Palestinian pragmatism: what has it achieved?

By Samih Khalaf
If we speak of the pragmatism of the Palestinian experience, the broad headline of that pragmatism is the launch of the Palestinian revolution after the Nakba and its early manifestations in its literature, ideas, premises and principles as a national liberation movement whose basic, foundational pillar was the liberation of Palestine through armed struggle. Thus, when we mention the Palestinian experience we mean the Palestinian national liberation movement Fatah and the subsequent offshoots.

The behavioral shift in the Palestinian experience was a pragmatic one that neglected Fatah’s original charter with its liberation dimension in favor of other choices described as pragmatic — that is, working within the realities and available possibilities and striving to achieve whatever could be achieved, even if only a small part of the Palestinian people’s objectives. Thus the choice became to embody Palestinian identity on any part of Palestinian land through what was called the “interim solution” in 1994. This was accompanied by an internal struggle between the “hawks” and the “doves” within Fatah over the nature and definition of that part. The hawks insisted on establishing a state on any liberated part without demanding recognition of the Zionist state, while the doves adopted a different approach.

For a part of history, albeit brief, the doves prevailed over Fatah’s hawks, and a culture of pragmatism took hold that resulted from several crises faced by the Palestinian liberation movement, beginning with the exit from Jordan, then the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon and the circumstances and justifications of that withdrawal. All of that, in short, led to entering into the Oslo Accords and a limited self-rule that later turned into the tragedy of the death of President Yasser Arafat, then the outbreak of the Second Intifada, and the Israeli leadership’s evasion of Oslo commitments after the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin and his successor Shimon Peres. The Palestinian Authority ended up adhering to the Oslo Accords unilaterally, most importantly security coordination, the Paris Protocol and the economic relationship with the occupying state and its central bank.

The pragmatists within Fatah, who led the Palestine Liberation Organization — recognized as the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people by the Arab League at the Fez conference — justified their approach as a way to prove identity and the right to self-determination, culminating in the declaration of the State of Palestine in Algiers in 1988. In this context Palestinian pragmatism accepted Israel on 78% of historic Palestine, hoping they would obtain a state on the territory that existed before June 5, 1967. Under the Oslo Accords, Israel recognized the PLO as the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people, but it did not recognize their right to self-determination or to an independent state.

The PLO sought through its political choices to embody Palestinian identity by attempting to develop Oslo into a state, but the Israelis knew very well what they wanted and what they were doing, unlike the Palestinian leaders whose struggle stopped at the limits of identity embodiment and the right to self-determination. The PLO’s recognition served as a political cover and an exit for the Arabs to shirk their commitments to the Palestinian cause as a struggle to liberate and resist a colonial-settler imperial Zionist occupation on part of Arab land. Thus the Arab position toward the Palestinians was summarized: “We are with you in all your choices; we helped you when you were a revolution, and we helped you when you chose peace, and we remain with you in international forums and help you develop your authority.” This culminated in the Arab initiative and normalization.

But the core question is: did Palestinian pragmatism and its leadership err or were they correct? Can the choices to embody Palestinian identity and the two-state solution halt the Zionist project? Is a two-state solution in the Palestinians’ interest or in the interest of the other party to the conflict? Current events and what preceded them show that the choices raised were mistakes and deviations from a conscious understanding of Fatah’s doctrine in diagnosing the roots and causes of the conflict. Israel swallowed Jerusalem and the West Bank, occupation of Gaza stands at the door, while we continue to raise the slogan of a Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital, even though 145 states in the General Assembly have recognized a State of Palestine that does not exist on the ground. In contrast, the Zionist project is escalating, with threats by Smotrich, the Israeli finance minister responsible for West Bank affairs, to annihilate the Palestinian people in the West Bank as in Gaza should they protest annexation plans, at a time when settlers are being armed with roughly 170,000 rifles and light weapons.

General Assembly resolutions are non-binding, and Security Council resolutions have not been applied to Israel. Dozens of resolutions in favor of the Palestinian people have been handled pragmatically by the Palestinian leadership and achieved nothing — from the partition resolution to Resolution 194, through international stances and Arab offers of full normalization with Israel if it withdrew from Gaza and the West Bank and recognized a Palestinian state. Yet the Zionist project did not stop. Israel did not and will not set borders for its state because it is an international project led by imperialism and global capitalism, a functional role it has not abandoned, as was evident in the policies of the Trump administration.

