Security for Israel, No Security for Palestine

by Dr. Abdul-Sattar Kassem

Russian President Vladimir Putin and his American counterpart Donald Trump agreed to guarantee the security of the Zionist entity at their recent meeting in Helsinki, Finland. The American president reiterated his country’s traditional position guaranteeing the security of the Zionist entity, while the Russian president affirmed his commitment to the 1974 disengagement agreement between Syria and the entity.

In other words, both sides affirmed the Zionists’ security, since the 1974 agreement was, like the rest of the agreements between Arabs and Zionists, a security agreement concerned with Zionist security.

Neither side spoke a word about the security of the Palestinian people, who face brutal attacks by the Zionists every single day. How could they, when this world regards Gaza’s paper kites as “terrorist aircraft,” while F-35 jets are “defensive, humanitarian aircraft”? Such positions only confirm to the Palestinian people that their security is whatever security they build for themselves.

The success of Israeli propaganda. The Zionist entity has succeeded in convincing the world that its security is under threat, because its enemies — the Arabs — surround it on every side, building massive armies and arming themselves to wipe the state off the map. It has likewise convinced the world that the Palestinians are terrorists, continuing their security and military activities against its state with the aim of harming it and destroying it.

Israel has succeeded in convincing the world that it is not the one occupying Palestine, but rather that Palestinian “terrorists” are trying to destroy it — and that it is the only state in the Arab region that embraces democracy and upholds scientific, civilizational, and moral standards.

There were once many states that stood with the Palestinian cause and viewed the Zionists as an aggressive colonial entity, but they no longer do; they have become among the fiercest defenders of Zionist security and of the Zionists’ right to a state that must receive care and protection.

And at the popular level, there are those who see the ongoing conflict as one between depraved terrorists who hate even themselves, and Zionists who embrace humane standards and genuinely apply them on the ground.

Many Arab countries have internalized the idea of Zionist security, and have developed their own special sensors by which they can tell what touches Israeli security and what does not. Many Arabs now know how to assess what harms Zionist security and what does not, and no longer need anyone to ask them to safeguard that security.

In other words, they have become internally conscripted in the service of Zionist security, avoiding any measures or activities that might arouse Israel’s security concerns. This applies as well to certain Palestinians who coordinate security matters with the Zionists.

They know which actions — on the ground, in the media, in education, in upbringing — might not align with the requirements of Israeli security, and so they refrain from them. Tens of thousands of Palestinians have been recruited to coordinate security matters with the Zionists under the agreements signed between Palestinians and Zionists.

No one can absolve themselves of this, because everyone who has joined the Palestinian security apparatuses knows in advance that security coordination exists, and that they may one day be asked to carry out tasks that serve Israeli security.

And at the popular level, many people across the Arab and Palestinian arenas have internalized the importance of Israeli security, developing a heightened sensitivity to what harms Israel’s security and what does not — to the point that the sense of Israeli security’s importance now outweighs the sense of the importance of Arab or Palestinian security.

So, it follows: there is no objection to killing Arabs and Palestinians, since that is “self-defense,” while killing Jews is “terrorism” — and the Zionists have the right to revenge, destruction, and devastation.

Russia and Israel’s security. I explained, in a previous article published on Al Jazeera Net, Russia’s position on Israel’s security and on its military dominance over the region. I repeat here that Russia sees a necessity to accommodate Israeli security requirements, and that Israel’s security constitutes a vital key to establishing peace in the region.

The priority in establishing peace is not the fixed national rights of the Palestinian people, but rather Israel’s security. This is why the people of Palestine and their factions must not gamble on a Russian position in their favor — without this meaning they should stop communicating and engaging in dialogue with the Russians. The Arabs once succeeded in persuading the Soviet Union of their national rights, and it is not beyond them now to struggle to bring about shifts in the Russian position.

The Russian president did not utter a single word about the siege of Gaza or Palestinian rights, and had nothing to offer beyond Syria’s commitment to the disengagement agreement and the return of the Syrian army to the positions it held before the bloody events in Syria.

Nor did the Russian president mention any arrangements agreed upon with the Zionists regarding the Iranian military presence in Syria. There are strong doubts about the Russian position on the Iranian military presence in Syria, and Russia’s silence on the matter only reinforces those doubts.

It is entirely possible that Russia has agreed — at least in part — to Israeli demands concerning Syria, but we do not yet know any details, and everything discussed with Benjamin Netanyahu remains shrouded in secrecy.

It is worth noting that Netanyahu had nothing to say about recent developments other than that Israel’s security remains a priority. Had these recent developments concerning the advance of the Syrian army in Quneitra province actually threatened Zionist security, we would not have found Netanyahu going about his ordinary business as prime minister — we would instead have seen him boarding a plane to Moscow once again.

How many times has Netanyahu visited Moscow, and how many times has Mahmoud Abbas visited Washington? Netanyahu has made a habit of visiting Moscow to persuade the Russians of the Israeli point of view and of Israel’s security requirements. He has been diligent in tending to his state’s interests, always ready to travel in order to secure them.

As for Abbas, he has made more than his share of futile visits to Washington. A visit to Washington is futile because it typically involves orders handed down to the Palestinian Authority, and instructions concerning the safeguarding of Israeli security. And every single time a Palestinian official has been in Washington, we have felt the negative consequences of that visit.

Netanyahu has been careful to cultivate relations with China and India, two great powers whose goodwill matters enormously. Netanyahu achieved vital and important results in Israel’s favor in Beijing and New Delhi — even though both capitals were once friendly to the Palestinian people and supportive of their fixed national rights. But failed leaderships achieve nothing but failure.

So do the Oslo Accords and the agreements that followed them contain instructions concerning foreign relations, or has the Palestinian leadership’s mindset simply absorbed Israeli requirements and internalized them as its own?

On the Arab scene, Arab intelligence services have accomplished something very useful for themselves: a form of mass behavior that has spared them a great deal of the burden of individually pursuing every citizen. They have instilled such terror in the hearts of citizens that each person has effectively become his own intelligence officer, never crossing the red lines he imagines the intelligence services have drawn. And instead of recruiting more informants, the security services have found it enough to rely on the enormous numbers of citizens who have become self-appointed, unsalaried informants.

This is exactly what happened with the Palestinian Authority: it came to know the Zionists’ red lines and wishes, and found nothing objectionable in taking additional measures to affirm its commitment to Zionist requirements and to what is called “good faith.” And its relations with the countries of the world fall squarely within this same category of hesitation and self-restraint.

Source: Originally published in Al Jazeera on 2018-07-29. Translated from the original Arabic, “الأمن لإسرائيل ولا أمن لفلسطين” by Dr. Abdul-Sattar Kassem.