Monthly Archives: May 2012

Name: Arab Spring; POB: Palestine

28 Monday May 2012

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Many Palestinians are alienated by the Arab Spring. After so many years that Palestine was in the heart of the struggle between the Arab Nation and Imperialism, now the plight of the Palestinians seems dangerously out of the Arab and World focus. So, maybe, a new revelation may help to overcome, or at least ease, this alienation: The Arab Spring, like Jesus, Mother Mary, Ghassan Kanafani and Leila Khaled, was born in Palestine.

This is not common knowledge: Everybody will tell you that the Arab Spring started with the Tunisian Revolution, when Muhammad Bouazizi burned himself in Sidi Bouzid on December 17, 2010. But this is a narrow view of things. It is true that the first Arab dictator to fall was Tunisia’s Ben Ali, which fled the country by January 14, 2011. But the revolution is not only victories. If the revolution starts with the breaking of the fear barrier and the emergence of persistent mass demonstrations, undeterred by murderous oppression, then the Arab Spring actually started with the first Palestinian Intifada back in December 9, 1987.

The Palestinians never lacked the courage and the initiative to fight for their freedom. They are unfortunate to encounter a superior enemy: The colonialist fortress state of Israel, which is armed by the newest of imperialist armory to be foremost guarding post against Arab independence. But the hardship of victory doesn’t reduce the importance of the Palestinian revolution as the Vanguard of the Arab Revolution. On the contrary, the prolonged experience of the Palestinian chapter bears many lessons to learn from. This is another reason why it is important to see it in the true perspective – as part of the Arab Spring.

The first stage of the mass struggle, as in the case of the first Palestinian Intifada, is instigated by the unbearable oppression. But, not less important, is the perception that continuing struggle and sacrifices will lead to real achievements. The first intifada was based on the illusion that the independent Palestinian state (at least in the West Bank and Gaza) was “at the distance of a stone’s throw”.

The first stage of the Intifada was mostly peaceful, with mass demonstrations confronting army fortified posts. The logic of peaceful mass confrontation with an occupation army is to put political and moral pressure on the occupiers. After years in which the soldiers replied with live bullets to peaceful demonstrations, the price became unbearable. The Oslo agreement aborted any political pressure that was mounting on the occupiers and gave a breathing space to Israel to avoid even the limited Palestinian goal of an independent state in a small part of Palestine.

So, in another pattern that will be repeated in other scenes of the Arab Spring, the futility of a peaceful mass movement and consecutive massacres led to the Armed Intifada, the second intifada that erupted on September 2000.

This second intifada brought the first victory of the Arab Spring: The unconditional withdrawal of the Israeli occupying army from the Gaza strip in 2005. The Israeli army even took care to destroy all the illegal Zionist settlements in Gaza before its withdrawal. For the first time since the 1948 Nakba, part of Palestine was liberated from Zionism and placed under Palestinian rule.

In a pattern that was repeated later in other countries, this historic, though partial, victory was followed by more-or-less democratic elections. The elections, on January 25, 2006, were won by Hamas, the local branch of the Moslem Brotherhood. For the masses this choice was conceived as a rejection of the Oslo fraud, a vote for resistance to the occupation and for clean government as against the corruption of the Fatah’s previous Palestinian Authority government.

The experience of the last six years since the election of the Hamas government is full of confrontations, both with Israel and between the Palestinian factions, as well as political maneuvering, truces and unity agreements. Whoever thinks that the revolution is like a cheap novel, where everything ended with the elections and they lived happily (or frustrated) ever after, can learn a lot from the Palestinian experience. Any victory of the revolution only sets the stage and the conditions to the next scenes in the struggle.

Now that we know that the revolution in all the other countries is not easy to win, and not easy to carry on after the first victories, it becomes obvious that there are deep similarities between the trajectories of development of the Arab Revolution in all different countries.

