SUPPORT PALESTINE’S STRUGGLE
Washington Post
Jan 9 2007
Dear Mr. Ban Ki-moon,
First, allow me to congratulate you on your new post as
secretary-general of the United Nations. I am writing to you from
Syria, a country that co-founded the UN back in 1945. So determined
were the Syrians for the UN to succeed that we sent some of our finest
diplomats to its founding conference, and our late Prime Minister
Faris al-Khury even co-designed its emblem, the same one that is
printed on the UN Flag at your office desk, Mr. Moon. We really
wanted the UN to achieve its declared objectives because this meant
a better life for the Arabs in general, guaranteeing their right to
self-determination after centuries of colonial rule by the French,
the British, and before them, the Ottomans.
We do have serious reservations, however, at how the UN was
administered under your predecessors, and the outright bias it showed
towards both Israel and the United States. We will never forgive–or
forget–the UN for standing by and watching the US invade Iraq in
2003. Washington did not receive clearance from the UN but went on
with the war, caring little for the family of nations that assembled
in San Francisco in 1945 to make the world "safer for democracy." Mr.
Kofi Anan was both unable–and unwilling–to say no to the Americans.
And by no means has the world become "safer for democracy" after the
fiasco in Iraq.
Allow me to quote an open letter, written to your predecessor the late
Dag Hammarskjold when he visited Damascus in 1956. It was published
in a bygone Damascus periodical, called "al-Hadara" (Civilization)
and written by Dr. George Jabbour, a scholar, presidential advisor,
and current parliamentarian, who at the time, was a university student
in Damascus. Addressing Hammarskjold he said: "When you descend from
the airplane with a smile on your face, forgive us if no similar
smile is drawn on our faces." After all, we had welcomed the first
UN secretary-general Trygve Lie to Damascus and our late President
Hashim al-Atasi had decorated him with the Syrian Medal of Honor,
Excellence Class.
The man betrayed us and gave unconditional support for Israel. As
early as 1956, Jabbour wrote that the Arabs in general no longer have
faith in solutions that are imposed on them from an outside power. He
wrapped up saying: "When you leave, it is not a problem if you forget
our wounds and sorrows because we no longer believe in medications that
are not made out of our own hands." Fifty-one years later, Jabbour’s
words are still alarmingly true, although five secretary-generals have
rotated at the UN since 1956, including an Arab, Mr. Boutros Boutros
Ghali. One-by-one we welcomed them to the Middle East, and spilled
out our worries and agitations. And one-by-one we watched them leave,
forgetting both our "wounds and sorrows." We want you to be different
Mr. Moon.
Mr. Secretary-General, there is great injustice in the Middle East.
You started the year 2007 with a new job in New York. We started it
with a massive Israeli raid in Ramallah. Why is it that out of the
65 UN resolutions passed against Israel, not one has been implemented
since 1948? The first was UN Resolution 106 "condemning" Israel for its
raid into Gaza in 1955. The second was UN Resolution 111 "condemning"
Israel for a raid on Syria that "killed 56-people." Must we remind
the world that not a single resolution was ever passed against the
Palestinians. Allow me to make another historical parallel and
refer to an open letter sent by the late Reverend Martin Luther
King, Jr. from his prison cell in Birmingham, Alabama on April 16,
1963. It was in response to a statement made by eight white clergymen
from Alabama who argued that although injustices were taking place
against African-Americans, they should be solved in the courts not
on the streets of the United States. I do not see any difference
between the plight of Africa-Americans in the 1950s and 1960s, and
that of the Palestinians in the Occupied Territories. I will quote
passages from King’s letter, and allow you to play the mental exercise
of replacing the word "Negro" with the word "Palestinian." You will
find the similarities dangerously alarming.
King addressed the clergymen saying: "You warmly commended the
Birmingham police for keeping "order" and "preventing violence." I
doubt that you would have so warmly commended the police force if
you had seen its dogs sinking their teeth into unarmed, nonviolent
Negros. I doubt you would so quickly commend the policemen if you
were to observe their ugly and inhumane treatment of Negros here in
the city jail; if you were to watch them push and curse old Negro
women and young Negro girls." That, Mr. Moon, is what happens every
day in Palestine at checkpoints, in jails, and at border-crossings.
