Democratic Palestine : 39 (ص 9)
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- Democratic Palestine : 39 (ص 9)
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Viewpoint
For a Democratic Palestine
In May, a symposium was held in Nazareth, Palestine, entitled: «Is the State of Israel the State of
All its Citizens and Absentees?» The symposium was organized jointly by the Galilee Center for
Social Research and the Scholarship Fund for Publications on Israel. Below we print the discussion
paper which was presented by Udi Adiv, a former political prisoner in Israel. It is entitled: «For Joint
Israeli-Palestinian Action against the Occupation: Towards a Common Democratic Non-Sectarian
State.»
The central question facing the Palestinian people and
the democratic and progressive movements in Israel today is
the question of the struggle against the occupation. The
focus of this struggle is the intifada of the Palestinian people
in the occupied territories. The intifada is today the central
factor for the Palestinian national movement under the
leadership of the PLO and for the movements in Israel
Struggling against the occupation and in support of the
national rights of the Palestinian people.
The purpose of this paper, however, is to draw an out-
line for discussion on the possibilities for establishing com-
mon Palestinian-Israeli frameworks both in order to act a-
gainst the Israeli occupation and for a common future in a
common state. Our view is based on the possible unity of
the Palestinian people and those Israeli democratic and
progressive individuals and movements who rebel against
the Israeli occupation and the continued repression and
exploitation of the Palestinian people. This unity is in our
view the correct basis for the struggle against the Israeli
occupation and for a common non-sectarian state.
Sections of the peace movement and the left in Israel
assume and advocate an Israeli nationalism based on Jewish
ethnicity, whose political expression is Israeli citizenship by
force of the Law of Return. These sections support the
Palestinian national struggle as a means to secure Palestinian
recognition of their Zionist Israeli national identity. They
wish to preserve their segregated existence - not to struggle
for a common future. We submit that this assumption of a
separate Zionist Israeli national identity is a barrier to a sol-
ution of the conflict and is a primary obstacle to a joint
struggle against the occupation and for a common state
based on equality and democracy.
We who initiate this paper know from the experience of
our own life and our own struggle over many years that a
joint struggle for a common goal on the basis of equality
and unity of Palestinians and Israelis is the only possible
alternative to continued Israeli occupation and repression.
The PLO was the first political organization to put for-
ward the vision of a democratic state for all of its inhabit-
ants: Muslims, Jews and Christians on the basis of separa-
tion of religion from the state. Yet, since its establishment
in 1964 the PLO carried out its struggle as the organization
of the Palestinian Arab people only and did not act consis-
ently to create frameworks for common action with the de-
mocratic and progressive public in Israel.
In the past ten years, and in particular after the decla-
ration of independence and the establishment of the state of
Palestine, the PLO has recognized the state of Israel on a
de facto basis. Following the Palestinian declaration of inde-
pendence, various political perspectives developed. One
important argument says that only the embracing of a polit-
ical (not ethnic) Palestinian (not Palestinian Arab) perspec-
tive as the political foundation for a common democratic
citizenship in a common state will make possible the integ-
ration of the Israeli democratic and progressive individuals
and movements in the Palestinian national struggle. In addi-
tion, the argument says that the Palestinian national move-
ment under the leadership of the PLO, the sole legitimate
representative of the Palestinian people, must continue and
promote its clear emphasis that its struggle against the
Israeli occupation is fundamentally political: Palestinian
against occupation regime, and not primarily ethnic
(qawmi): Arab against Jew. On the basis of this continuing
political democratic struggle, Palestinians and Israelis will be
able to transcend their antagonistic ethnic-national identities
and struggle together in a common organization for the
same political goal of independence and liberation for all,
based on cultural pluralism on the one hand and a democ-
ratic political national (watani) identity of common citizen-
ship of a common state without distinction of language, cul-
ture, religion, ethnic nationality and gender on the other.
We make a sharp distinction between cultural identity
and citizenship. In democratic states where there are more
than one cultural identity, there obtains necessarily a clear
separation between the distinct ethnic-national identities
(cultures) and the common political-national identity
(citizenship) uniting all the residents in the framework of the
state as equal human beings under the law. It is only in the
framework of such common democratic citizenship that the
welcomed and enriching pluralism of cultural identities can
flourish and blossom without collapsing into sectarian con-
flict and strife.
It is necessary therefore to distinguish clearly between
Arab vs. Jewish ethnic nationalism (cultural identity) on the
one hand, and political nationalism (citizenship) on the
other. The expression of this latter political nationalism is P
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