December 2011, Pages 65-66

Waging Peace

Dr. Saree Makdisi Delivers Palestine Center's 2011 Edward Said Lecture

UCLA Professor of Comparative Literature Dr. Saree Makdisi delivered the 2011 Edward Said memorial lecture, "Palestine: The Epicenter of Arab Revolutions," at the Palestine Center in Washington, DC on Oct. 3.

Instead of settling for peace without justice in the name of being "realistic and pragmatic," Makdisi said, Palestinians must shift their strategy by operating outside the political realm "in which the deck is stacked against them," and transforming their discussion to the literary and the ideal.

Referring to Said's own "refusal to relinquish his attachment to ideas and ideals," Makdisi urged Palestinians to utilize the power of the Palestinian narrative as the backbone for action.

He cited lessons learned from the peaceful and proactive strategy of South African apartheid resistors that define such new Palestinian resistance movements as Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (BDS).

During the question-and-answer session, South Africa's Ambassador to the U.S. Ebrahim Rasool stated that while the Palestinian narrative is powerful, it is "muddied" by such ideologies as Islamophobia, which vilifies Palestinians, and the narrative of Jews as "perpetual historical victims, most recently of the Holocaust" that is commonly used to legitimize Israeli existence and actions.

According to Makdisi, who is Said's nephew, while competing ideologies do exist, the balance has shifted in recent years because it requires "massive institutional organization and funding" to maintain the Israeli narrative, whereas the Palestinian narrative has an unshakable basis in international law.

Regarding the recent Palestinian bid for admission to the U.N. as a member state, Makdisi argued that the bid fails to fully demand the rights of all Palestinians, as it speaks of a partial Palestine—one that is defined by the interests of those who have lived in the occupied West Bank since 1967. Palestinians inside Israel and refugees at home and abroad are left to fend for themselves, he said.

U.N. Resolutions 242 and 338 call upon Israel to withdraw from areas occupied in 1967, and Resolution 181 guarantees a Palestinian state based on the 1947 partition plan. However, the current U.N. bid ignores the right of refugees to return and Palestinians' right to freely access holy sites, as outlined in U.N. Resolution 194."The only path to a just peace is to address the rights of all Palestinians, not just those who suffered occupation after '67," said Makdisi, insisting that the rights of refugees must not be excluded from the narrative for statehood.

Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas' Sept. 23 speech at the U.N. publically demonstrated the power of the Palestinian narrative, as he related stories of the Nakba and the plight of refugees to an applauding international audience. Yet despite his reference to the collective Palestinian plight, Makdisi said, Abbas was unable to fully utilize this power—and, like the bid itself, his speech lingered between "assertive and apologetic," and "forthright and offensive."

Criticizing Abbas' unelected government, Makdisi said that the January 2011 release of the Palestine Papers detailing the almost unlimited concessions PA negotiators were willing to grant Israel, and what he described as the PA's apologetic attitude toward its occupier have confirmed that the PA has become "a full-blown collaborationist apparatus whose main function is to facilitate the occupation and colonization of the West Bank—not to challenge it or end it."

—Deena Zaru