Al-Aqsa Intifada: What Now for Palestine?

by deeg

Sometimes I wonder how the israelis think that the conflict between zionism and the Palestinian people is going to end. Do they imagine that the Palestinians will disappear? I wonder what israelis think when they take the water supply from Palestinian towns, and use it to water golf courses. Are they really that fond of golf?

But I don’t wonder about the roots of what is now being called the Al-Aqsa Intifada. This summer, the u.s. and israel gave the Palestinians an ultimatum -- they were to accept what works out to be about 10 percent of the original area in the Palestine "mandate," in separated bantustans under Israeli control. Even Arafat could not agree to that.

And so, on September 28, ariel sharon, the butcher of Sabra and Chatilla (refugee camps where thousands of civilians were massacred in 1982), visited a Muslim religious site with 1000 police. His announced purpose was to demonstrate "Israeli sovereignty" over the compound. The next day, the israeli government responded with brutal force to the predictable demonstrations. And israel has continued to respond to demonstrations in the occupied territories with lethal force, using everything from snipers, to helicopter gunships, to armored vehicles. Against a population armed with rocks, bottles, and to some extent guns and rifles.

As of last week [late November 2000], about 260 Palestinians had been killed, and over 10,000 hospitalized. Many of these injuries are head wounds, caused by snipers. Israeli troops have not only destroyed 18 ambulances, but they have routinely delayed ambulances which were transporting wounded Palestinians, in several cases causing their deaths.

U.s. media, being what it is, has focussed on the Israeli deaths, which are less than 10% of the total. Israelis are killed, Palestinians "die in the conflict." Israeli dead are named, Palestinians are counted. The u.s. media portrays the israelis as the innocent victims of terrorism. They barely reported the pogroms inside of israel, such as the one in Nazareth, where israeli police looked on as mobs beat Palestinians and destroyed buildings. At the end of the night, two Palestinians were dead.

More importantly, the media neglects to mention the context of the "violence." Neither the Palestinians nor the israelis are engaged in random acts of violence. They are two sides of a war for national liberation, the Palestinians representing the oppressed, the israeli zionists the occupiers.

Not many people expected much from what the Palestinians early on termed the "so-called peace process," begun by the Oslo accords. These agreements, which formalized the situation which had been created since israel occupied the West Bank, Gaza, and the Golan Heights in 1967, never even began to address issues such as the right of return for all Palestinians, and an end to zionist settlements in occupied lands.

The first large group of Palestinian refugees was created in 1947-1948, by a sustained campaign of terror, or what would now be called "ethnic cleansing." People were murdered, houses were set on fire, trucks went through Palestinian towns within the territory which was to be allocated to israel, threatening the lives of people if they stayed. Lands were confiscated. Hundreds of thousands of people fled to nearby countries. Israel Shahak, a concentration camp survivor who was relocated to Israel at the age of 12 in 1945, wrote a report in the early 1980’s documenting the destruction of 10,000 Palestinian villages and towns in the creation of modern Israel, including the jewish national funds lands.

In 1967, in response to a military attack from neighboring countries, israel invaded the remaining portions of what zionists had long considered to be part of their manifest destiny. Although the Geneva conventions prohibit the relocation of civilian populations into occupied lands, israel created jewish-only settlements, populated by some of the most rabid racists the u.s. has to offer, such as my cousin Marsha, who exercised her "right-of-return," to escape her oppression in upstate new york. Meir Kahane and his fellow racists in the Jewish Defense League (formerly known for battling African Americans in Brooklyn) moved to settlements. Zionist terrorist groups carry out an unrelenting (and unreported) campaign against Palestinian towns, particularly in the west bank. u.s. born settler, Baruch Goldstein massacred 80 Palestinians in a Hebron Mosque in 1994.

The good news about the Intifada is that it has sparked a new international solidarity movement. In the past two months, LAGAI has helped organize two Women In Black protests and has participated in six other demonstrations, bannering with the Coalition of Jews for Justice, as well as attending various coalition meetings and teach-ins. The bad news about the Intifada, and the incipient new support movement is that absolutely no one is mentioning what used to be one of the official Palestinian positions -- a democratic secular state in all of Palestine. This represents a significant ideological victory for Israel, and is one that the israeli government has consciously worked to encourage, including support for right wing religious movements in surrounding areas.

When I first got involved in the anti-zionist movement, the demand for an end to the zionist entity, and the establishment of a democratic secular state was a mainstream demand in the Palestinian community. Democratic secularism makes a lot of sense to me -- why should people’s civil rights depend on their religion? Is it really a solution to have a state where Jews have special rights and Palestinians are oppressed, accross the river from a state where the reverse would occur? In which of those religious states would feminists or queers be welcomed?

I grew up in a relatively mild religious state, the northeast Bronx in the 1950’s. It was a Catholic neighborhood -- the public schools celebrated all of the christian holidays, we all were forced to sing xmas carolls. One easter my best friend brought home a "jews killed christ" pamphlet from her parochial school. We were taunted and occasionally assaulted by other kids with clever slogans such as "two and two, you’re a jew." Abortion was illegal, divorce was difficult to obtain. Many states had "blue laws" which required that businesses close on Sundays. Although there was a period of increased secularization, the u.s., while nominally requiring a separation of church and state, still has official proclamations of "Thanksgiving" to god every November, an official state holiday for xmas, state recognition and privilege of religious marriages, and a ban on gay marriage. Lately x-tians have been demanding the banning of halloween and Harry Potter books, as being entirely too pagan. And all 4 candidates in the recent national elections that shall remain undiscussed in this newsletter, were religious fanatics -- three were born-again xtians and one was a right-wing jew.

How well has a religious state worked out for israel? First off, about 13 percent of the residents, the Palestinians, are relegated to at best second-class status. But it hasn’t really worked that well even for the jewish population. Right-wing orthodoxy has such dominance that people who convert are not recognized as jewish if their conversion wasn’t under the tutelage of an orthodox rabbi. Adopted children may not be recognized as jewish. Women In Black, who have been demonstrating for twelve years in Jerusalem, are hassled by passers-by, not only for their opposition to the occupation, but for not being at home, cleaning, as women should be. Women who worship at the wailing wall are stoned by the self-righteously religious. And for any gay marriage buffs reading this, I wouldn’t be planning on a trip to israel any time soon.

We are hopeful that the secular groups will be taking an increasing role in the Palestine solidarity movement. There is a lot of organizing happening in the Bay Area, and there is often little notice for actions. If you would like to be informed of actions that we hear about, you can give us your phone number or e-mail address. You can also check our website, www.lagai.org. The following websites have up-to-date information on Palestine:

The complete Guide to Palestine’s Websites http://www.birzeit.edu/links/

Middle East Children’s Alliance http://www.mecaforpeace.org/

Arab American Anti-Discrimination Committee www.adc.org

If you’re interested in some background on zionism, here are a couple of good books: Zionism in the Age of Dictators by Lenni Brenner, and The Holocaust in American Life, by Peter Novick.

This article was reprinted from UltraViolet, the newsletter of LAGAI (Lesbian and GAy Insurrection). It was written in December of 2000. To receive future issues of UltraViolet free in the mail, or to get involved in LAGAI, call (510) 434-1304 or e-mail lagai@bigfoot.com. Or you can check out our website: www.lagai.org.