We are all Islamic Movement

These are harsh times. The Israeli government is running around like a pyromaniac having an attack, daily masterminding a new plot how to inflame the region. So I decided to write down this funny little story which may help calm the situation a bit.

During a spate of murderous attacks on the Gaza Strip, in the last days of 2008, Abna el-Balad movement (a leftist Palestinian movement operating inside the Green Line) called a demonstration in front of the Egyptian Embassy. We wanted to protest the participation of Egypt in the siege imposed on the strip.

The police decided to do everything in its power to prevent the demonstration. They even arrested the bus driver who was supposed to drive the protesters from Haifa. Nevertheless, several dozen protesters arrived at Basel Street in north Tel Aviv where the embassy is located. A large scale police contingent awaited the protesters and prevented us from approaching the embassy building. The cops told us to move to a square next to a shopping center nearby, which we did.

Although it was a relatively quiet vigil which did not violate any law, fifteen minutes later, the police moved in and attacked the demonstrators. The cops began beating demonstrators while calling on them to disperse. (There had been no previous instruction to disperse.) Five protesters were arrested and some were brutally beaten up even after their detention.

The protesters were released the next day in court, but they were later indicted for “rioting”.

The amusing bit, however, came during the court’s proceeding when a senior police officer described to the judge what happened, as the police understood it. He explained that the police arrived to disperse a demonstration organized by the Islamic Movement. When asked how did he knew that it was an Islamic Movement protest, he told the court that the police had prior intelligence information that the Islamic movement was planning a demonstration at the site.

The defense lawyer made it difficult for the officer and asked him if the demonstration that he actually saw seemed like a demonstration of the Islamic Movement. She asked about such thing as the demonstrators dress style and the fact that some of them were Jewish. The officer said that it is well-known that when the Islamic Movement organizes a demonstration, all the Arabs turn up: Communists, Balad, Meretz – the whole lot.

By this time the judge couldn’t restrain himself anymore. He apologized to the accused for the intrusion and asked their permission to ask them what their religion was. Two of them identified themselves as Christians and one woman said she is an atheist.

If you are concerned for our friends in the dock – Well, following a mighty legal effort, the defense lawyer managed to force the police to show the court the video record taken by a police photographer. It clearly showed that the officers attacked the protesters for no reason. The defendants were acquitted and the judge reprimanded the police.

Now, that the Islamic Movement has been outlawed, the police would have a good legal cause to attack anti-war demonstrations and to silence any voice condemning racism or occupation. After all, in the final analysis, we are all Islamic Movement.

* * *

The post above was published in Hebrew in Haifa HaHofshit (Free Haifa in Hebrew) on November 17, 2015. On this day the Israeli Apartheid government decided to outlaw the Islamic Movement – the biggest political and social movement by which Palestinian Arabs in the ’48 occupied territories organize to defend their rights. By this act the occupation tore the mask from upon its own ugly face and ridiculed the fake claim that Arab people here are “Citizens” in a “Jewish-Democratic Israel”.

It was translated by Sol Salbe of the Middle East News Service, Melbourne, Australia – thank him for that.

* * *

First They Came

Pastor Martin Niemoller

First they came for the Communists

And I did not speak out

Because I was not a Communist

 

Then they came for the Socialists

And I did not speak out

Because I was not a Socialist

 

Then they came for the trade unionists

And I did not speak out

Because I was not a trade unionist

 

Then they came for the Jews

And I did not speak out

Because I was not a Jew

 

Then they came for me

And there was no one left

To speak out for me.

Awad Abdelfattah on ODS and the perspective for revival of the Palestinian Liberation Movement

Tags

Arab 48, Awad Abdel Fattah, Intifada, National Democratic Assembly, NDA, ODS, One Democratic State, Oslo Agreement, Palesine, Palestinian Unity, PLO, South Africa

Below is a transcript of Awad Abdelfattah’s address to the ANC’s annual meeting (caucus) in the South African parliament on September 10, 2015.

Awad Abdelfattah is the General Secretary of The National Democratic Assembly (NDA) Party, which is a component of the Common List in the Israeli Knesset. Free Haifa brings his comprehensive lecture here in full as a contribution to the discussion of Palestinian perspective today. Our readers are invited to comment or to send their positions to carry on this essential discussion.

 (You can read this article also in Arabic)

Good morning friends and comrades

Deputy president Cyril Ramaphosa

Speaker of the National Assembly Baleka Mbete

Chairperson of the National Council of the Provinces Tandi Modise

Chief Whip Stone Sizani

All protocols observed

I’m deeply moved and excited to be here, in this parliament, among you who have always served as an inspiring example to many people around the world including my people, who have been struggling over the last one hundred years to free themselves from their own Apartheid colonial regime. This opportunity to address you directly about the latest developments in the Palestinian struggle fills me with delight and hope – not least hope that we can consolidate mutual cooperation to achieve justice and equality for our people.

