radiofree.asia

Category: Tor Wennesland

  • Culture of Hope: 2022 and the Margins of Victory in Palestine

    Another critical year for Palestine has folded. While 2022 has wrought much of the same in terms of Israeli military occupation and increasing violence, it also introduced new variables to the Palestinian struggle – nationally, regionally and internationally.

    Palestine, the War and the Arabs

    The Russia-Ukraine war starting in February pressured many political entities, including Palestinians, to take sides or, at least, to declare a position. Though the Palestinian Authority (PA) and various Palestinian political parties insisted on their neutrality, Russia’s deviation from the US-led political paradigm in the Middle East opened up new margins for Palestinians to explore.

    On May 4, a delegation of Hamas leaders met Russian officials in Moscow, and, a few months later, PA leader Mahmoud Abbas defied Washington by holding a meeting with Russian President Vladmir Putin in Astana, Kazakhstan. Despite US anger at Abbas, Washington could do little to retaliate against the Palestinian leadership, considering the delicate geopolitical balances in the Middle East and around the world.

    The new political spaces created by global conflict also brought greater cohesion to the Arab position on Palestine, as articulated in a statement by the pan-Arab organization, the Arab League, in Cairo on November 29. Ahmed Aboul Gheit insisted on the Arab quest for a just peace and praised the ‘Algiers Declaration’ of the previous month. On October 12, 14 Palestinian political groups met in Algeria and signed a reconciliation agreement based on ending division through presidential and parliamentary elections.

    This was part of a year-long momentum where Arab governments revitalized their position in support of the Palestinians, both financially and politically through funding the Palestinian refugees agency, UNRWA, or supporting Palestine at the United Nations.

    On October 3, Arab representatives at the UN introduced Resolution A/C 1/77 L.2,  urging Israel to get rid of its nuclear weapons and to put “all its nuclear facilities under comprehensive International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards.” The Resolution was overwhelmingly approved by the United Nations General Assembly on October 28.

    UN: ‘Deadliest Year’

    Though no real action was taken by the UN to punish Israel for its ongoing military occupation and violations of Palestinian rights, several UN initiatives and resolutions continued to demonstrate the centrality of Palestine to the international agenda.

    Last August, the ‘UN Experts’ condemned “Israel’s escalating attacks against Palestinian civil society in the occupied West Bank”, stating that these actions mount to severe suppression of human rights defenders and are illegal and unacceptable”.

    In October, Francesca Albanese, the UN Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights in the Palestinian Territory occupied since 1967, submitted a report to the UNGA, where she concluded that the realization of the inalienable right of the Palestinian people to self-determination requires dismantling the Israeli settler-colonialism and apartheid regime.

    On November 30, the UNGA also adopted a resolution to mark Nakba Day, which commemorates the forced expulsion of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from their lands in 1948.

    Alas, none of these statements altered the violent nature of Israel’s attitude towards Palestinians. On October 29, the UN Mideast envoy, Tor Wennesland, said that 2022 is on course to be the ‘deadliest year’ for Palestinians in the occupied West Bank since the UN started tracking fatalities in 2005.

    Israeli Violence and the Lions’ Den

    Israel has killed over 200 Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and Gaza since the start of 2022, including 47 children. Only a few of them made headlines in mainstream media. However, the world still showed outrage following the cold blood murder of famed Palestinian American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh on May 11, while she was covering the tragic events in Jenin. Widespread calls for an impartial investigation finally convinced the FBI to open a criminal probe into Abu Akleh’s killing.

    The Israeli killing spree was motivated by two reasons: first, the rise of armed resistance in the northern West Bank, and second, Israel’s chaotic political scene.

    Continued Israeli attacks on Jenin, Nablus and other West Bank towns and refugee camps resulted in the formation of a new Palestinian armed group known as the Lions’ Den. Unlike other groups, the Nablus-based movement was non-factional, which created new spaces for national unity among all Palestinians, regardless of their political or ideological backgrounds.

    The Israeli government quickly retaliated against the Lions’ Den. Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz belittled the group’s appeal on October 13, announcing “Eventually, we will lay our hands on the terrorists”, estimating their number to be 30 fighters. “We will work out how to reach them and we will eliminate them,” Gantz said. The Israeli assessment has proven untrue as the brigade continued to grow, morphing into other brigades in Jenin, Al-Khalil (Hebron) and other West Bank regions.

    The killing of Palestinian fighter Oday Tamimi in a clash near the illegal Jewish settlement of Maale Adumim on October 19 further accentuated the boldness of the new Palestinian generation of resisters. Moreover, the televised execution of Ammar Mufleh in the town of Huwara on December 2 also illustrated Israel’s willingness to flout international law to end the ongoing armed rebellion in occupied Palestine.