The Palestinian Authority gave Israel all the security guarantees it wanted, conceded land in the West Bank, and the Arabs offered all they had in terms of guarantees, investments and full normalization if a Palestinian entity or state were to emerge. Nevertheless, the Zionist project continued to expand, with aims that extended beyond any interim settlement.

Fatah, in its foundational doctrine and not in the hands of its pragmatic deviants, recognized decades ago the nature of the conflict. One of its most important militant doctrines was the liquidation of the Zionist entity institutionally and militarily and the emptying of Zionist theory of its content. The conflict was not against Jews as a religion but against the imperialist capitalist Zionist project in the region, with the aim of establishing a democratic state on Palestinian land.

It is worth noting that many peoples have not obtained a state or the right to self-determination, such as the Kurds — numbering some 80 million — who tried against Iran, Turkey, Iraq and Syria and failed and were absorbed into arrangements within the Sykes-Picot framework. The Irish did not achieve a separate state in the same way and were integrated with Britain, and likewise the Basque Country and Catalonia.

But our problem is that the Zionist project did not and will not stop, even if the Palestinian people gave up everything and even if the Arabs provided all they had in investments and security and economic guarantees. The Zionist project is based on stirring up unrest, exploiting sectarian and minority divisions to keep the Middle East without fixed maps, as Obama said in 2011. This is evident in the Zionist expansion in Syria despite all guarantees, and in Lebanon as well, alongside Netanyahu’s declared dream of a Greater Israel whose map all Arab and world leaders have seen without exception.

Thus, the leadership of the PLO and Fatah relinquished the liberation project in favor of the project of embodying identity and the right to self-determination. But the question remains: did we achieve what we want, or is the solution to return to the root of the conflict and to Fatah’s original doctrine, by stripping the Zionist state of its racist Zionist identity so that it becomes a civil society free of Zionist ideology, in a calm region where all inhabitants of the Middle East live in peace?

If we speak of the pragmatism of the Palestinian experience, the broad headline of that pragmatism is the launch of the Palestinian revolution after the Nakba and its early manifestations in its literature, ideas, premises and principles as a national liberation movement whose basic, foundational pillar was the liberation of Palestine through armed struggle. Thus, when we mention the Palestinian experience we mean the Palestinian national liberation movement Fatah and the subsequent offshoots.

The behavioral shift in the Palestinian experience was a pragmatic one that neglected Fatah’s original charter with its liberation dimension in favor of other choices described as pragmatic — that is, working within the realities and available possibilities and striving to achieve whatever could be achieved, even if only a small part of the Palestinian people’s objectives. Thus the choice became to embody Palestinian identity on any part of Palestinian land through what was called the “interim solution” in 1994. This was accompanied by an internal struggle between the “hawks” and the “doves” within Fatah over the nature and definition of that part. The hawks insisted on establishing a state on any liberated part without demanding recognition of the Zionist state, while the doves adopted a different approach.

For a part of history, albeit brief, the doves prevailed over Fatah’s hawks, and a culture of pragmatism took hold that resulted from several crises faced by the Palestinian liberation movement, beginning with the exit from Jordan, then the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon and the circumstances and justifications of that withdrawal. All of that, in short, led to entering into the Oslo Accords and a limited self-rule that later turned into the tragedy of the death of President Yasser Arafat, then the outbreak of the Second Intifada, and the Israeli leadership’s evasion of Oslo commitments after the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin and his successor Shimon Peres. The Palestinian Authority ended up adhering to the Oslo Accords unilaterally, most importantly security coordination, the Paris Protocol and the economic relationship with the occupying state and its central bank.

The pragmatists within Fatah, who led the Palestine Liberation Organization — recognized as the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people by the Arab League at the Fez conference — justified their approach as a way to prove identity and the right to self-determination, culminating in the declaration of the State of Palestine in Algiers in 1988. In this context Palestinian pragmatism accepted Israel on 78% of historic Palestine, hoping they would obtain a state on the territory that existed before June 5, 1967. Under the Oslo Accords, Israel recognized the PLO as the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people, but it did not recognize their right to self-determination or to an independent state.