When I come to South Africa, I feel I have arrived in my second home. I and other Palestinians, as well as fighters for freedom around the world, feel a sense of comradeship with the people of South Africa.

I feel spiritually connected to the great people of South Africa, and their long and difficult journey to liberation. The names associated with that struggle have long become an integral part of our individual and collective memories: Nelson Mandela, Sisulo, Ahmad Kathrada, Steven Biko and many others. They suffered long years in prison, or were killed or assassinated, or they bravely continue on the march to social justice and independent development. From all those great leaders, and the South African people’s heroic struggle, we draw hope, courage and optimism in our own struggle to liberate Palestine, and build a democratic society where all – Palestinian Arabs and Israelis – can live in full equality.

None of us in the Palestinian national movement forget the honest promise of your late leader, comrade Nelson Mandela, that South Africa’s freedom would be incomplete until Palestine was free.

The downfall of the Apartheid regime in 1994, thanks to the heroic struggle of South Africans, to a resilient and wise leadership, and to international solidarity, was a historic moment in the struggle for freedom. It was a great moment of joy for me personally and for every Palestinian, as well as for every peace-loving person within our global community.

We Palestinians viewed this victory as a major stride towards the removal of other injustices around the world, including the last colonial regime of our times, in Palestine. Our people’s struggles for liberation and freedom from the Zionist regime were more intertwined at that time. In fact, some of us like Edward Said, a well-known American Palestinian thinker, had wondered even then whether we had a leadership as capable as those who led South Africa’s people to freedom.

We recall that the South African Apartheid regime had once offered the ANC leadership a similar deal to the one offered to the Palestinians in the Oslo Accords in 1993. The ANC wisely rejected it. The Oslo agreement, on the other hand, was accepted by the Palestinian leadership, which at the time saw it as a step towards independent statehood. Instead, it institutionalized apartheid, colonialism, dispossession, and the willful killing of our people.

The Palestinian leadership believed that Oslo was the only way out of the impasse that the Palestinian national movement had reached, following its forced exodus from Beirut after Israel’s invasion of Lebanon in 1982. The accords were signed on the White House lawn and celebrated in Hollywood style. The leader of the Palestinian Liberation Organization, Yasser Arafat, was warmly received in Gaza on his return.  Many hoped it would prove to be a real breakthrough.

As the years went by, the Israeli colonial regime’s real intention became more apparent: the colonization of the West Bank, Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip continued at an accelerated pace. A final-status solution looked further away than ever.

The sense of having been betrayed by Israel was immense among the PLO mainstream leadership. The outrage and frustration reached unprecedented levels. The failure of the 2000 Camp David summit, sponsored by a dishonest broker, the United States, to reach an agreement on the final-status issues only added fuel to the ever-growing resentment. It needed only a spark to ignite the whole region – and it was provided by Ariel Sharon’s provocative entry into the Al-Aqsa mosque on September 28 of that year.

This dramatic event heralded the outbreak of the second intifada, which took on the misleading appearance of two militaries in confrontation. This massive outburst soon spread to the Palestinians in Israel, in an uprising that was unprecedented in its inclusivity, length, and intensity. It lasted for four bloody days, as it was crushed brutally by Israeli police, resulting in the deaths of 13 Palestinian citizens and the injury of hundreds more. The Israeli apartheid regime related to its own Palestinian citizen as enemies.

It took much time for the world to understand what was really going on. Much of the international community had assumed the Palestinian problem was on its way to a solution. Some international parties had accused the Palestinian leaders of violating the Oslo peace accords. As a result, the Israeli onslaught against the Palestinians was quite misunderstood by the international community.

Also, much of civil society, which had been sympathetic to the Palestinian cause, had halted its activities against Israeli policies.

After the mysterious death of Arafat, in 2004, in which Israel continues to be the chief suspect, the intifada came to an end. The peace process was resumed with a new leadership perceived by the Americans as more moderate than the previous one under Arafat, represented by the current president, Mahmoud Abbas.

The new leadership has spoken against popular uprisings and strongly advocated negotiations as the only way to peace. Under the umbrella of the peace process, the Palestinian security apparatuses were trained by an American general, Keith Dayton, with the goal of maintaining calm in the Palestinian Occupied Territories and repressing any forms of resistance. Security collaboration with Israel has been an integral part of this doctrine. Donations from Europe and the US have been channeled into the Palestinian Authority’s treasury to maintain and sustain the peace process as an end in itself. The Palestinian Authority complied with American dictates, thinking naively that it would qualify for independent statehood. These humiliating concessions did not result in Israeli policy changes, but only strengthened Israel’s greed for more land.

In exploiting the peace process, the Israeli government has deepened its colonization of the West Bank and Jerusalem and tightened its siege of the Gaza Strip. It has built the racist separation wall, which has swallowed much land and divided Palestinian communities, creating isolated enclaves. Under the so-called peace process, the suffering of the Palestinians has increased immensely. The three Israeli onslaughts launched against the imprisoned Palestinians in Gaza resulted in the death and injury of thousands of Palestinians.

