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Demoralization and Absence
by Ramzy Baroud A once profound and widely read commentator recently claimed he no longer writes about the Palestine/Israel conflict because "Palestinians are killing each other."
Feeling his words have ceased to carry weight he simply decided not "to take sides."
Granted, what has transpired in Palestine in recent years is disheartening, demoralising and confusing.
It
is disheartening because a long-victimised nation, subject to an
intense and ongoing colonial project should deploy all its energies in
fighting its enemy's long-term goal of an ethnically cleansed
Palestine, i.e. a Palestine without Palestinians. Infighting is hardly
an appropriate response to colonialism.
It is demoralising
because the Palestinians should inspire a global movement aimed at
sending a clear message to Israel, that racism, colonialism and
apartheid no longer have a place in a world that seeks equality, peace
and harmony. Unfortunately a divided nation cannot present a unifying
leadership, let alone a unified message.
And what is happening
in Palestine is very confusing to many of those who have long sided
with the Palestinian struggle for freedom. It is a struggle that has
been manipulated to suit the aims of different groups, each spurred on
by ideological, religious and other motives. In some places the fight
in Palestine is conducted on behalf of Islam, in others it is to resist
racism. For some, the Palestinian struggle is an aspect of the class
war, and I once read, somewhere, the battle between Israel and the
Palestinians described as a civil war.
Thus is the conflict
between a nation denied its land and basic freedoms and a state with
immense wealth and power distorted, allowing the latter to defy
international law on a daily basis, thanks in part to the backing of
the world's only superpower, the United States. Decontextualised, the
struggle has become the vehicle for spurious meanings that lead to the
misunderstanding of what is in fact transpiring. In some instances it
has led to an over-romanticising of the conflict, which goes part way
to explaining the bewildered response of many who long stood in
solidarity with the Palestinian people.
But the Hamas takeover
of Gaza in June 2006, and the factionalism and bloodshed associated
with it should not have come as a surprise. The conflict in Palestine,
like any other conflict, is rational, and can serve as a classic
example of a regional conflict with international boundaries, allowing
opportunity for analysis that does in fact matter to Americans (the
role of their country in the conflict, and the power of the Israeli
lobby in their midst), the Europeans (who wish to see a truly
independent Europe playing a less injurious role in a region where they
have a vested interest in stability), the United Nations (whose
credibility has been damaged too often by the belligerent US-Israeli
alliance), and others.
Many questions must be asked and
debated. Should solidarity with the people of Palestine wane because
the Palestinians chose a religious group to represent them in
democratic elections, hurting the secular sensibilities of many of
their supporters? Can the Palestinians be held collectively responsible
for the few among them who choose to align their interests with those
of power and capital? Is what Mahmoud Abbas did -- working with the
coloniser to isolate a large segment of his people -- unprecedented?
Has any nation that fought for its freedom actually managed to avoid
the peril of infighting?
One can understand the sense of
demoralisation that has struck many supporters of the Palestinian cause
as events unfolded in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. However, it is
also important to warn that if such demoralisation is caused by the
Palestinians failing to live up to the ideological and religious
expectations of others, then it is perhaps time for those others to
engage in some serious introspection as to why they wished to support
the Palestinian struggle in the first place.
I believe that
there is no choice but to side with that which is just and morally
upright even at the risk of creating ideological inconsistencies or,
dare I say, upsetting religious dogma. The conflict in Palestine
doesn't have to be a straightforward clash between haves and have-nots,
blacks and whites, Muslims and Jews.
The responsibility of
deciphering recent accretions to the seemingly mystifying conflict is
the responsibility of the intellectual who is capable of research,
analysis and articulation. The intellectual is not a cheerleader, nor a
poet, and should, no matter where his sympathies lie, remain capable of
dispassionately approaching the subject at hand.
Over 30 years
ago, Noam Chomsky wrote in the New York Review of Books :
"Intellectuals are in a position to expose the lies of governments, to
analyze actions according to their causes and motives and often hidden
intentions. In the Western world, at least, they have the power that
comes from political liberty, from access to information and freedom of
expression."
No one can claim that the Palestinian question is
easy to understand. It may be a classic colonial case that should not
have been allowed to fester for so long but to grasp an event as recent
as Palestinian infighting requires an examination of various layers of
analyses, local, regional and international. One must ask questions
about causes, motives and hidden intentions. If done properly, this
will show that as disheartening, demoralising and confusing as they may
seem from the outside, recent developments in Palestine were
predictable and are consistent with the history of past national
struggles. If we do not wish to shirk our moral and intellectual
responsibilities we must resist the temptation to make of Palestine an
exception.
Ramzy Baroud is an author
and editor of PalestineChronicle.com. His work has been published in
many newspapers and journals worldwide. His latest book is The Second
Palestinian Intifada: A Chronicle of a People's Struggle (Pluto Press,
London).
Writings 
A once profound and widely read commentator recently claimed he no longer writes about the Palestine/Israel conflict because "Palestinians are killing each other." 
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