Using other forms of resistance
Other forms of resistance
was the fourth most prefered pathway chosen by Palestinian refugees
(41.8%); see p.5
Surely, few observers can claim to be surprised by the call from
Palestinian refugees for a rethink as to the ways in which a
permanent solution to the refugee crisis is to be achieved?
It is, of course, true that formal, legal frameworks exist which
could adequately address the Israel-Palestine crisis, and its
attendant mass, forced displacement of Palestinians; displacement
evident both within the boundaries of Historic Palestine and
beyond. Indeed, the total combined population of Palestinian
refugees and IDPs now stands at some 7.9 million, representing the
single largest refugee population on the planet.[1] Such
frameworks are constructed from assorted instruments of
international law, including treaty, statute and UN
resolutions.[2] The common characteristic of such
instruments is their focus on the respect for and protection of
human rights, and in adopting such a focus, these essential
universal principles are elevated above the muddied and treacherous
waters of political expediency. Yet, in the case of Palestinian
displacement, these frameworks continue to be abused or, more
commonly, neglected altogether by international power
brokers.[3]
Chief among these abject failures
is the continued refusal of the international community to actively
pursue the implementation of UN resolutions which call for the
return of Palestinian refugees to the homes from which they were
forcibly displaced during the 1948 and 1967 Wars.[4] Not
only does this serve to perpetuate the suffering of the displaced
and the continued denial of their fundamental rights, but it also
sets an ugly and dangerous precedent. Each additional day of
Palestinian exile further highlights a tacit acceptance by the
international community of the concept of conquest by force, and
contributes to a steady, incremental undermining of the relevance
of international law.
As an attempted substitute for the proper application of existing
legal frameworks, came the Oslo Accords[5]; the child of
extensive political wrangling which afforded primacy to the
strategic goals of Israel and its benefactors at the expense of the
Palestinian people and their inalienable right to
self-determination.[6] The result was an agreement which
served only to entrench Israeli domination of Palestinian space,
fracturing the West Bank into an archipelago of disparate
Bantustans and facilitating Israel’s continued colonization of Area
C, with the number of Jewish-Israeli settlers/colonizers inside the
occupied Palestinian territory (oPt) now numbering greatly in
excess of half a million.[7] Far from bestowing upon Israel
a temporary, custodial role over occupied territory, Oslo has in
fact allowed Israeli authorities to actively pursue a demonstrably
colonialist agenda; to assume de facto sovereignty over Area C and
steadily remove from this land all Palestinian
presence.[8]
To this end, complete control is achieved and maintained by
Israel’s sprawling ‘security’ apparatus, manifested in fixed and
‘flying’ checkpoints; an extensive and discriminatory permit
regime[9], and the regular use of extreme physical
and psychological violence against the Palestinian populace. It is
an entirely punitive system, and quality of life has been eroded so
grievously by these political agreements that, for many
Palestinians, the Oslo Accords have come to represent a second
Nakba.[10]
Given this landscape of inequality and despair, and the best
efforts of the international community to reduce Palestinians to
mere spectators as their land and rights are wrestled from them, it
is inevitable that, from the aggrieved, will come concerted calls
for an alternative; for grassroots change; for popular
resistance.
Perhaps the most obvious example is the recent increase in the
number of youth protests throughout the oPt. This increase
highlights a growing sense of alienation and disenfranchisement
among Palestinians. Indeed, the majority of those who take to the
streets to protest and face-off against the might of the Middle
East’s most formidable military belong to the ‘Oslo generation’,
with their future prospects strangled and suffocated from birth by
the pervasive reach of Israel’s occupation. In protesting, however,
they are empowered and afforded a degree of agency. [11]
The same can be said of recent attacks by Palestinians directed at
Israelis. Such attacks cannot – despite the attempts of Israeli
politicians – be in any way divorced from the horrendous suffering
inflicted upon the occupied Palestinian populace over a period
spanning some seven decades. Rather, these attacks are the natural
result of a severe and prolonged deprivation of human rights,
coupled with an absence of any effective legal recourse. Indeed,
such cause and effect – and the legitimacy of armed resistance in
specific scenarios of belligerent occupation - finds recognition in
resolutions issued by the United Nations. For instance, General
Assembly Resolution A/RES/3246 (XXIX) of 29 November 1974
“[r]eaffirms the legitimacy of the peoples’ struggle for liberation
from colonial and foreign domination and alien subjugation by all
available means, including armed struggle.”[12]
This provision is, of course, conditional, with any act required to
be conducted in adherence with International Humanitarian Law if it
is to qualify as a form of legitimate armed resistance. It is also
to be noted that UN resolutions are not legally binding per se,
though they should be considered as reflecting the dominant legal
rationale among sovereign states.
