“The situation may be more difficult now, but the movement for Palestinian rights is more diverse.”
The situation may be more difficult now, but the movement for Palestinian rights is stronger, larger, more diverse and more deeply committed to justice
The Trump administration’s ideal scenario is for Iran to implode from within under the weight of heavy economic sanctions.” Linda S. Heard
Governments need to act fast to slow down climate change: invest more in clean energy technologies, energy conservation and efficiency.” Nidhal Guessoum
Forty years ago this month I left a tenured teaching position and moved to Washington DC to run the Palestine Human Rights Campaign (PHRC). It wasn’t easy doing Palestine work back then, and Washington was an especially inhospitable city in which to pursue my new vocation. Advocating for Palestinian rights can still be difficult, but so much has changed in the past four decades that I thought it might be useful to reflect on where we were in the 1970s and where we are today.
However, a few principled Christian denominations provided assistance, as did most of the civil rights leaders who had been in Dr Martin Luther King’s circle. Several developments occurring between the late 1970s and the early 1990s contributed to improving our ability to advocate on behalf of Palestinian rights. The first of these were the public releases of two detailed indictments of Israeli torture — the Washington Post’s publication of America’s occupied Jerusalem Consulate cables that documented Israel’s systematic use of torture as a way of forcing prisoners to confess to crimes they did not commit, and the London Times’ exhaustive study of Israeli torture of Palestinian prisoners. In the wake of these shockingly disturbing reports, it became difficult for some human rights leaders to remain silent.
In 1979, there was the ‘Andrew Young Affair’ in which it was revealed that Young, then the US ambassador to the United Nations, had met the Palestine Liberation Organisation’s (PLO) UN representative. In doing so, he had broken the taboo that prohibited US officials from having any contact with the PLO. Young lost his job, but African-Americans were outraged, leading many respected civil rights leaders to trek to Beirut to meet PLO chief Yasser Arafat in a direct challenge to the lunacy of the “no talk policy”. On their return, these same leaders joined our PHRC.
‘Two-state solution’
During the 1980s, many Americans were horrified by Israel’s particularly brutal and senseless bombardment of and occupation of Beirut, and the excessively cruel and violent tactics that Israel used to squash the first Intifada (uprising) — in which stone-throwing Palestinian youths confronted heavily armed Israeli occupation forces. The 1988 Jesse Jackson presidential campaign mobilised Arab-Americans, progressive Jews, African-Americans and peace activists in support of Palestinian rights and a “two-state solution” to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Building on Jackson’s leadership and the growing awareness of the plight of the Palestinians, we were able to pass pro-Palestinian planks in 10 state Democratic Party platforms and have the first-ever floor demonstration and debate on Palestinian rights at the Democratic National Convention.
The Oslo Accords of 1993 contributed to significantly altering the US landscape, changing the scenario from Jews-vs-Arabs to those who supported a just peace versus those who did not. Despite Oslo’s weaknesses, it opened the door to a discussion on Palestinian rights and gave legitimacy to pro-Palestinian advocates who had for long been shunned for their work.
It was these developments from this earlier period that helped shape the political environment in which we are now operating. Contributing to even greater change are several new factors that must be considered. First and foremost is the growing demographic and partisan divide over Israeli behaviour towards Palestinians. Millennials, African-Americans and other “minority” communities have been shocked by the crude and heavy-handed policies of an increasingly hardline and overtly racist Israeli government. Further exacerbating the divide is the way Israel and US President Donald Trump appear to be locked in an embrace. This right-wing pairing has been matched by the alliance that has brought together the growing movement of young progressive Jews, Arab-Americans and African-Americans.
In several significant ways, the Palestinian reality has worsened in recent years, taking a horrific toll on both Palestinian lives and aspirations. While US politicians may now feel comfortable, mouthing support for a “two-state solution”, it is difficult to imagine how such a solution can be implemented. It is even more unlikely that some of the same elected officials who say they support two states would consider taking tough positions to force Israel to end the occupation in order to allow a viable Palestinian state to come into being. Their support for two states, therefore, appears to be hollow.
Nevertheless, I remain more optimistic now than I was 40 years ago. The developments that have occurred have had a profound impact. The situation may be more difficult now, but the movement for Palestinian rights is stronger, larger, more diverse and more deeply committed to justice. There is new energy and new hope that we are turning a corner in our ability to secure justice for Palestinians.