All the war crimes, land robbery and settler violence have gone unpunished. The so-called international communities, especially the US and European governments, have continued shamelessly to support Israel, militarily, economically and politically. They are morally and practically responsible for Israeli crimes against humanity. Regrettably, they are behaving against the will of their own citizens and civil society, which have on many occasions demonstrated revulsion at Israel’s brutal behavior against the Palestinian people.

The effects of Oslo

After 20 years of the peace industry, the Palestinians have awoken to an even harsher reality. They have not liberated their land or achieved a state, nor have they preserved the vehicle for liberation, the PLO, which has become subservient to the Palestinian Authority.

Not only that. A settler colonial conflict has been reduced to a territorial dispute in the eyes of the world. The problem is portrayed as a dispute between two equal partners, but which is in fact a dispute between a brutal colonial regime and a colonized people. The reality is the existence of a colonial Jewish state and a Palestinian state that is only virtual.

Under international pressure and internal miscalculations, the Palestinian leadership has been led or dragged into a trap called Oslo: they now face an almost completely colonized homeland, fragmented geographically and demographically. They have been left with almost no tools for liberation. Additionally, the values of the national liberation movement have been eroded. Much of the Palestinian society has been individualized, atomized and neoliberalized, and left with no ideal to mobilize over; no credible leadership, and no common vision. What has worsened the Palestinian situation is the deepening divide between the main factions: Fatah and Hamas. The failed reconciliation attempts have only further intensified the feelings of frustration and hopelessness.

Israeli governments of the ultra-right, which always had a strategy to fragment the Palestinian people as a means of colonial control, have systematically worked to sustain the catastrophic rift within the two major factions.

Israel, which has been steadily shifting to the extreme right, to unconcealed racism and to the option of maximum expulsions and ultimately ethnic cleansing, is now openly against the long-talked-of, two-state solution.

Observers argue that Israel’s occupation of the 1967 Palestinian territories is the cheapest recorded in the history of colonialism. The Israeli leadership is taking further advantage of four factors:

1. The absence of mass popular struggle. The Palestinian Authority has effectively been serving as a sub-contractor for the Israeli occupation. The decision to stop the security collaboration that was taken by the PLO Central Council last year has not been honored.
2. The lack of a meaningful response from the international community, which is effectively providing cover for Israel’s crimes and the unceasing colonization of Palestinian land.
3. The lack of national unity, a unified resistance strategy, and a common goal that can unify all segments of the Palestinian people.
4. The chaos that has swept the Arab world due to the failure of the first round of the Arab revolts, which has turned into a nightmare, especially following the intervention of imperialist and reactionary Arab regimes. Those dictatorial regimes are now struggling for their survival and consequently they have pushed the Palestinian issue to the back of their agenda.

Bright Spots

Within this grim reality, we have witnessed the revival of the international solidarity movement with the Palestinian people since the launch of the Palestinian-led BDS campaign in 2004. It has gained a momentum especially among civil society and academia in the US and Europe. Until recently, Israel had downplayed the impact of BDS, and had hoped to ignore it. But as it has reached wider audiences and its impact has grown, the Israeli government has been compelled to invest human and financial resources to counter it.

A second cause for optimism: the revival of popular struggle.

Although still limited in geography, and in size, last year’s mini-intifada in Jerusalem and its suburbs were among the most striking recent examples of the revival of popular struggle.

That uprising lasted for several days after a Palestinian boy was kidnapped and burned alive. Different areas of the West Bank have experienced frequent waves of non-violent protests, and sporadic and individual armed attacks on Israeli targets. Had the PA’s security forces not repressed those protests, they would have spread to other areas and might have evolved into a full-scale intifada.

A third point: the re-emergence of the debate about a one state solution.

There are vigorous efforts and initiatives to rebuild the Palestinian national discourse and redefine the conflict from a territorial dispute into settler colonial one. Palestinians are undertaking these initiatives from all segments of Palestinian society, including those living inside the 1948 borders of Israel. Noteworthy is the fact that people who had adhered to the two-state solution are engaging in the debate too. Those initiating the debate are driven by a fear that the Palestinian national project is in real danger, and by a sense of urgency about reviving it before it is too late.

A fourth point: the influence of Palestinian citizens in Israel.

The success of the Palestinian political parties in Israel in uniting and forming a Palestinian Joint List in the last Israeli elections is exceptional in the Palestinian political landscape, and even in the wider Arab world.

The Palestinian Joint List emerged from the elections as the third largest political force in the Knesset. Our unity has surprised many, including our brethren across the Green Line and those in exile. Now, the international community can no longer ignore the plight of this long-neglected and forgotten part of the Palestinian people who make up 20% of the total population in Israel.

