Discussing Arms: A Reading in the Complications of Palestinian Armed Experience

[Discussing Arms: A Reading in the Complications of Palestinian Armed Experience] by Majed Kayali. The Arab Foundation for Studies and Publishing Beirut Amman 2020
Nadia Naser-Najjab[1]

After the establishment of the PLO in 1964, armed struggle became synonymous with the Palestinian national movement. The PLO adopted a militaristic iconography and symbolism and individual and collective acts of armed resistance became deeply embedded in its historiography. When the PLO entered into peace negotiations with Israel, Hamas effectively co-opted this culture and tradition and presented itself as the standard-bearer of armed Palestinian resistance. In the Palestinian context, it would therefore be a mistake to ascribe purely religious connotations to ‘martyrdom’ in the service of armed resistance, as it also has a secular meaning and significance.

The memory of those who sacrificed themselves for the national cause is still celebrated by Palestinian institutions and the general public, and Majed Kayali’s Discussing Arms therefore presents a controversial thesis when it attributes the militarisation of the Palestinian struggle to a general failure of insight and perspective. His closeness to the national movement does however mean that he is almost uniquely well-placed to offer a retrospective critical assessment of Palestinian armed struggle since the Mandate period. He shows how the adulation of armed struggle produced emotional decisions and imposed clear limitations that excluded non-violent alternatives.

Kayali’s criticisms do not seek to dispose of the more general concept of resistance and can, in actual fact, more accurately be described as an attempt to salvage the concept from the limitations and constraints that have hitherto been imposed on it. He affirms that Discussing Arms ‘…is not about the legitimacy of Palestinian struggle against the occupation…it is about the forms of struggle and not to limit it to armed struggle… how to invest it and to manage it in a rational way with least losses’ (p 154). Kayali’s critique requires a cultural shift and a whole new way of thinking, that comprehensively breaks with this inheritance in order to preserve the sanctity of the principle of resistance.

His critique also argues the celebration of armed resistance is detached from reality (‘[i]t is more about imaginative and a wishful thinking rather than a realistic possibility’) (p117) and this is confirmed by the fact that the rhetorical celebrations of a number of political parties do not refer to concrete achievements; conversely, the act of resistance is in itself deemed to be worthy of celebration.

Kayali is equally critical of the thinking that turned ‘peace’ into an unquestioned imperative, which was to be pursued in the absence of critical scrutiny. Both were products of a rigidity and inflexibility of thought that culminated in the ongoing annexation project that was presaged by the U.S report Peace to Prosperity.[i] He similarly dismisses the call for Palestinians to adopt methods of Gandhian non-violent resistance without international and regional support, by observing that they are poorly adapted to Israeli settler colonialism. (p168)

The adulation of armed resistance has been accompanied by an equally pernicious myth of ‘Arab solidarity’, which has occluded the realities of the situation in which Palestinians find themselves. But Kayali does not confine himself to observing the limitations of this solidarity or the efforts of particular Arab states to co-opt the struggle. Instead, he proceeds to the considerably more controversial claim that Arab regimes were, at a time when they were ostensibly committed to the destruction of Israel, actually interested in ensuring its stability, on the grounds this would help maintain the status quo.

But such questions were essentially rendered ‘off-limits’ by the ‘worship’ of armed resistance, which produced a rigidity of thought and tactical and strategic stagnation. Critical thought was also discouraged, as those who sacrificed themselves to the national struggle were instead to be celebrated and valorised. It was deemed more appropriate to unquestioningly shout slogans, such as Yasser Arafat’s Sha’ab Al Jabarreen (‘the mighty people’), while submitting to the limitless wisdom of the leadership.

This conformity came with a clear cost, which was paid by Palestinian civilians in Jordan, Lebanon and occupied Palestine. In any case, armed resistance was also limited in its own terms – as Kayali observes, traffic accidents claimed more Israeli lives than Palestinian acts of resistance or wars with Arabs. (p152) But the dogma of armed resistance prevented an acknowledgement of this, in addition to Israel’s military superiority and the international/regional context. It also detracted from Palestinian institution-building.

Throughout its history, the Movement was also limited by its reluctance to learn the lessons of past defeats. The interlude between the outbreak of the 1936 Arab Revolt and the 1948 War was, he observes, wasted as the leadership failed to develop a clear strategy or address existing weaknesses. While he accepts that the establishment of Israel was perhaps unavoidable, he contends that the loss of 77 percent of Historical Palestine was not.

He also cites the example of the Al-Aqsa Intifada and notes that Palestinian attacks on Israeli civilians rallied Israelis behind Ariel Sharon and enabled him to reoccupy Palestinian areas, destroy Palestinian infrastructure and further fragment Palestinian land. But rather than acknowledge these counter-productive effects, Palestinian political parties instead commemorate the event’s anniversaries and sacrifice (p115). He is also critical of Hamas missile attacks on Israel, which similarly helped Israel’s Right to advance its political agenda. He attributes Hamas’s tactical oversight to its detachment from the national movement, which is perhaps surprising, as he is so critical of the latter’s tactical and strategic shortcomings.

Just as the PLO once celebrated the ‘sacrifices’ made during Israel’s 1982 siege of Beirut, Hamas valorises the ‘bravery’ and ‘endurance’ of the besieged Strip. But it is no great betrayal to observe that, in this latter case, the main contribution of this ‘resistance’ has been to strengthen the locks of a wretched prison that insults the most basic notions of human dignity. And nor is it an insult to contend that Israel’s 2005 withdrawal from the Strip should have been regarded as a colonial tactic rather than celebrate it. .

