In the beginning there was Palestine

April 26, 2006

By: Mulham Assir*

“The question of Palestine is the present and lasting concern of not only Muslims, but the entire humanity. Palestine is the meeting point of right and wrong.”

This is not an Arab leader’s statement. It is a quote from a recent speech given by Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the only world leader who has articulated the centrality of Palestine’s tragedy in the American-led siege (“crusade” was George W Bush’s actual word) against the Arab and Muslim world.

Arab voices usually criticize specific events and aspects of the continuing colonialist aggression against the Arab and Muslim world as separate issues or at best as beads strung together on a common thread.

Some Arab leaders’ statements are often modulated by the desire to gain approval by appearing “moderate.” In the case of Iraq, a “moderate” discussion of the war must be “balanced” by first castigating the brutality of Saddam Hussein’s regime, as if it was even in part the reason for his former allies’ unprovoked attack, or as if unequivocally condemning the foreign aggression against a sovereign Arab nation implies approval of that nation’s leader. A “moderate” stance also includes stating that although supporting the eventual withdrawal of the foreign troops, now that Iraq is descending into chaos is not the right time, as if the solution to eliminating an adverse effect is maintaining its cause longer.

It all began with Palestine.

The suffering of the Palestinian people at the hands of its brutal occupiers may only be viewed by a “moderate” in a “balanced way,” namely by mentioning the Jewish suffering at another time on another continent, condemning “all forms of violence” and, instead of asking for an immediate and unconditional withdrawal of the occupying forces, urging both sides to … “negotiate peacefully.” Any outright condemnation of the brutal and illegal Zionist occupation of Palestine is considered “extremist.” An outright condemnation of the resistance to occupation is, however, seen as moderate.

No other leader before Ahmadinejad has made it this clear that Palestine is the focal point from which radiate all the paths of chaos and destruction cut through the Arab world by the mad dog of imperialism and the tail that wags the dog—the Zionist regime in Palestine. We should call it Palestine instead of “Israel” not only because it is Palestine but also because the distinction between “Israel” and the captive territories under siege is as false as it would have been to call South Africa’s townships “African territories.”

Palestine is our bleeding heart, the place where it all began. It is the open wound which, left untended, has made everything else possible: the failure of the dream of Arab unity, the destruction of Lebanon, the devastation of Iraq. With the path cleared, as Ahmadinejad knows, the lava can flow to Iran next.

The world allowed it to happen, more inured to the systematic destruction of an entire nation year after year, more willing to accept the Zionist propaganda, more cowed by the might of the American will behind the injustice.

Palestine is also the lens that magnifies the defining hallmarks of all subsequent and ongoing acts of imperialist aggression against Arabs and Muslims:

the UN resolutions charades;

the ill-faith “negotiations”;

the naked aggression masquerading as “self-defence”;

the plunder;

the war crimes.

The US is fervently working behind the scenes now, bending arms, cajoling, and bribing, to set up the UN Security Council vote to impose sanctions on Iran. Russia is reluctant and China, with its energy needs strongly connected to Iran, is a problematic vote, which is why Chinese President Hu Jintao’s arrival in the US on April 18 is not exactly just for the purpose of chatting with Bill Gates and shopping at Boeing’s. The dogs of war need the sanctions to create the fiction of international legality in preparation for aggression. This scenario is reminiscent of the pressures exerted by the US to maintain the sanctions against Iraq 12 years after their avowed goal (forcing Saddam to withdraw from Kuwait) had been attained. The sanctions were never lifted until the US acquired control of Iraq. Asked on CNN whether half a million Iraqi children dead as a result of the sanctions, more than died at Hiroshima, was a price worth paying, then-Secretary of State Madeleine Albright infamously responded “we think the price is worth it.”

But it all began with Palestine.

What was the UN Partition of Palestine in 1947 if not the cruellest UN sanction of all? Unlike all the other UN “sanctions” that followed, it was irrevocable, never to be lifted. Unlike all others, not only did it not allege any wrongdoing whatsoever on the part of the victims, but the victims were not even truly acknowledged to exist. This enabled the later Zionist myth of Palestine as “a land without people for a people without land.”

In September 1947 when the first vote to decide the fate of Palestine was cast, there were no African states among the UN members, most Arab states were still under colonialist regimes and thus without UN representation, as was the case with most Asian states. The deciding powers were pretty much a white colonialist club. Even so, the vote did not go as hoped: 25 votes for partition, 13 against and 19 abstentions, therefore far less than the two thirds of the votes required by the regulations to implement a decision. Most importantly, the Palestinian people had no representative, nor did anyone consult them, as if they were slaves to be auctioned off with the estate being parcelled out.