It is necessary to mention, that there is growing feeling that the Palestinians remaining inside Palestine are approaching a turning point.

The Palestinians in Israel

The Arab Joint List did not emerge out of a void. It is the latest link in a chain of political and cultural developments undergone by the 1.4 million-strong minority since its first massive one-day uprising in 1976 against land theft and Israeli efforts at denationalization. The Palestinian minority in Israel had been subjected to 18 years of military rule (1948-1966). Also, the second Palestinian intifada that erupted in 2000 spread to the Palestinians in Israel, bringing the minority’s plight to the attention of international and regional players.

Before the second Palestinian intifada, the minority’s status and role in the conflict had been overlooked. Israel had worked tirelessly to have the question of the minority’s rights separated from that of the Palestinians in the occupied territories and those in exile.

Today, the Palestinian minority is left with only 3 percent of its land. The acute land shortage poses a serious social, economic and cultural threat to the future of tens of thousands of young Palestinians. Palestinian villages and towns inside Israel have been turned into ghettoes with no alternative modern sources of livelihood.

However, the Palestinians have turned in massive numbers to education as a substitute for the loss of their land. Although they face serious difficulty entering Israeli academia, or finding work in governmental offices and companies, many of them have made progress in the Arab school system and in the Israeli private sector. Nonetheless, unemployment is high, and half the Palestinian population in Israel lives under the poverty line.

The rise in the level of education among Palestinians in Israel has brought about a rise in their political consciousness and organization. In the last twenty years, political thinking and expression have risen significantly, and the political parties have begun to pose a challenge to the racist ideological foundations on which the state of Israel was built. Notably, the Palestinian minority has understood its distinctive situation – as both Palestinian Arabs and Israeli citizens – and has consequently pursued a non-violent struggle.

Between 2013 and 2014 the Palestinians in Israel forced the Israeli government to abolish a plan to transfer tens of thousands of Palestinian Bedouins in the south of the country from their villages into townships. This was achieved through a wave of popular mass struggle which developed into confrontations with the Israeli police forces. However, demolition of houses continues, and Israel’s Judaization policy is intensifying.

In recent years, following the second intifada, when the Palestinians in Israel became more assertive of their national identity and more insistent on full equality and citizenship, Israeli governments recharacterized the Palestinians in Israel as a fifth column, a security threat, and a demographic danger. Instead of pursuing more egalitarian and democratic policies, Israel has consistently embraced more antagonistic policies, racist laws, land confiscations and house demolitions. This only increased the outrage of Palestinians in Israel. This trend has escalated under the current rightwing government, which is heading toward total colonization of Palestine.

Over the last decade, government policy has shown that Israel is ideologically opposed to full equality for its Palestinian citizens, to full withdrawal from the 1967 occupied territories, and to the rights of the refugees. Effectively, we have today two Jewish states – one inside the 1948 borders, and one run by the settlers and army in the occupied territories of 1967.

Initiating the challenge

What role can the Palestinians in Israel play in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, or more precisely in defeating this apartheid colonial regime? It is now apparent that they are part of the conflict and therefore also part of the solution. Israel’s traditional policy of distinguishing between Palestinians on either side of the Green Line is starting to fade. This fact has motivated many intellectuals, activists and some political leaders to revisit our approach to future relations with the rest of the Palestinian people. The connections are growing stronger culturally, economically and politically. This must be promoted to high levels of conscious organization around a common vision, goals, and strategy, albeit taking into account the particularities of each segment of the Palestinian people.

It was the National Democratic Assembly party (NDA), founded in 1995, that devised a new political formula challenging the Jewish character of the state of Israel, and called instead for a state of all its citizens. The NDA party is the latest to emerge with a new and appealing political formula drawing on the achievements of other political parties, from the experience of the Palestinian national movement, and from the global human experience in the field of universal values, democracy, equality and social justice.

The establishment of a party re-emphasizing the national identity of the Palestinians in Israel was driven chiefly by the signing of Oslo Accords. That agreement effectively related to the Palestinian minority as an internal Israeli issue, thus leaving the minority to the mercies of Israel’s apartheid regime, legitimizing their isolation from the rest of the Palestinian people and marginalizing them inside Israel itself.

Incitement against the Palestinians in Israel and their parties and leaders (the Democratic Front For peace and Equality, two Islamic movements, and Abnaa al-Balad) has reached fever pitch. The NDA party is targeted most intensively. Its call for abolishing the Jewish-Zionist character of the state, which privileges Jews, as a pre-requisite for full equality and national and social justice, is being assaulted as a denial of the right of the Jews to have their own state. Its former leader, Dr Azmi Bishara, the most outspoken and articulate figure among the Palestinians in Israel, was forced into exile in 2006 as he faced a fabricated charge: collaborating with Hezbullah. But many believe the conspiracy against Dr Bishara was driven by an Israeli decision to rid itself of the challenge he posed to Israel’s so-called democracy. Sheikh Raed Salah, the leader of the Islamic movement, served two years in prison for his political role, and for transferring money to Palestinian orphans in the Gaza Strip, which is ruled by the Hamas movement.