The Palestinians were the first to start the Arab Spring, but they were (and are) unable to win by themselves. The Israeli army is built not only (or mainly) to oppress the Palestinians but to keep superiority over any possible challenge to Imperialist Hegemony in the region. The Israeli state strives by providing services to imperialism, for which it expropriates the Palestinian land, and not mainly by exploitation of the Palestinians. Actually, Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians is worse that Apartheid South Africa as its ultimate aim is to uproot and expel them and not merely to exploit them. If all the Palestinians stage a strike it is not much damage to the Israeli economy and may serve its purpose to marginalize them even farther.

The massive support that Israel receives from imperialism, militarily, economically and politically, is serving its patrons well by the huge profits that they (the imperialist states and companies) are gaining from their control of the Arab world. In short, the US pays Israel to beat the Arabs, which on their part pays the US to hold it back. This sort of “protection money” can be collected only so long as the Arabs are ready to pay for it. Breaking this evil chain is one of the main aims of the Arab Spring. The new independence of the Arab political decision, the new voice of the Arab people, will relieve the Palestinians from their hilarious isolation as the forgotten Vanguard of Arab Liberation. It will bring them back to where they wanted to be – as participants in the building of a free, democratic and prosperous Arab future.

Editorial Note: Writing for the Arab Spring

23 Wednesday May 2012

Posted by in Arab Revolution, Editorial Notes

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After almost half a year of blogging, the editor (i.e. me) is not satisfied with the contents of this blog. As stated in the first post, “Free Haifa” was launched as one of millions of flowers of free speech that blossomed with the Arab spring, to utilize the new media to promote discussion of the new movement’s contents and means of struggle. The aim is to form a wide net of activists and organizations that will share their thinking and build together, in all different locations, the foundations for a free pro-people order.

The victory of the Prisoners Hunger strike, though two prisoners are still on strike, give us some breathing space to look around, try to see the big picture, and check whether we are on the right path.

Since the ten days that shook the world in October 1917, the concept of the revolution as a short clash between the forces of evil and the salvation army, and the belief that “they lived happily ever after”, proved to be simplistic illusions. Revolution is not only the toppling of tyrannies; it is also about the building of a new participatory system, as well as a new economy and a new society.

It is not enough to be for the people, to oppose oppression and to promote the cause of the revolution. There is a lot more that should be discussed. So, in this short editorial note, I will, at least, try to list some of the burning issues, hoping that the writer will find some time and do the effort to handle them in-depth over the next period.

  1. The Agenda of the Revolution: The agenda of the tyranny is very simple – take care of the personal interests of the ruling clique. As long as they can keep the people under control and have all the resources of the nation at their disposal, even a lousy tyranny can be pretty successful. The revolution, as it belongs to all the people, should do miracles to find the common ground and work with limited resources to compensate for past deprivation and build a better future. Since we watched “The Battle of Algiers” we know the hardest part of the revolution comes after victory.
  2. Political Participation of the Masses: If the revolution should really serve the masses, they shouldn’t be only the canon-powder of some new political elite that wants to replace the old order. In this sense the maintenance of the revolutionary spirit, and of the revolutionary forms of organization, are not only romantic nostalgia to the heroic days. If the masses will not find the way to continue the revolution – the revolution, and them, will be inevitably betrayed.
  3. The Relationship between the Political Forces: It could be seen much before the revolution started, but now it is clear also to all those that didn’t like to see: Political Islam is emerging from the Arab Spring as the main political force in the region. Still political Islam covers a whole range of positions and tendencies, and the direction of the revolution will be decided by the interplay between all these forces and all the other political forces that took part, wholly or partly, in the revolution: The revolutionary youth, the left, nationalist, liberals, civil society… There is a lot of mistrust and little experience in effective cooperation – but the fate of the revolution is very much dependant on the ability of all parties to form effective coalitions around concrete solution to the problems that are on the agenda of the revolution.
  4. The Economy: At the heart of all political struggles stands the struggle for the division of the goods that are created by Human labor. At the heart of the division between political systems stands the way that the economy is owned and managed. In the long term, a political system that fails to develop the economy is doomed. In the Arab world these basic political equation were distorted for decades by the prominence of the oil production. Oil is a very political economic resource as it is easy to monopolize. As a result the main source of political wealth was not the Human Labor but political sovereignty – and the working masses were marginalized. The main issue on the agenda of the Arab revolution is to convert the economy of the region from depending on the oil “rent” to development of productive forces that depend on and develop the population. The new economic revolution should start in the Arab world while Capitalism is discredited in its imperialist bastions and while Socialist China emerges as the new major economic power. Still the competition between different economic systems today appears not mainly as competition between rival international camps but as an internal struggle within each country.
  5. The Palestinian Cause: The Arab Revolution turned the highlights away from the Palestinian cause that seemed at the heart of Middle East politics for decades. Still Israel, as the relics of the old colonial system, threatens to burn the whole region in a new war. It was an illusion to look at the Palestinian struggle as a local political struggle separated from the struggle against imperialist Hegemony over the Arab World. Now, as this hegemony is collapsing, the Arab Spring creates the conditions for restoration of the Palestinian national rights. It is high time that the solution for “The Question of Palestine” will be part of the agenda of the Arab Spring.

