Whatever happens in the region, the Palestinians can still reclaim the initiative

By: Omar Shaban

The steps of normalisation between some Arab states and Israel are accelerating. The official Arab positions declaring normalisation may widen, serving the United States' persistent attempt to work out a suitable formula allowing Israel's integration into the Arab region first and the Islamic world later — not according to civilisational, cultural, and religious history, but according to the features of economic geography, the world-market system, and the concept of international relations and interests. It aims likewise to create the nucleus of a Middle Eastern market, gradually expanding, in which Israel is the centre — maximising its role as an attracting power, advanced economically, technologically, in security, and in civil life. Many factors and circumstances have accumulated behind what is happening in the region, among them:

The region's transformations after the Arab Spring revolutions:

A deflection has occurred in the term “the Middle East peace process”, which traditionally refers to settling the Palestinian–Israeli conflict. The truth is that all the moves and positions that began after the Arab Spring, and the growth of terrorism in the region, became a window of opportunity for Israel to widen its bounds and impose its agenda on the region — imposing itself as a principal actor in the region with the United States' backing, and as an ally of the Gulf states, which believe normalisation with Israel helps them protect their security, brings further economic prosperity, and offers protection from Iranian influence. In August 2019 the Israeli foreign minister, Yisrael Katz, declared that Israel was part of the “international coalition for the security and protection of maritime navigation and the safety of the sea lanes” established by the United States, which includes Saudi Arabia, the Emirates, Bahrain, Britain, and Australia.

The decline of the Palestinian cause's priority at the official and popular levels:-

No doubt some of the region's states, scorched by the fires of the post-Arab-Spring conflicts and the sectarian conflicts, have suffered grievous harm. But considering the circumstances of the Palestinian cause — where there is direct Israeli occupation — the catastrophe befalling the Palestinian cause is more grievous and further-reaching. Every retreat on the Arab side here means an advance for the Israeli side. The official regimes and their peoples have become more preoccupied with “more complicated” issues — the conflict in Libya, Iraq, Syria, etc. As for the large regional powers (such as Iran and Turkey) and the Arab ones, their direct involvement in the conflicts running through the region has greatly lowered the Palestinian cause's priority for them. Nor does the matter stop at the official quarters: even at the popular level, the degree of public engagement with the cause's events and developments has declined to an unprecedented extent. Hence the theory that “reaching a solution to the Palestinian cause will lead the region to stability” has become unconvincing to many actors; the region does not appear headed for stability regardless of the course of events in Palestine.

The Palestinians' failure to manage their affairs and develop their tools to keep pace with the region's fluctuations:-

A brief review of the history of the division and of the attempts at revival and mending the rift (reconciliation) makes clear that all the efforts achieved no successes worth mentioning — giving the Arab peoples a motive to turn away from Palestinian rights. Winning the backing and support of the Arab publics is a fundamental factor in the general mobilisation that prevents the political leaderships and heads of the Arab states from deviating into any positions that diminish Palestinian rights. The errors of managing the Palestinian crises have accumulated — in governance and in treating the internal division that destroyed the national project. The political and Islamic forces have proven incapable of adopting the reform projects needed to preserve what remains of the national situation. The political leaderships and the partisan intelligentsia have failed to channel the state of Palestinian popular discontent and to form a national discourse that serves the general interest. The political system's failure in managing the cause has aggravated the Palestinian crisis and left it orphaned, without support even from those whose duty it is to protect and back the Palestinian position.

What can be done to revive the cause once more?

Within the foregoing factors, the possibility of stopping or resisting normalisation becomes nearly impossible, because the causes of the dysfunction are not isolated from the normalisation scene; they are affected by it, and at times form a direct reflection of it. Raising the concepts and methods of resisting normalisation therefore rests fundamentally on raising the political scene in its entirety. What a few individuals can do — moving on personal motives, possessing courage, clarity, and influence but lacking institutional decision and organisational backing — is only to keep the cause alive, without being able to activate it, develop it, or move it qualitatively to advanced levels. The required elevation depends on structural change in the Palestinian and Arab opposition political scene, over the short and medium terms.

In the short term:-

Speed in restoring the relationship with the Arab peoples in its true form, and using methods of advocacy for the cause far from cursing and accusing of treachery the Arab peoples who still reject normalisation, is a strategic weapon for the Palestinians. With every new season of normalisation, and in feeling out the individual's role toward this cause, we find the Arab citizen's sense of helplessness before what he sees. And though this is real, it is not absolutely accurate: intervention here is relative, and a person can intervene to the extent of their capacities in contributing to change. Here comes the role of the Palestinians and the Palestinian parties through their campaigns, their contacts, and their articulation — that silence is no solution, and that sinking into the feeling of abandonment and helplessness usually leads nowhere. Especially as normalisation means dissipating the Arab peoples' innate impression — suggesting instead that hostility toward Israel is misplaced, the product of a mistaken understanding of the conflict with the Palestinians, who preceded them to understandings and the signing of peace agreements (a distorted premise: the Palestinians' contact with Israel comes by way of contact for the sake of independence and disengagement, not by way of cementing relations as an independent state). Israel's aim in normalisation is to bypass the Palestinian cause without solving it, and to convert the battle from one between the Arabs and Israel into one between the Palestinians and the Arabs.

In the medium term:-

The deterioration is expected to continue slowly unless the relevant institutions (beginning with the PLO and the parties, including the opposition among them, and not ending with the syndicates and civil society) take qualitative initiatives to halt the deterioration toward the Arab peoples, and treat the resistance of normalisation as an evolved form of struggle. A unifying discourse must be crystallised, capable of restoring the concepts and the Arab responsibility to their historical place — by stressing that there is an Arab responsibility, legal, juridical, and political, toward Palestine, to which these states are effectively committed before their peoples.

And the fact that many Arab regimes have used and still use the Palestinian cause to serve their own interests means precisely that it is a central cause in the conscience of every Arab. In short, the Palestinian cause can bring you millions of votes at the ballot box — an important interest for any party or regime seeking legitimacy. Despite all that is happening, the justice of the Palestinian cause remains an important element in the Arab and international conscience, official and popular alike.