What is to be done?

There is an urgent need for action given the demise of the two-state solution, for which Israel is responsible. Twenty years of the so-called peace process have had catastrophic consequences in terms of deepening colonization, of damaging the Palestinians’ central representative body, the PLO, and of enforcing a decline in the spirit of resistance.

There is no way out of this impasse unless Palestinian unity is restored, the Palestinian national discourse is restructured, and a common vision is formulated.

All reconciliation initiatives that have been conducted under the auspices of the Arab states have failed. It is time to make South Africa (whose leaders rejected the version of Oslo they were offered) a center of dialogue between Palestinians and others. It has become apparent that the divide between the two major Palestinian factions – Fatah and Hamas – has become entrenched and supported by a network of interests within each movement.

The way forward is to reconcile Palestinian political parties within the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria. The process of reconciliation will encourage grassroots or bottom-up mobilization – or what has become known in certain circles as the third force, serving as the national repository of a long-awaited third intifada.

This new approach requires the establishment of popular or grassroots committees. Civil society, small factions, women’s organizations, and not least, youth movements must become active players in this initiative. These actors can help pressure the two major factions to comply with the popular call for unity and to engage in rebuilding the Palestinian national discourse.

What is the Palestinian issue

 

Let us remember where the Palestinian issue began. It is a classic colonial story. In the 19^th century, as imperialism was prevailing, a European organization was established called the Zionist movement with the goal of invading Palestine. Although opposed by many Jews, it proceeded with its imperialist designs in Palestine with the support of the British Empire.

Unlike the model of South African Apartheid, which employed non-whites as cheap labor, the Zionist movement deemed the native Palestinians as surplus to their requirements. In 1948, the Zionist movement implemented massive ethnic cleansing both during and after the war. This was achieved by either massacring Palestinians or forcing them out of Palestine, with the majority of Palestinians remaining refugees to this day. The staggering number of refugees is estimated today at 6-7 million, most of them residing in terrible conditions in camps in Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon and in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. In implementing Zionist policy, the Zionist movement successfully separated a native people from their country, denying them the right of return as established by UN Resolution 194.

Within the 1948 borders of Israel, 150,000 Palestinians remained. Zionist archives reveal that the leadership of the new state of Israel hesitated to continue the expulsions, fearing the reaction of the United Nations, which had just recognized Israel. The survival of a small minority of Palestinians within the borders of Israel today was solely the result of those fears about the negative reaction of the international community.

Zionism is a racist and colonial ideology, as is clear from Israeli policies on race and demography across all of historic Palestine. Criticizing Israel for the crimes committed to protect the occupation is insufficient. Those crimes derive from a racist ideology that privileges Jews and subjugates Palestinians on the basis of racist legislation – just as repression was used by South Africa’s Apartheid regime to uphold its system of apartheid.

It is crucial for South Africa not only to condemn the atrocities committed by Israel in the occupied territories but also to condemn the ideology of Zionist apartheid. It is the underlying cause of the occupation, of segregation and systematic discrimination against Palestinians, and of land theft from Israel’s own Palestinian citizens. In South Africa it was not sufficient to fight against the crimes and repressive practices of the apartheid regime; what was also needed was a struggle against the apartheid system itself and the call for its abolition in favor of an inclusive democracy. Similarly, we Palestinians demand the decolonization of Israel, and the dissolution of the system of structural discrimination in favor of an inclusive democratic alternative.

This is our expectation of our friends in South Africa: to raise in all multi-lateral forums the issue of the apartheid system enforced by Zionism.

We also urge the South African government to implement comprehensive economic and cultural sanctions against Israel.

Thank you

Awad Abdel Fattah

Some Lessons from October 2015 in Palestine

Tags

48 occupied territories, Al-Aqsa, Al-Quds, Israeli oppression, Lynch, palestine, Political Detention, Temple Mount, The third intifada, Zionism

You probably know this famous quote: “It’s difficult to make predictions, especially about the future”. It is so famous, logical and elegant that it is attributed to many different oracles. It is almost as difficult to analyze political developments just as they happen in front of our eyes.

Still it is worth the effort to try, as better understanding of the situation can help us take a more constructive and effective role. And, as is inevitably the case, when we make mistakes in our analysis, and reality soon disproves us, those mistakes can also be used to critically examine our assumptions and analytic methods.

So, what can we already learn from the events of October 2015 in Palestine?

On the methodology

Most of the discussion that I’ve seen over the last month, and I mean those articles that tried to analyze the events, not just promote the cause of the Palestinian liberation struggle (or of the Israeli oppressors), concentrated around the question whether this is “a third Intifada” or just “a Heba”. Mainly they were attempting to assess the strength and durability of the current confrontation.