King adds:
For years now, I have heard the word ‘Wait!’ It rings in the ear of
every Negro with piercing familiarity. This ‘Wait’ has almost always
meant ‘Never!’ We must come to see…that justice too long delayed
is justice denied. It is unfortunate that demonstrations are taking
place in Birmingham, but it is even more unfortunate that the city’s
white power structure left the Negro community with no alternative.
That is why the civil rights movement started, he explains, "we had
no alternative except to prepare for direct action, whereby we would
present our very bodies as a means of laying our case before the
conscience of the local and national community." That is also the case
with the Palestinians. Of course their demonstrations are violent–very
violent–unlike the case with King, who was inspired by Ghandi.
The question remains: have the Palestinians achieved anything for
their cause, seven years into the intifada? The answer is no. The
first intifada of the 1980s was by far more successful because it was
nonviolent indeed, symbolized only by small boys throwing stones at
tanks and troops from the IDF. That is why it attracted the world’s
attention–and sympathy, and led to Oslo. But these people are
desperate Mr. Moon. What else except despair would let someone like
Wafa Idris, a 28-year old paramedic with the Palestinian Red Crescent,
blow herself up in Jerusalem on January 28, 2002. She was the first
"woman martyr" of the intifada and inspired another young woman,
Ayat al-Akhras, an 18-year old girl, to kill herself by denoting
a bomb at a supermarket in Jerusalem on March 29, 2002. She killed
two Israelis, one being a 17-year old Israeli girl. She had been a
straight A student, who was going to college to study journalism. She
was engaged to be married in June 2002. When a 18-year old Palestinian
girl kills a 17-year Israeli girl–a conflict that both teens are not
responsible for, then the future itself is dying in the Middle East.
The world says that negotiations are the only solution to the
Arab-Israeli conflict. That is true. The Palestinians will be unable
to destroy Israel. That is a fact. But they can create a situation,
and here again I use the words of King, "that is crisis-packed that
it will inevitably open the door to negotiation."
He adds, "We know through painful experience that freedom is never
voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the
oppressed." The most beautiful part of King’s great letter is the
section I will quote at length, which is filled with parallels to
the plight of the Palestinians. He says:
Perhaps it is easy for those who have never felt the stinging dark
of segregation to say, ‘Wait.’ But when you have seen vicious mobs
lynch your mothers and fathers at will and drown your sisters and
brothers at whim; when you have seen hate-filled policemen curse,
kick, and even kill your black brothers and sisters; when you see
the vast majority of your twenty million Negro brothers smothering
in a airtight cage of poverty in the midst of an affluent society;
when you suddenly find your tongue twisted and your speech stammering
as you seek to explain to your six-year old daughter why she can’t
go to the public amusement park that has just been advertised on
television, and see tears welling up in her eyes when she is told
that Funtown is closed to colored children, and see ominous clouds
of inferiority beginning to form in her little mental sky, and she
her beginning to distort her personality by developing an unconscious
bitterness towards white people, when you have concoct an answer for
a five-year-old son who is asking: "Daddy, why do white people treat
colored people so mean?"; when you are humiliated day and night by
signs reading "white" and "colored," when your first name becomes
"nigger" [in this case ‘Palestinian’], your middle name becomes "boy"
(however old you are)…and your wife and mother are never given the
respected title of "Mrs;" when you are harried by day and haunted by
night by the fact that you are a Negro, living constantly at tiptoe
stance, never quite knowing what to expect next, and are plagued by
inner fears and outer resentments…then you will understand why
we find it difficult to wait. I hope sirs, you can understand our
legitimate and unavoidable impatience.
Mr. Moon, over the past couple of years, the UN’s image has been
severely damaged in the Arab World. It has been perverted, distorted,
and tarnished –perhaps beyond repair — in the eyes of millions of
Arabs. The reasons can be found in Iraq, Lebanon, and Palestine. Very
recently, over 1,000 Lebanese were killed in the summer war of 2006,
and the UN was unable to protect them. Nearly 60,000 Iraqis have died
since 2003. Over 4,300 Palestinians have been killed since 2000, and
the UN stands in similar paralysis. Also, 31,168 have been seriously
wounded while 4,170 homes have been demolished in the Occupied
Territories. The Occupied Territories currently suffer from 30-40%
unemployment, and in Gaza alone it is over 50%. When the intifada
broke out in 2000, the poverty rate was 21%, and by December 2002 it
had increased to 60%. In Gaza, poverty today is estimated at 80%. Due
to terrible conditions, food consumption in the Occupied Territories
has dropped by 25%, and half of the population currently lives off
United Nations aid. Malnutrition among infants is 22%, the highest in
the region, matched only in the Sahara Desert. Since September 29,
2000, a total of 869 Palestinian children have been killed by the
Israeli Defense Forces (IDF). As many as 20,000 Palestinian children
were injured. Over 1,500 suffered life-long disabilities.
Killing is reciprocal, of course, and the number of Israelis killed by
Palestinians during the same period is a total of 1,084 (840 soldiers,
settlers and civilians), including about 123 Israeli children. Nearly
2,500 Israelis children were injured. Their life and safety are — or
should — be dear to all of us, because they bear no responsibility
for this bloody Middle East conflict. Israeli officials, however,
continue to deny that the IDF targets Palestinian children. Amira
Dotan, a spokeswoman for the Israeli Foreign Ministry, once told the
Doha-based al-Jazeera TV: "This sort of thing just doesn’t happen
in Israel." When asked to explain the death of Palestinian children
killed by the IDF since the outbreak of the uprising in 2000, she
said the deaths were "accidental, collateral but not deliberate. Yes,
we knew there were children, but we had to kill the terrorists." The
Israeli journalist Amira Hass once interviewed an Israeli soldier
who confessed that the IDF gives orders to kill Palestinian boys and
girls aged 12 and above. He told her: "Twelve and up, you are allowed
to shoot. That’s what they tell us."
This is the sad Middle East that you will inherit from Kofi Annan,
Mr. Moon. Every single secretary-general since Mr. Lie failed
at bringing law and order to this part of the world, due to our
conflict with Israel. We want you to be different; we need you to be
different. My generation, the third in the Arab-Israeli Conflict, is
tired of bloodshed. Although still in our 30s, we have seen many wars
in our life, starting with Lebanon in 1982, and ending with Lebanon
in 2006. We want justice for the Lebanese, freedom for Iraq, and peace
in the Holy Land. Our cause is just because for too many years we were
wronged by everybody: the Great Powers, Israel, and the United Nations.
Our cause is paralleled only by two other great injustices in the
20th century. One is that of the Armenian genocide under the Ottoman
Empire. The other is that of the Jews in the Holocaust. Both have
been compensated for their misery with states of their own. Left
alone are the Palestinians. The road to peace in the Middle East runs
through Jerusalem first, not Baghdad. Mixed feelings exist in the
Arab world toward Iraq. Some are in favor of the post-Saddam order
and American schemes, while others are overwhelmingly opposed. On the
issue of Palestine, there is more of a consensus among the 200 million
Arabs. The real problem of the Middle East, which the international
community fails to understand is not terrorism, or Osama Bin Laden,
or even Yasser Arafat, who for long was blamed for obstructing peace
with Israel. The real problem has to do with land and freedom for
the Palestinians. Sadly as I write these words the Palestinians are
behaving in a foolish and ignorant manner, killing each other off in
petty rivalries over power.
I beg you to forgive me for such a long and tedious letter. It
certainly has taken up much of your time. I am writing it, however,
while watching the news in Ramallah. And in wrapping up, I will again
quote Dr King, addressing the white clergymen in Alabama: "Never before
have I written so long a letter. I can assure you that it would have
been much shorter if I had been writing from a comfortable desk, but
what else can one do when he is alone in a narrow jail cell, other
than write long letters, think long thoughts and pray long prayers?"
Like Reverend King, the Palestinians have had long thoughts, and long
prayers indeed.
Wishing you a successful tenure at the UN.
Faithfully, Sami Moubayed
Sami Moubayed is a Syrian political analyst, journalist, and author.
Moubayed is the author of "Damascus Between Democracy and Dictatorship
(2000)" and "Steel & Silk: Men and Women Who Shaped Syria 1900-2000
(2006)." He has also authored a biography of Syria’s former President
Shukri al-Quwatli and currently teaches at the Faculty of International
Relations at al-Kalamoun University in Syria. In 2004, he created
Syrianhistory.com, the first and online museum of Syrian history. It
contains over 2,000 photographs, documents, and rare audiovisual
material on Syria during the years 1900-2000.