4. Can Palestinians Regain the Initiative for Ending the Occupation?
© 2023 Kamel Hawwash, CC BY-NC 4.0 https://doi.org/10.11647/OBP.0345.05
Those of you who have visited Palestine recently will testify to the fact that the Palestinian people feel isolated from the outside world. This isolation is most strongly felt at the moment in the Gaza Strip, a prison for its one and a half million inhabitants, a completely immoral and unjustifiable act by Israel. However, the Palestinians are also aware of the solidarity they enjoy from the thousands of people who visit Palestine to see the situation for themselves. In the specific context of Gaza these ‘international’ visitors risked their lives to break the siege of the Strip, as it happened in 2008 when boats sailed from Cyprus to Gaza in defiance of the Israeli blockade of the Palestinian territory. In 2008, I chaired a meeting in Birmingham at which Palestinian visitors from Ramallah and Clare Short MP spoke about the situation in the West Bank and Gaza; Clare gave a first-hand account of her recent boat trip and the truly desperate situation she saw there.
Clare survived to tell the tale but sadly James Miller, Rachel Corrie and, of course, Tom Hurndall did not return. All three were murdered by Israel Defence Forces. I pay tribute to these departed friends and to those that continue to work for peace and justice for the Palestinian people. I would also like to remember the late Palestinian Poet Mahmoud Darwish, who died on 9 August 2008, the year I gave this lecture.
After being invited to give this lecture, I spent some time wondering about what the theme would be. I considered talking about the multitude of initiatives from the Madrid Conference to Oslo, bringing us all the way to Annapolis. I also considered talking about the role of international solidarity with the Palestinian people. But both of these topics are really about how the Palestinians have tried to end the occupation and how ordinary people around the world have tried to help them achieve this. I then thought that it may be interesting for an audience in Britain to hear about a study that I have been involved in which has sought to identify alternative strategies for ending the occupation. I finally settled on the title of this lecture, ‘Can Palestinians regain the initiative for ending the occupation?’
This title assumes that the Palestinians had the initiative to end the occupation, lost it and are now looking at ways to regain this initiative. I believe that it can be argued that the Palestinians have had periods when they had the initiative, albeit under very difficult circumstances, to end the occupation, and other periods when they lost it. The creation of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) brought to the fore the issue of the Palestinians and the injustice that befell them when Israel was created by force on their land in 1948, resulting in their dispossession and the creation of the refugee problem. In 1988 the Palestinian Declaration of Independence accepted the creation of Palestine on the 1967 borders, with East Jerusalem as its capital. In 1987 the First Intifada broke out and this was largely non-violent. In 1991 the Palestinians joined the Madrid Peace Conference, as part of a joint Palestinian-Jordanian delegation.
In 1993 Yasser Arafat signed the Oslo Accords with Yitzak Rabin, laying the ground, as he and many thought, for a final resolution of the Israel/Palestine issue. The Second or Alaqsa Intifada started in September 2000. The Arab Peace Plan was launched in 2002. Finally, the Annapolis Conference took place in November 2007.
Now, different people will view these events differently in terms of whether the Palestinians had the initiative at a particular stage. However, it would be difficult for anyone to argue that the Palestinians currently have the initiative for ending the occupation. I will be exploring this next.
Where Are We Now?
So, where are we now? Well, we will look at the situation on the ground soon but I was interested in two interviews with Ehud Olmert, Israel’s recent Prime Minister, which made me wonder if he was beginning to see sense. On 29 November 2007, he said that Israel was ‘finished’ if it forced the Palestinians into a struggle for equal rights. If the two-state solution collapsed, he said, Israel would ‘face a South African-style struggle for equal voting rights, and as soon as that happens, the state of Israel is finished’. Israel’s supporters abroad would quickly turn against such a state, he said: ‘The Jewish organisations, which were our power base in America, will be the first to come out against us because they will say they cannot support a state that does not support democracy and equal voting rights for all its residents’.
It is legitimate to ask, then, what as the incumbent Prime Minister are you going to do about it? What has he done to create the conditions that would move Israel away from an apartheid-like system? Well, let us again look at the situation on the ground. I read with some interest, surprise and a little disbelief Ehud Olmert’s interview with Yediot Ahronoth, which was reported in The New York Times on 29 September 2007. This, on the face of it, is groundbreaking. ‘What I am saying to you now has not been said by any Israeli leader before me’, Mr. Olmert told the newspaper Yediot Ahronoth in the interview on the occasion of the Jewish new year, observed from Monday evening till Wednesday evening. ‘The time has come to say these things.’