Kayali correctly observes that the example of non-violent struggle by Palestinians within Israel for equal rights has not been adapted by Palestinians. But this is more attributable to the general weakness, or wholesale absence, of rights within the OPT and specific Arab countries. In any case, it could be argued that it is not realistic to expect imitation of this kind, as Palestinians will develop approaches, tactics and strategies that are appropriate to their specific (legal and political) context.

The limitations of Palestinian strategy are not just shown by its failure to achieve specific goals but also by the extent to which colonial power has strengthened and consolidated. For example, since the First Intifada, Israel has successfully co-opted parts of the national movement, and this has in turn created division and disunity. The emergence of a Palestinian ‘client class’ and the extent of Palestinian-Israeli ‘security’ cooperation confirm just how successful it has been in these respects.

These developments have helped Palestinian political parties to reach a shared consensus that Israel is a settler colonial state. The PLO originally upheld this position, which was enshrined in its commitment to liberate Historical Palestine. However, it was then gradually diluted as the organisation incrementally moved towards accepting the two-state solution from the mid-1970s onwards. The many failures that accompanied this transition mean that there is a clear and ongoing need to define goals, identify means of resistance and set out an encompassing vision (p102). Critical thinking, open-mindedness and research are the necessary preconditions and corollaries of genuinely revolutionary struggle, and must be welcomed by the leadership rather than resented as an encroachment on its exclusive prerogatives.

I strongly agree with Kayali’s assessment of the First Intifada, and more specifically his claim that it provides a model of popular and non-violent resistance that can be applied to contemporary challenges. In my own work, I have also discussed the proposition that the ‘militarised’ Second Intifada narrowed the horizons of revolutionary action and limited the range of participation.[ii]

I would however take issue with Kayali’s observation that the current regional and international environment is not conducive to Palestinian struggle. Before the First Intifada broke out, the ‘Palestinian Question’ was very low on the international agenda, and in any case the claim that Palestinians should wait for the international environment to change strikes me as too closely resembling fatalism. I would also argue that the project of internal renewal must be defined in relation to Palestinian needs and requirements, and not the limitations imposed by the wider regional and international environment.

In making this assertion, I do not propose to dispose of ‘internationalism’ in all of its forms and dimensions. Rather, I intend to reject the form that was embodied in the abortive Oslo Accords, which situated Palestinians as grateful supplicants who would take whatever was on offer from powerful international states and organisations. In its place, I would instead propose ‘anti-colonial internationalisation’, which is outlined in more detail by Salamanca et al:

Such an alignment would expand the tools available to Palestinians and their solidarity movement, and reconnect the struggle to its own history of anti-colonial internationalism. At its core, this internationalist approach asserts that the Palestinian struggle against Zionist settler colonialism can only be won when it is embedded within, and empowered by, broader struggles – all anti-imperial, all anti-racist, and all struggling to make another world possible. (2012:5)[iii].

BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) is a clear example of this ‘anti-colonial internationalism’, which is clearly rooted in the historical antecedents of the struggle against South Africa’s Apartheid regime. It also recalls Kayali’s thesis because it seeks to explore the possibilities of non-violent resistance and envisages engagement across a wider range of points.

Historically, theorists such as Fanon celebrated violence as a cathartic act that would rid the colonised of the shame and humiliation of his/her degraded state. More recently, revolutionary nationalist groups sought to ‘borrow’ the actions and symbols of militarism for the purposes of revolutionary action, apparently unaware that, in so doing, they transferred a specific and rigid mode of thought that reified ‘sacrifice’ and hierarchical discipline while simultaneously restricting revolutionary alternatives and modes of struggle. In many cases, armed resistance did not just fail to achieve its ends, but actually became a problem that needed to be traversed.

Kayali’s analysis has far-reaching implications and I therefore think that Discussing Arms will be of interest to a wide readership. Although academics will find much of interest, I primarily view it as a practical contribution that seeks to extract the principle of resistance from the cloying and suffocating embrace of militarism. While I would recommend that members of the current Palestinian leadership should read the book, I would suggest that they do so with some caution, as its discussion of an ossified and anachronistic tradition of ‘struggle’ is in many respects an damning indictment of their failure to explore and develop revolutionary alternatives.

I find much to recommend in Discussing Arms, and my concluding suggestion is that it should be translated into English and other foreign languages, as this will help it to reach the wider readership that it undoubtedly deserves.

* Journal of Resistance Studies Number 2 – Volume 6 – 2020, pp. 235-240

[1] Nadia Naser-Najjab is a Research Fellow, European Centre for Palestine Studies- Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies, University of Exeter. Nadia holds a PhD in Middle East Studies form the University of Exeter. Her recent book is entitled Dialogue in Palestine: The People-to-People Diplomacy Programme and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict (forthcoming January 2020).

[i] White House, Peace to Prosperity: A Vision to Improve the Lives of the Palestinian and Israeli People (Independently Published, 2020)

[ii] See Naser-Najjab, N and Khatib, G (2019) ‘The First Intifada, Settler Colonialism, and 21^st Century Prospects for Resistance’, The Middle East Journal, 73 (2), pp187-206

White House, Peace to Prosperity: A Vision to Improve the Lives of the Palestinian and Israeli People (Independently Published, 2020)

See Naser-Najjab, N and Khatib, G (2019) ‘The First Intifada, Settler Colonialism, and 21st Century Prospects for Resistance’, The Middle East Journal, 73 (2), pp187-206

Salamanca OJ, Qato M, Rabie K and Samour S (2012) Past is present: Settler Colonialism in Palestine. Settler Colonial Studies 2(1): 1–8.

Journal of Resistance Studies Number 2 – Volume 6 – 2020, pp. 235-240