"The Palestinians may well be forced into the streets for a third intifada sometime soon, to try and prevent the Israelis from achieving their goals; and this may well hinder the Israeli plans for a while and force them to adjust their short-term tactics yet again. But without a fundamental shift in the balance of power in the region, political as well as military, the overall progress of the US-Israeli agenda will not be reversed."
(Perspectives, Crescent International, November 2009.)
In September 2000, the second Palestinian intifada -- also known as the Al-Aqsa intifada -- was famously sparked by Ariel Sharon invading the Haram al-Sharif in al-Quds (Jerusalem) with a gang of right-wing zionists, under heavy police protection, in order to assert the zionist claim to the site. As this issue of Crescent goes to press, there is increasing talk of the possibility of a third intifada erupting, as right-wing Israelis again intensify their pressure on the Haram al-Sharif and Palestinians are forced to resist once again. At the same time, as in 2000, there is also increasing frustration among the Palestinians about the lack of political progress, and a growing sense that their political leadership is utterly failing to represent their interests and the Palestinian cause, and that Israel and its allies are managing to manipulate the political process to their advantage without effective opposition from the Palestinian leadership.
In a very real sense, the issue of the status of al-Quds embodies the Palestinian struggle. For the zionists, it is the permanent and indivisible capital of their God-given state (even for those "modern" Jews who don't believe in God). For the Palestinians, even those who endorse a two-state solution to the zionist problem, the return of East Jerusalem, including the Haram al-Sharif, to Palestinian control, as the capital of a Palestinian state, is an nonnegotiable core to their demands. Whatever else either side may concede, neither is willing to countenance the dilution of this demand, even to the extent of establishing al-Quds as a neutral city under international control. And this is just one of several issues on which, despite all the politicking of the last two decades, supposedly aimed at a peace agreement on the basis of a two-state solution, the fundamental demands of the two sides are totally irreconcilable, making a negotiated peace agreement virtually impossible to achieve.
This much has been apparent to all parties from the outset, even if they have not said so publicly and many observers have preferred to accept the myths of the peace process. To try to change this reality, the two sides have depended on very different weapons. For the Palestinians, these have been appeals to international law, pointing out, among other things, that East Jerusalem and the West Bank were illegally occupied in 1967 and conquered territories may not be annexed; and natural justice, playing on global public awareness of the injustices they have suffered. For the Israelis, the key weapons are their power in every other sphere: militarily, politically, and in terms of the support of the world's hegemonic superpower and international institutions. Taken together, these have enabled Israel to try to define both the geo-political realities on the ground in Palestine -- by its oppression of the Palestinian people, its ethnic cleansing of Jerusalem, the expansion of its settlements, and the institutionalization of its control over the infrastructure of the West Bank -- and the political framework in which negotiations on the future of Palestine take place. And without any authority able or willing to discipline Israel, to hold it to its legal obligations and the promises it makes, its raw power has proven far more effective than any tools available to the Palestinians.
For Israel, thanks to its power dominance, the politics of the last two decades have been a no-lose process. If the Palestinians had accepted peace on Israeli terms, good; and if not, the passage of time enables Israel to strengthen its position in any case. Despite its claims to want peace, the Israeli approach to the dealings with Palestinians over the last two decades have not been of negotiating for a settlement, but of making demands and managing opposition to their plans. And for Palestinians the issue has not been so much one of negotiating for their future as one of trying to resist the US-Israeli machinations. This is why Hamas, which has concentrated on resistance throughout -- political as well as military -- has fared so much better than Yasser Arafat, Mahmoud Abbas and all those who have taken the so-called "peace process" at face value. And yet Hamas now finds itself effectively contained in Gaza while Israel and the US veto all efforts to restore Palestinian unity and plan instead to impose a settlement of sorts on a puppet Fatah administration in the West Bank.
The Palestinians may well be forced into the streets for a third intifada sometime soon, to try and prevent the Israelis from achieving this goal; and this may well hinder the Israeli plans for a while and force them to adjust their short-term tactics yet again. But without a fundamental shift in the balance of power in the region, political as well as military, the overall progress of the US-Israeli agenda will not be reversed. That can only be achieved if the Arab and Muslim countries of the region start supporting the Palestinian cause instead of co-operating with the US and Israel; which in turn can only happen if their current regimes are replaced by ones that are truly independent and act on the basis of justice and the wishes of their people.
The harsh reality is that, whatever the Islamic movements and people of Palestine may do, however hard they ma struggle, and whatever sacrifices they may make, all they can hope for in the short-term is damage limitation. The actual liberation of Palestine will only be achieved after the heartlands of Islam around it have been liberated by the Islamic movements and peoples of those countries. Until that happens, and the resources and power of those countries are bought to bear on the zionists, the Palestinians can do no more than fight a defensive, holding battle.
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