The national dimension in the Palestinian issue between the past and the present

Written by: Ibrahim Abrash
The Palestinian cause was closely linked to its Arab surroundings, and what is Palestinian nationalism overlapped with what was Arab nationalism, as the term “the national dimension” of the Palestinian cause imposed itself in all the literature dealing with the Palestinian issue at the popular and official level, and how could this not be when Arab countries fought wars with Israel Military coups or revolutions took place in the name of Palestine. Indeed, Arab nationalist thought, since its inception in the middle of the twentieth century, considered the Palestinian issue a central issue for the entire nation, and all the national intellectual and political system was related to the Palestinian cause and the conflict with the Zionist entity. Arab unity is a condition for the liberation of Palestine and Arab national security. To confront the usurping Zionist entity, the rule of the military and the rejection of democracy was for the sake of Palestine as claimed by the regimes, etc., just as the Palestine Liberation Organization, at the beginning of its establishment in the mid-sixties of the last century, arose in the arms of the Arab summits and by an official Arab decision before it was partially liberated from the official Arab tutelage after the defeat of June 1967.

It can be said that the Palestinian national project upon its founding and as expressed in the first PLO Charter was not a purely national project, but was a mixture of several projects: the national project, the Arab national project, the Islamic project, and the global liberation project, and the goal that was set in the PLO Charter and as expressed in the literature of the factions The resistance at that time, which is the liberation of all of Palestine and the return of the refugees, was based on the existence of these dimensions and alliances, and the Palestinians and their revolution were the vanguard of the Arab nation in the battle of liberation, before these dimensions collapsed or their limited capabilities to change the balance of power in favor of the Palestinians were revealed.

The national dimension collapsed after the defeat of June 67, the divisions of the Arab arena, the struggle of Arab national regimes and movements with each other, the signing of the Camp David Accords, and then with the collapse of the Arab regional system following the second Gulf War. What is worse than that is that Islamic armed groups went to fight in Afghanistan, Bosnia, Syria, Iraq, Libya, Sinai, Africa, etc., and did not think of fighting the Zionists who occupy Jerusalem (the first of the two Qiblas, the second of the two mosques, and the third of the Two Holy Mosques), just as the global liberation dimension declined after the collapse of the socialist camp, and the Palestinians remained They are almost alone in the face of an enemy that surpasses them in the balance of power and in its network of alliances, which strengthened after the second wave of normalization during the era of US President Trump.

There is no doubt that this dimension had many advantages in terms of popular financial and political support and the adoption of the Palestinian narrative in the media and educational curricula. Even officially, the Arab regimes continued to support the Palestinian people, whether in the stage of national liberation or after the establishment of the Palestinian Authority. They also had an important role in international forums and forums. Arab countries also embraced the institutions of the Liberation Organization and its military bases, etc.

Nevertheless, the state of confusion and ideology used to exaggerate the term of the national dimension, or to say that the Palestinian issue is the first issue of the Arabs. There was no title that represented this dimension, and every national regime or movement was/was claiming to be the title of nationalism and the most keen on the Palestinian cause, as these regimes were. And the movements are in conflict or disagreements with each other, Nasserism, the Iraqi Baath, the Syrian Baath movement, the Arab nationalist movement, and Gaddafi ... and some of them were employing the Palestinian cause to fight each other.

Because of these differences, there was no Arab national strategy to deal with the Palestinian issue, neither at the League of Arab States nor at the nationalist regimes and parties, and we remember the speech of leader Gamal Abdel Nasser in 1964, addressing a delegation from the Palestinians of the Gaza Strip when he said to them, "Whoever tells you he has a plan to liberate Palestine laughs. Upon you.” This statement came after the Syrian Baath’s promotion of the popular liberation war plan, and before that the Iraqi President Abdel Karim Qassem’s attempt to form an army for the liberation of Palestine before his overthrow in 1963.