To ensure the “correct” vote the second time, Greece, the Philippines, Liberia and Haiti, which had been against the partition, were “persuaded” to change their votes. But due to poor arithmetic on the planners’ part, the second vote fell short as well: 32 for partition, 13 against, and 11 absent. One vote was still missing to obtain the two thirds of votes needed.

The UN charade was resumed and this time France, threatened with the withdrawal of American aid desperately needed in that post-WWII period, agreed to change its vote in favour of the partition. “Legality” was finally achieved after two failed rehearsals, and on November 29 the UN voted to partition Palestine into three parts: a Jewish state on 14,000 sq. km, with some 558,000 Jews and 405,000 Palestinian Arabs; an Arab state on 11,500 sq. km with about 804,000 Palestinian Arabs and 10,000 Jews-- the two states to be tied by an economic, monetary and customs union-- and a third area under international governance including major religious sites (specifically Jerusalem and Bethlehem), with approximately 105,000 Palestinian Arabs and 100,000 Jews.

Even though born under dubious legality and voted by an unrepresentative international forum and against the will of the legitimate inhabitants of the land, a subsequent adherence to the letter of this diktat by the newcomers might have created an appearance of post-factum juridical validation. It did not happen. What happened was… Deir Yassin on April 9, 1948… Lod and Ramle July 11 1948, over 700,000 Palestinian Arabs uprooted from their homes and land, and denied ever since the right to return or given compensation for their property. After their expulsion, the "Israeli Forces" razed to the ground 385 Arab villages and towns out of a total of 475, and obliterated their remains. Israel occupied more and more Palestinian land by force and has not stopped doing it ever since.

Re-reading the 69 UN resolutions against Israel’s aggression and illegal annexation and occupation of Palestine over the ensuing decades one is struck by their toothlessness. The UN never mandated Israel’s withdrawal, never threatened sanctions for non-compliance. Almost lyrical, the language of the UN resolutions most often uses the term “deplores.” One “deplores” bad table manners but should muster a more muscular vehemence in the face of war crimes and a national holocaust waged by the very people who copyrighted the term and spell it with a capital letter but apparently consider its use “for Jews only.”

Ill-faith negotiations whose sole purpose is to make unconscionable demands leading to certain refusal and thus creating a pretext for aggression were seen in the case of Iraq. Demanding free access to Saddam’s residence during inspections, ostensibly to ascertain the presence of WMDs, surely was predicated on Saddam’s refusal to accept the humiliation.

But it all began in Palestine, where such negotiations had long become known under the cynical name of “peace process.” After decades of dedicated and unflinching struggle and enormous sacrifices, Palestinian Chairman Yasser Arafat, who had become the personification of Palestine’s resistance and national aspirations for freedom and justice of the Palestinian people, allowed himself to believe that accepting one inch can lead to acquiring a foothold in his own homeland at some point in the future. The delayed justice was supposed to come through the good offices of the very power that supported the Zionist regime unconditionally – a sad gamble embodied by the Camp David Accord and crowned by the Oslo agreement in 1993. He was rewarded with the farce of one third of the Nobel Prize for Peace, which he shared with two representatives of the other side: Shimon Peres and Yitzak Rabin. Even the Peace Prize was subjected to a “partition” that symbolically expressed the Western world’s leaning toward the Zionist state. Unintentionally, in the end Arafat ended up lowering the bar of what constitutes humiliation. He even accepted the responsibility for the safety of marauding Zionist settlers, even while Israel was decimating his security forces, devastating what local infrastructure was left and building more settlements. He yielded and withdrew further and further until all he controlled (somewhat) was the interior of a dilapidated building surrounded by Israeli tanks, as much a prisoner of the Zionists as he was of his own unfathomable confidence that the US would ultimately play the role of “honest broker.”

“Moderate” voices increased among the Arab leadership at this time, some having become modest clients of the US (subject to Israel’s approval), others perhaps privately calculating that Palestine’s fate was hopeless with increasing “facts on the ground,” and that they would be better off cutting their losses. They were incapable of seeing that nothing can be gained for any Arab or Muslim state if Palestine is lost, except (on a personal level) the crumbs of a satrapy to be held at the pleasure of the masters.

The devastation of Afghanistan (ostensibly because the Taliban would not hand over Osama Bin Laden), the “war on terror” (allegedly because of “9/11”), the destruction and subjugation of Iraq (because Saddam was a “threat” to the US) have proven that while Palestine was largely relegated to fatalistic near-oblivion by the Arab and Muslim world, it was on the contrary a bold lesson for the aggressors, namely, that when it comes to the Arab and Muslim world, anything goes!

