Democratic Palestine : 29 (ص 12)
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- عنوان
- Democratic Palestine : 29 (ص 12)
- المحتوى
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Civil Disobedience
Civil disobedience is the key element in making the Palestinian
uprising a permanent phenomenon which will undercut the basis of
the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
The heroic uprising of the Palesti-
nians in the occupied West Bank and
Gaza Strip has achieved great victories
on the Palestinian, Arab and interna-
tional levels. Its continuation heralds
the possibilities of more victories. The
persistence of the uprising has
challenged the Israeli occupiers as never
before, and has opened a new chapter
of the Palestinian struggle. The leader-
ship of the uprising, with maturity and
realism, has set forth a number of tac-
tical slogans that lead to the main
slogan of this stage, namely freedom
and independence. One of the main
issues at the present time is developing
the uprising into a state of total civil
disobedience. Thus, it is vital to
understand this concept.
Civil disobedience is a form of
popular struggle that can be enacted
under certain objective and subjective
conditions. Civil disobedience means
popular rejection of the prevailing
status quo, in this case, the Israeli oc-
cupation. Based on refusal to recognize
the legality of the occupation, civil
disobedience means refusal to deal with
the occupation and its institutions. It
means refusal to obey its orders. Total
civil disobedience is thus equivalent to a
total boycott of the occupation, as a
step towards abolishing it.
Civil disobedience is, in essence, the
backbone of the popular struggle to
establish dual power. It is a struggle
between the old authority that is unable
to control the masses and maintain the
status quo, and the newly emerging
authority created by the masses in
struggle, who are building new
political, economic and social struc-
tures. Specifically, in the case of the
West Bank and Gaza Strip, civil
disobedience is a struggle between the
authority of the occupation and the
authority of the Palestinians led by the
PLO and its political wing in the oc-
cupied territories, the United National
Leadership of the Uprising. Call No. 9,
issued on March 2nd, states this clearly:
«To the sons of the independent
state,
The United Leadership, the Com-
12
mand of the PLO, as it greets your
struggle, pledges to escalate the
struggle with you until the occupa-
tion ends, and our state is establish-
ed under the leadership of the
PLO.»
CONDITIONS FOR CIVIL
DISOBEDIENCE
Six months of continual uprising
have clarified without a doubt that the
uprising is based on comprehensive
mass support and a strong organiza-
tion. Actually, the current uprising is a
qualitative leap achieved as a result of
the accumulation of quantitative in-
crements in the Palestinian struggle
during the years of occupation. For the
uprising to continue and achieve total
civil disobedience, certain objective and
subjective conditions must prevail. This
does not mean that each and every of
these conditions must be ripe from the
first day; rather civil disobedience is a
process. Some of the conditions must
be ready from the start, while others
will be built in the course of continuing
daily struggle.
The foremost prerequisite for civil
disobedience in the occupied territories
exists: That is the people’s total
awareness of the oppression and
subordination enforced on them by the
racist Israeli occupation forces. In ad-
dition, the masses must be convinced
that challenging and eventually expell-
ing the occupiers is worth all the
sacrifices this struggle requires. In
reality, this consciousness has existed
since the beginning of the 1967 occupa-
tion, but this alone is not enough to
expell the occupiers. There must be a
precise plan for the civil disobedience
campaign and organizational structures
to sustain it, in order that such a cam-
paign can lead to achieving the masses’
goals of expelling the occupiers and
building an independent state led by the
PLO. Accordingly, the United National
Leadership of the Uprising has em-
barked on a step-by-step plan that will
gradually raise the level of struggle to
that of total civil disobedience.
Parallel to this, alternative structures
are being created, for this is another
condition for civil disobedience. If the
masses are to totally boycott the oc-
cupation, an alternative administrative
apparatus must be built for organizing
all aspects of life and leading the people
in implementing the United National
Leadership’s directives. This is the
reason for the popular committees and
the related special task committees
which have sprung up throughout the
occupied territories, based on the
leadership’s directives and the masses’
Initiative in meeting the contingencies
of the uprising and countering the oc-
cupation forces’ repression. This
popular apparatus constitutes the organ
of civil disobedience and the means for
leading the masses on a daily basis.
A third condition for practicing total
civil disobedience is achieving a greater
degree of self-sufficiency. Knowing the
economic dependency of the West Bank
and Gaza Strip on the Israeli economy,
both for job opportunities and con-
sumer products, the decision to boycott
work in ‘Israel’ and Israeli goods
means that the people must have alter-
native means of survival. From this
stems the calls of the United National
Leadership for developing self-
sufficiency, refraining from buying
unnecessary goods, increasing cultiva-
tion of the land, establishing more
peasant cooperatives, and increasing
local production.
A fourth condition for the success of
civil disobedience is related to the posi-
tion of the PLO. The masses under oc-
cupation have demonstrated their unity
in struggle, as well as their undivided
support to the PLO, and rejection of all
attempts to abort or divert their upris-
ing. This must be backed up by con-
solidation of the PLO’s unity and clear
rejection of the US and reactionary
plans. Until now, the PLO has pro-
jected a united stand; although there
were minor differences on the issue of a
government-in-exile and initially on
boycotting Schultz, these have been
resolved. The PLO must now make
concrete decisions for promoting civil
disobedience, and draw up programs
for supporting the masses’ stead-
fastness in this situation.
A fifth condition which would
enhance civil disobedience is a suppor-
tive Arab environment. Since the
Zionist state threatens not only the
Palestinians, but the entire Arab world,
it is the duty of the Arab regimes and
masses to support the uprising as the
flashpoint of the anti-Zionist struggle in - هو جزء من
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