Reclaiming Palestine E-Book

• Herausgeber: Books on Demand
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 112

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2017

Beschreibung

The Austrian organisation, Dar al Janub - Union for Antiracism and Peace Policy, conducted a number of visits to Palestine between 2006 and 2017. After organising an international conference in Vienna, a development project - We are Nablus - was launched in partnership with The Social Charitable Center Society of Nablus in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT). The 24-month project included the latest of Israels wars on Gaza, and was focused on the improvement of the capacities and roles of women, the encouragement of sustainable economic activities and independence from foreign donors, as well as the altering of Western perceptions of the role of women in Palestinian society. This publication describes the background, goals and outcomes of the project along with essays that analyse a number of key social, economic and political developments in the OPT. The specific situation of the OPT is examined in a number of scholarly papers, which cover economic and social developments in a society under occupation, including the roles of civil society and its organisations, of foreign aid and NGOs, as well as of the impacts of the Intifadas, of the Oslo Accords (including the founding of the Palestinian Authority), and of the split in Palestinian society into Fatah and Hamas factions. This publication also illustrates the obstacles and difficulties that arise, particularly in the German-speaking world, whenever Palestine is the focal point. The initial and concluding conferences of this project occasioned polemical interventions, which are documented in this publication.

Leseprobe

For

Hadil Hashlamoun

“Yes, it would be worthwhile to study clinically, in detail, the steps taken by Hitler and Hitlerism and to reveal to the very distinguished, very humanistic, very Christian bourgeois of the twentieth century that without his being aware of it, he has a Hitler inside him, that Hitler inhabits him, that Hitler is his demon, that if he rails against him, he is being inconsistent and that, at bottom, what he cannot forgive Hitler for is not crime in itself, the crime against man, it is not the humiliation of man as such, it is the crime against the white man, the humiliation of the white man, and the fact that he applied to Europe colonialist procedures which until then had been reserved exclusively for the Arabs of Algeria, the coolies of India, and the blacks of Africa.”

Aimé Césaire

INHALTSVERZEICHNIS

INTRODUCTION

WE ARE NABLUS

ECONOMIC AND CULTURAL EMPOWERMENT OF PALESTINIAN WOMEN IN THE GOVERNORATE OF NABLUS

AN ECONOMY UNDER OCCUPATION AND APARTHEID

THE EROSION OF THE PALESTINIAN ECONOMY BY THE OSLO PROCESS; THE POLITICAL INFLUENCE OF “DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMS”

Abdul-Jabbar Khalili

THE ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL STATE OF NABLUS

Adnan Odeh

THE NEED TO RESHAPE AND REBUILD PALESTINIAN CIVIL SOCIETY

Nadia Abu Zaher

THE “OSLO SYSTEM” AND THE WAR ON GAZA

Helga Baumgarten

DOCUMENTATION OF THE CONTROVERSY ABOUT THE "RECLAIMING PALESTINE" EVENT IN THE AAI (AFRO-ASIAN INSTITUTE)

INTRODUCTION

The three-day symposium “Remapping Palestine” in the autumn 2011 and the Club's internal debate of the content of the conference and the interventions against it - more by chance and luck - launched a new chapter in the work of the association, Dar al Janub.

The deepened critique of European and US-American money lending policy (the so called “development aid”), which emerged from the evaluation of “Remapping Palestine” that became a separate publication, lead to the internal decision to take new paths and to implement the critique in the Association’s own modest practice.

The realization of a cooperative project in Palestine under the title "The Palestinian Women Economic & Cultural Empowerment Project in the Governorate of Nablus", funded by the OPEC Fund for International Development (OFID) should be seen as a direct result of the symposium and the focus of its discussion.

A special feature of the composition of the podium in 2011 was the fact that it was possible to bring together, at one table, Palestinians from all over the world, and thus to break through the prevalent exclusion of their voices in international and especially in European debates. Through the participation of antiracist and anti-colonial Israeli dissidents, a unique atmosphere was created. It was neither one of these popular "normalization debates" in which European sponsors attempt to “network” Israeli and Palestinian representatives as equal discussion partners in utter disregard of the asymmetry of the conflict, nor a "peace negotiation". But it was a debate that was conducted based on the belief that the future can only be built in a free and just Palestine and with the involvement of all sections of Palestinian society - in western exile, in refugee camps and ghettos, those behind the wall, and in the blockaded Gaza strip.

