Waging Peace, Pages 59-61

The Jerusalem Fund’s Annual Conference

THE WASHINGTON, DC-based Jerusalem Fund held its annual daylong conference on Nov. 13, on the topic “The Erasure of Palestine.” Speakers examined current realities in historic Palestine, the Judaization of the country, and the roles available to people seeking justice for the Palestinian people.

Panel I: Erasure Before and After 1967

Moderator Nadia Hijab, senior fellow at the Institute for Palestine Studies, began by questioning the title of the conference, saying it gives a feeling of defeat and epitaph. While short-term events may have been bloody and grim, she said, there is optimism over the long term for the Palestinian statehood process. The continued debate over the West Bank and Gaza has obscured the real issues: Zionism and the true nature of Israel. There are grounds for optimism, according to Hijab, as a result of renewed activism by Palestinians, both in the U.S. and internationally. In addition, failed state-building efforts have been exposed and new Palestinian leadership has emerged. Finally, in response to Israel’s war on Gaza, there has been a dramatic shift of opinion from the Jewish community, domestically as well as world-wide.

Dr. Leila Farsakh, assistant professor of political science at the University of Massachusetts-Boston, discussed the dissolution of the two-state solution, specifically the Palestinian state aspect. During the Nakba, she noted, Palestinians were focused on fighting Zionism, and later, after 1967, on gaining the right of return. They then shifted their efforts to establishing statehood. While self-determination has been at the heart of the Palestinian struggle for more than 40 years, it has been hindered by the territorial fragmentation caused by Israeli settlements, its apartheid wall, checkpoints and roadblocks which have created bantustans separating West Bank and Gaza Palestinians.

The erasure of Palestine is neither accidental nor reversible, Farsakh pointed out. It is a result of the Oslo agreement, overall Palestinian political dynamics, and the failure to enforce international law. Oslo established the basis for fragmenting the West Bank by institutionalizing checkpoints, which later turned into permanent terminals, and restricting mobility. Economically, Palestinians are in worse shape now than they were before Oslo, suffering from a fall in per capita income and becoming more dependent on foreign aid. A two-state solution has been tried and failed, Farsakh argued, whereas a one-state solution protects Palestinians’ national rights and the right of return—but it is a solution Israel will never agree to.

Jennifer Lowenstein, faculty associate of Middle East Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, assessed Israel’s continuing and accelerating erasure of Gaza. She described the emergence of organized movements there—the sole positive outcome of “Operation Cast Lead.” Gaining entry into Gaza is very difficult, Lowenstein explained, the only point of entry being through Rafah, with all other border crossings sealed shut. The Israeli government’s goal has been to steadily push the Gaza population into Egypt, dubbed “The Dive to the South.”

Life in Gaza has become immensely challenging, Lowenstein continued, since Israel has destroyed farmland and its sea blockade prevents Palestinian fishermen from going more than two miles out to sea. Because Israel also demolished Gaza’s sewage system, sewage is flowing into the Mediterranean. Smuggling tunnels into Egypt are the only means of bringing goods into Gaza.

Phyllis Bennis, fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies, examined some of the ways Palestinian statehood is being redefined. Over the last few years, according to Bennis, the matter of Palestinian collective and individual human rights, along with citizenship rights, remain in question. The only remaining solution is the one the Israeli government finds most convenient, which Bennis described as “Swiss cheese.” There is a danger, she cautioned, that after a two-state solution is agreed upon, with all the trappings but few of the realities of statehood, all debate will come to an end. The focus should remain on the struggle to change U.S. policy, Bennis concluded. What matters most is educating members of Congress and making sure they are not committing political suicide when they speak up for Palestinians.

—Meriana Alrabadi

Panel II: Shrinking Space and Colonization

CO-FOUNDER of the Electronic Intifada Dr. Laurie King’s talk on “Bantustanization” addressed the fragmentation and apartheid in occupied Palestine. She began by clarifying that the removal of Jewish settlements from Gaza does not mean that the Israeli occupation has ended. The occupation of a country, she pointed out, includes the systematic and strategic fragmentation of space, which hinders social, economic, political and cultural life. Among the several dimensions of Bantustanization she cited were the physical (settlements, checkpoints, and sealed borders), administrative (enforcement policies, closures, and technologies of surveillance and control), socio-psychological (isolation, pauperization, frustration and despair), and cognitive (encompassing public discourse, specifically media and policy, which renders Bantustanization as “natural and normal”).

Bantustanization, King argued, is a key mechanism for the erasure of Palestine, and an essential component in a process of genocide “on the installment plan.” According to statistics, Israeli settlements and population continued to grow year after year, especially during the Oslo process. The apartheid wall represents the maximal expression of Bantustanization, King said. It is illegal and should be dismantled in accordance with the International Court of Justice’s advisory opinion.

