Opinion Editorials, October 2015

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Palestinians in Canada protesting the Israeli apartheid and occupation regime by wearing the Palestinian symbol of resistance, the kafiya, October 2015	Palestinians in Oxford, UK, leading an anti-Israeli apartheid and occupation regime, October 2015

 
My first stop, after living for 22 years in a refugee camp in Gaza, was the city of Seattle, a pleasant, green city, where people drink too much coffee to cope with the long, cold, grey winters. There, for the first time, I stood before an audience outside Palestine, to speak about Palestine.
 
Here, I learned, too, of the limits imposed on the Palestinian right to speak, of what I could or should not say. Platforms for an impartial Palestinian discourse were extremely narrow to begin with, and when any was available, Palestinians hardly took center stage.
 
It was touching, nonetheless. Ordinary Americans, mostly from leftist and socialist groups defended Palestinian rights, held vigils following every Israeli massacre and handed out pamphlets to interested or apathetic pedestrians.
 
However, after spending almost two decades living in the US, Europe, Asia, the Middle East and travelling across the globe to speak about human rights - starting with Palestinian rights, history and struggle - I began to grasp the seriousness of an unmistakable trend: where the Palestinian narrative is marginalized and fundamentally misunderstood.
 
Back in the day, common justifications included: there were not enough Palestinian intellectuals around to speak for themselves; or that the benevolent leftists who took charge of the Palestinian story spent a week in Ramallah and another in Jerusalem, thus they were capable of enunciating the Palestinian experience; or that the struggle of Palestine is part of a larger battle against imperialism, thus one socialist speaker can mention  Palestine, along with Cuba, Angola and Indochina in one, all-encompassing paragraph; or that Jewish speakers were more credible, because they are closer to the consciousness of American and western audiences; and so forth.
 
So it was not uncommon to see an entire two-day conference on Palestine divided into several sessions and many workshops without a single Palestinian on the podium.
 
Things began to change in recent years, though, especially following the massive shift that the internet and social media has brought about. However, the frame of mind that neglected or avoided the Palestinian narrative has not been defeated completely.
 
The problem is not a matter of adding a Mohammed, an Elias or a Fatima on the list of speakers as a token to show that Palestinians are incorporated into a discussion which is essentially about them, their past and future. It is, rather, the failure to appreciate the authenticity of the Palestinian narrative to the central discourse of the ‘Palestine-Israel conflict’ at every available platform, be it political, academic, cultural, artistic or in the media.
 
Thanks to the efforts of thousands of people around the world, there has been a solid push to bring the Palestinian to the fore; alas, it is not enough, because the challenge is multi-pronged.
 
There is a generational gap, where men of past generations think that the most clever way of reaching the hearts and minds of their countrymen is by obscuring the real Palestinian, whose language, historical references, priorities and expectations might be too alien to, say, an American audience. It is best, they believe, to have sympathetic voices, ‘from the other side’, to address Palestinian grievances.
 
An equivalent to this would be having sympathetic British, Afrikaans or Germans address the historical plights of Indians, South Africans or Jews and other victims of Nazi atrocities. Not only is it unacceptable, it is also destined to fail.
 
Even Palestinian themselves, who came from a generation that never stood, or were given the chance to stand at a podium, remain unable to appreciate the value of a genuine Palestinian story, that reflects the language of the fellahin, the refugees and the resisting women and men throughout Palestine and the region. They seek to tell their stories through apologists, ‘soft-Zionists’ and half-hearted supporters because they are defeated psychologically, having been blinded themselves by elitist propaganda that has been churned out over generations. Ultimately this is dangerous as it dilutes the reality of the Palestinian struggle, and distorts authentic history.
 
The media discrepancies are far more pronounced. The moral crisis in mainstream western media on the subject of Palestine requires volumes, and much has, indeed, been written about it. Palestinian intellectuals in that field are either of the ‘native informants’ variety, as described by Edward Said, or are also used and abused, such as being attacked personally for holding the views that they do. Either way, mainstream media has utterly failed to bring about any measurable change in its biased attitude towards Palestine and its long-suffering people.
 
The struggle in Palestine requires - in fact, demands - global solidarity, a critical mass of a support base that is enough to turn the tide against the violent Israeli occupation, incorporating governments and companies that currently support, sustain and bankroll Israel’s daily crimes against Palestinians.
 
Once and for all, there has to be a decisive recasting of roles regarding what solidarity actually means, and how Palestinians fit in as the protagonists of their own story. The first step is that we must learn not to conflate between solidarity and assuming the role of the Palestinian himself or herself.
 
