There is an old joke about an extremely poor and wretched country that has lost any hope of overcoming its poverty. This country’s ruler called on his ministers to deliberate about solutions to bring them out of their misery. The minister of culture, an intellectual, suggested the following plan: Japan attacked the US in World War II. America then destroyed and later rebuilt it. This is how Japan became one the richest countries in the world. So let’s attack America so that it destroys us and then rebuilds our country; after that, we put poverty and misery behind us.
All the ministers welcomed the idea and embraced their colleague as a grin appeared on the ruler’s face. But the foreign minister, known for his diplomatic reservations, burst their bubble when he realized: My colleague the minister of culture’s proposal is excellent, but what if we destroyed America? In this case, we will be required, according to our colleague’s theory, to rebuild it, as well as rebuilding our devastated country.
This joke describes the situation of those who, based on a false premise, make an array of even more faulty and outrageous assumptions. This is what we are witnessing today, with the prevalence of the narrative of a “victory” and that we are living, because of that victory, a “belle epoque.”
For example: Instead of Gaza’s reconstruction being prioritized, at least to re-house the victims of Israel’s brutal strikes, the focus shifts to Gaza’s transformation into a “regional player.”
Among those many preposterous conclusions, one goes: since we have achieved this momentous victory over Israel, we ought to reexamine the root of the rot, the peace agreement concluded in 1993. Before then, the struggle against Israel was doing great. With the peace agreement came disaster. So let’s go back to the time that preceded it.
Some may be opposed to many of the Oslo Accords’ details and may feel that arriving at a two-state solution at the present time is extremely difficult due to the settlements and land grabbing. However, it is nonetheless legitimate to use the latest war in Gaza for political gains, like attempting to address difficulties and improving the terms of the settlement such that the Palestinians obtain more land and authority than Oslo had given them.
Headings such as a civil uprising, making use of the shift in world public opinion and the reunification of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, as well as addressing the Israeli public are among the proposals that can be put forward regarding this issue, and this is what can be worked on. Is this extremely hard? Yes, but it is not impossible.
As for a return to the pre-1993 settlement status quo, it is not only a return to “zero land,” “zero authority” and total dependence on foreign powers. It is also a return to the time of Arab-Arab civil wars (Jordan 1970 and Lebanon 1975-90) and to when dependence on the Syrian regime was imposed on the Palestinians and they were on the receiving end of its wars and purges.
It is also a return to a climate like the one triggered by the invasion of Lebanon in 1982 and forced the Palestine Liberation Organization to relocate to Tunisia, and to decisions like supporting Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait, with its catastrophic consequences on every level, especially for the Palestinians.
However, this kind of conceptualization sees the world as being limited to beginnings and endings, or total purity (of politics, reality and reason) in opposition to being polluted with betrayal: “Before Oslo, it had been all struggle and resistance; and after it, there was deviation and capitulation.” As for history involving complex processes that account for balances of power, the lives of the residents and their interests, and how it changes and is changed accordingly, this is alien to that kind of awareness.
Another conclusion the logic reaches: the original problem dates back to 1948, not to 1967, and accordingly, and we should reconsider the slogan of liberating the entirety of historic Palestine along the borders of the British Mandate.
This is valid, as a historical fact which Zionism has tried to erase, but it is not a tenable policy and a realistic goal. And in the end, since when have the origins of things absolutely and unilaterally determined their future course?
The transition from the slogan of the liberation of 1948 Palestine to the two-state solution was a long journey of pain, suffering and sacrifices.
During that journey, a massive experiment of the scale of Egyptian Nasserism was defeated, a strategic alliance of the scale of the alliance with the Soviet Union was put to the test and failed, and a Palestinian revolution arose, it fought wars, launched strikes and was on the receiving end of others... In this sense, the previously mentioned transition did not come as an intellectual or theoretical choice that could have been avoided. Nor was it a transformation in mood dictated by emotional desires or treacherous and demonic whims.
As for saying that we should go back to the demand of liberating 1948 Palestine - at a time when the conditions of the Palestinians first, and the conditions of the Arab world secondly, are as they are today - the only appropriate response is transferring the person advocating the idea to the nearest hospital.
Respecting the Palestinians’ pain and suffering demands that we address this hardship honestly and be frank with the Palestinians about the facts as they are. To do otherwise would be to deceive the Palestinians before anyone else.
