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We should listen to multiple Palestinian voices Na’eem Jeenah, James Barrett, Thembisa Fakude Over the past few weeks, there have emerged as many interpretations of the recent UN Africa Meeting on the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People (and its Civil Society Forum) held in Cape Town as there were delegates. The latest such interpretation, by Keith Gottschalk, Sally Gross and Sheila Lapinsky in ThisDay, misses the mark about what really came out of the conferences. The article makes two important points: first, that solidarity with an oppressed people involves hearing the oppressed voices and following their lead and, second, that there are crucial reflections from the South African liberation struggle that can help in arriving at a just solution to the Palestinian question. The Palestine solidarity movement in South Africa has consistently agreed with both assertions. However, their application by Gottschalk, et al is flawed. After calling for South Africans to listen to voices of the Palestinian people, the writers immediately equate the Palestinian Authority (PA) with the Palestinian people and suggest the PA’s is the only Palestinian voice worthy of being heard. The argument is untrue, unjust and does disservice to the Palestinian struggle. While the PA represents a particular Palestinian perspective, it is not the only perspective, nor even the majority perspective. There are many other Palestinian voices that also deserve a hearing. This was the main point solidarity activists at the conference were making: listen to other Palestinian voices too. Instead of accepting that all societies have different perspectives, one ANC leader (the new SAn ambassador to Israel), Major General Fumanekile Gqiba, threatened: “We will crush them (SAn solidarity activists that insisted there were multiple voices].” The debate about whether the solution should be a single state on the whole of British Mandate Palestine or whether a two-state solution (Palestine and Israel co-existing) reflected the danger of claiming that one Palestinian party represents all Palestinians. While the PA and Yasser Arafat’s Fatah (which comprises the PA) agree with a two-state position, many other Palestinian groups and individuals with substantial support – the PFLP, the DFLP (both PLO members), Islamic Jihad and others – do not. Further, the dominant position among the five million Palestinian refugees all over the world supports a one-state solution. The PA does not have a monopoly on the Palestinian voice. And, as Steven Friedman wrote recently, it is not South African solidarity activists who want to impose the one-state position on the discourse but the PA and the ANC that want to impose the two-state solution as the only solution. The fact is that no sovereign, viable Palestinian ‘state’ alongside Israel is possible because will not allow it to be. The single-state solution can guarantee self-determination for the Palestinian people while, simultaneously, guaranteeing security for Israelis. Such a solution can be a simple democratic state or a bi-national state with different groups having special guarantees and protections. Unfortunately, the only non-PA Palestinian voice at the conference was that of Terry Boullata, who Gottschalk, et al quoted. Boullata’s own organisation, the Stop the Wall Campaign, has distanced itself from some of her remarks at the conference, particularly her refusal to use the term “apartheid wall”. The Campaign, after all, also calls itself the Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign. The writers’ second point is also one that we unequivocally accept: the South African struggle does have numerous lessons for Palestine. These were discussed from the first panel at the conference when SAn Human Rights Commission chairperson, Jody Kollapen, and UN Special Rapporteur on Palestine, John Dugard, highlighted parallels between apartheid South Africa and Israel and showed how, in effect, Israel is an apartheid state. Dugard said Israel’s oppression of Palestinians was worse than apartheid and called for disinvestment from companies that supported Israel. Both also supported the call for sanctions against Israel – as were used during the South African anti-apartheid struggle. The ANC’s Cedric Mayson spoke about consumer boycotts and other such actions against South Africa and called for similar actions against Israel. Some speakers extended the SAn analogy and asked why a “united, non-racial democratic state” was a good outcome for South Africa but – with all the similarities between the two contexts – only a Bantustan solution (aka a two-state solution) was acceptable for Palestine. It is a legitimate question, especially when over 30 percent of Palestinians in the Occupied Palestinian Territory and most Palestinian refugees – in Lebanon, Jordan, Syria, and around the world – ask it. Interestingly, Gottschalk, et al, ignore the declaration adopted at the end of the civil society conference which calls for the establishment of “a sovereign, independent Palestinian state with its capital in Jerusalem”; for the return of Palestinian refugees (with compensation) as per UN Resolution 194 and which supported “the legitimate right of the Palestinian people to resist” occupation, as given them by the Fourth Geneva Conventions. To suggest that supporting such a right equates with supporting so-called suicide bombings is disingenuous. Solidarity activists made clear that they opposed the killing of civilians and put most blame for this crime on Israel’s occupation forces. South Africans have an important role to play in international Palestinian solidarity, not least because we have experienced and understand apartheid. Let us use that to enhance the struggle for justice and peace for Palestinians and Israelis and not impose two-state solutions on them. The writers are members of the Palestine Solidarity Committee
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