Palestinian history, from a Palestinian point of view, remains an enigma in the minds of so many Palestinian supporters. That version of the Palestinian narrative, as told by people who lived, experienced and are capable of accurately and clearly depicting their own reality is overshadowed by alternative depictions of that same reality.
 
For example, some find the media narrative of the Israeli newspaper, ‘Haaretz’, quite adequate, despite the fact that it is operated by Israeli, Zionist Ashkenazi men who represent a distinctive Israeli idea of the ‘left’ which, of course, has little to do with the left outside Israel. For some readers, then, both sides of the media narratives are actually addressed by two groups of Israelis, the right and the left, who, in actuality are in agreement regarding most of the tragedies that have befallen Palestinians, starting with the Nakba.
 
Once more, imagine the formerly colonized India, Apartheid South Africa and Nazi Germany being the subject of this discussion in order to understand the intellectual failure to appreciate the centrality of the Palestinian to the Palestinian narrative, whether deliberately flouted or otherwise.
 
As Palestinians are once more rebelling against the Israeli occupation, we ought to also confront past misconceptions and mistakes. We live in an age where a generation of well-educated and articulate Palestinians are extensively present in hundreds of top universities, media companies, including in theater, film and every other educational and cultural facet around the Middle East and the world.  Palestine, itself, is rife with numerous journalists and eloquent women and men, who can do the Palestinian account much justice.
 
It is time to give them the microphone, let them speak, and let us all listen. We have 67 years of catching up to do.

***

Of Course, It is an Intifada: This is What You Must Know  
 
By Ramzy Baroud 

 
When my book ‘Searching Jenin’ was published soon after the Israeli massacre in the Jenin refugee camp in 2002, I was quizzed repeatedly by the media and many readers for conferring the word ‘massacre’ on what Israel has depicted as a legitimate battle against camp-based ‘terrorists’. 
 
The interrogative questions were aimed at relocating the narrative from a discussion regarding possible war crimes into a technical dispute over the application of language. For them, the evidence of Israel’s violations of human rights mattered little.  
 
This kind of reductionism has often served as the prelude to any discussion concerning the so-called Arab-Israeli conflict: events are depicted and defined using polarizing terminology that pay little heed to facts and contexts, and focus primarily on perceptions and interpretations.  
 
Hence, it should also matter little to those same individuals whether or not Palestinian youth such as Isra’ Abed, 28, shot repeatedly on October 9 in Affula - and Fadi Samir, 19, killed by Israeli police a few days earlier, were, in fact, knife-wielding Palestinians who were in a state of self-defense and shot by the police. Even when video evidence emerges countering the official Israeli narrative and revealing, as in most other cases, that the murdered youth posed no threat, the official Israeli narrative will always be accepted as facts, by some.  Isra’, Fadi, and all the rest are ‘terrorists’ who endangered the safety of Israeli citizens and, alas, had to be eliminated as a result.  
 
The same logic has been used throughout the last century, when the current so-called Israeli Defense Forces were still operating as armed militias and organized gangs in Palestine, before it was ethnically-cleansed to become Israel. Since then, this logic has applied in every possible context in which Israel has found itself, allegedly: compelled to use force against Palestinian and Arab ‘terrorists’, potential ‘terrorists’ along with their ‘terror infrastructure.’  
 
It is not at all about the type of weapons that Palestinians use, if any at all. Israeli violence largely pertains to Israel’s own perception of its self-tailored reality: that of Israel being a beleaguered country, whose very existence is under constant threat by Palestinians, whether they are resisting by use of arms, or children playing at the beach in Gaza. There has never been a deviation from the norm in the historiography of the official Israeli discourse which explains, justifies or celebrates the death of tens of thousands of Palestinians throughout the years: the Israelis are never at fault, and no context for Palestinian ‘violence’ is ever required.  
 
Much of our current discussion regarding the protests in Jerusalem, the West Bank, and as of late at the Gaza border is centered on Israeli priorities, not Palestinian rights, which is clearly prejudiced. Once more, Israel is speaking of ‘unrest’ and ‘attacks’ originating from the ‘territories’, as if the priority is guaranteeing the safety of the armed occupiers – soldiers and extremist settlers, alike.  
 
Rationally, it follows that the opposite state of ‘unrest’, that of ‘quiet’ and ‘lull’, are when millions of Palestinians agree to being subdued, humiliated, occupied, besieged and habitually killed or, in some cases, lynched by Israeli Jewish mobs or burned alive, while embracing their miserable fate and carrying on with life as usual. 
 
