Palestinian Defiance, Part Two

Mustafa Barghouti Interviewed by Éric Hazan

New Left ReviewWhat is your view of Fatah? From the outside it appears an amorphous nebula in which opposite tendencies coexist. The majority seems to stand behind Arafat and the Authority, but other factions carry out suicide bombings, which the pa condemns. It tilted left when the left was strong, and now seems to be tilting right, towards Hamas’s positions, especially on women.

 
Fatah is not a homogeneous movement, it is composed of many elements ranging from the extreme right to—let’s say, to the extreme centre! It used to have a powerful left wing but that was gradually eliminated, especially after the pa was installed in 1993. Since then, Fatah has merged into the Authority, it’s become a government party. That’s the reason for its double discourse, for you cannot be a national liberation movement and an Authority under occupation at the same time. It creates all kinds of insoluble dilemmas. I wouldn’t say Fatah is leaning towards Hamas; it has adopted Hamas’s methods because it felt threatened from that side. Fatah’s popular support has dropped from 60 per cent in 1994 to 24 per cent today; however inaccurate the opinion polls, the trend is clear. With Fatah and the pa seen as collaborating with the Israelis, Hamas could present itself as the only force of resistance. Fatah then found itself under great internal pressure to carry out actions like those of Hamas—yet another wrong turning. On the other hand, both rely on the most traditionalist sectors of Palestinian society. They compete for the same voters. When Fatah denounces women’s quotas and certain democratic reforms, it’s so as not to lose ground among the most conservative layers. For all these reasons, it’s difficult for Fatah to be consistent. Is it a movement of national liberation, or is it negotiating the transformation of Palestine into Israeli bantustans? Do you agree to collaborate with the Occupation, or do you refuse, and so lose your status as the Authority? Fatah has always tried to do both at once, with one very right-wing component bent on negotiating with Israel whatever the cost, and another lot who are seen to be heroes of the armed struggle. This double discourse is untenable.

 
During the present Intifada two mistakes, for which Fatah bears heavy responsibility, have seriously damaged our cause. The first is militarization, the second is this dual language—to condemn suicide attacks, but to carry them out; to condemn Israel’s political moves, but to hold talks with Israel. We have fought to get a formal rejection of Sharon’s plan for a so-called ‘disengagement’ from Gaza from them, since it’s so clearly contrary to Palestine’s interests—another attempt to split us up, to institutionalize a fragmentation, as they want to do with the diaspora Palestinians in Lebanon, Jordan, the Gulf. The pa doesn’t dare reject it, they want to ‘keep that option open’. This is not flexibility, it’s indecision, derived from the need to satisfy so many disparate tendencies, not least in the Arab countries. Behind the slogans, there’s no clear line. This is why Fatah is losing out to Hamas—not because Palestinian society is becoming more fundamentalist.

 
What about Hamas?

 
During the 1980s, Israel encouraged the growth of fundamentalism, especially in Gaza but also in the West Bank, as a way of undermining secular resistance movements. Islamists were free to move around and their charities could operate openly, while we had no official existence. Some groups were even subsidized. By building up Muslim fundamentalism, the Israelis hoped to undermine the plo. The same thing happened in Egypt and other Arab states—a gamble which soon backfired. Hamas, an acronym for ‘Islamic Resistance Movement’, was founded in the spring of 1988. It was an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood, a relatively moderate, traditional movement, unlike many Shi’ite groups for instance; in Egypt and Jordan it formed a fairly mild opposition which did not challenge the nature of the government, as Islamic Jihad did.

 
Hamas became radicalized by the brutality of the Occupation, by the violence used to repress the first Intifada, by the deteriorating economic conditions and the disappearance of hope. But it should nevertheless be included in the democratic process, and invited to participate in elections. As doctors, we know how easily people mix up causes and symptoms. Violence, extremism, fundamentalism and suicide attacks are symptoms. As time goes by, people become ever more despairing and violent, but the causes of it are occupation, oppression and injustice. We shouldn’t exaggerate Hamas’s power. Its support has risen since 1994, but only from 8 to 24 per cent. Hamas chose to boycott the 1996 elections, as did the pflp and Democratic Front, but the turnout was 73 per cent of registered voters. It called for no negotiations, yet 92 per cent of the population backed the Madrid talks. Hamas was opposed to the Oslo accords, as were we, but 63 per cent of Palestinians backed them, in the hope that Israel was finally going to give us something.

