BADIL

This open letter to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas was first published in Arabic by Ma’an News, Palestine, in early March 2010.

Since the adoption of the strategy of the “peace of the brave” which seeks to achieve Palestinian rights through negotiations, Palestinian officials have never missed an opportunity to raise the demand for the international community to intervene and ensure respect of its international law and UN resolutions. And while the Palestinian leadership had limited its own strategic options in the public relations battle around the peace negotiations, the demand for enforcement of international law preserved a certain “logic” in midst of the general deterioration, in particular the disintegration of the Palestinian political system.

 Since the colonial invasion in the region at the end of the 19th century, intellectual leaders of the Arab National Movement, including the Palestinian movement, have been aware of the links etween Zionism and the western colonial movement. Although early writings about the dangers of Zionism and its role in the conflict, especially those of Palestinian thinkers, pointed at the racist nature of Zionism, they failed to analyze it in-depth. This is evidenced by their failure to effectively manage the conflict and alliances; inadequate theoretical and practical attention to the racist nature of Zionism; and, their failure to assess the reason why the western colonial movement preferred Zionism over the Arab National Movement, although some of its major and dominant streams showed readiness for alliance or cooperation with the western colonial movement.