Solidarity and Realpolitik:
My Response to Jeff Halper
By Susan Abulhawa
Some years ago, I was on a panel with three men, Jeff Halper
among them, at a Sabeel conference in Pennsylvania. Each
panelist was asked to give their vision for a solution to the
‘Palestine/Israel conflict’. Because I was sitting at the end
of the table, I was the last to speak. I listened to each one
of my fellow participants lay out different versions of a twostate solution, each more depressing than the other, each with
irrelevant nuances (all previously articulated by Israel, by
the way) on how to make the refugee problem just go away.
They spoke the tired talk of land swaps, compromise, several
surreal highways that bypass humanity for miles on end, and
more creative solutions designed to circumvent the application
of human rights where Palestinians are concerned.
When my turn came, I spoke of Palestinians being accorded the
same basic rights that apply to the rest of humanity,
including the right to return to one’s home after fleeing a
conflict. I spoke of equality under the law regardless of
religion. I spoke of a construct that would prevent one group
from systematically oppressing another.
I spoke of human
dignity and the universal right to it.
I spoke of equal
access to resources, including water, regardless of religion.
I will never forget Jeff Halper’s response, which he was eager
to voice even before I had finished speaking. He began with a
smile, the way an adult might smile at the naive remarks of a
small child. He needed to give me a lesson in reality, and
proceed to tell me, in the patronizing way of someone who
knows best, that my vision lacked “how shall I say
it…Realpolitik”.
I did not waiver then, nor have I since, on my position that
Palestinians are not a lesser species who should be required
to aspire to compromised human dignity in order to accommodate
someone else’s racist notions of divine entitlement.
That said, I do not consider Jeff Halper racist and I
acknowledge the mostly positive impact he has had in bringing
attention to one of Israel’s enduring cruelties, namely the
systematic demolition of Palestinian homes as a tool to
effectuate ethnic cleansing of the native non-Jewish
population.
But in my view, that does not entitle him to
speak of what Palestinians should or shouldn’t do. I also
don’t think it qualifies him as an anti-zionist when he
clearly accepts the privilege accorded to Jews only. After
all, Jeff Halper is an American from Minnesota who made aliyah
(Israel’s entitlement program that allows Jews from all over
the world to take up residence in my homeland, ultimately in
place of the expelled natives). Perhaps is it my lack of
Realpolitik, but I cannot reconcile embracing the very
foundation of zionism on one hand, and calling oneself an
anti-zionist on the other.
In a recent interview on Al Jazeera’s website with Frank
Barat, he did just that. He also laid out a dismal scenario
for the future of Palestinians, based on what Israel is very
likely plotting, namely the annexation of Area C and the
pacifying of the Palestinian Authority (also likely) with
economic incentives and mini Bantustans they can call a
state. But he missed the mark, repeatedly, when it came to
Palestinians themselves, as if he sized us all up with a
glance and decided he was not impressed. Despite the
burgeoning nonviolent resistance taking place all over
Palestine, in various forms ranging from demonstrations,
significant solidarity campaigns, hunger strikes, and more, he
says that “[Palestinian] resistance is impossible” now. At
best, he trivializes the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions
(BDS) movement, which is the first coordinated nonviolent
movement of Palestinians inside and outside of Palestine that
has also managed to inspire and capture imaginations of
individuals and organizations all over the world to stand in
solidarity with the Palestinian struggle for freedom. Again,
my lack of Realpolitik here, but to me, creating a situation
where it is possible to force the implementation of human
rights and restore dignity to Palestinian society is in itself
an end. Jeff Halper seems unable to consider anything other
than a negotiated agreement to be an end.
He enumerates all that is wrong with internal Palestinian
issues. Of course there are problems. We know our leadership
is doing little more than pick up the trash and keep people in
line while Israel steals more and more of our land. We are
not happy about it either. But he seems to suggest that he,
along with other Israelis I presume, have been carrying the
burden of resolving this conflict.
“We’ve
(I
assume
Israeli
In one instance he says:
leftists?)
brought
this
to
governments, we’ve raised public awareness, we’ve had
campaigns, we’ve done this for decades, we’ve made this
collectively, one of two or three really global issues. But
without Palestinians we can only take it so far.”
Then he adds:
“I am trying to challenge a little bit my Palestinian
counterparts.
Where are you guys?”
If I read this correctly (and I will grant the benefit of the
doubt that it was not meant as it reads), then he clearly sees
himself at the forefront of the Palestinian struggle where his
Palestinians counterparts are disorganized, haphazard, or not
present.
He even suggests that at this crucial time,
“Palestinians have to take over,” further supporting the
suggestion that Palestinians are not at the helm of the
resistance.
He also asserts that importing Jews from all over the world to
live in colonies built on land confiscated from private
Palestinian owners is “not settler colonialism”. What is it
then?
But back to his strange assertion that Palestinians “should
take over” (from whom?), he describes an instance where he
refused to participate in the global march to Jerusalem
because the Palestinian organizers (who took over?) did not
want to include the world “Israel,” the name of the country
that denies our very existence and seeks in every way to
eradicate us. Is it that Jeff Halper wants “Palestinians to
take over” as long as Palestinians do so in a way that does
not offend the sensitivities of the very people deriving
privilege at their expense?
That is not how solidarity
works.
I don’t presume to tell Israelis what they should or should
not do but I would like to see Israelis concentrate on their
own failures rather than ours.
I would sure like to hear
those who have made aliyah acknowledge that it was not their
right to do so; that making aliyah is a crime against the
native people who have been and continue to be forcibly
expelled to make way for those making aliyah. I would like to
hear an apology. The trauma that Palestinians feel is very
much part of the Realpolitik and it is not unlike the trauma
in the Jewish psyche. It comes from the same humiliation and
anguish of not being considered fully human. Of being treated
like vermin by those with the guns. If Halper truly understood
that, perhaps dropping the word “Israel” – a word that hovers
over the rubble of our destroyed homes and suffuses the pain
at our collective core – would have been a no brainer
expression of solidarity.
– Susan Abulhawa is the author of Mornings in Jenin
(Bloomsbury 2010) and the founder of Playgrounds for Palestine
(www.playgroundsforpalestine.org). She contributed this
article to PalestineChronicle.com.