Although Palestine seems absent from the Arab Spring, the unjust occupation was the straw that broke the camel's back.
Larbi Sadiki
Al-Jazeera
"....The Palestine Corollary
The Palestinian cause dinted the credibility of Arab diplomacy, Arab war machines, Arab politicians, and above all else the whole post-colonial nation state system. They all met their Waterloo when Jerusalem fell in 1967, when Baghdad was sacked in March 2003, Beirut was pounded for 33 days in the summer of 2006, and when in December 2008-January 2009 Gaza was indiscriminately bombed.
All of these events happened either with Arab states' complicity, passivity, indifference, incompetence - or all of the above.
Passivity sank in when Palestine was turned into a type of soap opera - a series of dramas. Stone throwing, suicide bombing, Palestinian in-fighting, IDF incursions, targeted assassinations, kidnappings, etc. In one episode it is Dalal abu Aisha, in another, tragedy afflicts Ezzeddine Abu al Aish.
Whatever pride and esteem Arabs, especially the youth, had left was dissolved when a 350 million strong nation failed their fellow Arabs and (human beings) during Gaza's hour of need.
Even worse, some Arab businessmen were allegedly making sandwiches for the IDF. Not even civil disobedience was being organised as a symbolic way to say 'no' to the extreme injustice on behalf of fellow Arabs who were being showered with bombs and white phosphorous.....
Palestine until statehood, until peace
The explosion of the Arab revolution has raised not only Arab esteem, but also given some hope back to Gazans and to the Palestinian cause.
I was in Tunis the night news of Mubarak's ousting was received. Thousands danced and chanted for Palestine, pan-Arabism, and Arab revolution. The banners, the flags, the jubilation, the passion, the energy of youth said it all: A better Arab world - Palestine included.
But today, it is Palestinians who must deliver the 'revolution' which they have woven into their narratives.
They can do this first by uniting their own people. They do this by sweeping their own dictators into the proverbial bin of history. Only then is there hope for them to turn the tide against another 'dictatorship': colonial occupation - just as South Africans defeated apartheid in the not so distant past.
Esteem parity is warming Arab hearts, and warming Palestinians who have craved the solidarity of their fellow Arabs.
Israel's biggest success in the past decade has not been neutralising most of the world vis-รก-vis Palestine. Rather, it is its success in the Arab corridors of power, turning dictators into enemies of a just cause, starving it of the oxygen of legitimate representation and solidarity in the Arab world.
A chapter is being turned by popular revolution in Arab history. Those unpacking the Arab Spring should not wish for the banners of Islamism or of Palestine absence. Rather, they should wish for Islamists to be engaging through democratic channels, and they should wish that Israel concedes Palestinians the right to be in an independent Palestine."
Larbi Sadiki
Al-Jazeera
"....The Palestine Corollary
The Palestinian cause dinted the credibility of Arab diplomacy, Arab war machines, Arab politicians, and above all else the whole post-colonial nation state system. They all met their Waterloo when Jerusalem fell in 1967, when Baghdad was sacked in March 2003, Beirut was pounded for 33 days in the summer of 2006, and when in December 2008-January 2009 Gaza was indiscriminately bombed.
All of these events happened either with Arab states' complicity, passivity, indifference, incompetence - or all of the above.
Passivity sank in when Palestine was turned into a type of soap opera - a series of dramas. Stone throwing, suicide bombing, Palestinian in-fighting, IDF incursions, targeted assassinations, kidnappings, etc. In one episode it is Dalal abu Aisha, in another, tragedy afflicts Ezzeddine Abu al Aish.
Whatever pride and esteem Arabs, especially the youth, had left was dissolved when a 350 million strong nation failed their fellow Arabs and (human beings) during Gaza's hour of need.
Even worse, some Arab businessmen were allegedly making sandwiches for the IDF. Not even civil disobedience was being organised as a symbolic way to say 'no' to the extreme injustice on behalf of fellow Arabs who were being showered with bombs and white phosphorous.....
Palestine until statehood, until peace
The explosion of the Arab revolution has raised not only Arab esteem, but also given some hope back to Gazans and to the Palestinian cause.
I was in Tunis the night news of Mubarak's ousting was received. Thousands danced and chanted for Palestine, pan-Arabism, and Arab revolution. The banners, the flags, the jubilation, the passion, the energy of youth said it all: A better Arab world - Palestine included.
But today, it is Palestinians who must deliver the 'revolution' which they have woven into their narratives.
They can do this first by uniting their own people. They do this by sweeping their own dictators into the proverbial bin of history. Only then is there hope for them to turn the tide against another 'dictatorship': colonial occupation - just as South Africans defeated apartheid in the not so distant past.
Esteem parity is warming Arab hearts, and warming Palestinians who have craved the solidarity of their fellow Arabs.
Israel's biggest success in the past decade has not been neutralising most of the world vis-รก-vis Palestine. Rather, it is its success in the Arab corridors of power, turning dictators into enemies of a just cause, starving it of the oxygen of legitimate representation and solidarity in the Arab world.
A chapter is being turned by popular revolution in Arab history. Those unpacking the Arab Spring should not wish for the banners of Islamism or of Palestine absence. Rather, they should wish for Islamists to be engaging through democratic channels, and they should wish that Israel concedes Palestinians the right to be in an independent Palestine."
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