Why the peace process does not lead to peace?*
By request of a Colombian partner, and in the context of the peace talks in Colombia, I write about the experience of the peace process between Palestine and Israel. For the Colombian partners who do not know the details, I will try to describe the major historical facts step by step. Sometimes a look from the distance can help us- political activists- to understand the processes in which we are immersed.
By Free Haifa – Translated from Hebrew to Spanish by Adam Bar**
Zionist Colonialism and the Palestinian people
Zionism, as a colonial movement, began its actions in Palestine in the late nineteenth century.
At that time, European imperialism was booming and it controlled much of the world. Palestine was under the control of the Ottoman Empire, of Muslim religion, which was centralized in Turkey, and the modern Arab nationalist movement was beginning to emerge.
During the First World War the British imperialism took the Middle East, scenario in dispute with the Ottoman Empire. Due to its fall, the British Empire would seek to support political forces, interested in the region, in order to facilitate its entry and stay in the region. It would also compromise with the emerging Zionist movement by promising land, territory, and the consolidation of a state in Palestinian territory. (Balfour Declaration, November 2nd, 1917).
At the same time, the British imperialism promised the Arab leadership, under the influence of the royal Hashemite family, which at that time was in disagreement with the Ottoman ruler, support on their aspirations to establish an independent Arab state stretching from the western border of Turkey to the Arabian Peninsula (Husayn-McMahon correspondence).
On 16 May 1916, England and France signed the Sykes -Picot Agreement which contemplated the division of the Arab world between them. During the 31 years of British occupation in Palestine (1917-1948), the Zionist movement continued encouraging the Jewish migration and colonization in Palestine; thus, removing the Arab peasants from their land.
The Arab population in Palestine felt the danger and, during this time, it resisted the Jewish settlement and demanded to the British leaders to prevent the displacement of the original population. This resistance became a popular armed resistance against the British rulers. The most remarkable fact, in the context of this popular resistance, was the general strike of workers in Palestine which lasted half a year (1936), and the insurgent armed movement (1936-1939) that controlled, during this period of time, most of Palestine. Zionism was a collaborator of the British occupation and it made common cause in the repression of the popular movement in Palestine. Due to the British withdrawal in 1948, Zionism began to use war tactics known as “scorched earth” characterized by forced displacement, systematic implementation of massacres in settlements and widespread deployment of fear through coercion and violence. Through this tactic, they destroyed more than 500 Palestinian villages and towns, and 85% of Palestinians were displaced which had to take refuge in neighbouring countries and unoccupied territories. In this war, Israel (that uses the name of the state, although at that time it was not constituted as such) occupied 80 % of Palestinian territory.
After the 1948 war, and the birth of the State of Israel, the Palestinian people were divided in a minority that remained within the 80% of Palestinian territory occupied by Israel. They lived under a regime of military occupation, the West Bank-Cisjordian under Jordanian control and the Gaza Strip under Egyptian control. To show the status of this occupation, actions, aimed at sharpening the conflict in the region, were carried out especially towards the Palestinian population within Israel. A quarter of the population was internally displaced within the occupied territories. They were affected not only by the displacement but also by the enforced taken of their belongings and possessions (animals, equipment, and money, amongst others). From 1948, Israel keeps on being a government of occupation displacing the native population and directing the Jewish colonization.
Imperialism and Israel, the Arabs and the Palestinians
For imperialism, the Middle East is a region of strategic importance. The most important aspect of the region’s economy is its oil since it holds most of the world’s oil production and reserves. The Arab world, from Morocco to Iraq, has been an area of conflict between the imperialist powers and the socialist bloc led by the Soviet Union. The greatest interest of imperialism is to ensure the control of oil, a market for their goods, and cheap labour force. Hence, the greatest danger is the national-independence Arab movement fearing that it invests resources in internal development for its inhabitants. The imperialist support to the Zionist movement and then to the State of Israel is because the latter is first and foremost a basis for action against the Arab nationalist movement. This maintains the geographical division in the region and it is a military force which operates against the independence aspirations of the Arab people.
In 1956, Israel participated, along with England and France, in an attack on Egypt led by Gamal Abdel Nasser. It was in response to the expropriation of the Suez Canal. The canal was jointly owned by French and English entrepreneurs.