What becomes clear, then, is that armed struggle is, if performed
in accordance with the laws of warfare, a legitimate option for the
Palestinian people to exercise in their resistance of Israel’s
colonialist project (a point conspicuous by its absence from both
the dominant political discourse and international media coverage
regarding the situation inside the oPt). However, such acts are
undertaken largely on account of there being no effective
alternative, and those Palestinians who engage in direct
confrontation with the occupying power do so in the knowledge that
the price they may pay for such agency is extremely
high.[13] In October and November
2015[14], more than 100 Palestinians have been
killed by the Israeli military or paramilitary police units, with
lethal force having become deployed so commonly that leading human
rights groups have raised concerns that such practices form part of
an Israeli policy of extrajudicial execution.[15] And, yet,
this confrontation continues.
Such resistance is, therefore, indicative of both desperation and
hope; ‘desperation’ insofar as young men and women, feeling
abandoned by the international community and the Palestinian
political leadership[16], continue to engage in forms of
resistance which may result in their own death or maiming, and
‘hope’ insofar as such acts demonstrate an enduring and powerful
collective will on behalf of Palestinians to reject ‘victim’
status, as well as a refusal to accept their exile as a permanent
phenomenon. It is truly remarkable, given the duration of this
exile, as well as the physical separation which exists between the
Oslo generation and their ancestral lands and communities – a
separation now emphatically embodied by eight vertical meters of
concrete and hundreds of miles of tumbling razor wire - that this
attachment remains unbroken.
Nor is this attachment monopolized by Palestinian youth, or
manifested solely in physical confrontation. Even the briefest
period spent inside the oPt will expose the visitor to a broad and
innovative range of grassroots, popular resistance efforts - led
and backed by a broad cross-section of Palestinian society - which
seek to maintain and foster mental links to the homeland; to raise
awareness of the inalienable right of Palestinians to return to
their homes from which they have been forcibly displaced, and to
pursue the realization of this right. Efforts such as these are to
be encouraged, and alternative pathways to a durable solution –
whatever form they may take – must be born of, and driven by, the
Palestinian people. Indeed, the fortitude and innovation required
to develop such pathways have always been resources of great
natural abundance inside the oPt.
However, today, the rich potential of these reserves remains
unrealized. This can be explained to a large degree by the absence
of dynamic, principled leadership at the national level, resulting
in a failure to interweave these separate strands of resistance
into a single thread[17]. At present, Palestine possesses
the requisite components, but lacks the leadership to manufacture
the end product. What is urgently required is the marriage of this
resistance culture with political direction, and the onus must be
on the Palestinian Liberation Organization and the Palestinian
Authority to take the lead on such an undertaking.
Yet, any push for action on the domestic front must operate in
conjunction with a concerted application of pressure on the
international community to fulfill their legal and moral
obligations, and it speaks volumes that Palestinian refugees are
now forced to consider alternative forms of resistance in the
pursuit of a durable solution to their collective, protracted
exile. This is a decision which has been made on their behalf by
the insistence of third party states and other influential,
external actors to support a long-defunct ‘peace’ process rather
than seek to realize, via existing, purpose-built legal frameworks,
those fundamental rights to which Palestinians are entitled.
Ultimately, popular resistance can – and should – play a key role
in the pursuit of a durable solution to the Palestinian refugee
crisis, but fostering of this collective will must be considered as
a supplement, rather than a substitute, to the enforcing of third
party obligations – and the protection of human rights - at the
international level. Failure to do so is to place the burden of a
solution upon the shoulders of the victims themselves, and to
perpetuate the world’s longest-standing refugee crisis and its
associated suffering.
----------------------
*
Simon Reynolds is the Legal Advocacy Coordinator
at the BADIL Resource Center for Palestinian Residency and Refugee
Rights. He has a Bachelor’s degree in Law, and a Master’s degree in
post-war recovery studies.
[1] BADIL (2015). Survey of Palestinian Refugees and Internally Displaced Persons, 2013-2015. Bethlehem, Palestine: BADIL Resource Center for Palestinian Residency and Refugee Rights. Available at: http://www.badil.org/en/publication/survey-of-refugees.html [Accessed February 1, 2016].
