
the essence of its Apartheid structure, with regard to the Palestinians who
live within it.
First:
The “law of return” applies only to Jews, according to which any Jewish person
all over the world, by religious-ethnic definition only, is entitled to
immigrate to the state of “Israel” and immediately acquire its citizenship. The
same right is denied to Palestinian refugees who were expelled from the
territory on which “Israel” was established in 1948.
Furthermore,
granting citizenship to a baby who is born to Israeli Jewish parents is an
automatic process by virtue of the racist “law of return” whereas a baby who is
born to Palestinian parents, both of which are Israeli citizens as well, must
go through a process of proving certain qualifications for citizenship. The
process is far from being automatic for a Palestinian baby as it is for a
Jewish baby born in the same country. Just recently, the Zionist parliament
passed yet another blatantly racist law specifically preventing family
unification for Palestinians from the WBG marrying to Palestinians who carry
the Israeli citizenship!
Second:
The Jewish National Fund (JNF), which was established by the Zionist movement
before the creation of the state itself, is the only authority in charge of
public land, and not the government. Again, by definition, only Jews can buy,
own or lease land from the JNF, a right, which is denied to the Palestinians
who are legally citizens of the same state. In other words, the most important
element in our national struggle, the land of Palestine, is by “legal” definitions
crated by the Zionist Entity, is limited to Jewish use only.
The
Zionist Entity’s systematic and racist discrimination against its
Arab-Palestinian citizens takes a wide range of forms and manifestations. As
reposted by the Human Rights Watch (2001) Palestinian schools in “Israel”
suffer from systematic discrimination in budget, school building, support
services, teacher qualifications and much more.[iii]
There is no single Arab university in the whole country despite the fact that
Arab-Palestinians constitute 20% of the population. An overwhelming number of
the indigenous Arab-Palestinian villages are not recognized by the government
and consequently are denied basic services such as water and electricity.
Budget for Palestinian local municipalities is incomparable to identical size
of Jewish towns, and job opportunities are pending upon service in the Israeli
army.
Within
this state of affairs, the most important question for the insider Palestinians
has been to understand the dialectical relationship between our national cause
as an integral part of the Arab-Palestinian people, and the struggle for our
basic human rights within the oppressive system which was imposed on us. Any
attempt to serve only one of these two components of the dialect to the exclusion
of the other is misleading. There is no doubt that our national struggle comes
first, and the struggle for our human and civil rights must come in harmony
with it and not in place of it.
There are many
opportunistic politicians, and self-centered intellectuals among us who have
pushed too far the component of our “civil rights and equal citizenship”, in
the Zionist Entity, to the point where in effect all they do is legitimize its
colonial structure. But there is a small and persistent minority of us who
insist on exposing the danger stemming from our assimilation into the Zionist
Entity under the pretext of the struggle for our “civil rights and equal
citizenship”.
The Alternative Voice
There is the
revolutionary political trend which stands firmly against the process of our
assimilation in, and cooptation by the Zionist Entity. This trend is
represented by Abna’a al-Balad Movement, and a variety of committed
intellectuals.
Abna’a al-Balad (People of the Homeland Movement) was founded as a
grassroots movement in 1969, with the goal to preserve the collective national
identity of the Arab Palestinians in 1948 Palestine, link their struggle to
that of the rest of their people (especially the refugees Right of Return) and
continue the struggle for the human rights and equality within the state which
was imposed on them. All that, of course without compromising our national
cause in the way of gaining some benefits from our citizenship status. Through
our grassroots organization, we work mainly towards building the institutions
of civil society among the Palestinian masses and raising national awareness
and collective consciousness.
We, reject on principle, any normalizing of relations with the
Zionist Entity in Palestine through a firm boycott of the Zionist election
process and refusing to be involved in this pointless attempt to reform this
system from within only giving it legitimacy and acceptance. A system that
demands of any elected official to its Knesset to subscribe to the election law
revised in 1984 through section 7 (A): stating that any member of the Zionist
Knesset must accept the fact that the state is: “A State for the Jewish
People”. Realizing the racist connotations and dangerous implications of this
precondition, we affirm the boycott of those pseudo-elections who call for a
state for the “Jewish People” regardless of their place or residence. We will
not pay this price to enter the Knesset and will not sacrifice our moral,
national and ideological commitments to our Arab nation and Palestinian people.
We consider our Movement as an integral part of the Palestinian
National Movement that functions on the Palestinian and Arab national fronts
representing ideologically and in practice the interests of the popular classes
throughout the Arab homeland, working to create a free society away from ethnic
bigotry, racism, and to the development and progression of all people
regardless of ethnicity, race, or religious affiliation.
