9 STEPS TO *ACTUALLY* FREE PALESTINE
The people who chant “Free Palestine” are the ones ensuring it doesn’t happen. Here are 9 things we need to do (or stop doing) right now!
THIS IS THE FIRST OF MY WEEKLY ESSAYS FOR “PAID SUBSCRIBERS” ONLY.
I painted a piece of cardboard with a slogan but Palestine’s still not free! WTF?
The people who chant “Free Palestine” don’t want to free Palestine. If they did, they would take steps to actually advance peace and Palestinian self-determination. I’ll confront their actual motives in a future post. For now, though: 9 things that should be obvious, but apparently aren’t, for those who actually want to free Palestine.
1. ACKNOWLEDGE THE ROOT OF THE PROBLEM.
If we do not acknowledge the root of a problem, we will not resolve it. Overwhelmingly, the world subscribed to a flawed narrative that portrays Israel as the lynchpin to peace, which is almost precisely the opposite of the reality. There is only one side that can make peace, because there is only one side making war: The Palestinians and their Arab allies. It is a simplistic formulation but it is also true: if the Arabs put down their weapons, there would be no war; If the Israelis put down their weapons, there would be no Israel.
Since 1947 at the latest, up until today, Palestinian leaders and the broader Arab world have been intractably opposed to the existence of a Jewish state. The Arab League unanimously rejected the idea of Israel and attempted to destroy it at the moment of its creation.
The Arab world unanimously rejected the idea of a Palestinian Arab state in 1947 because, under the U.N. Partition Resolution, such a country would be born alongside a Jewish state. There has been endless nattering in the decades since about assorted details from that time – but these are all red herrings. The Arab world’s unanimous rejection of the United Nations Partition Plan in 1947 was motivated by the uncompromising refusal of Arab and Muslim leaders to accept the concept of Jewish self-determination in the homeland of the Jewish people. That’s why there was no Palestinian state in 1948.
The Arab League did it again at the Khartoum conference in September 1967. Offered peace and a Palestinian state on a silver platter, the Arab world declared: no peace with Israel, no recognition of Israel, no negotiations with Israel. That’s why there was no Palestinian state in 1967.
In the Oslo Process, Palestinians were offered 97% of the West Bank and Gaza – essentially everything that Western observers insist on believing the Palestinians want. Arafat rejected it and launched the Second Intifada. That’s why there was no Palestinian state in 2000.
Until activists and others reject the Palestinian movement’s core modus operandi – endless war until Israel disappears – there will be no peace and no Palestine. That won’t be Israel’s fault. It will be ours.
To free Palestine, we need to acknowledge that the root of the problem is the Palestinian and Arab refusal to accept the existence of the state of Israel. We need to demand that Palestinians end their maximalist expectations (“From the river to the sea …”) and accept that the only way there will be a Palestine is if Israel is safe and secure in recognized borders.
2. STOP REWARDING VIOLENCE.
On September 29, 2000, the political left in the West went off the rails. That was the day Arafat abandoned (his pretence of) peaceful negotiation and launched the Second Intifada. For people around the world – especially for people who self-identify as progressives, or leftists, or humanitarians – opinion should side, always, with negotiation over violence. Instead, in this instance, something entirely irrational happened. As violence exploded, a European and North American consensus evolved to support the Palestinians, who had given themselves over to violence, and to condemn the Israelis, who were sitting jilted at a negotiating table.
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Pat’s Substack to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.