A letter to Edward Said
Partly published in al-Ahram Weekly, Issue 338, 30 July - 5 August 1998, as Maps in our mindsDear Prof. Said,
After I read your article "After the Final Acre" (al-Ahram Weekly, no. 387) I felt the urge to comment. I don't have the habit to respond always directly on articles or columns, especially not after what happened to me with this Jerusalem-Post-extreme-rightwing-columnist Moshe Kohn (but that is another story, maybe something for later).
First of all, I want to tell you that I have enormous respect for you and whenever I get the chance to read your writings I take that opportunity.
When I read your "After the Final Acre" and you appealed your readers for help, I thought I need to comment and respond. Before I came to Palestine (for several years we just came for vacations in the summer) to live and work, I was full of ideals and hopes, eventhough I was very critical of the Oslo Accords, and think that these documents belong in the list of Sykes-Picot, Balfour Declaration, and the UN Partition Plan. Still with some kind of hope for the future, as young people always have, I thought perhaps we can change things. Maybe if we could change from within. This was an illusion.
I tell you this because I really got frustrated and depressed. Actually, until the clashes which erupted on the day of the Nakba commemoration, I thought that occupations always last depending on the costs. This is actually not the case, as Palestine is always the exception. The higher the cost of the occupation, the more the occupier will face problems keeping a hold on the territory. What the Intifada (especially in its first year) did and Oslo finished was dealing with the cost of occupation. Hizbollah in Lebanon is doing the trick. Increasing the cost of occupation, not only in military capacity but also in other terms, such as public support, makes it for the occupier more difficult to keep on occupying lands.
Let's turn back to Palestine. What made me so depressed and frustrated. On the Nakba commemoration, students were throwing stones and literally giving their lives (I was at the Ramallah-Jerusalem roadblock, for a complete description what happened you might want to read Nigel Parry's diary on the Birzeit's website) for what ? Why were they throwing stones ? Are stones going to liberate Palestine ? Do people really think that Arafat ordered these students to march to the roadblocks and confront Israeli soldiers ? While these students were falling on the ground each time we heard a shot, Arafat's so-called security forces did nothing, just standing there. Why would they risk their lives ? In an article in the Israeli Ha'aretz the day after, Amira Hass interviewed a Palestinian security officer on this matter. In his speech on the Nakba commemoration Arafat was lying. He said: "I promise you that the refugees will return". I was just thinking: 'Who signed Oslo in the first place?' and while these students were throwing stones, got wounded and in Ramallah one was killed, Arafat was already boarding a plane to go to talk with his Israeli partners about further redeployments (what happened to withdrawal ?
You asked why we cannot mobilize ourselves to stand in front of Israeli troops, etc. Well, I can tell you that people here in Palestine (and you've been here and talked with them) are tired. They are tired of all this political playing. They are tired of corruption, the mafia, the occupation, the economic deterioration, the moral decline, resistance, fighting, they are exhausted. They were mobilized during the first years of the Intifada, just until the PLO started to interfere, afraid of being out of control, just as the PLO did with the National Guidance Committee when it fought the Camp David Accords. The PLO effectively stopped the Intifada. Who are you going to fight ? Who is the enemy ? This is a very dangerous question, I know, and especially here. For example, if in September 1996, the Palestinian security forces did not respond to Israeli fire at demonstrators (against the opening of a tunnel underneath the Haram as-Sharif), they would have been the target (especially after months of frustation with the Palestinian Authority, I can mention the events, for example the Palestinian security forces entering An-Najah University, the arbitrary detention of Birzeit students, the murder of Mahmud Jumayel etc.). The Palestinian security forces shot back at the Israelis and Arafat's popularity increased.
People here tend to forget quickly. The tunnel is still open. Israel is still building on Jabel Abu Ghneim, settlers are still in Ras al-Amud and settlements surrounding Jerusalem are unchallenged annexed to the city. Every event, every provocation by the Israelis is reacted only very short, after that, the Palestinian Authority and its members are talking with their Israeli partners about an airport, VIP cards, and other business ventures. Then you can ask: Why did more than 60 people had to die in September 1996 ? The tunnel is still open. People don't see the point of demonstrating, resisting, or fighting while the Palestinian Authority is using this as a public relations' act, or card in so-called negotiations.
