عُقد قبل بضعة ايام المؤتمر القومي العربي في بيروت وانتقل إلى دمشق لمقابلة الرئيس بشار الأسد.
هذا المؤتمر هو ما تبقى من الفكر القومي التقدمي بمضمونه التقليدي والذي تجسد في بضعة أنظمة جمهورية في مصر وسوريا والعراق وليبيا والجزائر وجنوب اليمن حيث مثلت مرحلة انتهت عملياً حتى قبل إرهاب الدين السياسي منذ عام 2011 حيث حل محل الفكر والمشروع القومي التقليدي تيار الدين السياسي مما يؤكد بأن الدين السياسي نقيض حتى للقومية بمفهومها التقليدي وتحديداً البرجوازي.
ونظراً لغياب تيار عروبي اشتراكي لا بد من التوضيح والتحذير بأن أطروحات المؤتمر القومي العربي لا تصلح بما هي كما هي لتكون البيان العروبي لجيل هذه المرحلة.
وهنا سأتناول مسألة واحدة يهمني توضيحها.
ففي حديث قبل قرابة أسبوعين للسيد حمدين صباحي الأمين العام لهذا المؤتمر قال بأن “إسرائيل” نظام فصل عنصري” حيث تخيل ان الصراع العربي الصهيوني هو محدد في هذه المسألة. وليس السيد صباحي هو اول من تبنى هذه الرؤية المشوهة للصراع بل إن هناك كثيرين سبقوه.
وهذه النظرة أو الرؤية قائمة على النقل عن تجربة جنوب إفريقيا قبيل تجاوزها لمرحلة سلطة الفصل العنصري. أما ناقلة هذا التصور فهي الحركة التروتسكية بشكل خاص وهي اشبه ما تكون بحركة صهيونية وهذه قامت بدورها بحقن كثير من المثقفين الفلسطينيين والعرب بمصل/فايروس هذا التصوُّر وبالتالي درج وراج كثيراً.
قبل بضعة ايام كان هناك حوار حول الصراع العربي الصهيوني وجرى ذكر حديث السيد صباحي عن أن طبيعة الكيان ومن ثم التناقض على أنه التمييز العنصري وعرضت رأيي في مسألة التمييز العنصري فاقترح علي أحد الأصدقاء أن اكتب رأيي في المسألة في رسالة إلى المؤتمر القومي العربي.
لكنني، أنشر هنا رأيي في المسألة للناس ولتصل بدورها إلى من يرغب من المؤتمر.
وهنا من المهم التوضيح بأن التمييز العنصري والتطهير العرقي تتقاربان حدَّ التوحُّد بمعنى أن التطهير العرقي هو إما مقدمة للتمييز العنصري أو حالة تفاقم للتمييز العنصري تنتقل إلى التطهير العرقي.
وبغض النظر عن كيف يحصل هذا التقاطع، فإن نقاشي تجاه المسألتين هو من مدخل مختلف بمعنى أن المسألة ليست مجرد نظرية أو مساق أكاديمي بل مسألة واقعية يومية إجرائية تطبيقية ومصيرية.
ومن هنا منطقية المقارنة بين حالة جنوب إفريقيا وبين الصراع العربي الصهيوني سواء في التشابه أو، وهذا الأهم، الاختلاف. وهذا يؤكد ضرورة نقد أطروحة المؤرخ الصهيوني الجديد إيلان بابيه في التطهير العرقي ويوجب نقد خطأ السيد صباحي في تبني مسألة التمييز العنصري.
يصف إيلان بابيه حالة شعبنا العربي الفلسطيني بأنه تعرض للتطهير العرقي. نعم لقد أنتج بحثاً مسيَّساً في ثوب “علمي موضوعي” على طريقة مثقفي الأكاديميا الرأسمالية الغربية، وهي أداة لراس المال في مختلف مراحل الاستعمار والإمبريالية والعولمة.
لا شك أنه مؤرخ جيد، وجريىء للكثير من مجريات اقتلاع شعبنا من وطنه، ولكن وصوله إلى الاستنتاج بان ما حصل في فلسطين هو تطهير عرقي، ليس كافياً علمياً، وخبيث سياسياً.
ونقدي على تطهيره العرقي وخبثه التطهُّري يتموضع في طبيعة الصراع بل التناقض نفسه بما هو تناقض تناحري وليس تناقضا عابرا لا في الزمن ولا على الجغرافيا او الحيز. اي أن حل الصراع ليس بالمطالبة الاستجدائية بالعودة لأن العودة الفعلية تشترط التحرير وتتحقق بعده.
