After Gaza, Where Do We Go From Here?

After Gaza, where do we go from here? Before we attempt to answer that question we must first recognize the chain of events and courses that led us to the present situation.
Without rehashing the entire history of the Palestinian national movement we chose to focus on the years of the first Intifada (December 1987) to the present.

During the first Intifada the Palestinian National Movement was at its peak in terms of it effectiveness both on the ground, in form of active and passive resistance to the Israeli occupation, and on the international political arena. Some examples:

• Mass participation at all socio and economic levels within the Palestinian society in the Occupied Territories, such as general strikes, confrontations, sit-ins, and mass demonstrations.
• Israel fasade as a free democratic society was exposed especially with its military’s gross violations of human rights captured daily by the international media
• Israel’s society was fragmenting with some prominent voices openly questioning the occupation and its’ practices
• When PLO Chairmen Arafat was denied entry to the US for a UN General Assembly meeting the entire General Assembly reconvened in Geneva, Switzerland to allow him to address the world body

The reason for the initial success of the first Intifada, was due to the fact that it was led by the Unified National Leadership in the West Bank and Gaza that was able to rise up to the level of that historical moment and put aside factional differences. Its success was primarily due its unity and its ability to keep the outside Palestinian leadership from interfering in the day-to-day decision making. When the outside Palestinian leadership was unable to totally control the daily affairs of the Intifada they frantically began grasping at straws in order for them to return to the spotlight, these were:

• Forcing some members of the Unified National Leadership and West Bank personalities to meet with Secretary of State James Baker III which led to,
• The Madrid Peace talks, which led to
• The Oslo Accords

These straws were presented by the outside leadership as “victories” but in actuality they were designed to circumvent the Unified Leadership thus aborting the Intifada. What followed was the return of some the traditional outside leadership, based on Israeli conditions, signaling the beginning of an unending series of conferences, summits, plans, and road maps. Meanwhile, Israel has continued to aggressively expand its settlements, imprison Palestinian activist, confiscate Palestinian land, and terrorize Palestinian civilians, dismembering the West Bank through road blocks, settlement by-pass roads and the Separation Wall. Palestinians held elections only to discover the harsh reality that when the results are not acceptable to the Israeli occupation the real authority rests with the Israeli soldiers who summarily arrested the elected officials.

After 14 years since the creation of the Palestinian Authority, we find ourselves in the worst political and national situation in our history, culminating with Palestinians coordinating with the Israelis to protect the occupiers against fellow Palestinians. We find our society fragmented due to the lack of viable national leadership. In the last few weeks with Israel’s war on the resistance in Gaza there were some Palestinian voices in the PA that could not be differentiated from the Israeli government officials. We find that some official Palestinian and Arab position, vies a vi the War on Gaza or the War on the Resistance, range from collaborators with the Israelis to those we were waiting to see the end result so as not to upset their American and Israeli masters by taking a supportive position. It is a sad state of affairs that during the first two weeks the Arab leaders, including the PA, could not agree to meet. Only after it was proven that the Palestinian resistance was able to withstand all what the Israeli military machine could throw at it, then we saw a flurry of summits. Now we see another war waged against the resistance, disguised as to who will be responsible for the rebuilding of Gaza.

We believe that it is not only high time but absolutely imperative for our national survival that the Palestinian people should engage in a national dialogue on the basis of:

1. Should the Palestinian National Authority as it exists today under the occupation continue?

2. Should the traditional Palestinian political organizations maintain a monopoly on the political future of the Palestinians?

As the authors of this call to dialogue this is a small snap-shot of some positions we have discussed .We believe that what caused our problems must be eliminated. Anything that came from Oslo should be dissolved. The so called Palestinian Authority is anything but. Any PA official is treated no different than any mayor or city official in the old civil administration under the Israeli occupation. Today the common Israeli soldier has more authority than President Abbas. Historically, under occupation it is either the occupier’s soldier or the resistance fighter who holds the authority. The governing power within Palestinian occupied territories should include all Palestinian organizations with no organization demanding a simple majority. This anti-democratic demand has proven time and time again to be a disaster. We also believe that the issue of resistance should be the common denominator that unifies all the organizations and should remain so as long as there is one Israeli soldier or settler remaining in the occupied Palestinian territories of 1967. This coalition should be constituted and organized based on their effectiveness in promoting the national well being of the Palestinian people, both in and outside the occupied territories. We do not claim to know all of the details, or all of the solutions, but we strongly believe that we are at a juncture in our history that we as a people will either rise up to this challenge and produce a leadership that will advance our aspirations to the path of statehood and national independence or continue on this current downward spiral that will only lead to complete dispossession of what is left of our historic homeland and national aspirations.

Committee on Behalf of Palestinians Denied Entry