Marwan Al-Barghouti thoughts examined

Former Director General of the Palestine Institute for National Security Research

The Journal of Palestinian Studies, in its issue No. 134/Spring 2023, published a paper of approximately five pages by the captive leader Marwan al-Barghouti, who has been in solitary confinement in Nafha Desert Prison for the second year after twenty in a row. It was titled "The Palestinian Opportunity in the Zionist Crisis."

The prominent leader in the Palestinian national movement, a member of the Central Committee of Fatah, dedicated two-thirds of his paper to explaining the impasse of the Zionist colonial project in Palestine, refuting the dimensions of this impasse in its strategic environment (local, regional and international), then devoted the last third of the paper to explaining and clarifying the opportunities inherent in this impasse before The Palestinians and what steps they must take to ensure that these opportunities are fully exploited to achieve their national goals of freedom, independence and the establishment of an independent state.

Whereas Al-Barghouti’s paper establishes a long-awaited responsible Palestinian debate in reality, especially since it is the first to be issued by a leading figure of the size of Marwan Al-Barghouti after the outbreak and exacerbation of the Zionist crisis that has been widening for more than four months. This article will seek to contribute to this debate by emphasizing, beginning with What Israel is witnessing for the seventeenth week in a row in terms of demonstrations opposing the coup against the judiciary, as described by the organizers of these demonstrations, or demonstrations in favor of judicial reform, as happened in Jerusalem last Thursday, corresponding to 4/27/2023, is an expression of the crisis of the Zionist movement resulting from the failure to achieve The goals of its colonial settlement project, as while the first founders of the project agreed to create a prosperous and secure state, establish a nation, and build a unified, democratic Jewish society, we find the descendants of the first founders dispersing rather than gathering, squandering rather than uniting, threatening and not protecting, destroying, and not rebuilding.

While it is like this, there is a Palestinian need and necessity to read this crisis deeply and comprehensively, and most importantly with Palestinian minds and hearts, and reading is not satisfied with describing what is happening and limiting it only to procedures related to the judicial authority, or linking its causes to personal motives of Netanyahu to get rid of corruption charges against him, even if what is happening On this level, it cannot be ignored as landmarks of the crisis, which Marwan established in his paper in terms of developing bold and wise Palestinian interventions that are capable of exploiting the opportunities inherent in this crisis, especially since the entire Palestinian cause is subject to erasure and marginalization, just as the national achievements that enable the people to Achieved over decades of struggle and sacrifices, including the national authority, is liable to be confiscated.

In addition to what Marwan mentioned in his paper about the features of the Zionist crisis that has surfaced since the beginning of this year on the surface of the political and ideological debate among Jews in Israel and abroad, the well-known Israeli historian and academic (Ilan Pappe) had argued in his paper published in the Journal of Palestinian Studies No. 108/ The fall of 2016, and titled “The Origins of Neo-Zionism and Its Future,” that the Israeli Zionist movement is now contested by two main ideological currents. The seventies of the last century, and the second is the current that (Pape) called it, and many researchers in Israel described the neo-Zionist trend, which had emerged strongly in the general elections in 1977 and dominated Israeli politics since then, and (Pape) adds in his paper that since In 2016 neo-Zionism became the strongest ideological interpretation of Zionism in Israel.

The first movement was from the labor movements over the years, and it is the movement that built the state during the period of the British mandate over Palestine, and it is the one that carried out the ethnic cleansing against the Palestinians in 1948, and consolidated the military rule over the Palestinian citizens inside Israel until the year 1966, and transferred it to the West Bank and Gaza Strip after The June 1967 war, but he lost his power in the 1977 elections, then returned to power for a short period between 1992-1996, the period that witnessed the signing of the Oslo Accord between the Palestine Liberation Organization and the government of Israel, this agreement, which in turn failed, and led to the return of current parties Neo-Zionism came to power, which confirms what we went to in previous articles that the conflict with the Palestinians is the root cause of the crisis and that the right-wing attack on the judiciary is the revealing cause of the crisis.

As for the second current, it is descended from the corrective movement led by Ze’ev Jabotinsky, which was prevalent within the settlement project in the twenties of the last century. Judaism) as well as being very lenient with the British and the indigenous Palestinian landowners.

This current is based on the strong alliance between the national religious parties, the ultra-religious parties, and the Likud party, as these parties believe that concession or willingness to give up an inch of land is in the context of infidelity and treason, which explains the return of this current to power and dominance over Israeli politics after signing of the Oslo Accords in 1993.

This current was subjected to severe divisions following the decision to withdraw unilaterally from the Gaza Strip in 2005, and the Prime Minister at the time and the prominent leader in the Likud Party, Ariel Sharon, who defected from him and formed a new party to implement the decision to withdraw despite the opposition of the Likud. He took the decision to withdraw as a retired general. From the army and based on the latter’s assessment that the withdrawal from Gaza will enhance Israel’s strategic position in the face of expected threats in the short term, which means that the army’s assessments take precedence over partisan considerations, and it also means that the army institution that he writes for the first movement that he built and laid down its doctrine It is and will remain an obstacle to the second trend of regime change in favor of its vision.

The results of the last general elections that took place in November last year, in which the constituent parties of neo-Zionism won a parliamentary majority, represented an opportunity for this current to reformulate the state system according to its vision, which it believes provides an honest interpretation of Zionism, and that it is able to succeed in what the first current failed in, not Especially since he did not succeed in resolving the state industry over the past seven decades, although he writes to him that he established and led it for three decades.

It should be noted here that there is no significant disagreement between these two currents regarding the goals of the Zionist colonial project in Palestine, which are based on obtaining the largest possible amount of the geographical area of Palestine with the least possible amount of the Palestinian population as obstacles to the realization of the project, as the difference between them revolves around the means that guarantee the realization of this project. While the first movement believes that it must obtain international approval and an American license before embarking on any work it undertakes, the second movement does not give any importance to international opinion at all.

It should be clarified here that the Zionist movement as a colonial movement, and according to the opinion of the researcher specialized in colonial settlement affairs (Patrick Wolfe), does not differ from its counterparts of settler colonial movements with regard to its need to get rid of the indigenous population. These movements differed among themselves in style, and (Wolf) adds that European settlers have used the method of genocide in the case of the Americas and Australia, and apartheid in the case of South Africa, while the Zionist movement uses the method of continuous ethnic cleansing in the Palestinian case, and this article adds to what was written by (Patrick Wolf) that the Zionist movement was not satisfied with the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians Rather, it combined the three methods practiced by the European settlers, and Zionism added to that the method of forced displacement of the indigenous people outside the borders of their homeland.

The aforementioned shows that the roots of the Zionist crisis that is surfacing now are not new and are not fleeting, nor do they appear to be solvable, as the well-known American Jewish geopolitical expert George Friedman once argued in his paper published on the Stratfor website on January 14, 2014. Title (Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and Israel's permanent dilemma).

And while the crisis shows that the Palestinians, whose number on the land of Mandatory Palestine has become more than the number of the Zionist colonizers, are waiting in the short term for more ethnic cleansing, genocide, and racist practices, which requires them to prepare for that and immediately start taking what Barghouti mentioned in his paper, however, it appears The failure of the neo-Zionist current to reform what was corrupted is the inevitable outcome of their project even if it succeeds in imposing its vision, especially since the international as well as regional conditions that produced the colonial project in Palestine are changing to the disadvantage of the Zionist movement and its partners from the western colonial powers, which requires the Palestinians In addition to spending most of their efforts to arrange and unify their ranks, to position them regionally and internationally.