Arab spring inspires Palestinian fightback

Posted by Bill Bonnar on July 8, 2011. Filed under International,Palestine. Posted with the tags:Arab Spring, Middle East, Palestine
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With the world’s focus still concentrated on the mass movements for change across the Arab world the Israel/Palestine conflict would appear to have been pushed into the background.

In fact, this conflict remains at the heart of any political set­tlement in the Middle East. The Israeli government is watching the unfolding revolution in the Arab world with a growing sense of alarm.
Used to dealing with author­itarian regimes only too happy to accommodate Israel’s agen­da in the region it is now hav­ing to deal with Arab govern­ments mindful of popular opin­ion in their respective countries on this issue.

The best example is Egypt. The Mubarak regime was a close ally of Israel, tied to Tel Aviv through a close network of economic, military and strategic links, held together with unswerving support from the United States, impervious to its own domestic public opinion and hostile to the Palestinian cause. Egypt now has a government highly sen­sitive to what ordinary Egyptians think with the prospect of a new government in September taking a much tougher line in support of Palestinian.

An example of this has been the easing of restrictions in the border between Egypt and Gaza and an increase in the flow of aid.

In Palestine itself, the inde­pendence movement has been galvanised by the strug­gles elsewhere.
The two main factions, Fatah and Hamas, have been forced into an uneasy alliance in the face of a popular move­ment increasingly intolerant of the divisions which have done so much damage to the Palestinian cause.

This movement is also forc­ing change within each organi­sation. Hamas is trying to evolve into a more broad based movement with one eye on what a future Palestinian state would look like.
For Fatah the changes have been more dramatic. They have to face up to a past where power was often exer­cised through patronage and corruption and where their attempts at securing a deal with Israel at any price simply looked like a sell out.

In Israel, the government is desperately trying to keep up with the events around them with the loss of their key ally in Cairo and a resurgent Palestinian movement threat­ening their entire strategy for the region. While in Washington, unswerving American support is now look­ing shaky as the United States seeks an accommodation with the newly emerging Arab gov­ernments.

This is likely to produce a split within Israeli ruling circles between those who argue for ‘fortress Israel’ and those now willing to think the unthinkable and actually negotiate with the Palestinians.
One interesting aspect of recent events has been the impact of the Wiki Leaks dis­closures. Applied to this partic­ular conflict they show the fol­lowing.

The Israeli Government is not and never has been inter­ested in a peace deal with the Palestinian people. They see peace negotiations entirely in tactical terms and as a sop to western public opinion.

In reality their entire strategy has been to try and crush the Palestinian people and reduce them to a footnote in history.

In 1948 they declared Palestine ‘a land without peo­ple for a people without land’. For sixty years they have been trying to make that statement a reality.

On the Palestinian side, the negotiations between the Israeli Government and Fatah paint the latter in a very poor light and produced a backlash among many of its supporters demanding change and accountability.

So bad have been some of the revelations that the term quislings come to mind.

Perhaps the most dramatic recent development has been the growing movement for the newly ‘united’ Fatah/Hamas movement to unilaterally declare independence for Palestine and to canvass around the world for interna­tional recognition.

This is creating a sense of panic in Tel Aviv and Washington as much because it is a signal that the Palestinians are no longer pre­pared to negotiate on Israel’s terms.

Galvanised by what is hap­pening elsewhere, particularly in Egypt, there is a growing sense among ordinary Palestinians of nothing to lose and perhaps everything to gain from this strategy. Instead of waiting for Israel to grant recognition they should go ahead anyway and deal with the consequences.

Whatever happens, the Left here have a responsibility to develop its solidarity work in support of Palestine.

This is based on two clear cut ideas. This first is that Israel is the root of the conflict in the Middle East. It is Israel that illegally occupies Palestinian territory, who have waged a sixty year war against the Palestinian people and who deny the existence of Palestine.

In this conflict, Israel is the perpetrator of most of the vio­lence and is the military super­power in the region.

For the Palestinians the right to self-determination and for the creation of an independent Palestinian state is non-nego­tiable whichever form that state takes.

And there can be no peace in the Middle East until such a state is secured.
Solidarity with the Palestinian people is growing around the world as witnessed by the flotillas determined to lift the siege of Gaza.

Despite the best efforts of Israel’s sophisticated propa­ganda machine and their apol­ogists around the world the truth keeps breaking through. The struggle will continue until victory is secured.