Attachment to Occupation

by Dr. Abdul-Sattar Kassem

What I find most striking about the breaking of the makeshift border with Egypt — what sounds the alarm bells and will stain pages of Palestinian and Arab history — is the attachment some Palestinians and Arabs show to the Israeli occupation, and their insistence on clinging to an agreement with Israel, even at the expense of Palestinians. It is astonishing that Palestinians and Arabs would launch an attack on those who broke down the border under the pressure of destitution, sickness, and a crushing, suffocating siege. Some who think well of the Arab regimes had hoped they might do something to rescue Gaza from the siege — only for this historical phase, so aptly described as one of Arab decline, to hand down its verdict upon the people of Gaza instead.

When Israel decided to withdraw from the Gaza Strip and dismantle the settlements, cries rose from the ranks of the Palestinian people against negotiating with Israel over the crossings. Once Israel had decided to withdraw, it should simply have packed its bags and left, and it was the Palestinians’ duty to insist on their full freedom in the Strip and the opening of the border. The Palestinian Authority refused to stay away from the negotiating table and insisted on negotiating over the Rafah crossing. The result was that Israel remained in control of Palestinian movement, in and out, through electronic devices and European monitors, while the Palestinian leadership heralded to its own people a hollow victory of “control” over the crossing.

The negotiation over the crossing was a powerful blow to the Palestinian people and its hopes of expelling the occupation and achieving freedom, and the agreement amounted to a free and generous invitation for the occupation to remain. I was among those who wrote, at the time, that there should be no regret over the occupation, and that Israel should go to hell without a single lifeline from the Palestinians. Now the picture is complete: Mr. Abu Mazen, together with many Arab regimes, is demanding the implementation of the Rafah crossing agreement with Israel — that is, Israel’s return to the crossing, and the return of the keys into its hands. And it seems there is not a single Arab leader, whether Abu Mazen or Mubarak, who ties the implementation of the crossing agreement to Israel’s implementation of Resolution 194 or Resolution 181. If Abu Mazen is so faithful to agreements, why does he not demand fidelity to the international resolutions he himself regards as international legitimacy?

It would come as no surprise if the president of the Authority agreed tomorrow to hand over what the Jews claim is “Joseph’s Tomb” to the Israelis, since the agreements stipulate that the tomb and its dome remain in Israel’s hands. Palestinians offered sacrifices to drive Israeli soldiers out of the religious school surrounding the tomb — will these sacrifices, too, be trampled underfoot?

It is nothing new to me that Arab leaders find in Israel a friend, just as they find friendship in America. But the matter is now blatant, to the point that alliance with Israel against local and regional forces takes open forms, spoken of in the media without fear or shame. And what is striking is that broad sectors of the public support these open orientations toward the occupation, wrapped in national slogans headed by the establishment of an independent Palestinian state. After all these experiences, there remain Palestinians who believe the negotiating table will bring them an independent state, and that Israel will link the Strip to the West Bank with a free corridor in service of that state.

There appears to be a deeply rooted problem: some Palestinians have become attached to the Israeli occupation, and see a necessity in clinging to it. There are Palestinians who see in Israel and America a source of financial comfort and influence, and some who have grown so estranged from the atmosphere of freedom that they find comfort only in an atmosphere of humiliation and disgrace. And, following the Arab habit of seeking strength from the stranger against one’s own kin, some may find in occupation a protective cover. Perhaps the scholars of this nation ought to study, at length, this ugly Arab habit of never letting go of colonialism and welcoming occupation. Why is it that we Arabs show no tolerance for our internal quarrels, while so many of us bow our necks to external enemies?

We used to speak, in the old days, of liberating Palestine inch by inch, and claimed we would celebrate the liberation of any part of Palestine. It now appears that some of us can conceive of liberation only through the occupation, and only with the occupation’s participation, and they view the disengagement of Gaza from Israel as a division of the homeland — a homeland they consider to consist only of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. They say that the unity of the homeland requires Gaza to remain under the occupation’s wing.

I believe we need to come back to our senses. What we are doing now amounts to a moral, national, and human depletion of our citizens, and a further deepening of social fragmentation.

Source: Translated from the original Arabic, “التعلق بالاحتلال” by Dr. Abdul-Sattar Kassem.