Return, so be it

The Palestinian diaspora continues its struggle to regain their homes, says Anayat Durrani Barghouti; Buttu; Finkelstein; Abunimah The eighth Annual International Al-Awda Convention kicked off in Anaheim, California, this past weekend to a packed audience of Palestinians and their growing supporters. Commemorating 62 years of Nakba, the three-day convention also marked 10 years of the existence and strong commitment of the Al-Awda Palestine Right to Return Coalition. "The mission of Al-Awda is to promote, educate and continue till our very last breath, until every single refugee returns home," said Jess Ghannamm, chair of Al-Awda's National Coordinating Committee. This year's convention panelists covered a wide range of subjects, from the Gaza invasion, peace negotiations, to the importance of the boycott- divestment-sanctions movement, as well as the shortcomings of the Obama administration. "Many of us now have come to understand the fantasy and the patina of the Obama administration's illusion of being able to impose or put pressure on the government of Israel to do anything. People are waking up to the, perhaps, gross misjudgement on the Obama administration, if not Obama himself," said Ghannamm, who argues that since Obama took office the situation has regressed and gone backwards, that there are more US troops in the Arab world now than under the Bush administration. Author Norman Finkelstein called the December 2008 Israeli invasion of Gaza "not a war but a massacre". He poked holes in the Israeli claim that Hamas used human shields, and read testimony from Israeli soldiers admitting, "Israel used insane amounts of fire power in Gaza." Finkelstein focussed on the UN Goldstone Report on the Gaza invasion which he said marked the end of apologetic Jewish liberalism, which turns a blind eye to Israeli crime. This has led to the emergence of a new era where human rights now take centre stage in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. "The Goldstone Report, in many respects, marks a turning point in the beginning of the breakup of American Jewish support for Israel because Jews are liberal and it was liberal organisations and liberal individuals like Goldstone who were leading the indictment of what Israel did in Gaza. It is no longer possible to call yourself liberal and defend Israeli policies and conduct." The negotiation process was the subject of Palestinian lawyer and former legal advisor to the Palestinian negotiation team Diana Buttu's presentation. She said the issue of negotiations goes all the way back to the 1970s after Israel's military occupation of the West Bank and Gaza in 1967. She said there was a fundamental shift on the part of the PLO away from the belief that Palestinian refugees should be returning to their homes. "Rather than focussing on Al-Awda, the undoing of 1948, it became an accommodation of current circumstances, an accommodation of Israel's presence, an accommodation to Zionism, with the viewpoint being rather than focussing on the right of return, the focus now became on statehood and with it all the trappings of statehood," said Buttu. Buttu called this a trap that the PLO and later the Palestinian Authority fell into that led Palestinians down a path that Palestinians could get out of only if they "redirect, reshape and reframe our mode of thinking". She said the negotiations in actuality did not really fail, and in fact succeeded, from the viewpoint of Israel. "It ended up being yet another tool that Israel uses in the long term strategy of trying to confine the Palestinians into as small a space as possible, take as much of their land as possible, while all the while pretending there are talks, partners, and negotiations. If only, if only," lamented Buttu. Buttu said Palestinians have to start challenging the ideology that Israelis and settlers have more of a right than Palestinians. She said the symptoms in this conflict are the construction of settlements, the confiscation of lands, the confining of Palestinians into small spaces. "The disease is the viewpoint that Israelis have more of a right to live in historic Palestine than the Palestinians do." Palestinian author and co-founder of the Electronic Intifada, Ali Abunimah, used his recent trip to South Africa where he saw an apartheid museum as an example for Palestinians. "One of the inspiring things in that museum is you see how much the struggle against apartheid was really not just a battle against steel and guns and weaponry but it was a battle of ideas. And it was the idea of freedom of liberation that triumphed over the idea of separation, of supremacy, of dominance that ultimately defeated apartheid," said Abunimah. He said he dreamed of the day when a museum of Zionism will be created where it exists only in a museum dedicated to the liberation from Zionism. Like other panelists, Abunimah strongly emphasised the importance of the Boycott- Divestment-Sanctions (BDS) movement. He said the BDS movement has three conditions, which include ending Israel's occupation and colonisation, dismantling the apartheid wall; recognising the fundamental rights of Palestinians citizens of Israel to full equality; and accepting the right of return of Palestinian refugees, as stipulated in UN resolution 1948. "These three demands bring back all Palestinians into the struggle, whereas the so-called peace process excluded most Palestinians from the struggle, and excluded them from the past, present and future," said Abunimah. Bishop Hilarion Capucci spoke live via phone to the convention banquet. He spoke emotionally about how he longed to return to Jerusalem since being exiled. He called on Palestinians to remain steadfast in their commitment to the right of return. Mustafa Barghouti, co-founder and general secretary of the Palestinian National Initiative, expounded that the right of return means the right of the people to return to the same towns and villages they were dispossessed from, and not a location to be agreed upon in negotiations. Barghouti presented a sombre slideshow and video of Israeli human rights abuses against Palestinians. He showed a chilling video of a Palestinian demonstrator holding a flag who was arrested, handcuffed, blindfolded and forced to sit on the ground for over two hours. A high ranking Israeli officer then ordered him to stand in front of an Israeli soldier who was then shown shooting him in cold blood. The Palestinian man is seen falling to the ground. Barghouti said the images were sent to major media outlets; however none aired the footage. "The choice for Palestinians today is very simple: are we to be free or are we to be slaves of Israeli occupation and apartheid?" Barghouti said Palestinians must follow a strategy, one that includes resistance, especially popular resistance, and that Palestinians must regain their unity under a unified Palestinian leadership. He emphasised the need for Palestinians to "establish presence on the ground", saying that Palestinians must help people living in Palestine remain there. "We need a strong international solidarity movement, namely the boycott divestment sanctions movement." The Al-Awda organisation has worked tirelessly to raise awareness of the human and legal rights of Palestinian refugees in its 10-year existence through teach-ins, rallies regional conferences and other activities. The organisation most recently helped settle Palestinian refugees from Al-Waleed camp in Iraq into the United States.