He said that traditional Israeli defence strategists had learned nothing from past experiences and that they seemed stuck in the considerations of the 1948 war of independence: ‘With them, it is all about tanks and land and controlling territories and controlled territories and this hilltop and that hilltop’, he said. ‘All these things are worthless.’ He added, ‘Who thinks seriously that if we sit on another hilltop, on another hundred meters, that this is what will make the difference for the State of Israel’s basic security?’
Over the last year, Mr. Olmert has publicly castigated himself for his earlier right-wing views and he did so again in this interview. On Jerusalem, for example, he said: ‘I am the first who wanted to enforce Israeli sovereignty on the entire city. I admit it. I am not trying to justify retroactively what I did for 35 years. For a large portion of these years, I was unwilling to look at reality in all its depth.’ He said that maintaining sovereignty over an undivided Jerusalem, Israel’s official policy, would involve bringing 270,000 Palestinians inside Israel’s security barrier. It would mean a continuing risk of terrorist attacks against civilians like those carried out by Jerusalem Palestinian residents with front-end loaders.
‘A decision has to be made’, he said. ‘This decision is difficult, terrible, a decision that contradicts our natural instincts, our innermost desires, our collective memories, the prayers of the Jewish people for 2000 years.’ The government’s public stand on Jerusalem until now has been to assert that the status of the city was not under discussion. But Mr. Olmert made clear that the eastern, predominantly Arab, sector had to be yielded, ‘with special solutions’ for the holy sites. On peace with the Palestinians, Mr. Olmert said in the interview:
We face the need to decide but are not willing to tell ourselves, yes, this is what we have to do. We have to reach an agreement with the Palestinians, the meaning of which is that in practice we will withdraw from almost all the territories, if not all the territories. We will leave a percentage of these territories in our hands, but will have to give the Palestinians a similar percentage, because without that there will be no peace.
But what has the man who led Israel for some years actually done, rather than said?
Current Situation
The following quote and statistics provided by Dr Mustapha Barghouti, General Secretary of the Palestinian National Initiative at a press conference on 26 November summarise the position since Annapolis. Dr. Barghouti said ‘Annapolis has widened the gap between the quest for a peace agreement and the building of a Palestinian State. It was a one-way negotiation, with efforts shown only by the Palestinian side. Israelis didn’t negotiate. They imposed their reality on the ground’, he added. ‘A country without a capital, infiltrated by settlements, containing the biggest open-air jail in its body — Gaza — suffering from daily war crimes and where its refugees have no right of return: this is what they are trying to sell us’, said Mustafa Barghouti.
He then cited the following statistics since Annapolis: 3,063 attacks have been carried out in Palestine (1,700 in the West Bank and 1,363 in Gaza); 543 Palestinians have been killed (65 in the West Bank and 478 in Gaza. More than 71 were children.); 2,362 Palestinians have been injured (1,125 in the West Bank and 1,237 in Gaza. More than 138 were children.); 770 Palestinian prisoners were released while Israel imprisoned 4,945 more (4,351 from the West Bank; 574 from Gaza, including 351 children). There were, in 2014, an estimated 10,500 Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails; Gaza continues to be under siege. Since the beginning of the siege in 2006, more than 260 patients have died as hospitals have run out of medical supplies, and treatment abroad is barred. 160 types of medicine have already run out in Gaza due to the blockade. Supplies of another 130 will run out soon and at least 90 items of medical equipment, including 31 dialysis machines, are out of order; Checkpoints have risen from 521 to 699; At least 30 people (including children) died at a checkpoint, in the West Bank or Gaza; 74% of the main West Bank routes are controlled by checkpoints or blocked entirely; In September 2008, the weekly average of flying checkpoints was 89; 2,600 houses for settlers are currently under construction, 55% of which are on the eastern side of the Wall; In 2008, tenders for settlement construction increased by 550%; Today, there are 121 Israeli settlements and 102 outposts in the West Bank in which 462,000 settlers are living; Settlements are built on less than 1.5% of the Occupied Palestinian Territory land but due to the extensive infrastructure, they take up more than 40% of the land; After Annapolis, the Israeli government gave a preliminary green light in August for the new illegal settlement of Maskiot in the Jordan Valley; House evictions are currently taking place in Jerusalem. The Al Kurd family, who have lived in their house in Sheikh Jarrah for 50 years, was violently evicted by the Israeli occupation forces on 9 November 2006. For two weeks, they lived in a tent without water, heating or electricity, then Abu Kamal, the father of five, died. Suffering from diabetes, his health conditions worsened due to the pressure of the eviction.
