Media Domination and Degradation of History
By Adel samara
There is no doubt that anyone who might have had rejected, criticized or said that the Palestinian State 194 is a mere virtual, will be terminated by the joyful masses in Ramallah square. Or he could have been pulled smoothly by the secret police and tortured in the Palestinian Authority (PA) prison whose cost was donated by the democratic regime of her majesty the queen of Holland! Or he might face the same fate of the Qatari poet who criticized the very democratic Emir.
In the first day after the recognition of “ virtual Palestinian state” 194, Israeli patrols drive slowly into my village as usual and Israeli government decided to build new 3000 units in the land of state 194.
Production or self –Destruction of State/Space
To understand why and how Palestinian leadership and Arab rulers reached this level of degradation and how masses receive it, calling history is important and beneficial.
Years after Gramsci, Henri Lefebvre, reproduced his theory of hegemony in national scale and wrote: “Sovereignty” implies ‘space’ and what is more it implies a space against which violence, whether latent or overt, is directed – a space established and constituted by violence”
This is always the case of the national state in capitalist Europe were the bourgeois state controls local surplus which was generated under the domination of the capitalist mode of production.
The case of Arab Homeland is different as an area which was subjected to either foreign/colonial destruction of the space and society or a self destruction of both.
Palestine, as a part of Arab Homeland, has been subjected to the colonial destruction of Arab space in three waves:
- Four centuries of Ottoman rule terminates Arab space which was subjugated and even dissolved into the imperial space of the Ottoman Empire on the one hand, and the uprooting of productive sectors and blocking development in Arab occupied Homeland, in the other. This Ottoman colonization blocked self-economic reproduction of the region and prepared it for an easy colonization by the western capitalist powers.
- The western capitalist colonization deepened Arab geographic, economic, political and cultural deconstruction through geographic fragmentation, blocking development, imposing clientele regimes and recruiting many intellectuals as western agents either through their adoption of liberalism or as agents. This experience created a deformed culture within Arab political and cultural elite which are more cosmopolitan and did not believe in local patriotism and Arab nationalism. A development which encouraged them to contribute into internal space and political/state self-deconstruction.
- The western colonization which imposed geographic and political fragmentation into Arab Homeland (1916) as a challenge against Arab nationalism, decided in a secret plan to implant a Jewish state in Palestine (1917). Most of Arab rulers who were imposed and protected by colonialism secretly agreed and some of them overtly recognized the Zionist Ashkenazi Regime (ZAR) in Palestine. In 1994, Palestinian comprador class recognized ZAR over 78% of its own country.
- Through all these prolonged and varied forms of colonialism, most of Arab economies witnessed polices that terminated its productive sectors, i.e. here productive mode of production wasn’t the main motor of “development” in Arab Homeland, but instead the “rental” mode dominated.
Briefly speaking, until today including the current moments of Arab “spring”, Arab Homeland is still under a foreign space destruction led by its motor (mode of production) and reproduced according to the interests of colonial powers. This might be the internal and deep reason that enables us to understand why Arabs recognized ZAR and Palestinians consider a virtual state as a victory. While most of regimes in the world reject the false theorization of a world without sovereignty especially in parallel with and by virtue of multi- polarity (rising of new poles), Arab ruling classes continue to betray their own nation including the Palestinian bourgeoisie. This becomes obvious if we look how the Palestinian Authority “begged” for a virtual state few days after ceasefire which followed the massacre in Gaza.
This step took place during Arab “spring” which was converted by the counter-revolution from mass struggle for democracy to an Arab internal self-destruction on behalf of colonial powers. The examples of Qatari, Saudi, UAE and even Arab League roles in the destruction of Libya and Syria are obvious as a destruction of space (geography), productive sectors and social fabric of these two Arab countries. Moreover, in Libya and Syria there is now internal social deconstruction on tribal and sectarian bases. This Arab situation might not produce better position than the recognition of Israel-ZAR over the Arab Palestine.
Torah or Historical Narrative?
Palestine has been colonized by settler Zionist Jews through waves of immigrants that started since 1860s and did not stop even after a wave of one million Soviet Jewish settlers in the 1990s. The prolonged and continued occupation of Palestine started and was supported by ruling classes in core capitalist countries especially British and currently that of the US.
If PA has declared its recognition of ZAR to the entire world, “donated” 78 percent of its homeland to the Zionist state, and is ready, furthermore, to compromise parts of what remains from Palestine, why would ZAR and US imperialism reject the recognition of a virtual Palestinian state?
The real reason is that both, US and ZAR , have a joint interest in Arab Homeland and that they are still able to resist and protect their interests, i.e. they are not defeated yet.
But there are two additional reasons:
The first is that the core capitalist politics and culture accept the Torah myth/narrative of God’s promise of the Hebrew tribe to conquer Palestine (The Land of Kan’an) and the Zionist political myth/narrative of a continuum of Hebrew people from 3000 years until today. This is not the place to argue how God might fall into the crime to promise a people to slaughter another, and to conquer its land without substituting the Palestinian people with another place.
The point here is that the “very” civilized and scientifically thinking West falls, only in the case of Palestine, into the trap of accepting myth narratives, the Torah one, at the expense of historical narration.
Secondly, what strengthens the belief of Torah myth is the Jewish capitalist domination, jointly with other capitalists in the core capitalist countries, over world media.
The irony here is that, myth replaces history and media replace research, science and theories. What a humanity falling into such a barbarian trap.
But, what is more contradictory are:
- The Palestinian political and intellectual elite which behave as if they believe in those myths, while in fact they fall into an internalization of defeat.
- And, the new Arab rulers and movements of Political Islam (Politicization of Religion) support the Palestinian compromise. This means that political powers of Political Islam (Politicization of Religion) internally colludes with the imperialist core ruling classes on the one hand, and uncover their internal, undeclared, believe in the Torah myth, on the other.
This might explain why the so-called Arab “spring” ends up with reconciliation with ZAR which stole by brut force 78 percent of Palestine and is still looking for more, i.e. a Jewish state from Nile to Euphrates Rivers.
There is no Solution … but a Vision of “the Solution”
The adoption of Torah and the Zionization of history and media will never produce a real solution for Arab-Israeli conflict. The sole practical and genuine solution to that conflict is self-reconstruction/reproduction of Arab space/geography politics and sovereignty and moreover by revolutionary violence.
All designed projects and scenarios for a solution of the conflict will never works:
- bourgeois (two-state, democratic secular, and bi-national state)
- and AZR/western imperialist (a temporarily pure Jewish state in Palestine and later in the area from Nile to Euphrates)
- And the solution presented by Political Islam/Politicization of Religion (first Palestine as Islamic Waqf, and now secret acceptance of a Jewish state).
What works and will work is:
a) At the Palestinian level is the continuous struggle against ZAR through the (1) political/cultural strategy: that life is resistance till the libration of Palestine and the return of Palestinians to their homeland, and (2) the economic/development strategy: development by Popular Protection.
This is the only real reproduction of the Palestinian space.
b) And at the Arab level is the Arab liberation movement as a socialist project for Arab Homeland were Jews will be treated in an equal manner in citizenship, culture and human rights.
This is a vision for the time being, but it is more real and practical than the false ones.