    The Israeli violence is also directly linked to Tel Aviv’s own political crisis. Though Benjamin Netanyahu was ousted through an unlikely alliance among various Israeli political forces, which was led by former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett in June 2021, Israel’s longest-serving prime minister is slated for a comeback.

    Bennett resigned from his post on June 20, leaving the leadership to his coalition partner, Yair Lapid. New elections, the fifth in three years, were held on November 1. This time around, Netanyahu’s rightwing coalition won by a comfortable margin, introducing to Israel’s already extremist government such notorious personalities as Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir, known for their violent action and rhetoric against Palestinians.

    Though Washington had indicated on November 2 that it will not be working directly with Ben-Gvir, the US Ambassador to Israel, Thomas Nides, seemed to reverse that position by declaring that “no one hurts the unbreakable ties between Israel and the United States.”

    Keeping in mind that the increased violence in the West Bank was a direct result of the militant nature of the Bennet-Lapid government as it labored to demonstrate its toughness against Palestinian Resistance, the new government is expected to be even more violent, setting the stage for a wider confrontation in both the West Bank and Gaza.

    The brief but deadly Israeli war on the besieged Gaza Strip on August 5 resulted in the killing of at least 46 Palestinians and the injuring of at least 360, according to UN estimates. Despite the devastation resulting from the war, it could have been much worse, as not all Palestinian groups took part in the fighting and Israel seemed keen on ending its hostilities before a prolonged conflict resulted in a heavy political price. Netanyahu, too, is likely to resort to war on Gaza, should he need to create a distraction from future political difficulties or to keep his rightwing partners in line.

    Culture of Hope

    Despite the violence of the Israeli occupation and the hardship of isolation and siege, Palestinian culture continued to flourish with Palestinian artists, filmmakers, athletes, intellectuals and teachers continuing to leave their mark on the cultural scene in Palestine, in the Middle East and worldwide.

    In May, Mohammed Hamada, a 20-year-old weightlifter from the Gaza Strip, became the first Palestinian athlete to win gold and bronze medals at the weightlifting world championships held in Heraklion, Greece.

    In September, Palestinian-American systems engineer Nujoud Fahoum Merancy was appointed as one of the leaders of the Artemis missions, a program by NASA that aims to fly astronauts to the Moon.

    Palestinian Resistance and cultural achievements are constantly boosted by growing international solidarity with Palestine. Thanks to the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), the multinational company General Mills  nnounced in June that it is divesting entirely from Israel. This was one of many other achievements credited to the Palestine-led boycott movement, which included other companies, universities and churches.

    However, nothing compares to the endless stream of solidarity exhibited by Arab and international football fans in the Qatar World Cup 2022, which started on November 30. Although the Palestine national football team has not qualified for the world’s most important sports event, the flag of Palestine was the most visible among all other international flags. The iconic Palestinian Kufiyeh was also adorned by thousands of fans including world leaders, dignitaries and celebrities.

    2022 was another year of tragedy and hope for the Palestinians. It is this hope, buoyed by numerous little victories, that makes the struggle for Palestinian freedom possible. One wishes that 2023 will be a better year.

    The post Culture of Hope: 2022 and the Margins of Victory in Palestine first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Moroccans Challenge Normalization with Israel

    Two years ago, Morocco and Israel signed the US-brokered “Joint Declaration”, thus officially recognizing Israel and instating diplomatic ties. Though other Arab countries had already done the same, the Moroccan official recognition of Apartheid Israel was particularly devastating for Palestinians.

    Years ago, a close Moroccan friend told me that the ‘first time’ he was arrested was during a solidarity protest for Palestine in Rabat which took place many years ago.

    The reference to the ‘first time’ indicated that he was arrested again, though mostly for other political activities, suggesting that Palestine, in many ways, has become a local struggle for many Moroccans.

    Whenever Moroccans protest for Palestine, they would do so in large numbers, sometimes in their millions. Such solidarity has historically served as the foundation of regional and global solidarity with the Palestinian struggle.

    Though ordinary Arabs have always considered Palestine a core struggle, the relationship between North Africans and Palestine is, in many ways, unique and rooted.

    Despite a strong push for normalization between Arab countries and Israel, countries like Algeria and Tunisia made it clear that no diplomatic ties between their respective capitals and Israel would be declared anytime soon.