With full appreciation for all that the Arab nation has provided to the Palestinian people and is still providing until today, the successive Arab regimes bear responsibility for the loss of Palestine. 78% of Palestine was lost due to the defeat of 7 Arab armies against Zionist gangs in 1948 (the Nakba) and the rest of Palestine, in addition to Arab lands lost due to The aggression of June 1967 until the October 1973 war was under the title of restoring the occupied Arab lands in 1967, and part of it was recovered, but at a political price (the Camp David Accords), which represented a fatal blow to the national dimension of the Palestinian cause.

Does all of the above mean the end of the national dimension of the Palestinian cause?

We do not believe that, and it is more correct to talk about this dimension in light of a changing Arab and global world, and these are variables whose most important results are the emergence of problems and challenges facing Arab countries that have become a matter of concern and have priority over major national issues, including the Palestinian issue, and with our belief that the United States of America and Israel are behind what has been exposed The Arab nation has collapsed in recent decades, especially during the so-called (Arab Spring), but this does not mean ignoring the emergence of local or national priorities for each Arab country and risks from neighboring countries or of an economic nature, which requires a new vision of Palestine's relationship with its Arab surroundings, even With the recent wave of normalization, which may extend to other countries, the matter requires a new approach to the national dimension of Palestine that does not break with the normalizing countries, but rather tries to benefit from this variable without ceasing to show the danger that the Zionist entity poses to the Arab nation and its malicious goals behind normalization with the Arab countries.

A questioner may ask, what about the national dimension and the Palestinians themselves and their role or responsibility for the decline of the national dimension?

For objectivity and fairness, it must be recognized that the emotional, human, and enthusiastic side was one of the pillars of Arab national thought, including the national dimension of the Palestinian cause. Idealism was playing against realism in the Arab national ideology. Without ignoring the component of belonging and common history, boycotting Israel and supporting the Palestinian people and considering normalization a betrayal stemmed from the hostility of the Arab peoples to the West, the ally of the Zionist movement and its actual founder. It also stemmed from a sense of grievance for the Palestinians who face a Zionist movement behind which the whole West stands and practices terrorism against the defenseless Palestinian people as well. The Arab peoples were affected by what was reported by the Arab media about the massacres of Deir Yassin, Kafr Qassem, and others, and with the launch of the contemporary Palestinian revolution, which Gamal Abdel Nasser described as the noblest phenomenon known to history, the state of support and sympathy for the Palestinian revolutionaries increased, especially after the defeat of June 1967, when the Arab peoples considered the commando action And the war of popular liberation as if it was a response to the Arab dignity wasted in the June war.

The entry into the Palestinian revolution, whose title is the Palestine Liberation Organization, is a political settlement and recognition of Israel after the Madrid conference of 1991 and the signing of the Oslo agreement in 1993. Then the division and its repercussions wounded the romanticism and purification of Arab nationalists and many Western peoples. However, it must be recognized that some Arab regimes and movements bear responsibility for the collapse of the Palestinian situation through their interference in Palestinian internal affairs, the establishment of affiliated Palestinian organizations, and the use of political money to strengthen a Palestinian faction at the expense of other factions, and even at the expense of the unity of Palestinian representation. In addition to its role in the division industry recently

There is no doubt that the presence of the Palestinian cause in the Arab world is not as it was before, but the state of ironing awareness practiced by the Zionist and American media and the media of some countries that print on the Arab peoples will fail, as indicated by the latest opinion polls within the countries that print, and the Palestine issue will remain the concern of the Arab peoples because it represents the fairest cause in the world The Zionist entity represents the worst regime in the world and the most practiced racism, and we do not believe that the Arabs will be less equitable to the Palestinian people than the majority of countries and peoples of the world that recognize the Palestinian people's right to self-determination and their right to an independent state on their land as stipulated in many United Nations resolutions and recommendations.

Finally, the state of affairs needs to correct the Palestinian-Arab relations officially and popularly, and to understand the dangers and threats to which some Arab countries are exposed.

(The article with this title was originally a speech I delivered on the fifteenth of this month at Yarmouk University in Jordan in a symposium on the sidelines of the celebration of Irbid, Capital of Arab Culture. My attendance was at the kind invitation of the Minister of Culture in Jordan, Mrs. Haifaa Al-Najjar).

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