Why the Lebanese won and the Palestinians did not yet?

A Well-Written Article
By Salim Nazzal
(Dr. Salim Nazzal is a Palestinian historian. He has written extensively on social and political issues in the Middle East)

"Examples from history of national movements and resistances demonstrate that each experience is unique. The only common thread between all national movements and resistances is the rejection of the status quo imposed by the occupational power.

The post-war period following the July 2006 war in Lebanon witnessed a wave of criticisms toward the Palestinian national movement which were filled with calls to imitate the methods of Hizbullah. These calls focused in my view on the results of the conflict in southern Lebanon while overlooking the complications in the Palestinian, Israeli conflict. Most comments tended to marginalize the complexity of the Palestinian struggle. In the study of conflicts, political scientists distinguish between two forms of conflict, the first is the "interest conflict" (border conflict for instance) and the second is the "value conflict" which takes the form of total confrontation. The Palestinian struggle belongs to the "value conflict"; the conflict is about the land, the identity and even about the Palestinian traditions which the Polish and Russians immigrant Jews claimed to be theirs. The major complicating factor of the Palestinian struggle is the nature of the Israeli occupation in Palestine. The Israeli occupation in Palestine is both ideological and political, while the Israeli occupation to south Lebanon was only political. In other words Zionists view their conflict with Palestinians as existential, while perhaps they do not hold that view in others conflicts.

Apart from Hamas and the Palestinian Communist party the Palestinian parties were the product of the Palestinian Diaspora in the absence of a Palestinian national state. Consequently in the absence of a unifying political culture, the party culture has become a dominant factor, functioning as a Mini-Palestine for its members. In other words party identification replaced prior self-identifiers such as family and clan. The Oslo agreement put Palestinians in a situation where they had no clear position: they were neither a state nor were they a liberation movement as it was before 1993. In the view of many Palestinians such as the Palestinian writer Lubna Hamad the Palestinian leadership had been reduced from a liberation movement to a subsidiary of the Israeli occupation.

The Lebanese resistance fights the extension of the Zionist project, while Palestinians fight the heart of the Zionist project which naturally makes the Palestinian struggle more difficult and more complicated.

The second problem lies in the absence of a united Palestinian national discourse. Perhaps more than any time since the Oslo agreement in 1993, Palestinian political parties need to debate new approaches in dealing with the Israeli occupation. There is a great need to redefine the Palestinian liberation project in order to come to a united Palestinian course. One point which may explain the Lebanese victory is that the Lebanese struggle is straightforward; it was directed against the Israeli military occupation of south Lebanon. Therefore the major difference between the Lebanese and Palestinians struggle lies in one major point; the Lebanese struggle is against the Israeli military occupation, while the Palestinian struggle is against the whole Zionist project. To win the national struggle, Palestinian leaders need to prepare the right conditions for victory. The first step towards victory is to reorganize the Palestinian national project."