[2] See amongst others: International Red Cross Committee. August 12, 1949. Convention (IV) relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War. Geneva. Available at: https://www.icrc.org/ihl/INTRO/380 [Accessed February 2, 2016].International Red Cross Committee. October 18, 1907. Convention (IV) respecting the Laws and Customs of War on Land and its annex: Regulations concerning the Laws and Customs of War on Land. The Hague. Available at: https://www.icrc.org/ihl/INTRO/195 [Accessed February 2, 2016]; UN General Assembly. December 4, 2012. Resolution 67/19:Status of Palestine in the United Nations, UN Doc. A/RES/67/19; UN General Assembly. January 30, 2001. Resolution 55/153 on the Nationality of Natural Persons in Relation to the Succession of States.A/RES/55/153. Available at: http://www.unhcr.org/42bc068d2.pdf [Accessed February 2, 2016]; UN General Assembly. 1974. Resolution 2336; UN General Assembly. July 4, 1967. Resolution 2252 (ES-V):Humanitarian Assistance,UN Doc. A/RES/2252 (ES-V). Available at: http://www.un.org/en/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=A/RES/2252%20(ES-V) [Accessed February 1, 2016]; UN General AssemblyDecember 16, 1966. “International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, A/RES/2200(XXI)[A-C]. Available at: http://www.un-documents.net/icescr.htm [Accessed February 1, 2016]; UN General Assembly. December 21, 1965. International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination. Available at: http://www.ohchr.org/EN/ProfessionalInterest/Pages/CERD.aspx [Accessed February 1, 2016]; UN General Assembly. December 11, 1948.Resolution 194(III): Palestine: Progress Report of the United Nations Mediator, UN Doc. A/RES/194(III). Available at: http://www.un.org/en/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=A/RES/194(III)&Lang=E&Area=RESOLUTION [Accessed February 1, 2016]; UN General Assembly. December 10, 1948. Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Available at: http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/index.shtml#a16 [Accessed February 1, 2016]; UN General Assembly. November 29, 1947. Resolution 181 On the Report of the Ad Hoc Committee on the Palestinian Question. A/RES/181(II). Available at: http://www.un.org/en/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=A/RES/181(II) [Accessed February 1, 2016].
[3] See for example Richard Falk's open letter of February 6, 2016 in response of Ban Ki Moon's statement on January 26, 2016 in the UN Security Council: http://www.middleeasteye.net/columns/open-letter-ban-ki-moon-264475500 [Accessed February 9, 2016].
[4] Abdelrazek, A. (2012). 'Israeli Violation of UN Resolution 194 (III) and Others Pertaining to Palestinian Refugee Property.'Palestine-Israel Journal of Politicsm Economics and Culture.Online. Available at: http://www.pij.org/details.php?id=1220 [Accesssed February 9, 2016]; Hammond, J. R. (2010). 'Rogue State: Israeli Violations of U.N. Security Council Resolutions.'Foreign Policy Journal.Online. Available at: http://www.foreignpolicyjournal.com/2010/01/27/rogue-state-israeli-violations-of-u-n-security-council-resolutions/ [Accessed February 9, 2016]; Rizvi, H. (2009). 'Israel ignores UN Security Council Resolution'. Electronic Intifada.Online. Available at: https://electronicintifada.net/content/israel-ignores-un-security-council-resolution/7950 [Accessed February 9, 2016].
[5]
Declaration of Principles on Interim Self-Government Arrangements
("Oslo Agreement"), September 13, 1993. Available at:
http://www.refworld.org/docid/3de5e96e4.html [accessed
February 9, 2016]; Interim Agreement on the West Bank and on the
Gaza Strip ("Oslo II Agreement"), September 28, 1995. Available at:
http://www.refworld.org/docid/3de5ebbc0.html [Accessed February 9,
2016]; UN Security Council. October 22, 1973. Resolution 338 on a
cease-fire in the Middle-East.S/RES/338.
http://www.un.org/en/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=S/RES/338(1973)
[Accessed February 10, 2016]; UN Security Council. November 22,
1967. Resolution 242 on the Middle East.S/RES/242. Available at:
http://www.un.org/en/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=S/RES/242(1967)
[Accessed February 10, 2016].