In 1967, a war broke out caused by Israeli provocations against the Baath government (Arab Socialist Renaissance Party of Syria).
The Palestinians have been the direct victims of the Zionist colonialism. The problem of Palestine was recognized, in the context of the Arab nationalist movement, as a central problem. As a result, the Palestinians (both refugees and those living under occupation) had hopes in this movement led by Egypt, which had its peak in the 50s and 60s. However, after the defeat of the Arab governments, in the Six-Day War in 1967, such hopes dwindled. As a reaction, the independent Palestinian nationalist movement was developed. It had no links to the predecessor Arab movement, and this is how the popular and armed resistance of the Palestinian masses began. This resistance was shown in various ways, and it had as its height the guerrilla warfare and the organization of Palestinians from Jordan in 1970. In September that year, after the abduction of 5 aircraft by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, the Jordanian army attacked the Palestinian guerrilla in the refugee camps, and thus, ending the internal armed resistance in Jordan. After the death of Abdel Nasser in 1970, Anwar el-Sadat came to power. In exchange for political patronage, he carried out the disengagement of the Soviet block and and the alloy of Egypt with US imperialism and neoliberal economic policy. This change in Egypt facilitated the interference of imperialism in the region and the use of the Israeli aggression. Despite the pro-Western change in Egypt and to a lesser way in Syria, due to the coup that gave Hafez Al- Assad in Syria in that same year, Israel refused to negotiate the return of these countries´ territories, which it had occupied in 1967. This caused the 1973 war where the Arab armies were successful. Even though Israel recovered from that war, the successes led to the negotiation and return of the Sinai Peninsula, and the signing of a peace treaty between Egypt and Israel. The peace agreement between Egypt and Israel, which was signed under the mediation of the United States, ended the changing process of Egypt, and this was functional to the imperialist machinery. It also secured the Israeli western border which allowed it to concentrate forces on the other borders.
The Palestinian Left and particularly the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), which was created from the Arab Nationalist Movement, saw the way for the liberation of Palestine not as a disconnected struggle from the Arab nationalist struggle but as a need to adapt it to the dynamics of the moment.
The centre of the Palestinian resistance moved, by the defeat in Jordan, to southern Lebanon (Israel’s northern border). Over there, Palestinians joined forces with the Lebanese popular forces, which led, in 1975, to the outbreak of the Lebanese civil war. The correlation of forces, at this time, facilitated the victory of the alliance between the Palestinians, the left and the Lebanese nationalists. However, in 1976 the Syrian army, with the support of the United States and Israel, invaded Lebanon to prevent the resistance´s development and to maintain the construction in the Lebanese state. (1)In 1982 Israel invaded Lebanon and conquered Beirut (the capital city) with the aim to damage the Palestinian resistance organizations and to implement, in Lebanon, a government of collaborators led by Lebanese Phalanges party (2). After a 80-day lock to Beirut the withdrawal of the PLO (Palestine Liberation Organization) from Lebanon to Tunisia was agreed. This is how the last front, in which the PLO had the opportunity to carry out an open armed struggle against Israel, was defeated.
The president elected by the Lebanese parliament, under the threats of the Israeli army, Amine Gemayel, was assassinated. A movement of strong resistance was created in response to the Israeli occupation in Lebanon. It was in this context where the slaughter of Sabra and Shatila took place on September 16, 1982. This invasion, known as the First Lebanon War, lasted until the complete unconditional withdrawal of Israel in the summer of 2000.
On peace and on the process between Israel and the Arab countries, Egypt signed the peace agreement with Israel (Camp David accords of 1978) after the Sinai occupation by Israel in 1967, the 1973 war, and the visit of Egyptian President, Anwar el- Sadat, to Jerusalem (capital city of Israel) in 1977. This is the most important agreement that has ever signed between Israel and any Arab government. It is an example of a peace process that usually begins with Israeli aggression and ends with the brake imposed by the United State. It also ends with Zionism returning Arab territories to subject the country’s politics and economy (in this case Egypt) to the orders of imperialism. The Egyptian government arranged that, under the agreement, it will receive back all the occupied territory. In the later negations between Syria and Israel, the latter refused to return the Golan Heights, due to their strategic importance, which broke the agreements.