We realize the disastrous consequences of the current racist and
class structure of the Zionist Entity which resulted in poverty, misery and
unemployment for the masses of the inside Palestinians because of the
intersection between their class and national oppression. We work hard to find
alternative social and economic structures and establishments that help support
alternative development to our Arab-Palestinian, within 1948-occupied
Palestine, without assimilating into the Zionist Entity.
Our commitment to developing programs that
aim to build independent political, economic, and intellectual institutions
fall into a program to create self-sufficiency and independence to those
removed from the wealth and opportunities of the Zionist class and race
structure. Our program is a program of empowerment, independence, and
liberation. We believe that our economical deprivation on one hand, and our
national oppression on the other are dialectally intertwined. The only way to
struggle for our rights in both issues simultaneously is by a grassroots
program that involves the masses and empowers them to take charge of their
lives rather than accept the Zionist Knesset as the only channel to ask for our
civil rights.
The
Missing Link
We
must locate the missing link in the Palestinian discourse in asserting the
organic relationship between the exiled Palestinian refugees and the
Palestinians who remained in their homeland living within the Zionist Entity.
We are aware of the fact that this attempt creates a challenge to many who have
accepted, and even took part in, the fragmentation of the Palestinian people
into different groups each managing its own crisis. It is even more provocative
to remind those of us who forget that the Zionist Entity was established in
1948 based on a single colonialist program of ethnic cleansing and those
Palestinians who managed to remain in their homeland are only the rest of the
expelled in the same colonialist program. They must be linked because they
originated from the same conquest of their homeland.
It
is clear enough that the ongoing attempt to manage the crisis stemming from the
Intifada in the occupied WGZ, to the exclusion of the Palestinian
refugees and the insider Palestinians, is an attempt to divide and fragment our
national struggle into isolated local problems, which can be managed by each
segment on its own. We must assert more than ever before that we are one people
leading one national struggle for self-determination, and above that, we are
part of the Arab nation (Ummah). In that, we must reassert the link
between the exiled Palestinians and the remaining Palestinians, sine resistance
and steadfastness of the latter in their historic homeland paves the road for
the return of the refugees.
Consistent
with its racist denial of the existence of the Palestinian people, and from the
first day of its inception, the Zionist Entity insisted on the implementation
of a doubled sided campaign of liquidation of the Palestinian collective
character and belonging to the homeland. While it worked relentlessly on
removing the refugees and settling them as far as possible from the borders of
their homeland, in the meantime it insisted on blurring, manipulating and
deforming of the national identity of the Palestinians who fell directly under
its control. This only exposes the illegal, immoral and illegitimate Zionist
claim for a pure Jewish state in Palestine. The Palestinian refugees’
uncompromising demand to return to their homeland and the persistence of the Palestinians of the inside against
assimilation within Zionist Entity must be seen as an inseparable part of a
comprehensive national struggle for return and self-determination.
Needless
to remind ourselves that the contemporary Palestinian National Movement was
initially launched as a movement of refugees fighting to return to their
homeland even before the occupation of 1967. The movement was organized and led
by the Palestinian refugees first in Jordan and latter in Lebanon while it was
clear that the goal was Palestine the homeland, which was occupied in 1948. The
fact that in a latter stage the bourgeois leadership of the PNM had abandoned
its human bases in the refugee camps after its military defeat in Beirut and
its transformation into a bureaucratic movement does not and should not render
the new goal of that leadership, which is limited to a “mini-state” more
important than the right of return. A “mini state” on any part of Palestine,
created by an official agreement with the Zionist Entity, without the Right of
Return is meaningless and can only be another fragile (Qutri) Arab
state.
The
outbreak of the popular Intifiada in 1987, was a natural development of
the Palestinian struggle after the military defeat in Beirut, bringing the
struggle into the inside. It is precisely this turning point that led the
Zionist leadership to cooperate with the defeated leadership of the PLO after
Beirut when it had realized its incapability to break the will of the popular Intifada.
The formula set by the Zionists was clear: to bring the remaining leadership of
the PLO to the WBG in order to stop the Intifada, manage the people in
these areas, give up the refugees’ Right of Return, and leave the insider
Palestinians on their own to assimilate within the Zionist Entity.