The Oslo Accords are often mentioned in the frame of the 'Oslo
process'. This indicates the period in the run to the agreement
between the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and Israel in
1993, the Gaza-Jericho Agreement in 1994 and the second interim
agreement in 1995. This process used to be applauded as a means to
achieve a peace-treaty based on the UN Security Council Resolutions
242 and 338 – a concept that does not cover the subsequent
realities, since Israel never recognized a core prerequisite of the
negotiations, which is the right of the Palestinian people to
self-determination. Palestinian youth that grew up under the
Israeli non-implementation of negotiated provisions and ongoing
compartmentation of the West Bank – that comes with colony
expansion and forced transfer of people as well as denial of the
right of return and other basic human rights – are indicated with
the term "peace process generation" or "Oslo generation".
[6]
One of Israel’s strategic goals with the Oslo Agreements consists
out of the concept of separation: "to free Israel from policing
Palestinian population centers while maintaining settlements in the
West Bank and Gaza Strip – consolidation of the occupation in a
different way."
- Weinberger, P. E. (2006). Co-opting the PLO: A Critical
Reconstruction of the Oslo Accords, 1993-1995. Lanham: Lexington
Books. p. 22.
The interim status of the Agreements serves "to freeze Israel's
post-1967 status quo (occupation, settlements) and to establish
them as defining norms."
- Weinberger, P. E. (2006). Co-opting the PLO: A Critical
Reconstruction of the Oslo Accords, 1993-1995. Lanham: Lexington
Books. p. 22.
[7] http://thecepr.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=115:illegal-israeli-settlements&catid=6:issues-and-briefings&Itemid=34 [Accessed February 10, 2016]; https://www.oxfam.org/sites/www.oxfam.org/files/oxfam-oslo-20-factsheet.pdf
[8] http://thecepr.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=115:illegal-israeli-settlements&catid=6:issues-and-briefings&Itemid=34; https://www.oxfam.org/sites/www.oxfam.org/files/oxfam-oslo-20-factsheet.pdf; https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2014/12/22/map-the-spread-of-israeli-settlements-in-the-west-bank/; https://www.globalpolicy.org/security-council/index-of-countries-on-the-security-council-agenda/israel-palestine-and-the-occupied-territories/land-and-settlement-issues.html
[9] Alqasis, A. and al Azza, N. (2015), Forced Population Transfer: the Case of Palestine. Installment of a Permit Regime, Working Paper No. 18, BADIL Resource Center for Palestinian Residency and Refugee Rights, Palestine, 87p.
[10] Bishara, M. (2015).The Rise of the Oslo Generation.Al-Jazeera.Online. Available at: http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2015/10/rise-oslo-generation-151014053013360.html [Accessed February 10, 2016].
[11] Arab World for Research & Development (2015).Current Protest: An Online Study of Palestinian Youth. Available at: https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/images/palyouth.pdf [Accessed February 10, 2016].
[12] UN General Assembly. November 29, 1974. Resolution 3246 (XXIX) on the importance of the universal realization of the right of peoples to self deteremination and of the speedy granting of independence to colonial countries and peoples for the effective guarantee and observance of human rights.A/RES/3246. Available at: https://unispal.un.org/DPA/DPR/unispal.nsf/1ce874ab1832a53e852570bb006dfaf6/c867ee1dbf29a6e5852568c6006b2f0c?OpenDocument [Accessed February 10, 2016].
[13] Arab World for Research & Development (2015).Current Protest: An Online Study of Palestinian Youth. Available at: https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/images/palyouth.pdf [Accessed February 10, 2016]; http://www.jonathan-cook.net/category/occupied-territories/protests/;
[14] Anadolu Agency, Israel kills more than 100 Palestinians since October, 27 November 2015, http://www.dailysabah.com/world/2015/11/27/israel-kills-more-than-100-palestinians-since-october
[15] https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2015/11/israel-opt-investigate-apparent-extrajudicial-execution-at-hebron-hospital/; https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2015/10/israeli-forces-must-end-pattern-of-unlawful-killings-in-west-bank/; http://mondoweiss.net/2015/10/extrajudicial-killings-palestinians/; http://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2015/12/05/440389/Sweden-Margot-Wallstrom-extrajudicial-executions-Palestinians
[16] BADIL (2015).Survey of Palestinian Refugees and Internally Displaced Persons, 2013-2015. Bethlehem, Palestine: BADIL Resource Center for Palestinian Residency and Refugee Rights. Available at: http://www.badil.org/en/publication/survey-of-refugees.html [Accessed February 1, 2016].
[17]
BADIL (2015).Survey of Palestinian Refugees and Internally
Displaced Persons, 2013-2015. Bethlehem, Palestine: BADIL Resource
Center for Palestinian Residency and Refugee Rights. Available at:
http://www.badil.org/en/publication/survey-of-refugees.html
[Accessed February 1, 2016].