Not long ago, I spoke at a university in New Jersey. I told students about the 33 members of my family killed in the Israeli bombardment of Gaza. I described the horrors afflicting my homeland, made a plea for Palestinian independence, and decried the extremism of the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
I also said that Hamas’s kidnapping of Israeli women, elderly people, and children as hostages, and the killing of innocent civilians, were atrocities that did not represent Palestinian values and could easily be condemned without minimizing Palestinian rights or legitimate grievances.
Agitators affiliated with Students for Justice in Palestine stood outside the lecture hall shouting. They called me a “traitor” and yelled, “Free Palestine!”
How did we get here? How did student activists in New Jersey who claim to represent Palestinians and to care about Gazans make even me, a Gazan American who has raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for humanitarian projects in Gaza, their enemy? The so-called pro-Palestine movement has no space for a Palestinian who opposes Hamas’s terrorism and promotes a future of coexistence with Israelis.
The moral and political failure of the diasporic movement for Palestinian rights is only one of several obstacles to the Palestinian pursuit of freedom, but it is a particularly telling one. After decades of displacement, military occupation, and political deadlock, we Palestinians have grown far more comfortable analyzing the role of Israeli decision making in worsening our conditions than we are reflecting on our own mistakes. To call for introspection is not to blame the victim or minimize the Palestinian plight. Rather, it is to recognize the desperate need for new thinking.
The Palestinian political leadership and its vision of the national project have manifestly failed to inspire meaningful action that could achieve progress. Wishing for the disappearance of 8 million Israeli Jews is not a policy. Hamas and its embrace of “armed resistance” have hijacked the Palestinian discourse. Activism in the diaspora has been captured by extremists—and so it, too, has become an impediment to Palestinian aspirations. In fact, the diaspora “pro-Palestine” movement has spent the past year and a half squandering a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to leverage international support for the Palestinian people. Right now, Palestinian independence is further out of reach than ever. And the fault is not only Benjamin Netanyahu’s.
What Palestinian politics need, and grievously lack, is pragmatism. The conditions we now face are catastrophic in both the West Bank and Gaza: Palestinians have few resources, no military advantage, no political leverage, and virtually no economic viability on our own. Extremist Israeli officials have repeatedly threatened our people with expulsion. These realities mean that the time for maximalist demands and rhetoric is over.
But instead of evolving our approaches, many Palestinians are adopting an ever harder ideological line. That impulse stems in part from the imbalance of power between Israelis and Palestinians, and the feeling that adverse conditions are imposed on us from without. But to minimize Palestinian agency is also a mistake: We always have choices, some of which produce better outcomes than others, even under circumstances of constraint. If there is to be any hope for the remaining Palestinians to stay on our lands, we must refuse the cycle of hatred, incitement, violence, and revenge and seek instead a commonsense approach to one of the modern world’s most persistent conflicts.
Mine is certainly not a majority position among Palestinians. I have even been told by international media outlets that my perspective is “unrepresentative” and therefore not worthy of being heard. But our community is as diverse in its views as any other. The lack of a political home for divergent, moderate voices has left us without a space to exchange perspectives and stories, or to develop more sophisticated advocacy and policy efforts.
I can envision a pragmatic approach to the Palestinian national project—one that rejects violent extremism and armed resistance in favor of a two-nation solution for Palestinians and Israelis. To be pragmatic means abandoning unhelpful and unrealistic demands, such as the right of return to land that has been part of Israel since 1948. It means accepting Israel’s existence, and understanding Israeli security as complementary to the Palestinian pursuit of freedom, dignity, and independence.
Two-thirds of Gaza’s population, and all of us who are descendants of 1948 refugees, would have to cease thinking of ourselves as perpetual refugees in our homeland and instead recognize the Strip as our final destination, where we will build our nation. This is a radical pragmatism, and it is desperately needed. (Ironically, embracing this sort of pragmatism would echo what the Zionist movement itself did in 1948, accepting something less than its leaders wanted in exchange for independence.) We would rebrand the embrace of peace and coexistence as courageous, and as necessary to the preservation of Palestinian lives, lands, and heritage.
Some precepts of radical pragmatism are these: Israel is here to stay; it will not be annihilated and can even be a helpful partner in a future that includes a Palestinian state. One cannot be pro-Palestine while also being pro-Hamas. The Oslo years were just one short chapter in the pursuit of peace, and the Palestinian Authority does not embody the full potential of nonviolence and reconciliation as a political strategy. The Palestinian national project must include building a state that can create jobs, pride, and future prospects for our people, not rockets, tunnels, Islamist repression, or corruption.
Many things will become possible in Gaza once we recognize the necessity of political and security cooperation with Israel. We could establish an artificial peninsula off the coast, making use of the Strip’s geography; we could repurpose abundantly available rubble to build an airport and seaport, transforming access to and movement in and out of the coastal enclave.
I have spoken with thousands of Palestinians over the years who believe, as I do, in the viability of a pragmatic path to peace. Extremists on both sides ignore or suppress our voices, choosing instead to promote narrow interests with maximalist rhetoric. The diaspora should not become their amplifier.
Rather, while Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank struggle with the harsh realities of their daily lives, those in the diaspora should help put forward a new Palestinian narrative—one that makes Jewish Israelis our vital allies in solving this conflict and ensuring the prosperous and secure future of both of our peoples. This is not a mere talking point but a necessity for Palestinian survival and self-determination.
The post The Case for Palestinian Pragmatism appeared first on The Atlantic.