Such a project, it seems, made the direct intervention of the Israeli embassy in Vienna inevitable as well as making the subsequent panicstricken reaction of the Austrian Development Agency (ADA) comprehensible.1 The forceful appearance of the Israeli ambassador in the premises of the ADA at that time clearly demonstrated how intransparent and ultimately anti-democratic the political process in West European countries actually is. It shows how little importance parliamentary majorities or boards and committees of the parliaments really have, when in the 200-year-old tradition of the Vienna Congress, decisions and resolutions are made by a selected few behind closed doors. This tradition of the Vienna Congress from 1815, which initiated the colonization of the Arabian region (planned among other things as an inter-European cooperation) is exemplary of the permanent exclusion of Palestinian voices in the debate about the future of Palestine. Just as in 1815, the only world power that was the subject of the negotiations, namely the slowly dying Ottoman Empire, was not invited to Vienna, today the Palestinian are treated similarly in the meetings of various Middle East Quartets and other such bodies.

In this context, the Palestinian Authority (PA) is not a legitimate representative of all Palestinians, nor does it currently seem to have any objectives and prospects for the implementation of a just peace solution for Palestine. The PAs dependence on Western funds and its deep involvement with the Israeli occupation authorities makes it an unreliable representative - even for the part of Palestinian society it can claim to represent. In 2014, in the wake of massive repression against Palestinians in the West Bank, and before the devastating attack on the Gaza Strip, Mahmoud Abbas showed his distance from the interests of the population by not terminating the security cooperation with Israel - a cooperation, which exclusively serves the interests of Israel.

The definitely positive impulse of our 2011 conference and the following evaluation concerning colonial domination under neo-liberal constraints (see the publication „Remapping Palestine: Entwicklung und Absicherung imperialer und neokolonialer Herrschaft am Beispiel Palästinas Teil 1“, ISBN: 978-3732286713) resulted in two important initiatives:

REALIZING A COOPERATIVE PROJECT

A project promoted by the OPEC Fund for International Development (OFID) allowed our association to turn the more or less theoretical critique of NGO’s, their growing role, and what is often called development policy in a colonial and neo-liberal context into practical steps in the form of a cooperative project in the West Bank. The prerequisites were long years of sounding out the Palestinian community and building trust with them. The critical evaluation of several western NGO projects had led to an important premise: before trying to realize an idea, a project, or a goal in such a politically and socially contested area, the right attitude is needed – humility - and the right partners. Given the relatively restricted influence and reputation we had in the field of cooperative development, it was surprising that our project was promoted by the OFID. Above all, because the project application included a sharp critique of NGO policy, and there was no objection from the OFID.

The granting of funds put us in the role of “Western donors”, who would bear overall and responsibility for the project, which forced us to take off our “western glasses” and to look at and interpret the concrete needs of our partner SCCS in Nablus. It is one thing to recognize colonial hierarchies in theory, and to analyze and disentangle the paternalistic behavior of various western NGOs, but it is an entirely different thing to uncover your own privileged situation in the daily practical work, and particularly the attitude of “knowing it all better”. We still cannot determine accurately if the project helped us more as Europeans, or if it helped the modest reconstruction of a Palestinian civil community yet more. One thing that must not remain unmentioned, which was already clear in 2011 and then confirmed at the conference in 2014, is the fact that NGOs and the phenomenon of NGOisation represent great problems for achieving a just and decolonized future for Palestine.

Old City Wall – Acre (Akko) 1936

Nevertheless, these phenomena are not the root of the problem, but rather the consequence of a colonial conquest entailed by the Oslo process. Even considering all the justified critiques of NGOs and the need to uncover their colonial functions, it is clear that the NGO system could only work because of the political conditions in 1990, and the agreements and objectives set out by Europe, the USA and Israel.