The Israeli apartheid policy remains. The amount of water available for Palestinian consumption is 132 mcm, 132 million cubic metres, while Israelis enjoy 800 mcm. The domestic water consumption of Palestinians is 60 litres/day/person (although the WHO recommends a minimum of 100 litres/day) while the Israelis consume 220 litres daily. Palestinians pay 5 shekels per water unit and 13 shekels per electricity unit, while Israelis pay 2.4 shekels (water) and 6.3 (electricity). The building of the Wall continues. 409 km (57%) of the apartheid Wall had been constructed by 2014, while 66 km (9%) was under construction. When completed, the total length of the Wall would be 723 km, twice the length of the Green Line, and 14% of the Wall would be on the Green Line, while 86% would be inside of the West Bank.
As you can see from these statistics, the situation in Palestine has deteriorated markedly since the Annapolis Conference. Olmert gave the impression that he realised that the Palestinians exist and have rights and that Israel cannot have security or peace without a settlement that is acceptable to them. But his government continued along the path of entrenching the occupation and of making the lives of Palestinians so miserable that they would leave of their own accord.
Since Annapolis, the Palestinian Leadership has embarked on a programme of regular meetings with the Israeli Leadership encouraged, cajoled and pressured by the American Administration, which announced that there would be an agreement between Israel and the Palestinians by the end of 2008.
The PLO Chairman and Palestinian National Authority (PA) President, Mahmoud Abbas has made it clear that he will continue to negotiate, but these sterile negotiations have not resulted in even the outline of a peace agreement by the end of 2008. He has also made it clear that he will continue negotiations with the new Israeli Government when it is elected. Will he continue to negotiate for the foreseeable future? What is the incentive for Israel to negotiate seriously, and is it really interested in reaching an agreement with the Palestinians?
Background to the Palestine Strategy Study Group
Those questions and others have been the subject of discussion amongst a group of Palestinians, which became known as the Palestine Strategy Study Group (PSSG). I will now focus on the work of this group. In 2007, I received an invitation to a workshop joining a group of Palestinians from the West Bank and the Diaspora at the Dead Sea, Jordan. The approach came from an International Peace and Security think-tank, the Oxford Research Group (ORG), based in London. The approach seemed interesting because the proposal was to bring together a group of Palestinian politicians, academics, businessmen and activists from different political backgrounds and different regions of the world. Prior to this, most initiatives were about ‘dialogue’ between Palestinians and Israelis and have singularly failed to produce a positive outcome. The title of the project was ‘Regaining the Initiative: Exploring Palestinian Strategic Options’. The opening paragraph to the concept proposal read:
The failure in securing national independence and establishing a viable state has led Palestinians to be suspicious of Western motivations and interventions. The West demands that Palestinians meet certain conditions before attaining statehood. These include, among others, ending all forms of armed resistance, recognizing Israel as a Jewish state, reforming the Palestinian security system and building effective institutions of governance. To most Palestinians, however, such demands are seen to be unjust. While Palestinians in the end want a functioning state and a prosperous economy, most of them argue that it is virtually impossible to do so while under a military occupation. The aim of the project is to initiate a new strategic framework for action, internally and externally, that begins by emphasising this reality. The central question to be answered by a group of leading Palestinian strategists and activists is: how to end occupation and prevent post-independence domination? The output of two planned workshops is a document reached through the consensus of the participants. This document could then be presented as a gift to the Palestinian nation in the occupied territories and in the diaspora on the eve of commemorating the 60th anniversary of the Nakba.
The project was funded from a grant that the ORG had secured from the European Union.
The First Workshop
The overwhelming majority of the participants were from the West Bank as Gazans were not allowed to travel because of the siege and a number of invitees were not allowed to travel from the West Bank, particularly from Nablus. I was one of only three people from Europe.