على ضوء طبيعة الصراع وجوب شرط التحرير يمكننا الرد على كل من تصغير القضية إلى “تمييز عنصري” و/أو تطهير عرقي ب:
أولاً: لم تُخف الصهيونية ابداً أنها ضد وجودنا في وطننا. ولم تتغير الصهيونية بعد، وفي كل يوم نسمع “حنين” الصهاينة للتخلص من شعبنا خارج وطنه. وهذا الأساس الإيديولوجي السياسي التطبيقي لدى الصهيونية لا يمكن وصفه بالتطهير العرقي، لأن هدفه المعلن اقتلاعنا بالمطلق واغتصاب لكامل الأرض وابعد. وهذا التطهير يمكن أن يشمل فلسطينيي المحتل عام 1948 بمعنى اقتلاعهم وطردهم كما حصل لأكثرية شعبنا عام 1948. أما تلاعب وتسلية الصهيونية بالحديث عن حكم ذاتي ودولتين وسلام، فليس سوى كسباً للوقت حتى يحين الإجهاز الشامل علينا وهذا ما يوفره الحكام العرب اليوم بالتطبيع مسنودا بغيبوبة الشارع العربي.
يمكن لمن لا يرى الموقف بوضوح أن ينظر إلى مشي بن جفير في باحات الأقصى واقواله الواضحة بأن كل الأرض لهم وسيبنوا الهيكل. وهذا الوضوح الصهيوني يجعل إبقائه على بعض الفلسطينيين لديه في المحتل 1948 وممارسة التمييز العنصري ضدهم مثابة موقف “إنساني أو تقدمي”.
ثانياً: يحصل التطهير العرقي عادة في بلد يكون فيه حق للطرفين الغالب والمغلوب، حيث يقوم الغالب كأقوى بإزاحة المغلوب من بعض المكان مغتصباً حقه. بينما في فلسطين لا يوجد سوى حق واحد هو حق شعبنا في وطنه. فالصهيوني ليس شريكا ولذا، من الجريمة سقوط كثير منا في:
· تقاسم الوطن مع العدو ، وهو حتى يرفض التقاسم
· أو الانطواء أذلاء تحت سلطته كما تدعو فرق “الدولة الواحدة” لنخضع للتمييز العنصري مع أنه لن يقبل وإن قبل فإلى حين.
ثالثاً: يحصل التطهير العرقي في فترة زمنية معينة تنتهي إلى شكل من التصالح أو الاستسلام وتطامُن المغلوب مع الغالب أو ادخار القوة لمقاومة ما. بينما في فلسطين نتعرض لطرد ومحاولات إبادة متواصلة من مرحلة لأخرى منذ قرن ولم تتوقف. وهذا نسميه تهشيم الحيِّز بالسيطرة عليه وإعادة تشكيله بشكل مؤقت إلى حين توفر الوقت لإعادة تهشيمه أو تشكيله أكثر لصالح العدو، وهذا ما رأيناه عام 1948 ثم إعادة تشكيل الحيز عام 1967، إضافة إلى إعادة تشكيل الحيز في المحتل 1948 نفسه بتهويد الجليل وتهويد النقب وفي المحتل 1967 في كل مكان بما في ذلك الحرم الإبراهيمي والمسجد الأقصى!
رابعاً: يحصل التطهير العرقي في تدافع ينتهي أو يصل إزاحة الضعيف جغرافيا على يد القوي من مساحة معينة من المكان، ولكن ليس إزاحته التامة المطلقة، بينما في فلسطين يتم اغتصاب العدو كامل الجغرافيا ويواصل قراءة وتجهيز آليات الطرد الجماعي حين يحين الوقت.
حين سُئل “بطل السلام في نظر بعضنا –اسحق رابين” في انتفاضة 1987: فيم تفكر لوقف الانتفاضة؟ قال أن اطرد من الضفة الغربية 600 ألف فلسطيني. فقال له الصحافي: لكن هذا سيمد الصراع لخمين سنة قادمة، فأجاب: حينها على حكام “إسرائيل” أن يتدبروا أمرهم. (كما اذكر كان هذا في مقابلة مع رابين في ملحق جريدة جروزالم بوست 25 آذار 1988) وها قد مضت خمس وثلاثين سنة.