Israel agreed to reach an agreement with Egypt, not in order to achieve full peace with all the neighbouring countries, but to divide the Arab alliance for its benefit. Israel subsequently imposed that such negotiations should be conducted bilaterally, i.e. from country to country or organization. For example, like in the Madrid Peace Conference of 1991, where Israel participated but failed to make peace with any Arab state.
Peace with Egypt did not arouse sympathy in the Arab world and led to a decline in its reputation. Most of the popular forces in Egypt (political Islam, the left wing, and the nationalists) saw this peace as a shame and a defeat. They act, up today, against the normalization of relations with Israel. For this peace President Sadat was assassinated by the Islamic Jihad in 1982.Jordan signed a peace agreement with Israel in 1994. This agreement was made possible by the Oslo accords signed between Israel and the PLO in 1993. In fact, the peace agreements did not change much because Israel did not return any territory to Jordan. The Hashemite royal family, even before the agreements , had been a faithful collaborator with Israel and imperialism.At different stages, an agreement between Syria and Israel has been negotiated with US and Turkish mediation. However, Syria refuses to make a change in its internal policies like Egypt, and Israel refuses to withdraw from the Golan Heights (Syrian territory that it occupied in 1967). Imperialism wants to “solve” the Palestinian problem in a way that it allows it to integrate its forces in the Middle East, and to remove Israel´s stigma by accepting it as a military and economic power in a “new Middle East.” This type of solution, which keeps Israeli´s hegemony, does not allow imperialism to pressure Israel, and this is why it has failed in terms of the Israeli policy, which continues to displace Palestinians and to occupy their land. It has also become more aggressive both internally and externally. Thus, the situation in the Middle East deepens because there is more tension in the region, which has been fomented by the ongoing conflict. In contraposition the imperialist interests of some powers like the United States as the rise in oil prices is concerned.
The Palestinian revolution and the diplomatic solutionThe People’s War
In 1964, with the support of the Arab League, the PLO (Organization for the Liberation of Palestine) was founded and the Palestinian armed struggle against the state of Israel began.
After the defeat of the Arab countries in 1967, the Palestinian struggle became a direct armed struggle and Palestinians´ main action to achieve their rights. The organizations that promoted the armed struggle took the PLO leadership and it became the organization that represented them politically and diplomatically. Fatah is the main movement in the PLO and it has bourgeois perspectives and connections with Arab governments. Its policy was aimed at creating a Palestinian state in the region under Western hegemony. The PLO is composed by several leftist organizations, the largest of which is the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). This Front emerged from the Arab nationalist movement, and it was radicalized in the 60s adopting a Marxist-Leninist ideology. Its main objective was to consolidate an alliance with the Arab oppressed masses to recreate the context of a popular Arab revolution, to weaken the foundations of imperialist control in the region, and to prepare the conditions for Palestine’s liberation.
The first program of the PLO demanded a secular and democratic country in the Palestinian territory and the refugees’ right to return. Then, the objective was changed (from the liberation of all Palestine to a diplomatic solution) due to the pressure from the world´s Arab left and the Soviet bloc.
The 1970´s defeat in Jordan and Lebanon´s withdrawal in 1982 eliminated the territorial basis for the “popular liberation war” in which the PLO was based. The centre of the PLO moved to Tunisia, where a machinery of diplomatic activity formed which was disconnected from the popular movement. In this situation, the aspirations of a political negotiation became the centre of the PLO political life.
The first Intifada and the Oslo Accords
In 1987 the first Intifada broke out. It was a wave of popular resistance that lasted about 5 and which returned the Palestinian struggle to Palestine.
The Intifada was based on a large number of grassroots activists, many of them veterans of the armed struggle of 60-70, who started from these years the groundwork for the popular organization. During the Intifada, the Muslim resistance organizations arose for the first time: the “Islamic Resistance Movement” (Hamas – the branch of the Muslim Brotherhood in Palestine) and the Islamic Jihad. Hamas is recognized as a political movement with a broad popular base that gains adherents because of its social actions. These organizations are not part of the PLO, which maintains all the bureaucratic power.
In 1991 the PLO participated in the Madrid agreements after the Gulf War.