ODS – Does the Revolution Need a Program?

20 Sunday May 2012

Posted by in Arab Revolution, ODS, Palestine

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As the Arab Spring is making heroic (though patchy) progress on all fronts, and so many people sacrifice their freedom and lives to make it win, it is high time to ask what new order this revolution is going to bring.

Or is it?

The revolution reached its highest moments in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Yemen and Syria, when people united in mass struggle to topple the old dictatorships, just because there was no other way to get rid of the tyrants, not because they had any clear concept what future system they want to establish. The actual program of the revolution was the establishment of democracy in the broadest and most abstract way: From now on the people should have the rights to speak and organize and governments should be established by winning elections and toppled by loosing elections.

This “democratic lowest common denominator” formed the widest unity around the revolution, but it also threatens to put aside the interests of the poor popular masses that need social justice not less that freedom of expression. The lack of clarity about the program of the revolution is also a source of constant tension and distrust between different layers of society, it causes feeling of insecurity within ethnic and religious minorities and it opens cracks in the mass movement that the old rulers can try to utilize.

Sometimes the lack of a clear program is a necessity to enable the promotion of real change. Chavez was elected president of Venezuela in 1998, but he didn’t declare his Socialist intentions until after the mass uprising crushed the attempted coup in April 2002. When Erdogan became prime minister of Turkey in 2002 he could advance democratic reform and distance the army from it grip on power only under the umbrella of measures to comply with the requirements of EU membership. But these leaders came to power without a revolutionary mass movement and had to build their popular support base while in power.

In the Arab Revolution, much of the delay in the development of a program may be attributed to the oppression of any from of political life under the police state. It was necessary to create some democratic space before parties could organize and open political discussion could reach the public.

One thing that the Palestinian cause didn’t suffer from was lack of talking about it. Still there is surprisingly little clarity about the proposed solution. Does the Arab Revolution today need to pose a program for the restoration of Palestinian national rights?

Clearly the plight of the Palestinian people, being expelled from their homeland or being subject to harsh colonialist military rule and subject to expropriation and racial discrimination is a crying example of denial of basic National and Human Rights on top of lack of Democracy. Clearly, also, the Palestinian cause is subject to wide support by all the Arab people.

So it is natural that the restoration of Palestinian national rights and the establishment of democracy in Palestine would be a clear part of the broad consensus perspective for the Arab Democratic Revolution.

The necessity of a clear democratic program for Palestine – the so called ODS, One Democratic State – is all the more essential because imperialism (as well as some misled well-wishers in the left) tried over the years to promote the vision, even if not the implementation, of a fake solution to the Palestinian cause: the “Two State Solution”. The “two state solution” doesn’t create the conditions for the return of Palestinian refugees to all the areas from which they were expelled, it leaves more than a million Palestinians to live as second class citizens under Israeli Apartheid and it doesn’t create the conditions for real sovereignty and self determination.