For whom are they going to demonstrate, for Palestine or for Arafat Ltd.? Why should they demonstrate, risking their lives, while the Palestinian Authority is using their lives as bargaining cards in their "fruitless, stupid negotiations that sap our strength and our will and leave us utterly impotent as we witness our land disappearing before us ?" You already gave the answer yourself.
Almost one month ago, I wrote an opinion article in an important Dutch newspaper. One comment was that I sounded more Palestinian than most Palestinians. The commentary asked me why I was critical of the Oslo Accords and the process, while the Palestinian leadership is still holding on to it. He did not know my background. I am not represented. The PLO is not existing, or yes, only to sign agreements with Israel. Even the Palestinian Authority is not a representative body. What is it representing ? The Palestinian people ? Who is it protecting ? The Palestinian people ? Who is it benefiting ? The Palestinian people ?
Lately, I am only concerned in human rights (not democracy or a certain kind of political system). Basic human rights. I feel that we as Palestinians have to fight not only the Zionist Jews (although you don't have to be Jew to be a Zionist, as you know there are even Arab Zionists) but also and most of all ourselves. Our ideas and practice, the latter the most. It is almost becoming a cultural strife. We have to figure out among ourselves what and who we are, and where we belong. That is easy, you might think, Palestine. I mean that some might say the West Bank and Gaza Strips (or as the Palestinian Authority accepts parts of the WB&G), some might say from the river to the sea. We are the Palestinian people, not the Palestinian residents of area A and B. We are the Palestinians in West-Palestine and East-Palestine, in the camps of Lebanon, Syria and Jordan, living in exile in Europe, the US, and the rest of the Arab World, as refugees or displaced without identity.
All of us know what and where is Palestine. If I close my eyes I can see the map and nobody and nothing can take this image out of my mind. This map will always be in my imagination, call it the dream or desire. We must have one ideal, that is freedom. After that comes everything else: religion, social-economic system, ideology, ethnicity, etc. We are not fighting occupation because we want a state (as the Palestinian Authority wants to make the international community believe). We want to get rid of the occupation because we want to be free. That is, free from oppression, free from torture and killing, free from stealing our lands, etc., it includes self-determination, and perhaps statehood, but only if this state can guarantee that its citizens will have political rights and civil freedoms. That is freedom of oppression by anyone. I have no reason to believe that a Palestinian state will guarantee these freedoms, not a Palestinian state ruled by this generation or the next one.
With Palestinians oppressing Palestinians were not even at the beginning of something. This is not new. The Palestinian Authority is not much different from the mini-PLO state in Lebanon, and look what happened in the Intifada. Young activists were police, judge and executor in the same person, killing suspected collaborators. A thing which is difficult for me to deal with, but at least a lot of mistakes have been made. It is known that a number of well-known collaborators are working now with the security forces of the Palestinian Authority. Somebody who build settlements can even be a minister.
I am not saying that I am a better-informed reader who can give you assistance. I am just telling you what I feel and sense in the Palestinian street. Among my family and friends. Workers and students, men and women. As a good friend told me: "you have to leave Palestine in order to miss it", that sounds strange, but for a lot of Palestinians living inside, they never had the chance to live a 'normal' life. I know what it is to live in a democratic country, with everything arranged from the day you are born to the day you die, without any major uncertainty, in which you can plan and work on your future. Although that is rather boring, I think that a lot of Palestinians living inside just want to have that. In Palestine, everyday is a different day, anything can happen at any time. Usually not for the better.
I hope I did not upset you by this letter, or that I offend you or even made you as frustrated and depressed as I am. I never could have thought that I would be able to think like I do now about Palestine. Living in a dream is better than watching reality unfold. Then I just close my eyes and look at the map,...
Yours Sincerely,
Arjan El Fassed