Freedom or oblivion is the stark choice facing all Palestinians, writes Mazin Qumsiyeh There once was a story about a farmer who went to a judge and complained that he and his family of eight lived in a two-room crowded hovel. The wise judge said, "I will make it nicer for you, but you have to do exactly as I say." Upon agreement, he was told to bring his chickens into the house that night. The next day, complaining about the noise and the smell, he was told to add his two goats. When on the third day he complained about the bedlam he was told to add in a cow. Finally, with the situation out of control the judge told him to take all the animals out, and the farmer came back the next day to tell the judge how pleased he was because he now had so much space and the place was so clean and comfortable! I was thinking about this story (of relativity) this week for three reasons: the Wall Street Journal had an article from an Israeli official explaining how removing checkpoints in the West Bank made the economy boom ( relative to Gaza). We are told that behaving Palestinians are better off than those who cling to hopes and dreams that do not fit with colonial designs; the departure of the 2,500 Fatah delegates and their cars, their families and security details (total, nearly 8,000 people) from the Bethlehem district gave it the appearance of a relative emptiness; and what is the balance between being content with what you have and struggling to achieve a better life (as individuals or populations)? This theory of relativity is rather interesting. The Bethlehem district lost more than 85 per cent of its land to Israeli colonial settlements and the apartheid wall that snakes around us and captures most of our good natural resources, agricultural lands, water and more. More than half of all residents in this shrinking ghetto of Bethlehem are refugees or displaced people. Nearly 35,000 are refugees from the original frenzy of ethnic cleansing that happened between 1947-1949 and their descendants. Another 30,000 represent displaced people who moved in to the remaining shrinking enclave when their lands were stolen by colonial settlements since 1967, or are the security and other Palestine Liberation Organisation people that came to Palestine after the Oslo Accords. At a population density in this area of over 1,300 per square kilometre, this is still better than Gaza (4,000 per square kilometre) but certainly not viable in the long term. Unemployment is at 30 per cent (also better than Gaza). But again one asks about relativity. Indeed we are relatively better off than Gaza, but certainly far worse off than if we had not been subjected to colonial occupation that robbed us of the best lands and water resources and that prevents us from developing economically. Israel's strategy is to prevent any sustainable development for the Palestinians and ensure we are dependent on foreign aid that Israel profits from since we are a captive market under its thumb. Israel gets about 40 per cent of all humanitarian aid to the Palestinians. This week dozens of US congressmen made their obligatory trip to Israel and met with Israeli officials (they also met with Salam Fayyad and Saeb Erekat). Only one took the positive initiative -- and we are grateful -- to meet with Palestinian researchers and tour the apartheid wall from inside the concentration camp. To my knowledge, the rest were not shown maps or facts and figures about what is happening in the occupied territories, let alone a simple tour of refugee camps next to the wall. Thus, they are told of roadmaps and Oslo and the Geneva initiative and countless other things, but not what an average Palestinian (without a VIP card or fancy cars or bodyguards) experiences. We congratulate those elected to the Fatah movement Central Committee and Revolutionary Council (Jewish author Uri Davis being one of them). With so many new members, we can only hope that they will take seriously their responsibility to the movement as a revolutionary movement. It would be nice to see them review the books and bring profiteering elites to task (including some who ended up in the Central Committee), for a revolutionary movement cannot be a movement of positions and privilege, let alone corruption. A good beginning was a decision taken to prevent any member of the decision-making bodies of Fatah from taking positions in the Palestinian Authority as minister, etc, (the only exception being prime minister or president). And those Palestinians in other, smaller factions, or outside of factions, need to get far more involved and energised. Complaining about Fatah should not be a substitute for positive action. I am dismayed sometimes -- like many decent people both within and outside of Fatah -- by those Palestinians and outsiders who do very little for Palestine other than issue statements and analyses and make speeches and complaints. Change is not easy. But relativity also plays a role here as to what we are comparing. The next few months will be very critical and I anticipate a build-up of pressure on the Palestinian leaderships in Gaza and the West Bank, as well as on the international community. By the end of this year, the two-state scenario will be buried for good (the settlements Israel has been building in the past two years finish off contiguity of the West Bank and the population growth exceeding 500,000 colonial settlers attendant to that ensures the impossibility of a sovereign Palestinian state). This fulfils the refined and updated Alon Plan of 1968 that the strengthened and empowered Zionist state has pursued relentlessly. It is articulated well in the statement, "When we have settled the land, all the Arabs will be able to do is run around like drugged roaches in a bottle." Palestinians in leading positions will have to decide if they accept this characterisation or if they will begin the very hard process of mobilising the population for the needed struggle of liberation to roll back the colonial project. The words liberation and revolution should not be just slogans. And if indeed our elected (and unelected) leadership supports popular struggles, like in Bilin and Almasara here in Bethlehem, then they are invited to join and bring all their entourage, relatives and friends. The five senses are all stimulated with tear gas, adrenaline, bullets, concussion grenades, handcuffs, and the smug looks of occupation soldiers. Popular struggle gives new meaning to words and thoughts. In Gaza, Hamas's police battled fanatic and violent Al-Qaeda supporters and in the process killed the leader of this fringe extremist group. Hamas has always indicated acceptance of the borders of 1967 with a long-term truce. Israeli elite leaders would do well to rethink their strategy and reflect on relativity. No Palestinian leader will ever dare accept what Arafat was not willing to accept, no matter how privileged their position becomes. My recommendation is that Palestinians who support two states (I am not one of them) should insist on the borders of the partition resolution, 181, as their opening negotiating positions, not the 1967 artificial border that leaves the natives of Palestine with 22 per cent of their original lands. But negotiations can't be done with an imbalance of power. I believe Palestinians can build their power if and when: their factions work together and resolve petty differences on nonexistent "authorities"; we mobilise and unleash the tremendous energy among our people, instead of frustrating the population with negative talk; and we mobilise the international community for boycotts, divestments and sanctions, and other acts of solidarity, including media work. The choice is liberation or oblivion (there are no guarantees that native people succeed in defeating colonial schemes). It is that stark a choice. Those elites who believe their positions ultimately protect them would do well to remember the fate of those from Saddam Hussein to the officers of the South Lebanon Army. Meanwhile, the people on the street who think they are powerless would do well to remember that no liberation comes from above and that you "can't be neutral on a moving train". The writer is professor of genetics at Bethlehem and Birzeit universities in occupied Palestine. He is currently finishing a book on Palestinian civil resistance from the beginning of the Zionist project until today.