    Credit for this goes mostly to the Algerian and Tunisian peoples who have made their rejection of Israeli racism, and support for Palestinian freedom akin to local or national struggles. Palestinian flags have always accompanied flags of these countries during any large gathering, be it a political protest or a sports event.

    Morocco is no exception. Solidarity with Palestine in this country goes back generations, and hundreds of activists have paid a price for confronting their government on its failure to stand up to Israel or to challenge Washington for its support for Tel Aviv.

    The normalization agreement between Rabat and Tel Aviv in 2020 was falsely assumed to be an end to popular solidarity with Palestine. In fact, such acts of normalization, rightly considered a betrayal by Palestinians, were also meant to be the final delinking of Palestine from its Arab and regional environs.

    However, this was not the case. Normalization with Apartheid Israel is still strongly rejected by the vast majority of Arabs, as opinion polls indicate. Moreover, the pouring of love for Palestine during the Qatar World Cup demonstrated, beyond doubt, that Israel cannot possibly be accepted by Arabs while still an occupying power and a racist apartheid regime.

    The little political gains achieved by the Moroccan government in exchange for sacrificing the rights of Palestinians shall prove irrelevant in coming years. In fact, signs of this are already on display.

    The Moroccan government, led by the Development and Justice Party of Saadeddine Othmani, which had taken part in the normalization efforts, was rejected en masse in the September 2021 elections. Only nine months earlier, Othmani was signing the “Joint Declaration” with Israel’s National Security Advisor, Meir Ben-Shabbat.

    The US recognition of Rabat’s claim over Western Sahara as the political barter between Rabat and Washington, which led to the normalization with Tel Aviv, shall eventually prove meaningless.

    The US and Western superiority is increasingly being challenged throughout the African continent, especially in West and Central African regions. Powerful new players, like Russia and China, are gaining geopolitical ground, in some regions entirely replacing the West’s dominance. Thus, the US support for any country’s territorial ambitions is no longer a guarantor of political gains, especially as the African geopolitical spaces have become greatly contested.

    When Morocco normalized with Israel, many Moroccans were taken by surprise. The assumption was that Morocco, like other Arab nations, was too consumed by their own problems to notice their government’s foreign policy shifts, whether regarding Palestine or anywhere else.

    Whether that was the case or not, it matters little now. On the second anniversary of the “Joint Declaration” agreement, tens of thousands of Moroccans demonstrated against normalization in 30 different cities, including Rabat, Agadir, Tangier and Meknes. The protests were mobilized by the Moroccan Front for Supporting Palestine and Against Normalization.

    The Front is reportedly a network that includes ‘over a dozen political and human rights organizations,’ the New Arabreported. Their chants included: “The people want to bring down normalization”, a slogan that is reminiscent of the pan-Arab popular slogan of a decade ago, ‘The people want to change the regime’. The latter resonated throughout many Arab capitals during the years of political upheaval in 2011 and upward.

    This popular movement and its chants indicate that Palestine remains a local and national struggle in Morocco, as well as other Arab countries.

    But why Morocco, and why now?

    The popular association of the Moroccan and Palestinian flags throughout the World Cup had an invigorating effect on the collective psyche of Moroccans, who were empowered by their national team’s impressive showing against legendary teams such as Belgium, Spain and Portugal. It was a matter of time before this confidence translated to actual solidarity on the streets of Rabat and other major Moroccan cities.

    The fact that Moroccans are mobilizing in large numbers against their country’s normalization with Israel only two years after the agreement is a sign of things to come.

    2022 was a particularly bloody year in Palestine, according to UN Mideast Envoy, Tor Wennesland, who said that it was “on course to be the deadliest year for Palestinians in the West Bank since … 2005.”

    Moroccans, like other Arab nations, are following the news with alarm, especially following the swearing-in of Israel’s new extremist government of Benjamin Netanyahu and his far-right fascist ilk — the likes of Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir.

    These two individuals’ constant targeting of Al-Aqsa Mosque, in particular, has a great emotional impact on Moroccans, especially since Morocco serves as the Chair of the Al-Quds Committee of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, which is tasked with the protection of Al-Aqsa Mosque.

    Israel wants to normalize with the Arabs and tap into their massive markets and economic largesse without having, in return, to relinquish its military Occupation or grant Palestinians basic freedoms. Politically engaged Arab masses understand this well, and are growingly mobilizing against their governments’ betrayal of Palestine.

    The self-serving and limited gains of normalization are likely to turn into a political liability in coming years. It is time for Morocco and others to reconsider their ties with Israel, as they risk political isolation and social instability, a far greater price to pay than the empty promises of Washington and Tel Aviv.

    The post Moroccans Challenge Normalization with Israel first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.