The basic assumption behind the “Two State Solution” was that Israel as a colonialist Jewish state, backed by US and European imperialisms, will remain the dominant local power and that any solution depends on its good will. The Arab Revolution created a new balance of power, a new way of thinking and a new language starting with the words: “The People want”.

The Arab revolution not only lays the standard that undemocratic regimes should be toppled and replaced by democracies; it also creates the conditions for promoting a real democracy in Palestine.

In the case of Palestine, posing the revolutionary democratic program, the ODS, is also a necessity in order to gather and unite the driving forces for democratic change. While the two state solution put the Palestinian refugees on the margins, the ODS puts not only the right of return but the actual return of the refugees at the center of the proposed solution. By promising freedom to everybody ODS is the program for the unity of the Palestinian people in struggle against ethnic cleansing, occupation and all forms of oppression and discrimination.

ODS also allows the Palestinians to speak with Jews in Palestine not through negotiations with the Israeli government but above its head, on a popular level. While making clear that any form of racist rule will never be accepted, it explodes the myth that Israel is defending the Jews in Palestine and put Israeli war mongering and colonization in the right perspective as the main source of danger for everybody.

But there are also strong reasons why this program is hardly mentioned today.

Till now the Arab Revolution concentrated on immediate democratic change in the form of government in each specific state. This type of change didn’t pose it in all-out conflict with the imperialist powers or even local powers. Even where local rulers were long-time servants of imperialism, it (imperialism) recognized the need or inevitability of political change and encouraged the armies to let it happen. Raising the issue of Palestine will threaten the young revolution with gathering enemies and escalating conflicts even before consolidating power.

In Palestine itself the daily necessities of the struggle against Israeli oppression dictates the vital need for wide unity, regardless of political program. 95% of the issues, from resisting settlements, house demolition and land confiscation, through opposing Israeli aggression till support of the prisoners’ right and commemoration of the Nakba – all may be held without much political discussion about solutions.

With all these defensive struggles that are forced on us by Zionist daily aggression – people here need also a perspective and a clear view of the future to build the most important drivers of change: Hope and Self Confidence. Even if it will not be the unified platform of the struggle in the near future, ODS should become a lively part of our thinking and discussions as the simple revolutionary democratic principle that expose and deny all the lies of Zionism and focus our sight on the big prize of a real solution.

More on ODS in Free Haifa

The Victory of the Prisoners’ Strike – First Victory for the Arab Spring in Palestine

15 Tuesday May 2012

Posted by in Arab Revolution, Palestine, Prisoners

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In the Palestinian history there is a huge stock of experience with all forms of struggle and an extraordinary list of sacrifices – but preciously little victories. So it was with some suspicion that people here received the news of the agreement, signed on May 14, at the evening of the 28th day of the mass Hunger Strike, between the Israeli Prison Authorities and the united leadership of the striking Palestinian Prisoners.

But then details of the agreement came out, with decisive achievements on the three main fronts: To limit the usage of Administrative Detention such that most or all the 320 prisoners affected should be released within six months; End the policy of Isolation and bring 18 affected prisoners back to their prisons within 72 hours; Allow families from Gaza to visit their relatives in prison after 6 years of forced separation. More issues concerning the prisoners’ conditions will also be handled.

The way the agreement was concluded is not separated from the issues that were handled. The striking prisoners refused all the way that any other side, prisoners or politicians, will speak in their name. So the agreement was officially signed with the striking leaders. After signing the agreement the strike’s leadership was allowed access to prisoners in the different prisons to discuss with them the details.

This unprecedented victory for the prisoners’ strike is first and foremost the result of the struggle of the prisoners themselves and their readiness to suffer and put their lives in danger in order to gain dignity and Human Rights. But such a victory could not be achieved without the wide solidarity of the Palestinian people, the Arab masses and other solidarity activists around the world. After all, the Israeli authorities proved many times that they don’t give a damn for the lives and suffering of Palestinians in general and the prisoners in particular. What made them make concessions this time is the possibility that a prolonged strike will arouse a third Palestinian Intifada.

