Need to uphold the national liberation project as counter to the colonial project in Palestine

Author:

Marwan Emil Tubasi

In recent days I received questions from friends and readers about my last article titled “Where is the Palestinian national project heading in confronting the occupation and the settler-colonial replacement schemes?” Specifically, they asked whether there is a contradiction between calling for the declaration of a State of Palestine under occupation according to the Declaration of Independence and calling for the dismantling of the Zionist settler-colonial project on Palestinian land.

I do not see any contradiction; rather, there is complementarity in the national, liberation and political trajectory. The homeland for us is historic Palestine within its entire Mandate borders, and this is an established right that does not lapse with time nor with temporary political settlements that do not provide a just historic solution for the indigenous owners of the land — a solution fundamentally based on the principle of self-determination over the national territory. At the same time, within the current political and existential struggle, the possible and interim solution advanced at the international and regional level is the establishment of an independent, fully sovereign Palestinian state on the borders before June 4, 1967, with East Jerusalem as its capital, while guaranteeing the refugees’ right to return and compensation in accordance with international legitimacy resolutions, specifically UN Resolution 194.

The persistence of the Palestinian national liberation project in the form of the historic right to Palestine, alongside the possible political solution of an independent sovereign state, is the direct opposite of the Zionist settler-colonial project. The Israeli occupation seeks, through its crimes and policies in Gaza — including ethnic cleansing, starvation, extermination and forced displacement — and in the West Bank including Jerusalem — through expansion of settlements, annexation, Judaization and declarations of sovereignty — as well as through racial discrimination and national persecution of our people who remain inside their homeland since the Nakba of 1948, to erase and liquidate the national liberation cause and even to prevent any possibility of an independent Palestinian state. This is practically what is referred to as an attempt to implement a “Greater Israel” plan: a project of complete colonial domination over Palestine within the framework of a “New Middle East,” extending beyond Palestine’s borders into neighboring countries and even as far as Cyprus.

Thus, the battle is not only about Gaza and not only about eradicating Hamas, despite the gravity of the humanitarian crime there, and it is not only about the West Bank and the siege and undermining of the Palestinian Authority and the danger of ongoing annexation policies there and the approach of a formal Israeli sovereignty declaration under a U.S. green light after years of de facto creeping annexation. It is a battle over the Palestinian national liberation project itself: will it remain and continue as the counter-choice to the colonial project, or will it be folded away and will surrender be imposed on us to the “status quo” equation that Israel, the United States and their regional allies and proxies want?

Therefore, the declaration of a “State of Palestine under occupation” is not a retreat from rights, nor the end of the road, nor a substitute for the necessity of dismantling the settler-colonial replacement project. Rather, it is a political step to embody national identity and to claim our political rights by leveraging growing international popular solidarity and increasing instances of recognition of the State of Palestine — even in the symbolic political sense — which requires clear mechanisms to impose sanctions to end the occupation and achieve the realization of an independent state. At the same time, it is a tool to bolster our resilience in confronting the “Greater Israel” project. The two options are not contradictory; they complement each other. Our national project, embodied in Palestinian thought, constitutes the essential counterpoint to their colonial project since the crime of the Balfour Declaration.

Defeating the Zionist settler-colonial project goes beyond Palestinian interest alone; it falls within the context of an unprecedented rise in global public opinion today that exposes this project before the peoples of the world and reveals its danger not only to our Palestinian people but even to Jews themselves, who have been exploited by the racism underlying the idea of the global Zionist movement as a component of the Western colonial project — and even in collaboration with the Nazis in the last century and beyond. This international exposure is of great importance: it increases Israel’s isolation internationally and gives the Palestinian historical narrative moral, legal and political weight on a global scale.

Herein lies the responsibility of all peoples and genuine progressive democratic forces around the world, including Jews who oppose Zionism inside Israel and abroad, whose role is growing, to contribute politically, morally and legally to the dismantling of the Zionist colonial project. Supporting these forces and strengthening their role in exposing and limiting the Zionist project represents a progressive liberatory cause for humanity as a whole, combining the defense of Palestinian national rights with the promotion of justice, equality and freedom worldwide.

We recognize that the path of national liberation is long and complex, but it is not impossible. Combining steadfast adherence to our legitimate, inalienable national rights with the strategic struggle to dismantle the colonial project — in partnership with global democratic forces — is the only way toward a free and democratic Palestine for its people and future generations. It also represents a global model for the liberation of the peoples of the region from all forms of occupation, colonialism, racism and supremacy.

Since its inception in Palestine, the Zionist movement has disregarded UN resolutions and has continually violated them. It has not respected any of the agreements signed by successive governments of the occupying state; it even assassinated its prime minister for signing the Oslo Accords, and it has not heeded any of the supposed international guaranties or sponsorships. Accordingly, the series of crimes — from ethnic cleansing to starvation — is being carried out in broad violation of international charters, even those Israel itself signed, and this is no longer mere rumor or threat.

So what will prevent the occupying colonial state today, given its full partnership in the crime and its political stances toward the world together with the United States, from declaring and implementing policies of annexation, incorporation and imposition of sovereignty? The process has been in effect for years as a creeping reality on the ground without effective prevention, to the point that it has become actual reality, just as its establishment originally came at the expense of our people’s rights and existence in violation of UN Resolution 181 regarding the supposed borders. Therefore, it continues to expand so long as punishment for it as a rogue state above international law is absent, while its claim to be the only democracy in the Middle East and its use of “anti-Semitism” accusations and the “victim of history” narrative as shields has lost some of its luster even among U.S. public opinion and among some American party progressives who now accuse it of committing genocide and have stopped treating it as a “sacred cow.” This opens the door to coming changes tied to international developments, which we will await and to which we will contribute, provided that we bear our full national responsibilities and duties: unity, independent political will, integrated popular, political, diplomatic and legal resistance, and enabling our people to hold fast and confront the colonizers on the ground to protect our democratic national liberation project.