The PLO sought through its political choices to embody Palestinian identity by attempting to develop Oslo into a state, but the Israelis knew very well what they wanted and what they were doing, unlike the Palestinian leaders whose struggle stopped at the limits of identity embodiment and the right to self-determination. The PLO’s recognition served as a political cover and an exit for the Arabs to shirk their commitments to the Palestinian cause as a struggle to liberate and resist a colonial-settler imperial Zionist occupation on part of Arab land. Thus the Arab position toward the Palestinians was summarized: “We are with you in all your choices; we helped you when you were a revolution, and we helped you when you chose peace, and we remain with you in international forums and help you develop your authority.” This culminated in the Arab initiative and normalization.

But the core question is: did Palestinian pragmatism and its leadership err or were they correct? Can the choices to embody Palestinian identity and the two-state solution halt the Zionist project? Is a two-state solution in the Palestinians’ interest or in the interest of the other party to the conflict? Current events and what preceded them show that the choices raised were mistakes and deviations from a conscious understanding of Fatah’s doctrine in diagnosing the roots and causes of the conflict. Israel swallowed Jerusalem and the West Bank, occupation of Gaza stands at the door, while we continue to raise the slogan of a Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital, even though 145 states in the General Assembly have recognized a State of Palestine that does not exist on the ground. In contrast, the Zionist project is escalating, with threats by Smotrich, the Israeli finance minister responsible for West Bank affairs, to annihilate the Palestinian people in the West Bank as in Gaza should they protest annexation plans, at a time when settlers are being armed with roughly 170,000 rifles and light weapons.

General Assembly resolutions are non-binding, and Security Council resolutions have not been applied to Israel. Dozens of resolutions in favor of the Palestinian people have been handled pragmatically by the Palestinian leadership and achieved nothing — from the partition resolution to Resolution 194, through international stances and Arab offers of full normalization with Israel if it withdrew from Gaza and the West Bank and recognized a Palestinian state. Yet the Zionist project did not stop. Israel did not and will not set borders for its state because it is an international project led by imperialism and global capitalism, a functional role it has not abandoned, as was evident in the policies of the Trump administration.

The Palestinian Authority gave Israel all the security guarantees it wanted, conceded land in the West Bank, and the Arabs offered all they had in terms of guarantees, investments and full normalization if a Palestinian entity or state were to emerge. Nevertheless, the Zionist project continued to expand, with aims that extended beyond any interim settlement.

Fatah, in its foundational doctrine and not in the hands of its pragmatic deviants, recognized decades ago the nature of the conflict. One of its most important militant doctrines was the liquidation of the Zionist entity institutionally and militarily and the emptying of Zionist theory of its content. The conflict was not against Jews as a religion but against the imperialist capitalist Zionist project in the region, with the aim of establishing a democratic state on Palestinian land.

It is worth noting that many peoples have not obtained a state or the right to self-determination, such as the Kurds — numbering some 80 million — who tried against Iran, Turkey, Iraq and Syria and failed and were absorbed into arrangements within the Sykes-Picot framework. The Irish did not achieve a separate state in the same way and were integrated with Britain, and likewise the Basque Country and Catalonia.

But our problem is that the Zionist project did not and will not stop, even if the Palestinian people gave up everything and even if the Arabs provided all they had in investments and security and economic guarantees. The Zionist project is based on stirring up unrest, exploiting sectarian and minority divisions to keep the Middle East without fixed maps, as Obama said in 2011. This is evident in the Zionist expansion in Syria despite all guarantees, and in Lebanon as well, alongside Netanyahu’s declared dream of a Greater Israel whose map all Arab and world leaders have seen without exception.

Thus, the leadership of the PLO and Fatah relinquished the liberation project in favor of the project of embodying identity and the right to self-determination. But the question remains: did we achieve what we want, or is the solution to return to the root of the conflict and to Fatah’s original doctrine, by stripping the Zionist state of its racist Zionist identity so that it becomes a civil society free of Zionist ideology, in a calm region where all inhabitants of the Middle East live in peace?