The open talk as well as the orchestrated leaks in the American press about plans to use a “pre-emptive” nuclear strike against Iran—unprovoked, maximum-force aggression—trot out again the “threat to regional and world peace” excuse, even though Iran has never attacked another country. There are no plans, on the other hand, for a nuclear strike targeting Israel, which possesses a vast arsenal of nuclear weapons and has, in its short history, attacked all of its neighbours and organized assassinations in a few countries farther away.

We have indeed seen this unfold in Palestine, and in fact we still see it every day: “self-defence” is the reason invoked for pushing Palestinians on a fraction of their “mandated” land, while the Apartheid Wall eats up more Palestinian territory every day, isolates villages, destroys agricultural land and reduces people to starvation. Israel openly declares that its “final borders” will be set by 2010 and justifies the continuing land theft on “security needs,” a campaign some critics have dubbed Kosher Lebensraum. Plunder also began first in Palestine: land, water, public and private property.

War crimes, massacres and torture perpetrated in Iraq by the US forces and their mercenaries have suddenly shocked the world: Abu Ghraib, executions of entire families as reprisals, massacres of people praying in mosques. Here is only one such testimony from no other than the Iraq Security Minister, describing the American massacre of 37 Iraqis on March 26 at evening prayers in the Mustafa mosque:

"They went in, tied up the people and shot them all. They did not leave any wounded.” By way of an explanation, US Lieutenant Colonel Barry Johnson stated: “It was not identified by us as a mosque… I think this is a matter of perception.”

Nevertheless, even The Guardian, one of the less self-censored newspapers of the Western world, refused to call it a massacre; instead, it called it a “raid.”

But in the beginning there was Palestine.

It was Jenin that begat Fallujah. If Jenin was not called a massacre because “only” 56 Palestinians were killed, then Fallujah did not qualify either. Neither did Balad, where the American forces executed a family of 11 (including five children and four women), then bombed their house and killed their animals. Fallujah and Balad and Qa’im and Haditha and other places of massacre in Iraq were made possible by Jenin and Hebron and Bethlehem and all the refugee camps before and after Sabra and Chatilla (a high point in Sharon’s career) because practice makes perfect.

The Israeli prisons holding thousands of Palestinians, including children, on whom special methods of torture are used, begat Abu Ghraib.

The “success” of the Zionist torturers in Palestine gained them their special status of “consultants.” According to a report in the Guardian, US Special Forces have been trained by Israeli “specialists” at Fort Bragg, N.C. Brigadier General Michael Vane stated in a letter to the “Army” magazine that US special forces had also gone to Israel to learn from Israel’s “expertise in counter-terrorist operations in urban areas.”

The world’s attitude to Palestine’s tragedy — including the Arab’s world’s attitude -- was also the precursor to the indifference to the huge humanitarian crisis in Darfur, a conflagration fuelled by weapons supplied by Israel to two rebel groups. (Good for business, and good for the war on terror, since it thins them out.)

The “war on terror” waged on the Arab and Muslim world by the US and its proxies is accompanied by a Goebbelsian campaign of instilling fear into their own citizens: not only fear of “Islamic terrorism,” but fear of being seen as unpatriotic or not “supporting the troops” by questioning the war. The “troops,” also known as “our men and women in uniform who are in harms’ way” must not have their morale weakened by doubt, or even thought, while fighting “the enemy.” To serve its purpose, the “enemy” must be made to appear dangerous, “evil,” irrational, propelled by murderous religious fervour and by hatred of the “values” of the “civilized world.” When the “civilized” kill, they do it only because the barbarians force them, as illustrated by Golda Meir’s statement in an interview that she hates Palestinians because they force her to kill their sons.

In the beginning there was Palestine, and Palestine is still with us.

Besieged, exiled, famished, targeted for assassination or imprisoned, the Palestinians still resist and continue to claim their legitimate rights of self-determination in their land.

“Peace and harmonious relations can only be based on human dignity and justice. Oppression and aggression are not compatible with human dignity and justice,” said Ahmadinejad, speaking like a lone coryphaeus, while the Arab chorus is still largely silent. The silence must be broken and the apathy must cease.

A great Palestinian whose loss we still mourn, the late Edward Said, launched a clear call to us: “The immediate need is to start thinking collectively and to stop reacting individually.” “Palestine,” he said, “is the heart of the problem, of which Jerusalem is the symbol.”

It is a call to remember: Palestine, Palestine, Palestine.

* Mulham Assir is a Lebanese writer based in Beirut and Madrid.

URL: http://www.amin.org/eng/uncat/2006/april/april26-0.html