The return to ‘normalcy’ is thus achieved; obviously, at the high price of blood and violence, which Israel has a monopoly on, while its actions are rarely questioned, Palestinians can then assume the role of the perpetual victim, and their Israeli masters can  continue manning military checkpoints, robbing land and building yet more illegal settlements in violation of international law.  
 
The question, now, ought not to be basic queries about whether some of the murdered Palestinians wielded knives or not, or truly posed a threat to the safety of the soldiers and armed settlers.  Rather, it should be centered principally on the very violent act of military occupation and illegal settlements in Palestinian land in the first place. 
 
From this perspective then, wielding a knife is, in fact, an act of self-defense; arguing about the disproportionate, or otherwise, Israeli response to the Palestinian ‘violence’ is, altogether moot.  
Cornering oneself with technical definitions is dehumanizing to the collective Palestinian experience.  
 
“How many Palestinians would have to be killed to make a case for using the term ‘massacre’?” was my answer to those who questioned my use of the term.  Similarly, how many would have to be killed, how many protests would have to be mobilized and for how long before the current ‘unrest’, ‘upheaval’ or ‘clashes’ between Palestinian protesters and the Israeli army become an ‘Intifada’?  
 
And why should it even be called a ‘Third Intifada’?  
 
Mazin Qumsiyeh describes what is happening in Palestine as the ‘14th Intifada’. He should know best, for he authored the outstanding book, Popular Resistance in Palestine: A History of Hope and Empowerment.  However, I would go even further and suggest that there have been many more intifadas, if one is to use definitions that are relevant to the popular discourse of the Palestinians themselves. Intifadas – shaking off - become such when Palestinian communities mobilize across Palestine, unifying beyond factional and political agendas and carry out a sustained campaign of protests, civil disobedience and other forms of grassroots resistance.  
They do so when they have reached a breaking point, the process of which is not declared through press releases or televised conferences, but is unspoken, yet everlasting.  
 
Some, although well-intentioned, argue that Palestinians are not yet ready for a third intifada, as if Palestinian uprisings are a calculated process, carried out after much deliberation and strategic haggling. Nothing can be further from the truth.  
 
An example is the 1936 Intifada against British and Zionist colonialism in Palestine. It was initially organized by Palestinian Arab parties, which were mostly sanctioned by the British Mandate government itself.  But when the fellahin, the poor and largely uneducated peasants, began sensing that their leadership was being co-opted – as is the case today – they operated outside the confines of politics, launching and sustaining a rebellion that lasted for three years.  
The fellahin then, as has always been the case, carried the brunt of the British and Zionist violence, as they fell in droves. Those unlucky enough to be caught, were tortured and executed: Farhan al-Sadi, Izz al-Din al-Qassam, Mohammed Jamjoom, Fuad Hijazi are among the many leaders of that generation.  
 
These scenarios have been in constant replay since, and with each intifada, the price paid in blood seems to be constantly increasing. Yet more intifadas  are inevitable, whether they last a week, three or seven years, since the collective injustices experienced by Palestinians remain the common denominator among the successive generations of fellahin and their descendants of refugees.  
 
What is happening today is an Intifada, but it is unnecessary to assign a number to it, since popular mobilization does not always follow a neat rationale required by some of us. Most of those leading the current Intifada were either children, or not even born when the Intifada al-Aqsa started in 2000; they were certainly not living when the Stone Intifada exploded in 1987. In fact, many might be oblivious of the details of the original Intifada of 1936.  
 
This generation grew up oppressed, confined and subjugated, at complete odds with the misleading ‘peace process’ lexicon that has prolonged a strange paradox between fantasy and reality. They are protesting because they experience daily humiliation and have to endure the unrelenting violence of occupation.  
 
Moreover, they feel a total sense of betrayal by their leadership, which is corrupt and co-opted. So they rebel, and attempt to mobilize and sustain their rebellion for as long as they can, because they have no horizon of hope outside their own action.  
 
Let us not get bogged down by details, self-imposed definitions and numbers. This is a Palestinian Intifada, even if it ends today. What truly matters is how we respond to the pleas of this oppressed generation; will we continue to assign greater importance to the safety of the armed occupier than to the rights of a burdened and oppressed nation?  
 

– Dr. Ramzy Baroud has been writing about the Middle East for over 20 years. He is an internationally-syndicated columnist, a media consultant, an author of several books and the founder of PalestineChronicle.com. His books include ‘Searching Jenin’, ‘The Second Palestinian Intifada’ and his latest ‘My Father Was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza’s Untold Story’. His website is: www.ramzybaroud.net.

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