However, this participation was indirect, through the Jordanian delegation, because at this time Israel refused to negotiate with the PLO, which it described as dominated by a terrorist and armed organization.In 1993 the Oslo Accords, in which Israel recognized the PLO as the representative of the Palestinian people, were signed. The PLO recognized the right of the state of Israel to exist. The agreements entered under the UN resolution (242, 338) included a PLO commitment to abandon the armed struggle.
The Palestinian side of the agreements believed that Israel wanted a two-state solution where Palestinians would have sovereignty over the occupied Palestinian territories in 1967 (West Bank and Gaza). The agreements spoke of a stage of Palestinian autonomy, in those territories, for 5 years until a definitive agreement was reached. The agreements did not guarantee Palestinians the right to land and everything was left to the will of the state of Israel, which was still under the agreements´ coverage. This implemented a systematic policy of colonization, occupation, and displacement in Gaza and the West Bank.The result of the agreements was, ultimately, the establishment of a Palestinian government under occupation, without sovereignty over its territories and its economy, and with no solution to the problem of refugees.
More on the Oslo Accords
In the context of the agreements, the intifada, that lasted 5 years, developed. It was based on a change in the correlation of regional and international forces against Israel.
Israel had to make a change in its policy in which two options were defined: a unilateral withdrawal from the Gaza Strip or a political solution with a Palestinian state that is responsible for the withdrawn territory. Due to the agreements and the continued colonization, the PLO leaders left Israel with total control of the territory. The PLO leadership in Tunisia sought, before the Intifada, an opportunity for a political agreement. It reached the negotiations threatened by the change in the center of the Palestinian struggle to the popular struggle and by the emergence of Muslim resistance organizations. Therefore, the PLO did not represent, in negotiations, the force of the intifada, but it was Israel´s partner fearing the Intifada and hurrying to reach any possible political agreement before it became largely irrelevant. During negotiation years, the world´s left led the PLO believe that the talks with Israel were a manifestation of goodwillby Zionism to resolve the conflict, and taking into account the interests of both sides. This view explains the desire to reach an agreement because the Palestinian side, in the agreements, believed in Israel and did not ask for any guarantee for their basic interests. Only in a small place “A” Palestinians received full control (Area “A”, which includes only the urban areas). This meant that the PLO leaders not only gave up the armed struggle, but they also had, within the framework of the PLO agreements, the obligation to form security coordination for the State of Israel (secret police and intelligence corps ) to counteract and crush any resistance, and all this without guarantees of ending the occupation. Meanwhile the displacement, occupation, and colonization continued. This policy was carried out with activists´ arrests and torture against the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian National Authority.Israel’s evasion of its responsibilities to the Palestinian population, with regards to health and education, it´s beneficial since it does not allocate any budget to social aspects. Israel wants to control the territory but not the population. Control of the water sources, economy, transport routes, and the right to move were left in Israel´s hands., and they are used to hamper the lives of Palestinians .In the Oslo talks, the United States did not have a central role as in the dialogues between Israel and the Arab countries. The signing of these agreements, in the White House, was to increase the participants´ political gains (Israel, the PLO and the United States).
The agreements were seen as a way to consolidate US hegemony after the fall of the Soviet bloc (The end of the story), where everyone lives in a global capitalist system. In this context, a process in South Africa, that allowed real political change and the fall of the apartheid system, was evident. Meanwhile, in Palestine, the continuation and increase of Israeli´s apartheid was made possible.
The second Intifada and Gaza withdrawal
The Oslo Accords should have brought a definitive agreement in 5 years. However, Israel continued to colonize and it had shown no intention to withdraw from the territories it occupied in 1967 to establish a Palestinian state led by the PLO. In 2000 was the last attempt in which Israel (led by Ehud Barak) and the United States (ruled by Clinton) tried to force Yasser Arafat to reject the refugees’ right to return. Arafat’s refusal to follow this order, imposed by the US-Israeli alliance, led to the second Intifada and then the Arafat’s assassination. The second Intifada began by Israeli provocations, when Ariel Sharon (the leader of the Israeli right wing at that time) and Barak joined to sabotage the Oslo accords, and to show that “there is no partner for the agreements.” Thus, free of the responsibility to fulfil the commitments made by Israel. On the other hand, the leadership of the PLO, which at that time also led the Palestinian Authority (PA), realized that Israel did not want to make any waiver, not even minimal, to maintain its reputation with the Palestinian people. In this situation, the PLO leadership returned to the struggle against Israel when a large part of the weapons, brought to oppress the resistance against the occupation, turned against the same occupation.In this perspective, the argument, that the agreements improved and strengthened the resistance, arose. However, it has to be remembered that the Palestinian “security forces” did not join the resistance, and that the security coordination with the oppressor army of Israel never ceased to operate. It even returned stronger after the resistance was crushed due to years of killings, kidnappings, and torture. The increased number of arms in Palestinian hands and Israel’s murderous tactics characterized the second by the armed struggle, and not only by popular struggle like the first one.
