......TADA.....The "Palestinian State" is Coming! Celebrate it with the Head Turkey!
Al Jazeera's senior political analayst discusses Israel's rule over the Palestinians beyond the peace rhetoric
By Marwan Bishara
Al-Jazeera
"As the conventional wisdom goes – especially in the West – Israel is the "only democracy" in the Middle East. And that is so, particularly for its Jewish citizens. However Israel has been anything but democratic for the indigenous people of the land, the Palestinian Arabs....
Where is the Palestinian revolution?
It was no coincidence then, that the "Palestinian revolution" emerged following Israel's 1967 war and occupation, when it defeated its neighbours' post colonial leaders and their national projects, be it pan-Arab nationalism, Baathism, etc.
As Israel allied itself with the colonial and imperial powers of the time – France, Britain and the United States – the Palestinian revolution – as the Palestinian liberation movement was depicted at the time – was inspired by similar anti-colonial struggles, such as the Algerian FLN against the French colonial dictatorship of their country.
But Cold War polarisation, Arab divisions and its own mistakes and blunders led to the disintegration of the 'Palestinian revolution'. With the advent of the post-Cold War Peace Process in 1991, the Palestinian liberation movement was finally reduced to spearheading accommodation with Israel's colonialism.
The domestication of the Palestinian liberation movement by the Peace Process soon led to national divisions leading to armed conflict between the Islamist and secular currents under Hamas and Fatah.
Separated by hundreds of checkpoints, 'security' walls and fences, and policed by British/American trained Palestinian forces under the supervision of Israel military and security services, Palestinians today live under multiple levels of military dictatorship and police state.
Alas, the Hamas-controlled, Israeli-choked mini entity in the Gaza Strip doesn't look much different in reality.
Instead of pursuing their struggle for liberation from dictatorship, 'Palestine Liberation movement' and PLO leadership in the West Bank are suppressing Palestinian eagerness to join the Arab revolution's struggle to bring down the – in this case, colonial – regime.
For two decades, the PLO leadership has looked for salvation in Washington, and when that has proved a pipe-dream, it has decided to go to the UN for a recognition of a Palestinian state.
Come September, the PLO leadership will realise that the end result will, at best, be a state on paper, and its true realisation requiring more of the same diplomacy with Israel. All that assuming Washington wouldn't veto such a draft resolution.
But regardless of the diplomatic acrobatics, at the end of the day, peace is possible between Palestinians and Israelis on the basis of one state, or two independent states divided by the 1967 borders.
It's however not tenable nor moral, let alone revolutionary, for the Palestinians to be forced into accommodation or peace with Israel's occupation or its colonial dictatorship."
By Marwan Bishara
Al-Jazeera
"As the conventional wisdom goes – especially in the West – Israel is the "only democracy" in the Middle East. And that is so, particularly for its Jewish citizens. However Israel has been anything but democratic for the indigenous people of the land, the Palestinian Arabs....
Where is the Palestinian revolution?
It was no coincidence then, that the "Palestinian revolution" emerged following Israel's 1967 war and occupation, when it defeated its neighbours' post colonial leaders and their national projects, be it pan-Arab nationalism, Baathism, etc.
As Israel allied itself with the colonial and imperial powers of the time – France, Britain and the United States – the Palestinian revolution – as the Palestinian liberation movement was depicted at the time – was inspired by similar anti-colonial struggles, such as the Algerian FLN against the French colonial dictatorship of their country.
But Cold War polarisation, Arab divisions and its own mistakes and blunders led to the disintegration of the 'Palestinian revolution'. With the advent of the post-Cold War Peace Process in 1991, the Palestinian liberation movement was finally reduced to spearheading accommodation with Israel's colonialism.
The domestication of the Palestinian liberation movement by the Peace Process soon led to national divisions leading to armed conflict between the Islamist and secular currents under Hamas and Fatah.
Separated by hundreds of checkpoints, 'security' walls and fences, and policed by British/American trained Palestinian forces under the supervision of Israel military and security services, Palestinians today live under multiple levels of military dictatorship and police state.
Alas, the Hamas-controlled, Israeli-choked mini entity in the Gaza Strip doesn't look much different in reality.
Instead of pursuing their struggle for liberation from dictatorship, 'Palestine Liberation movement' and PLO leadership in the West Bank are suppressing Palestinian eagerness to join the Arab revolution's struggle to bring down the – in this case, colonial – regime.
For two decades, the PLO leadership has looked for salvation in Washington, and when that has proved a pipe-dream, it has decided to go to the UN for a recognition of a Palestinian state.
Come September, the PLO leadership will realise that the end result will, at best, be a state on paper, and its true realisation requiring more of the same diplomacy with Israel. All that assuming Washington wouldn't veto such a draft resolution.
But regardless of the diplomatic acrobatics, at the end of the day, peace is possible between Palestinians and Israelis on the basis of one state, or two independent states divided by the 1967 borders.
It's however not tenable nor moral, let alone revolutionary, for the Palestinians to be forced into accommodation or peace with Israel's occupation or its colonial dictatorship."
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