Palestine - time to talk

By Fadi Kiblawi and Diana Khaled

1 October 2007

Jordan Times

http://www.jordantimes.com/?news=2550

Over the past two decades, the Palestinian national movement has bound itself to a vision of two states, Israel and Palestine, coexisting in peace. Twenty years later, the occupied West Bank now houses 480,000 illegal Israeli settlers and Palestinians are no closer to an independent state than when the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) adopted this platform, in 1988.

Today, every indication points to a unilateral, Israeli, declaration of political boundaries deep within the West Bank, roughly along the lines of the apartheid wall, incorporating Israel’s large settlement blocs and thereby rendering the future “Palestinian state” a series of disconnected cantons.

As a result, a growing number of Palestinians, both inside Palestine and in the diaspora, are questioning a continued commitment to a national vision that has failed. Many have concluded that the window of opportunity for a two-state solution is effectively closed by Israel’s continued creation of “facts on the grounds” (notably, Israel’s colonies, the apartheid wall, and the network of Jews-only roads) that make separation virtually impossible.

Naturally, an alternate vision has emerged, with many advocating one binational state in which Palestinians and Israelis live peacefully as equals. Supporters of one state argue the infeasibility of an ethnic/religious state on an ethnically/religiously plural territory, and the proven stability of binational polities (in Belgium, for example) that protect the cultural trappings and nationalist aspirations of the parties involved.

Moreover, a binational state would safeguard the totality of rights of both Jews and Palestinians, including both parties’ right to inhabit the land. In contrast, a two-state solution necessarily dismisses the Palestinians’ right of return. Nonetheless, critics of a one-state solution point to the deep animosity between Israelis and Palestinians after a century of bloody conflict that would prevent coexistence under one flag. Critics also point to a growing international consensus on the need to create a Palestinian state on the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Interestingly, in the decades preceding the end of apartheid South Africa, these same reservations were raised and subsequently disproved.

Though the jury is still out on exactly which solution should be pursued, certainly every Palestinian is entitled to sit on this jury. Such was the original design of the PLO, an organisation that now incorrectly proclaims itself the “sole, legitimate representative of the Palestinian people”.

Through the PLO’s institutions, a wide array of viewpoints were represented. By 1994, however, with the creation of the Palestinian Authority (PA), the representative bodies of the PLO were neglected, in favour of a dictatorial policy on the part of the PLO advocating a two-state solution reached through direct negotiations with Israel. Despite the failure of negotiations as a means of achieving statehood, the PLO has stubbornly held firm to this policy.

The PA, as represented by Hamas and Fateh, is entirely dysfunctional, as evidenced by the corruption, scandal and infighting plaguing both major parties. But the Palestinian national movement should not be within the exclusive domain of Fateh and Hamas leadership - groups that have failed to liberate Palestine. Nor is the Palestinian nation intractably bound to a failed strategy formulated decades ago.

With the current crisis in Palestine and with more Palestinians currently living outside of Palestine than inside it, now, more than ever, the Palestinian community must engage in an open discussion on its past, present and future. Unfortunately, there are elements among Palestinian organisations that oppose such a full participation and free exchange of ideas. For example, certain advocates of a two-state solution have absurdly argued that the one-state solution feeds into right-wing advocates of Israel and have conflated the one-state solution with terrorism in Iraq simply because the groups operating in Iraq also oppose the two-state solution. Similarly, some proponents of the one-state solution have resorted to labelling their detractors as traitors to the cause of Palestine. Such arguments intend only to curb an open discussion by deliberately intimidating the Palestinian community at large into silence.

The problem with this approach is that it stifles the development of a Palestinian national liberation strategy. Worse still, it pits Palestinian against Palestinian, thereby mirroring the infighting that currently plagues Palestine and deflects from Israel’s continued destruction of Palestine. Sadly, this infighting is the direct result of a failure on the part of the PLO to acknowledge mistakes made and engage in an open debate on the Palestinian national movement and its goals.

Today, Palestinians should not be forced to choose between Fateh and Hamas, and no more should they feel constrained by a decision made 20 years ago by the PLO - a body that has failed to meet in over a decade. Every national movement throughout time has adapted, and the Palestinian movement should be no different.

Clinging to tired slogans will do little to liberate Palestine from decades of colonisation. Similarly, stifling free debate will only serve to undermine the democratic ideals that all of Palestine’s proponents advocate. Now is the time for debate. Without such debate, the Palestinians’ dream - to be free in their homeland - may never be achieved.

Fadi Kiblawi is a Palestinian-American lawyer based in Washington DC. Diana Khaled is a Palestinian lawyer based in Ramallah. They contributed this article to The Jordan Times.

1 October 2007