HAIDAR EIDSecular democracy and the future of Palestine

Haidar Eid, Mondoweiss, 28/1/2022

Haidar Eid was born in a refugee camp in Gaza (his parents came from the village of Zarnouqa, in the Ramla district, which was ethnically cleansed by Zionist gangs in 1948). He got his PhD from the University of Johannesburg, South Africa, where he stayed from 1997 to 2003, learning much from the anti-apartheid movement. He is Associate Professor of Postcolonial and Postmodern Literature at Gaza's al-Aqsa University. He has written widely on the question of Palestine, including articles published at Znet, Electronic Intifada, Palestine Chronicle, and Open Democracy. He has published papers on cultural Studies and literature in a number of journals, including Nebula, Journal of American Studies in Turkey, Cultural Logic, and the Journal of Comparative Literature. He is a founding member of the One State Campaign (OSC) and a member of Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI). And last but not least, he sings. @haidareid

It is an established fact that Israel is an apartheid state. The questions then are - how to dismantle it and what comes next?

The two-state solution continues to lose support in Palestine. More and more Palestinians are realizing that that the so-called peace process has only resulted in the the production of new Israeli facts on the ground, and new repressive practices that make a functioning Palestinian State impossible. No wonder then that a recent poll conducted by the Jerusalem Media and Communication Center indicates growing support for a one-state solution among the Palestinians at the expense of  the two-state solution.

The irony, though, is that the facts on the ground do not seem to have convinced the Palestinian leadership, right or left! Instead of fighting to crush Zionism and its apartheid policies in Palestine, the leadership of the PLO tries to coexist with it. Their argument, which have been shared by some international scholars and activists over the years, is that the two-state solution is supported by an “international consensus,” notwithstanding the fact it is nothing more than an unjust solution dictated by Israel and the US that it ignores our basic rights as humans. In this article I argue that the only hope for us, Palestinians, lies in an anti-apartheid form of resistance that mobilizes the components of the Palestinian people and international civil society and that ultimately leads to the establishment of single state in Palestine.

Apartheid Israel

It is an established fact that Israel is an apartheid state.  The latest reports by Human Rights Watch and even Israel’s most respected human rights organization, B’Tselem, not to mention reports by so many Palestinian human rights organizations, have concluded that the regime between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea is an apartheid regime.