وقد ذكرت في حلقات ما اكتب تحت عنوان سؤال حامض رقم…. 1373أن مخطط الكيان لاحتلال الضفة الغربية كان مكتملا منذ عام 1965، اي ليس احتلالها بسبب حرب 1967(أنظر، دولتهم الواحدة…وماذا لو حصل الانقلاب!، كنعان النشرة الإلكترونية –السنة الثامنة عشر – العدد 4746، 27 نيسان (إبريل) 2018).
خامساً: إن أوضح مثال فعلي والأكثر جرائمية وتخطيطاً وتآمراً في مشروع التطهير العرقي هو العملية المشتركة والمتواطئة بين:
· الراسمالية الإمبريالية الغربية
· وبين قيادات الحركة الصهيونية.
التي أغرت وأدلجت وطردت اليهود من أوطانهم إلى فلسطين ليصبح الكيان كما لو كان شكلاً من “الأمم المتحدة” فهو مكوَّن من مئة قومية مطرودة/وطاردة نفسها إلى فلسطين. وهو تطهير عرقي معولم بمعناه الحقيقي حيث بقي جزء من اليهود في مواطنهم الأصلية بينما تم استجلاب يهود من كل العالم وتم طرد اليهود العرب العراقيين بالقتل والقنابل وبتواطؤ حكام عرب ايضاً. (أنظر كتاب عباس شبلاق الصادر عام 1986 في لندن عن دار الساقي: إغواء صهيوني (The Lure of Zion. . وانظر
Lenni Brenner, Zionism in the Age of the Dictators (1983).
وانظر ايضا ليني برينر:
51 Documents: Zionist Collaboration with the Nazis Paperback – March 16, 2010 by Lenni Brenner (Author
ولعل أوسع أو اشد تطهير عرقي مزدوج ضد اليهود كان في ألمانيا حيث المحرقة النازية من جهة وتواطؤ قياداتهم معها من جهة ثانية، ليس فقط بمذبحة النازية بل ايضا لأن تجمعهم في بافاريا كان واسعاً. أما الاتحاد السوفييتي وخاصة في فترة جورباتشوف ومن ثم يلتسين فقام بأوسع موجة تطهير عرقي متوافقاً مع استجلاب صهيوني حيث رفد الكيان بمليون مستوطن.
وقبل بضع سنوات أعلنت أنجيلا ميركل، مستشارة ألمانيا السابقة حربها على وجودنا باعترافها بدولة يهودية في فلسطين، وهو موقف يتقاطع مع طرد أو إبادة شعبنا، أي يؤكد أن ما يحصل لشعبنا هو أبعد من التطهير العرقي. هذا بدل أن تعتذر عن عدم إعادة اليهود الألمان إلى وطنهم بافاريا.
إذن، إيلان بابيه حينما ينضم، وربما يقود مجموعات من السوقة والعوام والرعاع الفلسطينيين في ما يسمى الدولة الواحدة، فهو عمليا يعتبر الكيان صاحب أرض ومالك أرضاً في فلسطين بل المالك الأكبر. وهنا نجد محمد بن سلمان وقد اقتفى آثار إيلان حين قال بان لليهود الحق في “أرضهم” في فلسطين.
سادساً: وطالما تتم المقارنة إلى درجة التطابق بين الحالة الفلسطينية وحالة جنوب إفريقيا سابقاً، يكفي التذكير بأن حالة جنوب إفريقيا لم ينجم عنها طرداً خارج كامل الجغرافيا، اي ليست فيها حالة لجوء بينما الحال الفلسطينية هي:
· الطرد عام 1948
· الإزاحة منذ 1967 بطرق عدة، القتل بمتعة، مصادرة الأرض/مواصلة تهشيم الحيز، اقتلاع الأشجار الاعتقالات، هدم البيوت…الخ.
· إيصال الفلسطينيين إلى قرار الانزياح الذاتي بسبب سياسات الكيان من اغتصاب الأرض والقتل والتدمير والاعتقال…الخ
من المهم التذكر بأن إيلان بابيه اعتمد على إنجاز المؤرخ العربي الفلسطيني وليد الخالدي فيما يخص النكبة، أي لم يأت بجديد.
علينا أن لا ننسى أن إيلان بابيه ليس مطرودا من الكيان، وهو يعمل في جامعة إكستر-بريطانيا التي تخرجتُ أنا منها وهو في الدائرة العربية والإسلامية التي مولها الشيخ زايد الحاكم السابق للإمارات العربية المتحدة ولا أدري إلى الآن تمولها الإمارات أم لا؟
جرى تهليل وتضخيم كبيرين عن أطروحة إيلان بابيه التطهير العرقي وكتب كثيرون مدائح لها. لم ينتبهوا إلى ألغامها.
