PROFESSOR ACHIN VINAYAK sees lack of a combined political structure in the Palestinian politics as the prime reason for non-emergence of an independent Palestinian State.
The Palestinian conflict, in actual terms, started in the 1917 with formal pronouncement of Balfour Declaration when the British mandated for a Jewish majority state in Palestine. In fact the whole project was to expel the indigenous Palestinian population and provide an opportunity for the immigrant Jews to settle down in these regions. In actual terms it was a blind support to the project of Zionism that was forcibly imposed on the Palestinians. The partition plan of the UN is an absolute failure. It has not come about. Had it seen the light of the day, it would have been a complete disaster for the Palestinians as it envisages a greater role for the Israel whereas reducing the Palestinians to second or even third class citizenry in their own homeland. It’s not that Israel dominates the USA rather it is the USA that still enjoys command in the realms of the Israel-American relationships. In other words, its still dog wags the tail and not the other way round i.e. tail wags the dog.
There is no doubt that the Palestinian cause is the just cause. It, in fact, is the longest running national struggle in the modern history. I maintain an unconditional but critical support to the Palestinian struggle. I am also firmly opposed to the idea of killing innocent ordinary Israeli civilians while at the same time I have no objection if an Israeli soldier is killed in an attack carried out by a Palestinian individual or group. Yes, I am in favour of an armed struggle but to the extent that losses (of both life and property) are occurred to the Israeli army, strategic installations and Israeli establishment and not to the civilians.
What I do strongly feel that the Palestinians must adopt the political philosophy of Non-Violence to counter Israel because in my view the Palestinians are not in a position – in terms of resources – to fight Israel and the United States of America (USA) on the military front. So, under these obvious circumstances, I believe that political Non-Violence can prove to be a potential weapon for weakening the Zionist state of Israel. The USA came into picture of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict much later only after 1967 and since then it has been continuously supporting Israel’s Zionist agenda. The major difference between Intifada of 1987 and the present one is that the former was a non-violent one that took Israel completely by surprise.
The autocratic regimes of the Arab world (with a very few exceptions here and there) have not really been supportive of the Palestinian cause. They are doing nothing more than paying the ‘lip service’ to the Palestinians. They are not at all interested in resolving this issue. As for the two wars that Israel fought recently i.e. in the year 2006 with Hezbollah and now in 2008-09 with the Palestinians in Gaza, it failed miserably. It was forced to ceasefire. It was a moral victory for the people’s resistance. In the end we can say that the people of Palestine came out victorious. However, if on the hindsight we look at these two wars we find that the Zionist state of Israel has been successful in its agenda of annihilating the people of Palestine. It has indulged into widespread devastation of civilian infrastructure apart from the heavy loss to life and property it is very difficult for the Palestinians to rebuild that.
If we closely examine the patterns of Jewish settlements in the Palestinian regions then we find that there are three distinct phases: The first is the same as was in Algeria by the French settlers. This phase started in 1948 and went up to 1993 till the signing of the Oslo Accords (between Israel and Palestine). The second is Contractual settlement i.e. the settlements were contracted to Palestinian Authority (PA). A very few powers were given to the PA while the full control was in the Israeli hands. The chief deception was to facilitate the Jewish settlements through the PA. This phase continued till the year 2003 from which point the current phase has started. This has essentially denied the Palestinian their rightful due.
With regard to the various Palestinian organisations that are working for the cause, to me Hamas seems more genuine. But I am totally against some of its policies such as involving in acts of terrorism. The Palestinian Authority and Fateh have diluted their stands time and again. Which is why the popular support for them has eroded to the point of rejection. As you can see in the first democratic elections held in 2006 Hamas emerged as the single largest party. Israel considers Hamas to be the biggest obstacle in its expansionist project; that is why it is adopting all sorts of means to destroy Hamas but has not been successful. One of the wings of Hamas is military as was the case with the African National Congress (ANC) when it was fighting Apartheid in South Africa. Besides, contrary to the western media projection, Hamas is a social welfare organisation that is involved in a variety of welfare programmes in different fields such as education, health, charity while at the same time active in the political arena as well.
The resolution part of the Palestinian conflict is a tricky question. Well, what I can imagine is the realignment of various forces in a manner that could weaken the Zionist state of Israel and USA on all fronts and bring them to such a petty position that they accept the Palestinian demands. This could only be possible when the USA gets defeated militarily in various parts of the world and stops blindly supporting Israel. This is not going to happen in the foreseeable future. So forget about it.
Another possible solution can come about only through a paradigm shift in the policies of the Resistance Groups. To be precise I must say that the political leadership of Hamas and Fateh ought to evolve such a political structure that would be representative of all of the Palestinian voices emerging not only from the occupied territories but also from the Palestinian Diaspora outside the occupied lands which is spread in various parts of the world especially Jordan, Egypt. Saudi Arabia, Iraq etc.
[As told to SAAD BIN ZIA]