Since
the beginning of the Palestinian leadership’s surrender to the U.S lead
settlement process more than a decade ago, from Madrid, through Oslo and into
the Road Map, we have asserted our views about the expected compromise
regarding the Right of Return inherent in such a diplomatic process. Now the
goal of this entire process became clearly the establishment of a compradoric
regime in the WBG in exchange for recognizing the right of the Zionist Entity
on the rest Palestine, and leaving the refugees and the insider Palestinians
out of the solution. We believe that the initiative must be put back into the
hands of these two segments of our people in addition to the struggle of the
popular classes in the WBG.
Again,
resisting assimilation by the insider Palestinians and insisting on the right
of return for the Palestinian refugees must be combined and integrated struggle
and there are many practical ways to do that. NO to compromising the ROR and NO
to assimilating into the Zionist Entity, must be the defining motto of our
movement.
What
Can we do From the Inside?
First: By definition, the Zionist-settler project is not
made to accommodate our collective existence as Palestinians, not even with the
most dramatic changes and transformation in its Jewish-Zionist character. As an
entity that has been established on the ruins of our people, it cannot and will
not be able to accommodate us within its structure. It is from this point of
reference that we must judge any attempt by the insider Palestinians who argue
that “we can work on changing the Zionist project from within.” This false
argument has been used an excuse by many who aspire for their seat in the
Zionist Knesset.
We
refuse to enter the Zionist Knesset, simply because it is (a) in direct
contradiction with our national identity as the legitimate owners of the land,
(b) it gives legitimacy to the Zionist Entity and support to its myth about
democracy, (c) it is a vehicle of cooptation and fragmentation of our
leadership and (d) there is virtually nothing that we can achieve through the
Knesset with regard to our citizens rights that we cannot do without it. In
other words, even the struggle for our civil rights from within the Kenesset is
pointless. One organized national
strike by our masses is more effective in obtaining our rights than an entire
year of meaningless parliamentary work.
Second: We understand that it is not enough to assert the
Arab-Palestinian nature of the collective identity of the Palestinian people in
1948. In order to counter the “Israliziation” process, which has intensified
most recently (especially after Oslo) in its attempt to eradicate our national
identity, we need a genius and a well-developed national educational campaign.
Our goal is to develop and implement a comprehensive national educational
campaign aiming at developing, asserting and maintaining the Arab-Palestinian
national identity among our masses.
This requires an active
rather than a reactive program to raise and enhance national awareness through
empowering the masses, informal educational activities, community centers, literacy
programs, youth activities, and the development of academic research programs
to guide our understanding of this old/new process of internal colonization. As
part of our program of raising national and class-consciousness, we must take
seriously the idea of educating our youth about the history and geography of
their homeland, especially the ruins of the destroyed towns and villages, the
place that testifies to the original homes of the Palestinian refugees.
Third:
The widespread base of supporters and
activists of Al-Awda network had built over the past few years is a remarkable
development on an international scale, placing the Palestinian Refugees Rights
of Return on the agenda of a global anti-capitalist movement. We, the
Palestinians of the inside have a unique position, which allows us to
contribute in the most meaningful way to the struggle of this international
movement. We must consider seriously the opportunity of coordinated activities
with Al-Awda, organize visits to historic Palestine, participate in its various
activities from our location inside, and make use of the information revolution
through communication with activists abroad and with the Palestinian refugees.
A
Final Word
There
is a near consensus in the Arab and Palestinian political discourse, that the
Zionist Entity was imposed on Palestine in 1948, following a systematic and
well-planned campaign of ethnic cleansing which lead to the refugees’ question.
The Zionist Entity, most would agree, was installed in Palestine by colonialist
powers in order to prevent any attempt of pan-Arab unification. Furthermore,
there is a near consensus that the Zionist Entity since its establishment is
becoming more and more aggressive, expansionist and eager in its attempt to
dominate the Arab homeland through its strategic alliance with western
capitalism. All of us would agree that the pan-Arab (Qawmi)cause, and
the question of Palestine are dialectically linked.
While
we all start from this accurate characterization of the Zionist Entity, the
shift in the thinking of some of us in
such a way that grants legitimacy to the Zionist Entity and enters into
negotiations and normalization with it, compromising the Palestinian refugees’
Right of Return, is clearly a mind set of intellectual and political surrender
that can be only described as an “internalizing defeat.” In order to bring the
Right of Return into the center of the Palestinian struggle we must
uncompromisingly combat this trend of “internalizing defeat” among our
leadership and intellectuals who stand in service of the “other.” Together with
our supporters and allies worldwide, we assert that the question of Palestine
is central to the struggle of the Arab nation for liberation, unity and
development. Consequently, we call for the internationalization of the Arab
struggle in the face for globalization and capitalism.