بقي أن أُشير إلى أن إيلان بابيه جر وراء أطروحته كثير من المثقفين الفلسطينيين والعرب بحيث يتجاهلوا البعد العروبي للصراع فيعالجونه بين الفلسطينيين والكيان الصهيوني وهذا ايضاً طرح خبيث.
لقد كتبت كثيرا في هذا الأمر ومنها:
✺ ✺ ✺
The Israeli Apartheid in the Context of Oslo accords
Why it is Oslo-Stan and not Bantustan
Presented to the Panel discussion: Apartheid Israel and its misrepresentation in US, Saturday, 21 June 2003 Al-Awda International Convention: Palestinian Right of Return and Self-Determination in a New Colonial World: Strategies and actions, 20 – 22 June 2003, Toronto, Canada
Published again in, Adel Samara Debatable Issues Polemic Critique 2020, منوشرات مركز المشرق العامل للدراسات الثقافية والتنموية.
· الدولة الواحدة … إيلان وبن سلمان في خدمة الصفقة. كنعان النشرة الإلكترونية السنة الثامنة عشر – العدد 4749 الأول من أيّار (مايو) 2018
The Israeli Apartheid in the Context of Oslo accords
Why it is Oslo-Stan and not Bantustan
Dr. Adel Samara
Occupied Palestine
NOTES FOR DISCUSSION
Presented to thePanel discussion: Apartheid Israel and its misrepresentation in US, Saturday, 21 June 2003
Al-Awda International Convention: Palestinian Right of Return and Self-Determination in a New Colonial World:
Strategies and actions, 20 – 22 June 2003, Toronto, Canada
Many comparisons have been drawn between the Dutch, and later, English settler colonialism in South Africa and the Zionist Jewish settler colonization of Palestine. The content of Oslo Accords provides a good material for comparison between the two cases especially the fact that this agreement did not contain a real sovereignty for the West Bank and Gaza Strip (WBG).
There is no doubt that there are some similarities between the two cases since both are settler colonial and white racist projects. These similarities, however, do mean that each of them is similar to the other.
Those who attempt to impose the analogy between the Palestinian autonomous areas (according to Oslo Accords area A) and the Bantustan in South Africa are taking a risky adventure of ignoring the core of the Palestinian issue, the Palestinian refugees.
Aside from few similarities between the Bantustan and Oslostan which include occupation, racism, white settlers and apartheid, there are many differences. Of these differences are:
First: While the Apartheid regime in South Africa did occupy the fertile lands, mines, and other sources of wealth, it did not evict the black people out of the boundaries of South Africa to become refugees. Those who lost there land, are still living in other areas in South Africa itself, in the Bantustans. In the Palestinian case, however, the majority of the Palestinian people live in the Shatat[1].
Second: The question of Palestine and Palestinian refugees was caused by and should be traced back to May 1948 when the Zionist – Jewish settlers evicted the majority of the Palestinian people from their land and homes. An adequate and just solution, therefore, must start from that point of departure. To consider that the solution starts from the 1967 occupation (i.e. the solution of the Oslo Accords), is one of a liquidationist orientation.
Third: The white setter colonialism in South Africa which did not evict the native blacks from their land, gained from the opportunity of having a large pool of cheap labor that they exploited to the maximum and generated huge surpluses that enabled the Apartheid regime to achieve primitive accumulation and to become a developed capitalist country. On the other hand, the Zionist Ashkenazi Entity (ZAE), historically discriminated against Arab labor and farmers and insisted on employing Hebrew labor, i.e. it was more racist than the Apartheid regime in South Africa.
Fourth: While in South Africa, the Apartheid regime stopped the import of immigrants for political and ideological reasons, the ZAE continued the import of new Jewish immigrants. In other words, the ZAE remains a settler-colonial state in an ever expanding mode and continues to intensify the conflict.
Fifth: Since the South African white settlers did not evacuate the country from its black natives, a joint South African social formation emerged in spite despite of the fact that it was stratified into upper white and other lower black strata. Of course there was a petty-bourgeois black class mediating between the two nation/classes. This class gradually expanded into the black bureaucracy and technocracythat share power with the white capitalist class.
The important point here is that the state in South Africa had a single economic system where a new social formation dominated by a capitalist mode of production that articulated with several secondary modes of production, like petty-commodity production, patriarchal, or in general some pre or non-capitalist modes of production.