The mass campaign of solidarity with the striking prisoners is the first big expression of the Arab spring inside Palestine. It says a lot about the special nature of the Arab spring in this special front in the struggle. First, in Palestine, the main struggle is not against the local Palestinian leadership, however critical you may justly be of its behavior, but against the racist Zionist regime. Here “the people want the liberation of Palestine” – anything less than this is not a revolutionary slogan. Second, in Palestine, there was no political void that the Arab spring may fill – but a sequence of heroic battles. The new wave of struggle begins with connecting to the best of past revolutionary tradition – and nothing represents the revolutionary heritage better than the prisoners’ continuing sacrifices and resistance.

With all the specifics of the Palestinian front, it was the general trends of the Arab Spring that allowed the building of a mass solidarity movement to the level that was reached in the strike. The ability of different groups, mostly the youth, within the parties and in the public, to take the initiative and lead, enabled the spread of the solidarity action in many locations through all types of mass action.

On Sunday 13/5 there was a nice Demo of the Arab students in the Technion, the Technical University of Haifa. Almost 100 students dared to show up, leaving their stressed curriculum and ignoring the institution’s management that prevents any political expression. It was a brave step on their side, taking into account that at the last time the Arab students demonstrated in this place, against the May 2010 massacre on the Marmara, they were attacked by extremist Jewish students and the police, some were beaten, stones were thrown at them and they were arrested. But what made most impression on me, as a veteran of many demonstration, is how those serious types from the Technion are calling for the revolution – not as a slogan but as the proved way to change things…

In the Haifa University, which is usually much more politically lively, the administration refused to license any solidarity activity by the Arab students. On the last day of the strike, Monday 14/5, the students showed their creativity and in a symbolic act, similar to youth activities in Egypt before the mass protest begun, staged a powerful protest by simply standing up for 15 minutes on the university’s lawn. Many signed the “V” with their raised bare hands as a manifestation of defiance.

The new balance of power, as it is slowly but massively changing under the pressure of the action of the Arab masses, also showed up in the struggle of conflicting wills. Egypt, which used to be the main executioner of imperialist policy in the Arab camp, is now slowly tilting the other way. Even the European imperialist that were used to endorse Israeli policy en-bloc now view Israel as a local bully that disturbs their interests, arousing Arab anger by its brutality. As the power of the Arab public opinion and “The Arab Street” should now be taken seriously, Israel’s friends leaned on her to compromise.

Important as the victory in the strike is, the campaign of solidarity with the prisoners is not finished until all prisoners will be free to go home. And the Arab Spring in Palestine confronts the most entrenched regime – based on ethnic cleansing and discrimination, securing the loyalty of the vast majority of Jews by a systematic racist distribution of privilege and armed to its teeth by imperialism in order to be its stronghold against any liberation movement in the whole region.

So we have a lot of organizing to do to build a better base for the next struggles. The oxygen of the mass movement is hope and self confidence. Now they are available not only from the winds of freedom that are storming around us but also from the last experiences of the local struggle.

You can also see this report of Ad-Dameer about the result of the strike.

Blogging from the Prisoners’ Solidarity Tent

11 Friday May 2012

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As the prisoners’ hunger strike goes on, things are getting really serious and dangerous. Thaer Halahleh and Bilal Diab passed their 70th day of strike, and the majority of the 2000 striking prisoners are on their 25th day. Everybody is on his last nerves and rumors about the martyrdom of some prisoner are spreading like fire – fortunately, till now, to be denied shortly later.

So every other important thing is now suspended as the solidarity with the strike takes precedence. And the solidarity campaign is gaining more and more public support here, in the 48-occupied part of Palestine. This weekend there are more than a dozen different public activities: A mass assembly of the Islamic movement in Kfar Kana; Several protest tents hold educational and cultural activities; “El-Rabeta” is calling for protest demos around the country; The young female activists from the communist party club in Nazareth published a list of activities; The Ghassan Kanafani youth are organizing an event in Akko and more and more…

In Haifa we did the first demo in the first week of the strike, and a demo + cultural event the week after. So now people felt we should do more. So this weekend a group of 8 activists started a hunger strike at the “Prisoner’s Square” in the middle of the touristic Arab quarter of the German Colony. Around the concept of the hunger strike we opened a tent, or rather a small tents’ camp. For tomorrow, Saturday 12/5, we plan a marching demo through the main Arab neighborhoods of Abbas and Wadi Nisnas, to arrive at the solidarity tent.