 
Are you in contact with them?

 
Of course. We talk to them, try to persuade them to do this, not that. Hamas is much more than a breeding ground for kamikazes. It maintains a highly developed social network, and provides many services in health, housing and education, even if it does exploit them for political ends. But the most salient trend in Palestinian politics over the last decade has been the spectacular rise in those who don’t identify with any existing movement—up from 9 per cent in 1994 to around 45 per cent today. These are people critical of the Authority’s corruption and disorder, their capitulations to Israel, but who reject the fundamentalism of Hamas. This is the constituency that our movement, Al Mubadara, aims to address, with a programme resolute about Palestinian independence but also about democracy.

 
What are the origins of Al Mubadara, the Palestinian National Initiative, and what forces does it mobilize?

 
Its origins lie in the uprising of September 2000, the second Intifada. When it broke out, we were in the streets arguing that this was the Independence Intifada—whereas Hamas called it the Al-Aqsa Intifada. The ppp leadership didn’t understand the importance of this distinction, this affirmation of secularity. Sadly, the Party seemed to have turned into a group of commentators on events, rather than participants. They would criticize this or that, but when you asked them what they would do on the ground, they didn’t know what to say—whereas our line was getting more and more of a hearing. Along with that of Marwan Barghouti, it was our position that had the most impact at that time.

 
So I decided to go ahead, to found an alternative democratic opposition without the Party. I got in touch with Abd al-Shafi, Ibrahim Dakkak and Edward Said, who became a very close friend during his last years. It was obvious that we needed a renaissance of the Palestinian movement, on a footing that the outside world could understand. In October 2000 we published our manifesto: a secular programme for a non-violent, non-militarized Intifada, signed by 10,000 supporters. This was the start of Al Mubadara—the Initiative. It was officially founded in June 2002, at the time of the Israeli re-invasion. Five hundred major figures joined us immediately. At that point, Arafat offered me a ministerial post in his government. He put pressure on the ppp, which in turn pressured me to accept. So in April 2003, I resigned from the Party.

 
Al Mubadara is a democratic coalition, open to the whole range of secular left-wing individuals and groups—unions, the women’s movement, civil-society organizations—though so far we’ve mostly been approached by individuals. We hope to become an umbrella for various movements. We undertake joint actions with the pflp, and would welcome them in a democratic alliance. People from Fatah come to see us too, and even religious individuals who are uncomfortable with fundamentalism because they are democrats. One of our main leaders in Qalqilya used to belong to a religious group. But when recruiting we enforce one uncompromising rule: we will only accept groups that are completely independent, both from Hamas and other fundamentalist movements, and from the Authority. People come along saying they’d like to work with us, but remain within the Authority. That’s not possible. You can’t be part of a democratic opposition and in the government. You have to choose.

 
How would you define Al Mubadara’s strategy?

 
Our aim is to reactivate the popular resistance movement that was extinguished by Oslo. We also need to reconstitute the links between the Occupied Territories and the diaspora. During the Oslo period, many Palestinians outside the country felt betrayed, thinking the Authority had forgotten them. Finally, it’s imperative to establish points of contact with Israelis. We’ve worked with a variety of Israeli groups—Women in Black, Gush Shalom, Yesh Gvul, Ta’ayush—demonstrating against the invasion of Iraq or against the apartheid Wall.

 
Our strategy is to try to link popular struggle against the Occupation with action on the ground designed to help people stay where they are—for if they stay, Israel has failed; whereas if they go, it’s we who are defeated. That is why mobilizing in the community is so important to us, working in health, agriculture and education to assist the local inhabitants. Secondly, we need to rebuild international support and solidarity. This is vital on two counts: for the direct assistance it provides, and also for its support in our struggle against the fundamentalists. They say: ‘We are alone, everyone is against us, all the Jews are against us, Europe is against us.’ This sense of isolation nourishes fundamentalism. I’ve often argued over this with them at meetings, and it puts them in a quandary: how can they be against those foreigners who come to help us break the curfew, who act as human shields to protect us, risking their own lives? In fact, many Hamas members join in demonstrations with us and our international supporters.