The Palestinian case is, however, more obvious. It is a case where the settlers (trained, armed and financed by British colonialism) dismantled the social fabric of the Palestinian society since 1948. Accordingly, there wasn’t a chance for the crystallization of a joint Arab-Jewish social formation. Palestinian refugees did not have the opportunity to create a socio-economic system, because they were landless.
Sixth: The case of the WBG and the ZAE is a case of two separated social formations and two separated economies. This fact is not diminished because the WBG economy subjected to the settler colonial one. In this form of relationship, the ZAE regime has created the worst living conditions in the WBG aiming at evicting as many Palestinians as possible to replacing them by extremist colonial settlers. What is interesting in this respect is that the Palestinian case is different from that of the South African Apartheid.
Seventh: The most important issue is that the Bantustan phenomenon is more applicable in the case of the 1948 Palestinians: those who continued to live inside the ZAE itself. They are part of the social formation and the same economic and political system. They obviously endure blatant Israeli discrimination. Most of those Palestinians live in their own towns and villages, while their land had been confiscated by the Jewish settlers. Some of them are employed by Jewish settlers to work as agricultural waged labor on own land or the land of their relatives. Additionally, they suffer discrimination in all spheres of life: social, health, medical and educational.
Eighth: One of the similarities between the case of Palestinians of the WBG and the Zionist settlers on the one hand, and the Bantustan of South Africa on the other, is that the Palestinians are the majority as native blacks, and the Jews are the minority as white settlers. The ZAE, however, continues to pursue its endless attempts to increase the absolute number of the Jewish settlers by accelerating the building of settlements while indirectly pushing the Palestinians to leave through several means.
Ninth: While every white settler colonial regime (the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zeeland , including the former one in South Africa), has its own metropolis, the ZAE has a larger metropolis which is the world capitalist center as a whole. This made a consensus in this center, even to criticize, the ZAE terrorism difficult.
Tenth: During the highest world campaign against the Apartheid of the former South African white regime, the ZAE and Taiwan were the only two states that maintained diplomatic relations with the Bantustans in South Africa, i.e. with Botswana.
So long as we accept the pretend that the case of the WBG is an apartheid one, we in fact fall into two dangerous sins:
- The ignoring of the core of the Arab- Israeli conflict, the Palestinian refugees’ right of return.
- The ignoring of the suffering of the Palestinians inside the ZAE 1948, the 1948 Zionist occupation of Palestine, who are under the real Apartheid rule.
The 1948 Palestinians faced and continue to face the terrorist policies of the ZAE regime. What is interesting that the uprising of Land day (Youm al-Ard) by the Palestinians in 1948 in March 30th 1976 took place at the same year of Soweto Uprising in the former South Africa?
The Lesson of Oslo
– The first Intifada 1987 proved to the Israeli occupation that open borders between the WBG and AZE are impossible as long as there the occupation lasts on the one hand and that the ZAE ignores the right of return on the other. What emphasizes this impossibility was the ‘war of knifes’ and later in Intifada II (2000) suicide operations.
– The ruling class in the ZAE realized that as long as the separation of borders is inevitable, then another design may be possible: achieving political separation and separation of people through building the wall between the two parts of Palestine. The wall is not against economic relationship, although it will regulate it. In the case of economy, the wall is a gate to the WBG and the Arab countries. Here precisely lies the capitalist colonial mentality of the ZAE regime.
The wall
The idea of the wall between the ZAE and WBG is not a new one. The Zionist labor party made several proposals for people’s separation since the early beginning of the occupation. It is a large ghetto which is designed to protect the ZAE from its neighbors.
While the separation according to the 1967 borders is relatively viable for the ZAE, it is not, however, viable for the Jewish settlements which spread all through the WBG. This means that the ZAE needs in addition to the long wall (nearly 600 kilometers) around the ZAE itself other subsidiary walls around its settlements.
In 1996, Avegdor Kahlani (then Minister of Internal Security), renewed the idea of building a wall, but the idea was rejected for political reasons, because separation means a designation of borders for Israel the only state in the world with defined borders. The current separation plan, however, is based on the plan of the previous Minister of police Moshe Shahal which he introduced it to Rabin in 1995. It is summarized as follows: to design routes for ‘goods and accepted persons’, and to move patrols around the borders and to build fences and movable control spots in sensitive areas.
The current plan of building the wall as a result of a joint decision by the coalition government led by Ariel Sharon the Prime Minister from Likud party and Ben-Eli Azar the previous defense Minister from the Labor party.
However, one of the main aims of the wall is to instill into the minds that the Bantustan case here is that of the WBG, while its natural place is the status of the Palestinians in the occupied Palestine 1948. In other words, the attribution of the Bantustan to the WBG is a deliberate decision to ignore the refugees’ issue as a step towards ignoring of the right of return.
The Cantons are Necessary to Accomplish the Wall
While the wall is designed to maintain the integrity of the ZAE, its goal is different for the WBG. For all of the ZAE leaders, the wall never meant a total separation of the WBG. Moreover, the WBG will be broken into several cantons. The aims of imposing these cantons are at least two:
- To destroy the internal integrity of the WBG for good.
- To maintain, as much as possible, the Jewish settlements in the WBG (Some of them might be dismantled).
What interested us in this paper is that the mere idea of cantonizing the WBG means that the Bantustans are in the WBG, not in the occupied part of Palestine 1948. The cantonization is, at the same time, politically/ideologically a defensive as well an offensive plan… It is defensive because it indirectly contains the pretend that the occupied part of Palestine in 1948 is not for discussion and that it is according to the Jewish myth, the “land of Israel”. It is also offensive because it keeps the settlements inside the WBG with the purpose of expanding them for the long run until the eviction all the Palestinians to the Shatat is accomplished.
In fact, the cantonization is neither new nor limited to the politics of the ZAE. It is a policy of the US Empire against the Arab Homeland, as we witness now in Iraq. It is even larger. It is the capitalist center upgraded version of the classic colonial policy of “Divide and Rule” to a new one that is applicable in the era of globalization, the further “concentration of the center and the fragmentation of periphery”[2].
The Insistence of the ZAE on Indirect Eviction
The ZAE policy of evacuating the Palestinian land of its people has always been its ultimate goal although it took different forms in different stages. Briefly speaking, as long as our project is the right of return, their continuous goal is the final eviction of our people.
The ZAE policies in the WBG, i.e. land confiscation, homes destruction, assassination, mass arrest, economic siege…etc, are indirectly aimed at pushing the Palestinians of the WBG out of their land.
A modest estimate of the population of the WBG shows that it amounts to nearly two million Palestinians or more. The indirect eviction serves both of the ZAE goals of weakening the cantons and the final eviction of the Palestinians from the WBG.
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Our Situation is Not Merely Apartheid:
An Explanation to the Arab National Congress
by Dr. Adel Samara
Augus3, 2023
A few days ago, the Arab National Congress was held in Beirut and then moved to Damascus for a meeting with President Bashar al-Assad. This congress represents what remains of the progressive Arab nationalist current and thought with its traditional content, embodied in a few republican systems in Egypt, Syria, Iraq, Libya, Algeria, and southern Yemen. These systems represented a stage that practically ended even before the rise of religious-political terrorism in 2011, which replaced traditional nationalist thought and projects with the current Politicized Religion. This confirms that religious-political ideology is fundamentally contradictory even to nationalism in its traditional understanding, especially bourgeois nationalism.
Due to the absence of a socialist Arab current, there is a need to clarify and warn that the propositions of the Arab National Congress are not suitable as they are to be the Arab statement and program for this stage. Here, I will address one issue that I find important to clarify.
In a speech about a week ago by Mr. Hamdeen Sabahi, the Secretary-General of this congress, he described “Israel” as an apartheid regime. He imagined that the Arab-Israeli conflict is determined by this issue. Mr. Sabahi is not the first to adopt this distorted view of the conflict; there have been many before him. This view or vision is based on comparing the Arab-Israeli conflict to the experience of South Africa before it overcame the apartheid regime. The transmission of this perception was mainly done by the Trotskyist movement, which is somewhat akin to the Zionist movement, as it has injected many Palestinian and Arab intellectuals with this flawed perception, and it has become widespread.
A few days ago, there was a discussion about the Arab-Israeli conflict, and Mr. Sabahi’s statement regarding the nature of the entity and, therefore, the contradiction being apartheid was mentioned. I presented my opinion on the issue of apartheid, and a friend suggested that I write my opinion in a letter to the Arab National Congress.
However, I am publishing my opinion here for the public, and it will reach whoever is interested in the Arab Nationalist Congress.
It is essential to clarify that apartheid and ethnic cleansing converge to the extent that ethnic cleansing is either a prelude to apartheid or an escalation of apartheid leading to ethnic cleansing.
Regardless of how this intersection occurs, my discussion of the two issues is from a different perspective, as the matter is not merely a theoretical or academic course, but rather a realistic, daily, procedural, and decisive issue.
Hence, the logic of comparing previous South Africa and the Arab-Israeli conflict is essential, both in terms of similarities and, more importantly, differences. This emphasizes the need to criticize the proposition of the new Zionist historian, Ilan Pappe, regarding ethnic cleansing, and it necessitates criticizing Mr. Sabahi’s mistake in adopting the issue of apartheid.
Ilan Pappe describes the situation of our Palestinian Arab people as ethnic cleansing. Yes, he has produced a biased study in a “scientific and objective” guise, just like the intellectuals of Western capitalist academia, which has been an instrument for capital in various stages of colonization, imperialism, and globalization.
Undoubtedly, he is a good historian and has been brave in uncovering many of the mechanisms of uprooting our people from their land. However, his conclusion that what happened in Palestine is ethnic cleansing is not scientifically sufficient and is politically malicious.
My criticism of his ethnic cleansing and its maliciousness is situated within the nature of the conflict and the contradiction itself, which is a contradictory, conflicting contradiction, not a transient contradiction, neither in time nor geography or space. In other words, the solution to the conflict does not lie in claiming the right to return, for actual return requires liberation and will occur after that.
Based on the nature of the conflict and the necessity of liberation, we can respond to the attempts to downplay the issue to “racial discrimination” and/or ethnic cleansing:
First: Zionism has never hidden that it is against our existence in our homeland. Zionism has not changed yet, and every day we hear the Zionists’ longing to get rid of our people outside their homeland. This is the ideological and political application of Zionism, which cannot be described as ethnic cleansing because its declared goal is to uproot us completely, seizing the entire land and expelling us far away. This cleansing may include the Palestinians of 1948, meaning their uprooting and expulsion, as happened to the majority of our people in 1948. The Zionist’s manipulation and amusement with talk of autonomy, two states, and peace is nothing more than buying time until the comprehensive attack on us, which the Arab rulers today facilitate with normalization, is supported by the Arab street’s coma.
For those who do not see the situation clearly, they can look at the Zionist minister Ben Jveer’s stroll in the courtyards of Al-Aqsa and his clear statements that the entire land belongs to them and they will build the Temple. This Zionist clarity makes keeping some Palestinians in the 1948 territories and practicing racial discrimination against them a “humanitarian or progressive” stance.
Second: Ethnic cleansing usually occurs in a country where both the dominant and oppressed have rights, and the dominant, as the stronger, displaces the oppressed from some places, robbing them of their rights. However, in Palestine, there is only one right, which is our people’s right to their homeland. The Zionist is not a partner, so from the crime’s perspective, many of us fall into:
· Sharing the homeland with the enemy, who refuses any sharing.
· Or surrendering in humiliation under their authority, as advocated by the “one-state” factions to subject us to racial discrimination, although they will not accept it, and if they do, it will be temporary.
Third: Ethnic cleansing occurs within a specific period that ends with either reconciliation or surrender, and the oppressed reconciles or saves strength to resist what comes next. In Palestine, we have been subjected to continuous expulsion attempts and genocide from one stage to another for a century without stopping. This is what we call the fragmentation of the space by controlling and temporarily reshaping it until there is time to re-fragment or reshape it more in favor of the enemy. This is what we saw in 1948, then the re-fragmentation of the 1948 territories themselves with the Judaization of the Galilee and the Negev, and in 1967, the re-fragmentation of all areas, including the Ibrahimi Mosque and Al-Aqsa Mosque!
When “the champion of peace in the eyes of some of us – Yitzhak Rabin” was asked during the 1987 Intifada, “What are you thinking of doing to stop the Intifada?” He said, “Expelling 600,000 Palestinians from the West Bank.” The journalist then said, “But that will prolong the conflict for another thirty years.” He replied, “Then it is up to the rulers of ‘Israel’ to figure it out.” (As far as I recall, this was in an interview with Rabin in the Jerusalem Post supplement on March 25, 1988).
I mentioned in my articles under the title “Acidic Question No. 1373” that the Zionist entity’s plan to occupy the West Bank was complete in 1965, i.e., before its occupation due to the 1967 war.
Fifth: The clearest and most criminal actual example, of the planning and conspiracy in the ethnic cleansing project is the joint and collusive operation between:
• Western imperial capitalism
• Among the leaders of the Zionist movement.
Which seduced, insinuated, and expelled the Jews from their homelands to Palestine
, so that the Zionist entity would become as if it were a form of the “United
Nations”, as it is composed of a hundred expelled nationalities / and expelled
themselves to Palestine. It is a globalized ethnic cleansing in its true sense,
as part of the Jews remained in their original homes, while Jews were
brought in from all over the world, and Iraqi Jews were expelled by killing
and bombs, and with the complicity of Arab rulers as well.
See :
· Abbas Shiblak The Lure of Zion, Al-Saqi publications 1986 London.
· Lenni Brenner, Zionism in the Age of the Dictators (1983).
· 51 Documents: Zionist Collaboration with the Nazis Paperback – March 16, 2010, by Lenni Brenner (Author)
Perhaps the most extensive or severe double ethnic cleansing against the Jews was in Germany, where the Nazi Holocaust was on the one hand, and their leaders’ complicity with it on the other, not only with the Nazi massacre but also because their gathering in Bavaria was wide. As for the Soviet Union, especially during the period of Gorbachev and then Yeltsin, it carried out the widest wave of ethnic cleansing in line with the Zionist importation, as it supplied the entity with a million settlers.
A few years ago, Angela Merkel, the former Chancellor of Germany, declared war on our existence by recognizing a Jewish state in Palestine, a position that intersects with the expulsion or annihilation of our people, meaning that what is happening to our people is beyond ethnic cleansing. This is instead of apologizing for not repatriating German Jews to Bavaria.
So, when Ilan Pappe joins, and perhaps leads groups of, commoners, and rabble in the so-called one state, he practically considers the Zionist entity as the owner of land in Palestine, but rather the biggest owner. Here we find the Saudi Muhammad bin Salman, who followed in the footsteps of Ilan Pappe when he said that the Jews have the right to their “land” in Palestine.
Sixth: As long as the comparison is made to the degree of congruence between the Palestinian case and the former case of South Africa, it is sufficient to recall that the case of South Africa did not result in expulsion outside the entire geography, that is, it does not have a case of refugees while the Palestinian case is:
• Expulsion in 1948
Displacement since 1967 in many ways, enjoy killings, confiscating land continuing to annihilate and re-annihilate space, uprooting trees, arrests, demolishing homes…etc.
• Bringing the Palestinians to the decision of self-displacement because of the entity’s policies of land usurpation, killing, destruction, arrest…etc
It is important to remember that Illan Pappe’s study of Ethnic cleansing relied on the work of the Palestinian Arab historian Walid Khalidi’s research on the Nakba that is, nothing new.
We must not forget that Ilan Pappe is not expelled from the entity, and he works at the University of Exeter – Britain, from which I graduated, and he is in the Arab and Islamic department funded by Sheikh Zayed, the former ruler of the United Arab Emirates, and I do not know until now whether the UAE funds it or not?
Ilan Pappe’s thesis of ethnic cleansing was widely cheered and exaggerated, and many wrote praises for it. They did not notice her mines.
It remains pointed out that Ilan Pappe drew many Palestinian and Arab intellectuals behind his dissertation so that they ignore the Arab dimension of the conflict and treat it between the Palestinians and the Zionist entity, and this is also a malicious proposition.
I have written a lot about this, including:
Adel Samara, The Israeli Apartheid in the Context of Oslo Accords
Why it is Oslo-Stan and not Bantustan?
Presented to the Panel discussion: Apartheid Israel and its misrepresentation in the US, Saturday, 21 June 2003 Al-Awda International Convention: Palestinian Right of Return and Self-Determination in a New Colonial World: Strategies and actions, 20 – 22 June 2003, Toronto, Canada
Published again in, Adel Samara Debatable Issues Polemic Critique. Published by Al-Mashriq/Al’amel Center for Cultural and Development Studies, 2020,
Adel Samara in Kana’an – The e-Bulletin, no:4749, May 2018.
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ملاحظة من “كنعان”: “كنعان” غير مسؤولة عن الآراء الواردة في المقالات، بل هي تعبر عن رأي أصحابها ومواقفهم … تابع القراءة ….
[1] Shatat is an Arabic term that signifies one’s living outside of his/her homeland. In the context of this paper, shatat is used to indicate Palestinians who were forcefully expelled from their homeland – Palestine as a result of the Zionist occupation of Palestine in 1948 and the years that followed. These Palestinians reside, since 1948, in many Arab and other countries world-wide as Palestinian refugees.
[2] See Adel Samara in Kana’an, no 30, 1991.