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Palestine’s Liberation

First Published in BusNet on 24 April 2014

Palestine’s rival powers, Fatah and Hamas, yesterday announced their intention to implement a new deal that will lead to a unity government within 5 weeks and elections within 6 months.

The move, which has had mixed reaction from the political community, could put an end to the seven years of acrimony and deep division between political movements who measure their influence not by the number of seats they have in government but the number of fighters they have on the ground.

Their divisions are geographic as well as ideological. After the untimely death of Yasser Arrafat in 2004, Hamas scored a decisive majority in the 2006 legislative elections. This in turn provoked factional fighting which escalated into Hamas’ seizure of the Gaza Strip in June 2007. Since then the Palestinian territories have been split into Gaza, controlled by Hamas, and The West Bank, controlled by the multi-party Palestine Liberation Organization, dominated by Fatah.

The PLO was founded in 1964 with the purpose of creating an independent State of Palestine, however as we all know "a nation divided against itself cannot stand." Palestine has possibly been the most volatile piece of international real estate of contemporary history since it was tentatively reshaped by the 1949 Lausanne Conference. This also makes it an interesting barometer of evolving political thought.

In its first incarnation, Palestine was a geopolitical entity, carved out of the Ottoman Empire as part of the spoils of World War I. The British sought a League of Nations mandate to legitimise their new control of the region, which they received in 1922, “until such time as [the country] was able to stand alone”.

The British had, in the Hussein-McMahon correspondence, promised to honour Arab Independence as an enticement for them to revolt against the Ottomans, who had controlled the Middle East since the 16th century. This was further complicated by the Balfour Declaration promising support for a Jewish "national home" in Palestine. Yet Britain and France reneged on these promises.

So for the next 29 years, Palestine reflected the prevailing mood of Colonialism, under which vast territories were arbitrarily parcelled up and delivered over to the ruling in-crowd, sanctioned by the United Nations, but riddled with patronism and betrayal.

In the second incarnation of the Palestine Mandate, the area was split into two regions. Transjordan, declared itself an independent state in 1946, and evolved into Jordan as we know it today, the stable and prosperous country which was admitted to the United Nations in 1955.

By contrast, the parcel known as Cisjordan (the near side of the River Jordan), remained a conflicted and contested territory. It was formally proclaimed the Palestinian Authority under the Oslo Accord of 1993, which also enforced the mutual recognition of Israel and the PLO. Yet despite eleven major conventions the Occupied Palistinian Territories remain part of the shifting sands of the 65-year long Israeli-Palestinian peace process.

So between World War II and 2000, when President Clinton fostered a ‘roadmap for peace’ Palestine was locked in its quest for ‘self-determination’. Again this can be viewed as symbolic of the dominant political creed of the time, Nationalism. This ideology, which infused much of the post-war era, is based on the notion that an individual will become attached to his national identity. It was powerful in that it works on one of our most fundamental human motivations: the desire to belong. Yet, as society has evolved, this has turned out to be a blunt instrument, since Nationalism tends to anchor on a single religious, cultural or ethnic identity, retaining the ‘affinity of birth’, while driving out whatever it deems unacceptable, or foreign.

The third and current phase of Palestine’s history tackles one of the most important social issues of our time: the challenge of ‘inclusive politics’. How should states keep a diverse population engaged in the political process despite the breakdown of social bonds between the individual and the community?

It moves us into a far more nuanced world of individual rather than party-political representation. Those countries that have failed to grasp this generational shift will suffer the burden of a ‘disenfranchised youth’ and its potential to flare-up as an ‘Arab Spring’.

Palestine’s proposed new government, to be lead by Mahmoud Abbas, will fall under the umbrella of the Palestine Liberation Organization. It marks a new era of cooperation between Hamas, an Islamic fundamentalist inspired organisation, founded in 1987 during the First Intifada (uprising against Israeli occupation) and the Fatah-dominated Palestinian Authority, which was itself deemed a terrorist organisation until the 1991 Madrid Conference.

Those who view recent events through the prism of Nationalism will argue that Hamas is a terrorist organisation, and that we cannot negotiate with terrorists. However terrorists are typically idealists who fight for the other side, and have run out of weapons in their struggle. This fresh accord gives former terrorists a new weapon, and potentially brings their supporters under the wing of the PLO, where they may be empowered to shape the future of their own territory.

We can reflect on post-feudal politics as a chess satire. First we had the absolute power of Monarchies (King and Queen). As religion gained social force, this formula turned to religious hegemony (King and Bishop). The monarchy was later eclipsed by the organs of state, a collaboration of the church and civil leaders (Bishop and Knight). Nationalism was the era of leaders and territory (Knight and Castle). Now it is the turn of the front row – the little people (Pawns) regrouped by great men (Knights).

On the chessboard, two Knights can demonstrate surprising agility and reach. And so we watch with cautious optimism to see how two Palestinian Knights will unite to defend their Pawns. They may even shape the new direction for inclusive politics.