On the Resistance, its Methods and Political Options.

On the Resistance, its Methods and Political Options.

Moatasem Hamada

Is it possible to separate the option of "peaceful" resistance from the option of negotiations as the only way to solve?

History is replete with the struggles and victories of peoples when all forms of resistance in the liberation of their homelands from the Western colonialism, and the establishment of their independent national entities. At the forefront of these peoples, and at the heart of them, is the Palestinian people, who, if their cause is long and complicated, remain convinced of their legitimate national rights, their right to struggle, and it is not an exaggeration to say that the Palestinian people, in their long struggles, formed a model, and endowed their experiences For peoples who were able to break free from their colonial restrictions.

The struggler history of the Palestinian people is full of resistance. They resisted the consequences of the catastrophe, rejecting, in light of a terrible social dispersion and rupture, all settlement projects; Despite all the "temptations" that these projects were offered to him. He preserved his memory, history, and present, then his contemporary national movement was launched, and his struggle moved from popular resistance with will and steadfastness, and he refused alternative solutions to armed resistance, as he defined the uprising, strikes, sit-ins and other forms of struggle and resistance, in the field, and in international forums, in the media In schools and universities, and most important in the family, which played the most important role, after the Nakba, in preserving memory and preserving the cause.

Before the start of the resistance, the Palestinian people chose their struggle methods by the methods and ways they considered appropriate. Even when the armed resistance was launched, it did not succeed in attracting militants within its ranks, with a high willingness to fight and martyrdom, had it not been for the collective conviction of the need to move from negative popular resistance (rejection) to positive popular resistance (offering programs, demands, solutions, and setting goals).

Even when the great national uprising began in 1987, not because it lost its conviction of armed resistance, but rather to protect the resistance, which was an expression of the "national cause", and to protect the PLO and the national project, and to integrate forms of struggle, in the methods and arenas, under the one program, the interim program, led by the Palestine Liberation Organization.

Thus, as a summary, the people, with their experience, conviction, and depth of awareness, are the ones who choose their struggle methods, and often struggle movements have failed to choose the appropriate method, at the right time, so they lost the response of people, and its movement has been aborted.

We have more than a lesson in history in this field.

We said these words, in a moment of articulated and highly complex Palestinian struggle, in which we are stopped by the constant calls of the Palestinian Authority and its official media to insist on adhering to the "peaceful", "non-violent", and "unarmed" popular resistance.

Of course, the PA's calls have not yet been heard by the Palestinian community in its "societal uprising", which is sweeping the West Bank by means of struggle against the occupation, using various forms. In each process, the resistor chooses the method and form it deems appropriate to resist.

We are sure that our disagreement with the calls of the authority is essentially a political dispute and not merely a technical dispute, neither we, nor the authority have the ability to impose a struggle style of resistance on the people, but each of us can incite in favor of the method that we see fit, not from the position Technical or tactical, but in line with his political vision.

The Authority's adherence to nonviolent resistance (which it has not provided us with a successful model up to date) constitutes a translation of what it considers acts of "violence" and "armed actions" as a form of "terrorism". That is why it sees its keen when talking about "peaceful resistance", and continues to renew her "loyalty to combating terrorism" (also without knowing us and terrorism, although the meaning has become clear in the womb and context).

The authority’s commitment to reject “violence” constitutes one of its field applications of its choice for a negotiated solution as a single option, and rejects other options.

In the context, we add that there is no complete separation between the political option through negotiations, one option, and the security obligations as formulated by the security coordination documents between the PA and the occupation state.

Although the PA announced its "disengagement" of security commitments with the Israeli side, in practice, it remains committed to security coordination entitlements.

Therefore, we consider that the series of arrests with a political background, in the West Bank (albeit in the context of the reaction to similar arrests in the Gaza Strip) fall within the framework of security coordination obligations. We also consider that the "abortion" of preparations for "violence" against the occupation forces and settlers falls within the framework of security coordination obligations.

When the "decomposition" of "commitment" to security coordination was announced, citizens expected to see and see the results of this step. But the results did not really change anything:

• The occupation forces are still invading West Bank cities, towns and villages, arresting and demolishing crops, and bulldozing crops, and settlers continue to attack farmers, farms, and plant wealth, without interference or reaction from neither the security forces nor the Palestinian Authority.

• The security services in the authority are also arresting Palestinian citizens, among whom are released prisoners, and perhaps the last arrest campaign (as of this writing) was what the intelligence services in the authority and the Preventive Security Service had arrested 12 Palestinian citizens, including university students and released prisoners. .

So how did the authority stop the security coordination?

How it has disengaged from its commitment to agreements and understandings with the Israeli and American sides?

Perhaps the problem of the Palestinian Authority is that it does not have a vision and a plan to confront the annexation project and its applications, but it does cover for its lack of this vision, and this plan uses media positions through which it tries to suggest that it has already engaged in a confrontation and that it is leaving the Oslo agreement. Knowing that the daily reality in the West Bank affirms at every moment, the exact opposite. ■

Translated by: Rawda Abu Zarqa

Moatasem Hamada : member of the Political Bureau of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine.