Palestine is at the heart of the global geopolitical situation. Decolonization is the main feature of the period. The first phase of decolonization, that of state independence, is more or less complete, but we can see its limits. Palestine remains a dramatic case of unfinished decolonization. The second phase is that of the liberation of nations and peoples. The resistance and inventiveness of the Palestinian people are emblematic of the new questions raised by the struggles of peoples.
This dossier was prepared by Agence Média Palestine and intercoll. Agence Média Palestine serves the solidarity movement with Palestine. Created in 2011, it disseminates alternative information on the situation in Palestine/Israel. Its website is: http://www.agencemediapalestine.fr
The intercoll dossiers present the situation of a region or a theme from the point of view of the alterglobalization movement. A dossier is made up of ten or so articles published by social and citizens’ movement websites or magazines. It aims to shed light on debates about the movements’ strategies, and how they have taken account of the changes of the period in reformulating these strategies. It allows us to take stock of the situation, and is regularly updated.
The texts in this dossier, a mix of older and more recent articles, provide a better understanding of what is at stake and why we have reached this situation in Israel/Palestine today. They analyze the systems of domination imposed on the Palestinian people. They address the situations of colonization, occupation and apartheid experienced by the Palestinian people, as well as the many forms of resistance and struggle for emancipation. The first article, by Inès Abdel Razek, offers an analysis of the thirty years of the PPMO, the Middle East peace plan.
Thirty Years On: The Ruse of the Middle East Peace Process Inès Abdel Razek, on October 31, 2021
Thirty years ago, Israeli and Palestinian representatives met in Madrid to start bilateral negotiations. Purportedly meant to bring about a just and peaceful future in the territory between the Mediterranean Sea and Jordan River, the so-called Middle East Peace Process (MEPP), conceived at the meeting, has instead consolidated a dire reality for Palestinians of permanent occupation by a nuclear military power with an ever-expanding settler-colonial enterprise.
The Morning After Edward Said
This highly critical and lucid essay was written by Edward Said in the autumn of 1993, in the wake of the Oslo Accords, and published in the London Review of Books in October of that year.
Now that some of the euphoria has lifted, it is possible to re-examine the Israeli-PLO agreement with the required common sense. What emerges from such scrutiny is a deal that is more flawed and, for most of the Palestinian people, more unfavourably weighted than many had first supposed. The fashion-show vulgarities of the White House ceremony, the degrading spectacle of Yasser Arafat thanking everyone for the suspension of most of his people’s rights, and the fatuous solemnity of Bill Clinton’s performance, like a 20th-century Roman emperor shepherding two vassal kings through rituals of reconciliation and obeisance: all these only temporarily obscure the truly astonishing proportions of the Palestinian capitulation.
Palestine Beyond Partition and the Nation-State Leila Farsakh, on May 4, 2022
In her new edited volume, Rethinking Statehood in Palestine: Self-Determination and Decolonization Beyond Partition, Al-Shabaka policy analyst and Associate Professor of Political Economy at the University of Massachusetts Boston, Leila Farsakh, brings together a diverse group of intellectuals to critically engage with the meaning of Palestinian statehood. By going beyond partition, which fundamentally underpins the two-state solution, Farsakh and the contributing authors show that the components of Palestinian statehood, including citizenship, sovereignty, and nationhood, must be articulated within the context of decolonization.
‘Apartheid is in front of your eyes everywhere you go’ Francesca Albanese, on February 6 2023
Shortly before agreeing to take the role of UN Special Rapporteur on the Palestinian Territories, Francesca Albanese received a piece of advice from an Israeli friend: go to Israel-Palestine now, because soon you will not be allowed to enter. Albanese, who knew the country well after living in Jerusalem and working for the Palestinian refugee aid organization UNRWA for three years, heeded his advice and went. This was indeed her last trip, at least for now; since her appointment in April 2022, Israel has barred her from entering.
Francesca Albanese discusses the recent attacks against her, defining Israel’s occupation as settler colonialism, and using international law to dismantle it.
Palestinians and their Leadership: Restoring the PLO Marwa Fatafta, Al Shabaka, on December 8 2020
As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to cause great personal hardship, loss of human life, and financial chaos across the globe, and as Israel remains on the brink of de jure annexation of parts of the West Bank, the Palestinian people must transform crisis into opportunity. Rather than wait for Israel to slowly strangle the Palestinian Authority (PA) that was established as an interim governing body during the Oslo Accords, it is past time to separate the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) from the PA and to work to restore the PLO’s mandate, representativeness, and accountability to the people it claims to represent.
Why is the Palestinian Authority unable to mobilise its people?
– >https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2020/2/4/why-is-the-palestinian-authority-unable-to-mobilise-its-people/] Mariam Barghouti, Al-Jazeera, on February 4, 2020
With the announcement of the Trump administration’s “deal of the century” on January 28, the Palestinian Authority (PA) sprung into action. Within hours of the White House ceremony, at which US President Donald Trump released the details of his plan, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said “a thousand no’s to the deal of the century”.
The PA then proceeded to issue a number of threats, including once again to sever ties with Israel’s security agencies, and a call for mass demonstrations against the proposed deal.
Despite its rhetorical huffs and puffs, however, the Palestinian leadership could not muster a powerful reaction to the outrageous infringement on Palestinian rights that Trump’s proposal really is. It could not even mobilise its own people. Why?
The urgent need to revitalize the Palestinian Left Haidar Eid, Modoweiss, on January 18, 2021
It is worrying how the colonized, oppressed Palestinian, using left-wing jargon, has legitimized a racist solution disguised by liberation slogans. This has led to the disappearance of checks and balances from Palestinian politics and ultimately to the onslaught of right-wing politics on Palestinian basic rights as materialized in the Oslo Accords and the transformation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip as two mega prisons, as the courageous Israeli activist and historian Ilan Pappe describes them in his book, The Biggest Prison on Earth.
There’s no cycle of violence in Jerusalem – only Israel’s lethal oppression of my people Jalal Abukhater, on February 7, 2023
Almost every day, the bulldozers are on the move. In the Palestinian neighbourhoods of Jerusalem, my city, Israeli forces are demolishing homes on an almost daily basis. Dispossession and discrimination have been a longstanding reality here in the eastern part of the city, under Israeli military occupation for 56 years, but under the new far-right Israeli government, Jerusalem has seen a spike in demolitions – more than 30 structures were destroyed in January alone.
On Watching Ukraine Through Palestinian Eyes Yousef Munayyer, on March 4, 2022
Tanks rolling through city streets. Bombs dropping from fighter jets onto apartment buildings. Military checkpoints. Cities under siege. Families separated, fleeing to seek refuge and not knowing when they will see each other or their homes again. When a military occupation begins to unfold before our eyes, the whole world is forced to pay attention. But while we may all be watching the same thing, some of us see it a little differently.
The rightful outpouring of support for Ukraine teaches us that the West can condemn occupation when it wants to.
