Yesterday marked the 64th anniversary of the Palestinian Nakba of May 1948, when Israel was established and Palestinians experienced the combination of exile and occupation that still defines them today.
The day was marked as usual by a variety of events around the world, from symbolic demonstrations by Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza to protests at Israeli embassies around the world. Such actions do not change the balance of power on the ground. But they do reflect the persistent will of Palestinians everywhere to continue doing the two things that have characterized them individually and collectively since 1948: to affirm their identity and rights as Palestinians, and to keep searching for means to recover their rights and resolve the conflict with Zionism and Israel in a peaceful manner that is anchored in international law and legitimacy.
Events this year suggest that something new and significant is happening in the Palestinian mindset of struggle to end their refugee status and live a normal life in their own country. The persistence of this common Palestinian will is partly a function of numbers, and partly of human nature.
The original refugees who fled or were forcibly expelled from Palestine in 1947-1948 numbered around 750,000 or so. They now number some 5 million people, out of a total Palestinian population of around 8 million. One-third of the refugees, or 1.4 million, live in 58 refugee camps in the Middle East, not far from their original homes, lands, towns and villages in Palestine – now Israel – which is one reason why the Palestine issue does not simply fade away.
“Refugeehood” is a heavy weight that constantly pulls you back to the struggle to regain your normalcy in your ancestral land – as Zionist Jews and Israelis know better than most other people in the world. Palestinians have responded to their refugeehood in various ways, including taking up armed struggle to fight Israel, initiating diplomatic actions bilaterally and at the United Nations, or doing their best to take care of their families and remain steadfast in the face of the multiple adversities they face.
The last two years have shown, however, that Palestinians and their supporters are exploring new forms of resistance and affirmation of their rights. Two in particular are noteworthy: the recent mass hunger strike by Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails, and the continued expansion of the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement around the world. Both of these represent new forms of struggle that challenge Israeli power and policies head-on, using available nonviolent tools in the one arena where Israel’s superior military power and control of Palestinian land can be negated: moral legitimacy.
The Palestinian prisoners strike saw over 1,000 men and women refuse to eat for weeks on end, in some cases for over two months. Such an extraordinary mass protest aims to highlight Israel’s inhuman treatment of Palestinians, especially the use of “administrative detention” that now keeps 308 Palestinians in Israeli prisons, along with thousands of others held on other grounds. Most of them have been held for many months, and about one-third have been held between one and four years, without being informed of the accusations or evidence against them, or being brought to trial.
The hunger-strikers challenge this gross denial of basic human rights by affirming that they are prepared to die rather than experience such treatment for prolonged periods of time. Palestinians around the world and their supporters rallied to the cause of the prisoners, which finally prompted the Israeli authorities to give in to some of the prisoners’ key demands on family visits and solitary confinement.
The BDS movement similarly uses “moral legitimacy” as the instrument with which to challenge Israeli power and practices, especially the many ways in which Israel blatantly ignores international norms on the rights of Palestinians living under its occupation. All three dimensions of Palestinian lives – those who remain in Israel, those living under occupation or siege in the West Bank and Gaza, and those in exile – are impacted by Israel’s policies.
The Palestinian response through the BDS movement has been to highlight the many ways in which Israeli official policies contradict international human rights norms, and to generate a nonviolent but coordinated global response of boycotts, divestment and sanctions that make Israel pay a price for its conduct, similar to the global boycott of South Africa for its Apartheid policies decades ago.
As Palestinian governance institutions continue to flounder, we should expect more such initiatives like the prisoners’ strike and the BDS movement that emanate from Palestinian society and connect with activists around the world. This bypasses the power of the Israeli government and armed forces that had traditionally allowed Israel to maintain the high ground in this 64-year-old conflict, and moves the center of gravity of the battle to the domain of rights and legitimacy, rather than that of tanks and political power.
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