At the end of the second Intifada in 2005, Israel, this time led by Ariel Sharon, faced the dilemma of reconciling and mediating to find a political solution with the PLO or making a unilateral withdrawal, from the Gaza Strip, including the evacuation of all the settlements that were built in this territory. The result was, for the first time, the existence of a totally free territory in Palestine.
The Oslo accords and the Palestinians in Israel
These agreements aroused many illusions amongst the Palestinians, including Palestinians in Israel, after many years since the main political forces, led by the Communist Party of Israel (mostly Palestinian – Arab members), called to achieve peace in the “two states” solutions. The majority of the Palestinian population thought that the so expected peace had arrived. The situation for the refugees was different since it was understood that the agreements were not the solution to their problems.
The Israeli government of Yitzhak Rabin, who signed the agreements, was a narrow government wrongly and misleadingly called part of the “Israeli left.” This government depended on the support of the Arab parties to achieve a majority in parliament; however, Rabin refused the participation of the Arab parties in the coalition that formed the government. Rabin was assassinated by the Israeli right wing and then the government was headed by Shimon Peres, who lost the 1996 elections.
The agreements support and the illusion that they were moving forwards towards respectable peace for the Palestinian people led all parliamentary Arab parties to support a government that continued the occupation, colonization, and racist discrimination. Peres government even attacked Lebanon and committed the Slaughter of Qana in 1996.
The illusion of peace and the government’s dependence on Arab parties brought the illusion of the possibility of improving the situation of Palestinian Arab citizens of Israel. This illusion was expressed in the emergence of a new Arab party -Al- Tayamu (National Democratic Alliance) which demands “a country for all its citizens “in Israel.
In a few years they moved from a stage of illusion to the popular struggle of Palestinians in Israel. It had its peak in 1999-1998 in the struggle for land that was successful.
Conclusions: conflicting issues and possible solutions
A real solution to the conflict requires solving all existing problems and especially to guarantee the refugees’ right to return to all territories from where they have been displaced. In addition,
we must also end the occupation and racism. This kind of solution will be possible only with a secular, democratic country in the historic Palestinian territory.
At present, the Israeli´s policy is aimed at displacing the Palestinian people from their homeland. Racism, oppression, restriction of movement, the seizure of land, and colonization serve this purpose. Since the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza in 1967, there are Palestinian and global political factors working for a solution based on ” two states for two peoples. ” In other words, recognition of the Jewish state in the occupied Palestinian territory, before 1967, (80 % of Palestine), in exchange for a Palestinian state in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. This solution would mean legitimizing the ethnic cleansing of 1984 and the and discrimination against Palestinian – Arab citizens of Israel, and this would also prevent the refugees´ rights to return.
Several Palestinians factors try to mediate between the proposed solution to end the national rights of Palestinians and their achieving aspirations. The most comprehensive solution requires three things: 1) the end of the occupation in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip 2) the refugees’ rights to return and 3) equal rights for Palestinian citizens of Israel. This is supported by the BDS movement (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) solution. (Haifa, December 2012).
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Notes:
Article originally published in https://freehaifa.wordpress.com/category/en-espanol/
*The ideas expressed in this text does not necessarily reflect the views of Corriente Roja or IWL
** The writer is an activist in “Herak Haifa” and “Children of Earth – Abna el- Balad “(1) The State of Lebanon received independence from France. According to the political system inherited from the colonial era, which continues in force today, the country is divided by religions and sects. (2) Paramilitary organization and a right-wing party.
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Translation: Camila Polgar.