I arrived at the venue on the Jordanian side of the Dead Sea not knowing what to expect. I was joined by some twenty other participants and we spent three intensive days, firstly analysing where we were as Palestinians and then looking to possible future scenarios. The essential question was ‘how do we end the occupation?’
We analysed the current reality of the situation against four dimensions, Palestinian, Israeli, Regional and International. We considered our strengths and weaknesses, risks and opportunities and considered the factors under Palestinian control that were helpful or unhelpful to the objective of ending the occupation.
We then considered possible future scenarios revolving around the negotiations. What if the negotiations succeeded and what does success mean? And what if the negotiations failed, again whatever that meant? Clearly, neither complete success nor failure was possible. Bear in mind that George W. Bush had by now indicated that he was confident of a deal between Palestinians and Israelis by the end of 2008, before he left office.
We also identified the priorities for the Palestinians as reforming the Palestine Liberation Organisation, internal reconciliation, strategies for ending the occupation and mechanisms for bolstering Palestinian staying power and resistance.
The group discussed what the final product of our deliberations would be. Are we producing an initiative à la Geneva Document or a report or academic document? There was general agreement that this would be a report that set out the strategic options for Palestinians, and not a specific initiative. It was agreed that there would be a follow-up meeting in March/April 2008 and this took place in Turkey, again to allow as many invitees to attend as possible.
The second meeting focused more on the strategic options for ending the occupation and it was important for the group to identify strategic options not only for ending the occupation, but also for raising the cost of the occupation, as this would force Israel to re-think its strategy. It is argued that Israel left the Gaza Strip not because it believed in returning the land to its owners, but because the Palestinian resistance made the cost of continuing with this occupation prohibitive. It was a one-sided decision by Israel to ‘disengage’ from Gaza rather than part of a negotiated settlement. It is important to note here that Mahmoud Abbas was the PA President and PLO Chairman then, but Israel did not meet his request to coordinate the withdrawal with him.
The work of the PSSG continued after Turkey through meetings in Palestine and email correspondence. The outcome was the document entitled ‘Regaining the Initiative: Palestinian Strategic Options to End Israeli Occupation’, which was published in August 2008.1 This fifty-page document does not specify a detailed action plan but rather sets out a possible way forward to inform a strategic debate by Palestinians and their supporters.
However, the PSSG suggests that these may be among the main headings for a coordinated action plan; action to promote Palestinian national unity: national reconciliation, power sharing, reform of the PLO; action to formulate coordinated Palestinian strategy: goals and tools; action to realign the solidarity movement; action to mobilise and empower the Palestinian people.
When the strategic aim is to compel Israel to participate in genuine negotiations to establish a Palestinian State on terms acceptable to Palestinians: action to clarify Palestinian negotiation requirements, benchmarks and time limits; action to orchestrate national resistance: changed configuration of the PA; action to prepare strategic alternatives to a negotiated agreement; action to communicate the above to Israeli decision-makers and the Israeli public (there are no better alternatives to a negotiated agreement for Israel: all the alternatives are worse for Israel); action to elicit regional and international support; action to change perceptions and policies in the United States; action to ensure that the Palestinian discourse forms the framework for discussion about the Palestinian future (if negotiations fail, the responsibility is seen to lie with Israel, not with the Palestinians).
When the strategic aim is to re-orientate Palestinian strategy because Israel has failed to negotiate a genuine two-state outcome: action to block Israel’s preferred alternatives to a negotiated agreement; action to promote Palestinian alternatives to a negotiated agreement action to elicit regional and international support for the new strategy; action to ensure that the Palestinian discourse forms the framework for discussion about the Palestinian future where Palestinians will retain the strategic initiative.
The PSSG contends that Israel is not a serious negotiating partner and that its strategic calculations are wrong. It argues that Israel will not come to a negotiated settlement that is acceptable to Palestinians because it perceives that there are other alternatives to a negotiated settlement: to prolong the negotiations indefinitely by pretending that ‘progress has been made’ and that suspensions are temporary; a pseudo provisional ‘two-state agreement’ with a strengthened but severely constrained PA; a unilateral separation dictated by Israel; control of the occupied territories by Egypt and Jordan.