Will Youmans, co-founder of Students for Justice in Palestine, defined what is meant by Greater Jerusalem, calling it the most extreme form of colonialism. The politics of Greater Jerusalem include what he described as an “indestructible pastrami sandwich” to include Jewish settlements in and between the Palestinians. Its goal is to maximize the territory of Jerusalem following the ring strategy in defiance of international law. For Israel, it’s a zero-sum game, Youmans said, quoting Netanyahu saying that Jerusalem “shall never be divided again.”

The mechanics of Greater Jerusalem depend on colonizing Jerusalem both inside and out. The tactics of erasure—the separation wall, the ring road intended to reinforce Israeli settlements, the light rail project, excessive taxation, the residency permit project, and housing prohibitions—have made it nearly impossible for Palestinian Jerusalemites to build in or maintain control of Arab East Jerusalem. Youmans concluded by showing an Al-Jazeera video of the Sheikh Al Jarrah evictions from East Jerusalem in August 2009.

—Meriana Alrabadi

Panel III: National Fragmentation and Cohesion

DR. ELLIOT COLLA, associate professor of Arabic and Islamic studies at Georgetown University, offered a new perspective on Mahmoud Darwish’s poem “Identity Card,” which he described as more literary than political. It could have been a form of literary resistance to Israel’s systematic attempt to erase the Arab presence from Palestine, he elaborated, and may be why nowhere in the poem is the word “Palestine” ever mentioned.

Traditionally, he pointed out, the poem’s first words, “Sajil! Ana Arabi” has been interpreted as the proud statement, “Record! I am Arab.” According to Dr. Colla, however, Darwish could have meant “Write this down! I am Arab,” as an objection to being identified as an Israeli-Arab on one’s Israeli identity card—and thereby erasing one’s Palestinian identity.

In a lively address on solidarity and activism, Ali Abunimah, co-founder and executive director of the Electronic Intifada, <www.electronicintifada.net>, described the current situation as no longer stable or sustainable. Since Israel’s 1967 capture of East Jerusalem, he noted, there has been a systematic and brutal effort to maintain Greater Jerusalem’s Palestinian population at less than 27 percent. This effort has failed, however, he said: there are more Palestinians than ever before, and Israel has no way of explaining it.

Zionism is suffering from irreversible illegitimacy due to the militarization and ultra- nationalism of the Israeli state, he continued. The loss of legitimacy, as opposed to the loss of power, is very difficult to hide. The future of the Zionist project is very grim, said Abunimah. The Israeli government will not abandon supremacist politics, so there must be pressure and resistance to dismantle the regime, similarly to the civil rights movement in the U.S.

One way can be through a divestment and sanctions campaign that will hurt the Israeli economy, which depends heavily on foreign trade. Abunimah concluded by affirming that “the world is ready for equality and the erasure of Zionism from Palestine!”

—Meriana Alrabadi

Panel IV: The International Community’s Role in the Erasure

Dr. Susan Akram, clinical professor at the Boston University School of Law, discussed the part played by the United Nations and the international community in the erasure of Palestine. Despite the fact that this conflict has received more international attention than any other conflict in the world, she noted, it remains a dismal failure of modern international law. She focused on heavily debated issues, including the status of the occupied Palestinian territories, questions of humanitarian international law, and the applicability of humanitarian law to Israel’s occupation.

International law has designated those who fled the 1948 and ’67 wars as refugees who have the right to return. All of the territories captured and occupied by Israel after the 1967 war were seized illegally; the construction of settlements and the separation wall in occupied territories are all illegal by U.N. resolutions.

DR. NASEER ARURI, chairman of the board of the Jerusalem Fund, concluded the conference by arguing that the diplomatic paralysis in the Middle East is embedded in the so-called peace process. Beginning in the 1970s, while the PLO was a state in waiting, there was also a nonviolent political struggle going on inside the occupied territory under the banner of the Palestinian National Front, or Aljabha Alwataniyya.

Aljabha led the nonviolent struggle on behalf of civil society by using a variety of techniques, from non-payment of taxes, boycotts, demonstrations, and other efforts to declare the occupation illegal. These were the roots for the first intifada, which became a serious challenge to Israel’s military. This challenge resulted in Israel’s clamping down on the political committees (those leading the nonviolent struggle) and co-opting the PLO (which was facing a legitimacy and leadership crisis while yearning for Israeli and international acceptance as a negotiating partner). Dr. Aruri explained that the PLO was easily enticed to embark on the Oslo process, which destroyed the fabric of civil society, just as it had been persuaded to enter the diplomatic struggle for a futile two-state solution.

The principle casualty of the Oslo agreement, Aruri said, was Aljabha. “Where is Aljabha now?” he asked. “How can it be rebuilt? How can the NGO industry be replaced by a genuine civil society? And what is the extent of damage caused to civil society by the PA?”

What we have now is a state apparatus without a state, he concluded, adding that the lesson of Oslo is clear: that the dismantling of civil society, and the abandonment of the political struggle in favor of pseudo-diplomacy between two parties—with one presumed noble and the other a terrorist—is not sustainable.

—Meriana Alrabadi