 
We don’t call for a boycott, but for sanctions against the state of Israel for having violated the Geneva Conventions and international law. Specifically: suspension of the eu–Israel accords, which Israel has broken by its failure to respect human rights; stopping all military co-operation with Israel, now one of the world’s biggest arms exporters; a halt to investment in Israel; cutting off cultural relations at government level.

 
You stood as the Al Mubadara presidential candidate in the January 2005 elections. But can free elections take place under the current Occupation, with the Israeli army omnipresent, and polling stations banned in East Jerusalem?

 
That’s exactly why the elections are so important: they are an instrument in the non-violent liberation struggle. The Israeli government has always sought to decide who should lead us, what accords we had to accept. The only way to have valid negotiators on the Palestinian side is for them to be regularly elected and accountable to the people, ejectable if they trample on the people’s rights. It’s especially vital now, when Israel is trying to install a new layer of sub-contractors to govern Palestine, a security apparatus staffed by collaborators, ready to defend Israeli interests against their own people.

 
Our campaign encountered huge obstacles: the prejudice of the world’s media in favour of Mahmud Abbas (Abu Mazen), the illegal channelling of the pa’s financial resources and its whole bureaucratic network in support of him, plus the massive endorsement from the Israelis and the Americans who, having made him their candidate, moved heaven and earth to impede our progress. Hamas’s decision to boycott the elections also worked indirectly in favour of Abbas, for the movement’s leaders instructed their militants not to vote for me.

 
As presidential candidate, I was harassed by Israeli soldiers on seven occasions during the campaign, and was twice arrested in Jerusalem to prevent me from speaking. But my greatest shock was to see the attitude of the allegedly ‘professional’ Arab tv stations: they too, under heavy political pressure no doubt, backed the Fatah candidate. All the same, we managed to bring together a solid democratic coalition in support of the Al Mubadara campaign: the pflp, independent unions, workers’ committees, eminent figures of the democratic left such as Abd al-Shafi, moderate Islamists including Abd al-Sattar Qassem and many groupings from Palestinian civil society. Thousands of volunteers came to help, and numerous private donors contributed funds. In the end, we obtained close to 25 per cent of the overall vote, reaching 30 per cent in major cities like Hebron, Nablus and Beit Jala. According to the exit polls, our principal support came from women, young people, graduates, non-pa employees and those most deeply involved in the struggle for Palestinian rights. In a less oppressive atmosphere, we could no doubt have obtained even better results.

 
What sort of solutions to the Palestine–Israel conflict would you envisage?

 
There are two choices. The first is obviously an independent Palestinian state. At a minimum, this would be within the 1967 frontiers—only 23 per cent of historic Palestine—and would have East Jerusalem as its capital. All settlements, without exception, would have to be dismantled. Their occupants could stay if they wished, since we want no more expulsions, but it must be under Palestinian sovereignty. Personally I would see no objection to this state being demilitarized, on condition that there was an international force to protect us. But the borders must comply with international decisions.

 
If Israel sticks to its current policy, if it persists in the attempt to impose a series of bantustans, beginning with Gaza and continuing through the West Bank, if it leaves the apartheid Wall standing, then there is no physical possibility of a genuine state. At that stage, the only other solution would be a single democratic state, in which all citizens are equal. Of course, such a state could no longer be exclusively Jewish, it would have to be both Jewish and Palestinian. It is hard for many in Israel to contemplate that outcome. The Israeli government has sought to trap the Palestinians into a corner of the chessboard where there’s no longer any choice. If we agree on a two-state solution, we are offered bantustans. And if we say that in those conditions, we’d prefer a single, bi-national state, then we are accused of wanting to destroy Israel. But the present us–Israeli policy of forcibly imposing an unjust, Oslo-style solution can only lead to the rise of fundamentalism in the Occupied Territories. If Palestine becomes a bantustanized police state, the outcome will be a disaster—for both peoples.