In 1996, on his first visit “home” after 26 years in self-imposed exile, Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish remarked, “As long as my soul is alive no one can smother my feeling of nostalgia to a country which I still consider as Palestine.”
Less than a decade later, after almost 58 years of continuous occupation (Egypt, 1948-67), Gaza has turned sentimentality into reality. Palestine is.
There is no better poetry than justice: Palestinians triumphed when Arab armies could not; despite campaigns in the US and Israel to erase their unique cultural identity; against odds and a foe that dwarf those of David’s sparring match with Goliath; and, with final moments that seem divinely inspired, as occupiers suffer the indignities of the occupied — IDF closures, forcible evictions, home demolitions and devastating, irreversible loss.
Yet this is not a comprehensive victory.
I say that, but not because East Jerusalem is being swallowed and Palestinian residents are walled off from their city, or because I have seen colonies expanding on the West Bank, or because Ariel Sharon will exploit what may be his “Gaza only” strategy to force concessions from Arab states, or because Israel still controls all access — land, sea and air — to Gaza.
All of the above are obstacles to a free and independent Palestine, but they are not insurmountable.
If Palestinians choose to define their future within the context of a two-state solution with East Jerusalem as their capital, and choose to revise their tactics, away from violence and back to the principled nonviolence of the first intifada, (within the optics of armed Israeli settlers and occupiers firing on unarmed Palestinians) I would wager that even Netanyahu would be compelled to withdraw from upward of 95 percent of the West Bank and find a reasonable accommodation for Haram Al-Sharif.
But a cancer has afflicted the Palestinian cause for the past five years. Violence eats away at the soul of Palestine, erodes the basic humanity of its people, and continues to undermine the foundations of a future state. Left untreated, it will claim not only Israeli lives but, as with all cancers, consume its host.
The Gaza withdrawal demonstrates that Sharon is well aware of the disease, manipulating it to full advantage, and not anticipating anyone to rush in with a cure.
Gaza swims in poverty, lawlessness, despair and loss, conditions exacerbated by the Al-Aqsa intifada and Israeli closures. Violence and anger, not reason and patience, are the currency of the street. The Palestinian Authority’s attempts to reign in the extremists only inspire more recruits to join up. As Tel Aviv and Washington press for disarming Hamas and Islamic Jihad, their popularity increases and Mahmoud Abbas’ declines further.
Sharon has Abbas by the neck, has wrecked the PA, and, curiously, has common cause with extremists. Sharon doesn’t want a two-state solution, and neither do they.
So Sharon has nothing to fear. Hamas and Islamic Jihad may well live up to their fiery rhetoric and escalate attacks on Israeli towns. With no settlers or soldiers to protect, and with a population shaken by the Israeli-on-Israeli violence of the past few weeks, he is likely to respond with a devastating show of force. Should these groups decide to step up attacks in the West Bank, Sharon could retaliate in Gaza, demonstrating that Israel remains surrounded by enemy Arabs and allowing him to refuse with near impunity any demands for further concessions.
Could any emissary from Washington really demand that he turn over more territory to “terrorists”?
One might dispute the terminology, but this would be a distraction from principled positions that are indisputable: A people denied a homeland may employ all legal means (and not any means possible) to achieve a just and lasting solution to their rightful territorial demands.
Israel’s wall is illegal. Israel’s occupation is illegal. Palestinian nonviolent resistance to such actions is legal. Why then muddy the waters with immoral acts on both sides? For revenge? To achieve martyrdom?
Is the mother of a child killed in crossfire truly comforted by the death of the teenage son who avenges that murder?
Is the soul of a protestor killed for wielding a banner really the equal of the soul of a suicide bomber who deliberately targets innocents, often other Arabs? The protestor’s death serves the cause, demonstrating the gross disparity in power between the state and the stateless, and exposing injustice. What end did the suicide bomber serve? The greater good of the cause or the cause of vengeance?
The danger of Gaza’s looming purgatory, neither state nor occupied territory, is that the abyss is tailor-made for the supremacy of groups and ideologies that seem determined to sacrifice lives and principles for the sake of a losing cause.
Israel will not disappear into the Mediterranean. The nakba cannot be undone. Palestinians can regain some, but not all of their original homeland. The right of return may remain a legitimate principle, but it will not be fully realized.
But this should not be a cause for despair, nor for suicide. Palestinians have a future, however imperfect. That future is best assured when committed and courageous pragmatists set the agenda.
And winning hearts and minds around the world is not achieved by persisting in bankrupt policies of mass violence. Palestinians, and the Arabs as well, should rethink their global communication strategy and work to reclaim the moral higher ground which is, by right, theirs. A savvy political and media strategy should find as many deep pockets as fundraising for Hamas’s military operations.
When Hamas and other militant groups closed down a number of cultural events in the West Bank last month, Darwish lamented, “they want us to sit in the ruins and cry.”
Sharon is counting on it.
— Maggie Mitchell Salem is a public affairs and media consultant in Washington D.C.