This one-dimensional thinking seems to me to miss much of what can and should be analyzed. The development of the confrontation between the occupying state and the Palestinian society are influenced by internal economic and social changes within each side as much as by the course of the confrontation itself.

Beyond this, events in Palestine are integrally connected to the system of control and social development in the Middle East and its place in the world. This system is now undergoing the most profound crisis in its modern history. And this crisis in the Middle East is happening against the background of major changes in the relationship of powers between the old imperialist powers and the emerging third world, while technological and cultural changes enable new ways of organization and resistance as well as new methods of oppression.

Who Started?

It is not (or not only) about the blame game… Understanding the dynamics that led to the current climax is an important part in its analysis.

It is my view that it started with systematic Israeli provocations.

One small detail that testifies to this is that “events” in Al-Aqsa started around the 14^th of September, the Jewish New Year holiday, which have no meaning for the Palestinians. Actually it became a tradition for the Israeli extremists to use Jewish holidays to initiate provocations in the holy places, hoping that the Army will be provoked by the Palestinian angry response and will retaliate with more oppression and massacres. In the last “cycle” it was only after more than two weeks of systematic provocations that there was wide Palestinian response, by the beginning of October.

To understand the logic of the Israeli provocations, we can also go back to the previous round, in the summer of 2014. The Israeli army exploited the kidnapping of 3 Israeli youth on June 12, 2014, to initiate a wide campaign of terror against the West Bank population. In order to do it they hid the fact that the three were killed on the same night that they were kidnapped, and claimed to be searching for them to save their lives. In the following campaign they killed scores of Palestinians in the West Bank, arrested many hundreds, including many of those that were released in the Shalit prisoners’ exchange. Finally Israel launched full scale massacres’ campaign against Gaza, killing thousands.

Building on Insanity

One difference between summer 2014 and autumn 2015 is that the current Zionist campaign was mostly led by “private initiatives”. There is a lot that should be investigated about the internal dynamics of the Zionist state and society:

1. The settlers and religious extremists strengthen their hold over all the institutions of the Israeli society: political parties, the army, the police, the courts, the media and much more.
2. Israeli politics is mostly about an unrestrained “populist” competition who is more openly and blatantly racist and oppressive.
3. One of the most significant phenomenons of this cultivated insanity is the systematic growth of the “Temple Mount Lobby” and the extent to which it is taking hold within the heart of the establishment.

We should not really have to dive into the depth of the Zionist spirit in order to analyze and understand the functionality of these “messianic” trends. The Zionists rely on their total military superiority against the mostly unarmed Palestinians and calculate that in any confrontation the Palestinians pay a much higher price in martyrs, physical injuries, thousands of prisoners and destruction of the infrastructure of civilian lives.

In their quest to complete the ethnic cleansing of Palestine, what the Zionists are looking for is any opportunity to use their military power against the local population without paying too high price in the region or internationally. Now they calculate that the people of the region are too busy with internal struggles, and the regimes of the region are all mobilized to oppress the masses in their own countries in the most criminal ways. In this atmosphere almost any crime against the Palestinians can pass without severe repercussions.

Mass protests face intense oppression

The first Palestinians response, at the beginning of October, was mass demonstrations that started in Al-Quds and spread across the West Bank, Gaza and the 1948 occupied territories. In Al-Quds there was mass participation in the demonstrations day after day, like in the first intifada. In Gaza the first mass demonstrations near the Israeli border fence were met with deadly fire against unarmed civilians. I will relate later with more detail to the struggle within the ’48 areas, but it is important to note here that it combined a general strike and mass demonstrations as well as many initiatives by young activists all over the country.

With the resurgence of mass demonstrations, all the institutions of the occupation acted simultaneously to suppress the mass struggle by “changing the rules” to be ever more oppressive:

1. The Knesset passed extraordinarily fast the new law that sets long minimum prison sentences for the offence of throwing stones, even if there was no damage caused. In case somebody might get confused, the severe sentencing is only for “nationalistic” or “terrorist” stone-throwers, so Jews can go on throwing stones at will.
2. The police give priority to oppressing Palestinian protest over any other issue. Mass arrests are used for any offence from Facebook status through peaceful demonstration to confrontations.
3. The police and prosecution make mass trial against the youth that took part in the protests and do whatever they can to keep the accused in custody for the time of the trial.
4. The courts regard Palestinian protest as a kind of “terrorist activity” that deserves detention until trial, unlike any other offence.
5. Collective punishment was applied against all Arab residents of Al-Quds with roadblocks, closures and police harassment.
6. Administrative detention is now used not only against the political leadership but also against activists, even some teenagers.
7. The most severe measure is the usage of live ammunition by the police and the army against demonstrators. It is now systematically used in the Arab neighborhoods of Al-Quds.