The so called Oslo Peace Process and the resulting “invasion” of western NGOs allowed an entire generation of Palestinian to grow up without knowledge of the period of the Intifada and their own history of self-organization and resistance. The occupation regime de facto (despite or even because of the Oslo agreements and the establishment of the PA) was continued seamlessly and actually expanded. The building of illegal settlements not only continued but also expanded beyond expectations. Nevertheless, the peace process achieved a rudimentary stabilization of the occupation besides numerous “side effects”. The deeper analysis of this stabilization has to be done at some other point; only the essential points are listed here: the international isolation of Israel, especially in the global south, was reversed by the Oslo Process, and Israel was able to turn its former balance of payments deficit into a surplus. For instance, all aid payments for the benefit of Palestinian society, coming from NGOs and international lenders, have to first be exchanged from dollars or euros to shekels. Consequently, Israel’s central bank receives great amounts of foreign currency.

In effect, Israel has found a way to export the occupation through the Oslo agreements. As a result, the occupation of Palestinian territory has become Israel’s second largest export article – right after its weapons industry.

The stabilization of the occupation and the related “normalization” and NGOisation had profound implications for Palestinian society without bringing any improvement of living standards to the majority of the population. On the contrary, through the NGOisation it was possible to erode the collective experience of self-organization, and the resistance and solidarity of the Palestinian society to a certain degree.

The “reconstruction” of these collective experiences from the first Intifada can also be understood as a reacquisition of Palestinian history. Social work, as performed by autonomous institutions of Palestinian civil society (i.e. those independent of western donors) has very little to do with western “social work”. Investments in “indestructible” infrastructure (education, training, “empowerment”, charitable institutions) - instead of the destructible infrastructure preferred by Oslorelated investments - help independent and autonomous Palestinian organizations to maintain their resistance to the occupation. That is another reason why many of these committees and organizations have to work under repression and massive restrictions by western states.

THE BDS MOVEMENT

During the same period Palestinian civil society drew another important conclusion from its experiences with the Oslo process. In 2005, more than 170 Palestinian organizations signed the „Palestinian Call for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions against Israel”. In a mere 10 years, a worldwide BDS movement developed, which can no longer be ignored by the mainstream. This campaign has actively influenced the international discourse for years, and in 2014 a group was established in the hometown of Theodor Herzl in Austria - Israel’s brutal military campaign in Gaza in that year was not the only reason. It is important to note at this point that several initiatives like “Women in Black (Vienna)” had for years included the BDS theme in their work, had emphasized networking – not least with Israeli dissidents - and still continue in this direction.

However, and this is not insignificant, there are alarming tendencies in the civil society campaigns of BDS. In some diplomatic notes BDS has already been indirectly referred to, for instance the US Secretary of State, John Kerry, facing the imminent collapse of the Middle East negotiations, threatened Israel with possible consequences, and used the term “boycott”.

This embrace on the political level opens the door for positions that would like to channel the colonial project in Palestine into a reformable version that would leave the corner stones of the underlying Zionism untouched. Such developments strengthens forces inside the BDS movement, which regard the Palestinian Call of 2005 as the lowest common denominator - like a “special offer” in a supermarket, where you “buy” some things, and leaves others, such as “the right of return”, sitting on the shelf.

Moreover, the attempted takeover of the BDS movement by the PA is questionable because BDS, as is a civil society campaign, must remain independent from governmental and semiofficial institutions. Among other developments with potentially serious consequences is the takeover of BDS positions by a small, elite western-trained group of Palestinians, who pursue their own interests, and present themselves as “natives”. By skillful deployment of this “capital” they could gradually annul essential positions of the BDS movement.

THE “ONE-STATE-SOLUTION” DEBATE

The purely academic debate about the one-state-solution (“One-Democratic-State”) is an example of this problem. This debate includes neither the representative of the Palestinians in Gaza, nor of the refugee camps or of the civil resistance. Moreover, the issue of the really existing “one-state” (i.e. Israeli control within and beyond the Green line) is not so much as mentioned. Ever since the Zionist pioneers began Jewish colonization in Palestine, Palestinians have been used as cheap labor in the manner of older colonialisms. In addition, traditional right-wing Zionism long wanted to integrate the native population in the Zionist project as a subordinate population.

For example, when the Palestinian political scientist Leila Farsakh who lives in the USA was asked what a binational State might look like, she replied: “It would be a parallel state structure, both the Israelis as well as the Palestinians would have to be recognized. The local governmental structure would remain intact, but there would be a common defense and foreign policy. Of course, for that to work, both sides would have to trust each other. The question is, how to create trust when so much violence characterized the past.”2

Al Jazzar Mosque – Acre (Akko) 1936