The announcement of the solidarity Hunger Strike aroused public attention and some 100 youth gathered on Thursday night for the spontaneous opening of the tent. This morning (Friday 11/5) the local police and Zionist municipality also showed interest, when a common force of policemen and municipality inspectors appeared at 10:30 in the Prisoner’s Square, started to tear off the slogans and Palestinian flags from the walls, and demanded that the strikers pack and go, threatening to confiscate their personal belongings. In the end there was some compromise, the tents were removed but the Hunger Strikers stayed. As the news of the police attack spread by Facebook and SMS, many of the Haifa public of all ages and occupations showed up and filled the Prisoners’ square.

Now the virtual tent is quite again, waiting for the night activities, and there is no much to do. So this is my chance to blog this post, and maybe another one about the politics of the solidarity campaign, on condition that you read it while in some solidarity tent or on the bus on your way to the next demo.

The Prisoner’s Support Catching Revolutionary Fever

03 Thursday May 2012

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As more than 1300 Palestinian prisoners begun an open hunger strike on April 17, the solidarity movement was in disarray. In the first week it was even hard to get news about the strike. Nobody (at least in the 48-occupied Palestine) prepared for the solidarity campaign. Our attempt to coordinate action between the patriotic and democratic parties in Haifa totally failed.

We had the first proper strike-solidarity demo in Haifa on Sunday, April 22, on Jabal street. The next day it was the Ghassan Kanafani youth that invited us for a demo in Akka. It was typical of the new dynamics – the group was newly formed some weeks ago out of frustration from the position of the establishment parties at the solidarity campaign with (striking prisoner) Hana Shalabi. Now it acted before many big parties and established prisoner’s solidarity networks.

In the second weekend of the strike, the solidarity action started to come thicker. Support tents were built in Tira in the “Triangle” and Shefa’amer in the Galilee. On Saturday there were two demos, in Sakhnin and Arabeh.

But only in the last two days, as the number of prisoners on strike is increasing daily and has already passed 2000, it really feels like the solidarity campaign is gaining steam

Yesterday in Al-Makr, just the first village on the Galilee after Akka, there was a demo that collected many activists from all the area, as well as many locals. It was in a place that is not used to this kind of activities.

Today, Wednesday May 2, we had the second activity in Haifa. As people in Haifa are bored of the almost weekly small demos (there is always something to demonstrate about) – we devise a more varied program. Raising flags and carrying placards and images of the prisoners and shouting slogans was still an important part, but it was followed by reading letters from prisoners, singing songs on the plight of the prisoners and a lecture by a prisoner that was released a few months ago in the latest prisoners’ exchange. Some hundred people attended, which is nice by our modest standards.

The important thing is that the spirit of the Arab Revolution is now driving the solidarity campaign. And I don’t mean support for the Syrian or Egyptian revolution, even though when the singer in the Haifa demo mentioned that we are also in solidarity with the freedom prisoners in Syrian jails most of the public enthusiastically applauded. What I mean is that the gap that was left by the parties and established organizations is now filled by grassroot activists and the youth.

Tomorrow’s demo in front of the Ramleh prison was organized by a collection of independent youth initiatives. And in the next days we will have to make hard choices to which activities we go and which we can skip – as there will be more than one demo every day.

Every group of youth now knows that it can organize and initiate its own activities. The prisoners’ strike is a call of action to everybody, and, with the prisoners’ families, it is the youth activists that are first to take the initiative and the lead. More and more places will see the Palestinian flag raised in this campaign. More groups will be formed, or go from local social activity to patriotic political activity. A new net of connections and coordination is being built through the solidarity action.

The Prisoners are showing the way by their resolve to confront their oppressors and scarify whatever will be required until victory.

Haifa, May 2, 2012