Those draconian measures reduced very much the mass protests but increased the pressure and the anger within the Palestinian population.

Individual acts of violent resistance

As the price of political protest became higher, so there is stronger motivation for revenge and for physically attacking the occupation forces or the Jewish population, which is conceived as responsible for the occupation. This led to the wave of knife attacks and some armed or vehicle attacks, mostly by desperate youth that acted on their own.

It should be remembered that the “pacification” to which the occupation aspires doesn’t mean peace and security “for everybody” but the continuation of the expropriation and humiliation of the Palestinians without any response on their side. While mass protests are brutally oppressed and any kind of organized resistance is relatively an easy target to the security services – the individual acts of violent resistance are harder to prevent. They are conceived as success as they cause some harm to the occupiers – also the highest price is usually paid by the initiators.

Lynch as an official policy

Faced by the new challenge of individual attacks which they couldn’t prevent, the Israeli authorities encourage the public, the police and the military to lynch and kill every Palestinian that is suspected of attacking or intending to attack Israeli security forces or civilians.

I already wrote in more detail about the Lynch as an official Israeli policy. One clear example is an interview with “mainstream politician” Yair Lapid (in Hebrew) in Walla, on October 11, where he said that “The instructions should be clear: Everybody that takes out a knife or a screwdriver should be shot to kill”. In the racist Israeli-talk it was clear that, in this case, when he speaks of “everybody” he means Arabs.

More than 75 Palestinians were already killed in this last wave, the vast majority in incidents where no Jews (soldiers or civilians) were attacked or injured. In all the cases the official report is about “Mehabel” – a special Hebrew term, supposedly worse that regular “terrorist”, which is used for Palestinian resistance fighters.

The only cases that were recognized by the Israelis as “mistakes” were the Eritrean guy that was mob-lynched in Bir As-Sabe’e (Beersheba) and a religious Jewish guard that was killed by soldiers in Jerusalem. The mistake, as was clearly stated all over the Israeli press, was that they were mistakenly identified as Arab.

Comparing to the two Intifadas

Comparing the recent events with the latest two Palestinian Intifadas is very useful. One apparent difference is that in both of the Intifadas the whole Palestinian society was mobilized for the confrontation. Another, related, difference is that Intifadas were basically political struggle waged under the assumption (which later proved to be an illusion) that a political settlement is imminent.

Here I would like to express the view that the readiness of people to make the effort and bear the suffering that insurrection against an oppressive regime requires is basically motivated by hope. In the first intifada it was the belief that “the Palestinian state is at a stone’s throw”. It brought the Oslo agreement but no real freedom and no relax in oppression, ethnic cleansing and settlement building. The second Intifada was fueled by the belief that if the stones didn’t drive the occupiers out then rifles might do it. It worked for some degree in Gaza, but Gaza was put under siege and is regularly bombed. The occupation’s hold over the West Bank is now deeper than ever.

The current wave of struggle is different as it is not motivate by the hope of political solution but by disillusion with “the political process”. Still, trying to read the mood in the Palestinian street, I don’t think it is only “despair”. I think the Israeli hysteric response to the latest struggle is conceived as a sign of weakness. The major changes that take place in the region also inspire the belief that powers can fall and the people can change the course of history.

This renewed intense struggle against the occupation, not centered on any political program or the hope for political settlement, is thus not seen as an intense “round” in the historic conflict but more like a “new normal” where both the occupation and the resistance are taking a more violent form.

The internal dynamics of the Palestinian society

Concerning the internal development of the Palestinian society, the first Intifada can be seen as a revolutionary movement. The youth that mobilized in the liberation movement for armed struggle just after the occupation, and later begun to build new civil society in the seventies and eighties, toppled the dominance of the local conservative leadership and led to reorganization of society under the united leadership of the Intifada.

The second Intifada was more like regular war. The Palestinian movements and organizations already established themselves as at the commanding posts of society under the occupation. The newly founded Palestine Authority (PA) was torn between its obligation under the Oslo agreement to defend the occupation and the disappointment as it realized that Israel has no intention to let it develop into a fully independent state. The forces of the Palestinian society, including much of the established leadership, were mobilized to try to push the occupiers out.

In the current wave of struggle the internal dynamics of the Palestinian society are very different. The establishment of the PA resettled after the second intifada back to its function as supplier of local services and a security buffer under the occupation. The youth that are leading the struggle are doing it at their independent initiative, sidelining the PA establishment but not yet challenging it.

Learning from history, we may expect that the next waves of struggle will require and bring more dramatic internal changes within the Palestinian society itself.

The struggle in ‘48

Writing in Haifa, it is natural that I will relate in some detail to the experience of the struggle inside the ’48 occupied territory.

Demonstration started on Monday, October 5, in several locations. One of them was a protest vigil in the German Colony in Haifa, which was initiated by Herak Haifa but organized under the united banner of “The Patriotic and Democratic Forces in Haifa”. It developed into a small spontaneous marching demonstration.

