Qalqilya in the Oslo Accord

by Dr. Abdul-Sattar Kassem

Qalqilya groans, and Palestinians fall there at Palestinian hands. Perhaps this will not be the last groan, and more groans are coming, as long as we refuse to stop and hold our heads in our hands. We in the West Bank and the Strip are drained emotionally, morally, materially, nationally, and humanly, turning into people driven by spite, forgetting our own concerns and our aspirations toward freedom and independence. Qalqilya’s blood flows, while Palestine’s politicians stand firm in their positions, leaders and chiefs, believing the future of the generations would collapse if they ever vanished from our sight.

It was not difficult for anyone with even a little sense to predict, in 1993, that the Oslo Accord was the perfect recipe for Palestinian-on-Palestinian fighting, for the ruin of Palestinian homes, the fragmentation of their social fabric, and the destruction of a large part of their moral standards. The tragedy is that the agreement pitted Palestinian against Palestinian, in exchange for something vague that might crystallize in the future. The agreement explicitly stipulated security coordination and the necessity of pursuing “terrorism” and “terrorists.” Then came the Taba Agreement in 1995, laying out the details and binding the authority that emerged from Oslo to many security controls and requirements. External powers and Israel have never stopped pressuring for further security coordination, and further pursuit of “terrorism” and “terrorists” — that is, of those who want to resist Israel in one way or another.

From the very beginning, the view of many was clear and decisive: the Oslo Accord would lead to internal strife, and tomorrow Palestinian blood would flow in the streets at Palestinian hands, should this agreement be adopted. Tomorrow, the Palestinian cause would turn into a Palestinian-Palestinian conflict, and Israel would stand there, happy, feeding this conflict in every possible way. The question at the time was: what could we possibly gain from the Oslo Accord in exchange for sacrificing Palestinian national unity? My own view was that if the price of internal Palestinian fighting was the establishment of a Palestinian state, then I did not want that state, because internal peace matters far more than any state — and if the price of the state was that one Palestinian arrest another in defense of Israeli security, or out of respect for agreements with the Zionist enemy, then I did not want that state either. A state is no fortress for me, while national unity is always the impregnable fortress, and if I am searching for the security of Palestinians, I find it first in their national unity, in their solidarity and their standing as one rank in confronting the various challenges.

We were overtaken by the arrogance of sin. But now, after all these long years since the Oslo Accord, we ought to have learned our lesson, or become ready to reexamine ourselves and dwell at length on the mistakes we have committed. Since 1993 up to now, our internal conditions have been deteriorating, and worse still, the Western foreigner who created Israel has come to control our daily bread, constantly threatening us that this bread will stop unless we comply with his conditions — conditions that are, at their core, compliance with Israeli security requirements — and to justify his own gloom and sadism, he continues telling us we are not doing enough, that we must exert more effort pursuing “terrorists,” and more effort raising people in a way that makes them accept serving Israel’s goals.

From 1993 until now, we have not obtained a single one of our fixed national rights — indeed, the Israeli occupation has turned our lives into further hell, through the measures it imposes on us, squeezing our lives across various fields. And ever since then, we have been preoccupied with bickering, accusations, counter-accusations, and sharp, deadly conflicts.

With every sunrise, our minds grow heavier still, and the stockpile of animosity, hatred, and rancor rises in our chests. Every day there are hateful acts we commit that tear apart our fabric, demolish our morale, fragment our families, and kill within us the spirit of defiance and loyalty. We turn into people driven by spite, casting behind our backs our people’s concerns and our children’s future, squandering everything precious and dear in favor of personal interests and self-serving ambitions that ultimately serve no one but the enemies sitting on our chests. Our internal conditions grow ever more deteriorated, wretched, miserable, and fragmented, and we wander in error beyond which there is no further error, in foolishness beyond which there is no further foolishness.

Enough. We must stop, and this reckless bleeding must stop. The time came long ago for us to return to ourselves, and begin a new journey built on genuine national unity, grounded in a clear charter everyone abides by. And if the Palestinian factions and the Palestinian Authority are incapable of achieving internal calm and peace, they ought to turn to academics, intellectuals, and thinkers to search for a solution to our condition on our behalf.

In the end, we stand above Israel, the country is our country, and the homes are our homes; we stand above Oslo and above every agreement. If our agreement with Israel is going to sweep us away and tear us apart, then let the agreement go to hell, and let Israel go with it. Whether we like it or not, whichever way we turn, we differ over Israel — and if we are searching for unity, let us all turn our backs on Israel together. God’s curse on Israel, morning and evening, at lunch and at dinner, today, tomorrow, and the day after. Every promise of Israel’s lies beneath the foot of a Palestinian girl whose smile fills the earth with the scent of basil, and all of them together are not worth the fingernail clipping of a Palestinian child, trimmed so that his handsome face might breathe in the sweetness of the morning.

Oslo must find its way to the dustbin of history, and we must close painful pages that bring no honor to the history of Palestine.

Dr. Abdul-Sattar Kassem May 31, 2009

Source: Translated from the original Arabic, “قلقيلية في اتفاق أوسلو” by Dr. Abdul-Sattar Kassem.