For the Palestinians none of the above would be acceptable as they would fail to meet our national aspirations and could in fact undermine our national identity and rights. The basis of the negotiations with Israel since 1991 have been United Nations Resolutions which call for an end to the occupation of the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem, captured by Israel in 1967, and an implementation of Resolution 194 regarding the refugees’ right to return and compensation. The PSSG suggests that ‘if Israel refuses to negotiate seriously for a genuine two-state outcome, Palestinians can and will block all four alternatives by switching to an alternative strategy made up of a combination of four linked reorientations to be undertaken singly or together’. Those are:
First, the definitive closing down of the 1991 negotiation option so long abused by Israel; Second, the reconstitution of the Palestinian Authority so that it will not serve future Israeli interests by legitimising indefinite occupation and protecting Israel from bearing its full burden of the costs of occupation (it may become a Palestinian Resistance Authority); Third, the elevation of ‘smart’ resistance over negotiation as the main means of implementation for Palestinians, together with a reassertion of national unity through reform of the PLO, the empowerment of Palestinians, and the orchestrated eliciting of regional and international third-party support. The central aim will be to maximise the cost of continuing occupation for Israel, and to make the whole prospect of unilateral separation unworkable; Fourth, the shift from a two-state outcome to a (bi-national or unitary democratic) single state outcome as Palestinians’ preferred strategic goal. This reopens a challenge to the existence of the State of Israel in its present form, but in an entirely new and more effective way than was the case before 1988.
Since its publication, the report has generated a number of articles both in the Arab and English media. The discussion has ranged from welcoming it as a timely initiative to dismissing it as yet another initiative that is not very different to others. Much of the discussion generated has been about the potential shift from a two-state to a one-state solution to the Palestinian problem. This is an important issue but should not be seen as the most significant outcome from this initiative.
I believe that one of the most important outcomes is the sheer fact that a forum was established where a group of Palestinians were able to analyse the current situation and to look for ways in which Palestinians can regain the initiative for realising our legitimate rights rather than continuing along the path of the current sterile negotiations, which any independent-minded analyst can see failing to achieve them. We can identify and implement strategies that will raise the cost of the occupation and therefore put pressure on Israel to negotiate seriously. Israel’s policy of indefinite negotiations and the creation of facts on the ground will backfire as serious discussions are now taking place about a single state of some form as the choice of Palestinians.
Palestinian alternatives to a negotiated agreement are difficult but possible. They are preferable to a continuation of the status quo. The reorientation of Palestinian strategy cannot be blocked by Israel. Israel’s alternatives to a negotiated agreement are delusory: Palestinians can and will block all of them. The outcome for Israel will be worse. Palestinians should not be deterred by the past, but should look with confidence to the future.
The main conclusion of the strategic review conducted by the PSSG is that Palestinians have more strategic cards than they think, and Israel has fewer. Over the longer term, Israeli military power is of limited use — and will even be a liability — if we learn how to play our cards properly. No political arrangement based on force alone endures. Israel is wrong to think that the longer the game goes on, the more strategic opportunities it will have.
It is the other way round. It is hoped that Israel swiftly comes to acknowledge the strategic logic set out in this report and acts accordingly in its own best interest. But, if Israel does not do this, then we Palestinians are ready to retain the strategic initiative whatever the eventuality, and to shape our future according to our own wishes, not those of others. We are currently exploring ways of developing the work of the PSSG further, particularly in examining in more detail some of the issues that still require this.
The Palestinians must regain the initiative to end the occupation but we will need help from ordinary people around the world to end it. There is a growing understanding across the world of the injustice that still exists in the twenty-first century, where a people have been dispossessed of their land and have been scattered all over the world and Israel is seen as a threat to World Peace, as reported in a European Union poll in 2003. It continues to defy International law and Human Rights Conventions. Its brutal and immoral siege on Gaza continues unabated. Its President, Simon Peres, a suspected war criminal, was awarded an honorary knighthood by the Queen, and the European Parliament voted on its proposed EU-Israel Association Agreement, which enables far greater Israeli participation in European Community programmes. It really beggars belief that a state that is a serial breaker of International Law and Human Rights Conventions, and one that has laid a siege to one and half million people, is rewarded with an upgrading of its status in Europe. Fair-minded people everywhere should be in contact with their MPs demanding that they vote against it.
This, however, demonstrates the task ahead if the Palestinian people are to be free.
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Fig. 7 Tom Hurndall, Peace Volunteer badges before coach journey to Baghdad, February 2003. All rights reserved.