Al-Herak Shababi called for a country-wide mobilization to a demonstration in Nazareth, on Thursday, October 8. This call was met with new level of oppression: Some of the organizers were arrested on the day before in preventive detention (3 women activists were arrested with their fathers!). They were held in prison for 4 days. Buses carrying demonstrators were prevented from reaching Nazareth. The demonstration itself was attacked by the police and more than 20 of the participants were arrested. Some of the demonstrators that were prevented from reaching Nazareth went on to demonstrate in Um Al-Fahm and Tamra. In Tamra the police arrested 3 of the bus drivers, kept them in custody for the night and took hold of the buses for several days.

On the next Tuesday, October 13, there was a general strike of the Palestinian population and a mass demonstration in Sakhnin. The feeling was that, after long time, the people are really united in struggle.

But what seems most significant for me was that this time it was not only the political parties or even the new and more dynamic structures of the Herakat that organized and led the struggle. Many demonstrations were organized, between October 5 and 14, by local groups of activists. Many of them developed into clashes with the police. Hundreds of activists were detained and many are now still in prison and facing trial.

This level of mobilization is not totally new. It happened in the day of the land in 1976 and after the massacre of Sabra and Shatila in 1982. It was seen on a much higher level in the beginning of the second intifada, in October 2000, when a general strike and mass demonstrations brought all areas with Arab population to a standstill for 10 days. It was seen again during the latest onslaught on Gaza in summer 2014. But, relatively to most of the above mentioned events, this time there was no mass massacre to respond to, so it can be interpreted as a step forward in the organization of the activists and their ability to initiate protest.

The question I want to pose here is whether (or how) the new layer of activists that lead the struggle in the streets can become a more effective social and political force. The way to make this transformation may include:

1. Form a better connected network.
2. Be involved on a daily basis in the struggle against discrimination and Apartheid in a way that will be felt by and gain the trust of the general masses.
3. On the organizational level, a new type of mass organization, based on modern communication, can unite Palestinian activists and struggles beyond fences and borders.
4. On the political level, the struggle requires a political agenda that will expose and replace the current bankrupt one.

Opposition in the Israeli society

I must admit that I didn’t spend a lot of time following events in the Israeli society during this October. Still I have the feeling that in the face of the new challenges and the intensified crisis the level of political opposition was disappointing.

Faced with the challenge of the second intifada and the failure of the Oslo agreement, organizations like “Ta’ayush” and “Anarchists against the wall” changed the paradigm of the left in the Israeli society form a “pro-peace” lobby within the Israeli side of the conflict to “joining the Palestinian struggle against the occupation”.

In the latest events, those demonstrations that took place were mostly back at the old paradigm of equating the “two sides”. But, unlike the old days when the Israeli “peace camp” was strongly devoted to the illusion of the “two state solution”,  now we hear them calling for peace without any concept or concrete program what this peace may be and where it will come from.

The most encouraging things that I read in the Israeli papers were the growing disillusion with Zionism as a whole, as a result of the deepening crisis. The talk about the paradigm of the “One State” is more ubiquitous than ever, even as the clear voice that calls for One Democratic State with full rights to all as a just and positive solution is hardly heard.

Some Israeli retreats

It is worth mentioning that the current wave of struggle forced Israel to some tactical retreats about provocative steps other than the extreme measures that were directly intended to suppress the protest.

The most obvious example is Israel’s proclamations of its obligation “to keep the status quo” in Al-Aqsa. Another example was the temporary suspension of the work on the anti-Arab “nationality law” in the Knesset.

Another issue that exemplifies both Israel’s hysteric and shameless response as well as its retreat before mass pressure was the much trumpeted decision to hold the bodies of Palestinian martyrs. It caused a wave of mass protest in Al-Khalil that led to the returning of some bodies and much wider public funerals.

The regional and international context

Netanyahu has just lost his most important political struggle on the world stage, to drag his imperialist sponsors into war against Iran. Israel used to be an important advanced position for imperialism to guard its interests in the Middle East. But Israel, as it is hated by the Arab masses because of its racist policies, is not an acceptable partner in any of the local and global coalitions that are now fighting for control of the boiling Arab East.

As Israel is losing its “strategic value”, the tension in Palestine is a constant drag not only on Israel’s image but also on the reputation of the Western powers that back it. The “Temple Mount Lobby” that is nourished by the current government is threatening to become a regional time bomb which nobody could ignore.

Like all reactionary forces in the region, Netanyahu tries to ride the so-called “Islamic State” horse in order to resist any change and paint any movement that struggles against the current oppressive order as “terrorists” and a danger to the world’s peace.

Freedom and democratization in the Middle East, the establishment of pluralistic society and new social and economic development plans that will care for the people are still the best foundation to expose and eventually uproot Israeli Apartheid.

Haifa, October 7, 2015