Only a dead Palestinian is a good Palestinian?

Baroness Uddin, excellencies, ladies and gentlemen. In 1995-1996 after the assassination of Rabin, it was the first time that Netanyahu was elected. I called him then on Sky TV a “pyromaniac on a powder keg”. 

Watching day after day, night after night the horror on TV screens, I can but remember what happened in America two centuries ago. “Only a dead Indian is a good Indian”.

Today Netanyahu behaves as though, “only a dead Palestinian is a good Palestinian”.

And others in positions of power in Washington and the London gave him a greenlight which he has abused of. 

And things are happening as though. Our victims are nameless, fatherless, motherless, childless, worthless. As though we are children of a lesser God. 

I never belonged to the optimistic school of thought that promises victory and salvation to the oppressed.

Unfortunately, history is a cemetery for oppressed people who remained oppressed until they vanished into historical oblivion. 

The dilemma in the Middle East is the following: There is either one people too many, this time we the Palestinians, or that there is a state which is missing needing to be created. 

I believe the answer of the international community in the UN and elsewhere has been that a state is missing and needs to be created.

But I have news for you. History is still undecided, and our challenge is how to help history make the right choice because it has not always been the case. 

Israel was supposed to be an answer to what was called the Jewish Question. As a result, today we are in front of you as a question, waiting for a convenient equitable answer. 

And I remember in 1992 in the other part of this House of Lords, House of Commons. on the International Day of Solidarity 1992. I remember having started my speech by saying what can we wish the Palestinian people on such a day, and my answer was that they no more need an International Day of Solidarity because if we need that one it means that our ordeal, or tragedy or catastrophe has been left unresolved, festering. 

All settler colonialism started with oppressed people, who became oppressors. Who went to the United States, then the colony of the UK? The doomed of the earth looking for more hospitable shores. It was the republicans from monarchies. The monarchy’s from new republics. It was the protestants from the predominantly catholic countries, the Catholics from predominantly protestant countries. 

They ended there and resulted almost in the total extermination of the indigenous population. So, the oppressed from one continent became the oppressors of another continent. 

Who were the French Pieds-noirs in Algeria? Mainly the descendants of the defeated communards, the commune of Paris 1870. 

Meaning, the economically exploited and the ideologically persecuted. 

They were the descendants of the inhabitants of the Alsace-Lorraine that France lost to Prussia and ended going to Algeria becoming themselves the colonizers of Algeria.

And yes, we happen to have become the victims of the victims of European history hence we were denied our legitimate share of sympathy, solidarity and support for so long. 

The oppressed of the European continent became the oppressor of the Middle East. I have to say I bow in respect for the Jews who clearly expressed with so much emotion, who said “Not in Our Name” by occupying central station, in New York and who in Washington occupied the Capitol Hill and said:

“Not in Our Name”. 

In the second half of the sixties, most of the books analysing correctly the Israeli condition in Palestine were written by Jews because the others did not dare.

I remember Maxime Rodinson’s “Israel a Colonial Fact?” I remember Alfred M. Lilienthal in New York “what price Israel?” 

I remember Prof. Noam Chomsky and Professor Richard Falk.

And I would like to say that “Not in our Name” resonates superbly with us because we need to feel that there is not a collective guilt concerning our tragedy. 

Rabbi Abraham Heschel, a prominent Rabbi in New York who was against the war in Vietnam who said: “In a democracy, if a few are guilty, all are responsible”. And I have always argued that Israel is a democracy for its Jewish component. And election after election after election with the informed consent of the soldier, the citizens, and the voters, they have voted for the continuation of my oppression. Yes, I was always in favor of dialogue with those who chose to be our enemies, and I’m still in favor of that dialogue. Yet, Ambassador Peter Ford alluded to my discomfort with the way the peace process was unfolding and how it was flawed. 

Its major flaw was that it left too much to the local belligerent parties to sort it out while knowing the asymmetry of power. And we have witnessed what I called the self-inflicted impotence of the international community, and I always tell my American interlocutors or my European interlocutors each time you promised us pressure, it looked as though all of you had the political weight of Luxemburg or even worse Lichtenstein.

Commentators in the past used to say this time Israel went too far, Israel has shot itself in the foot. And my answer was to say it seems to me that Israel has many more than two feet to shoot at because they keep getting away with it. 

I believe today we have to channel our anger in a very constructive manner, and in America I believe that the Palestinian and Arab and Muslim communities have already signalled to the Democratic Party you have one year to find another credible candidate because we cannot vote for Joe Biden. And yet we don't want one of those Republicans to come to the White House. 

America is a nation of nations. And I had hoped during the decades when America, and it's no more the case, was the unipolar power, the only remaining superpower. I had hoped that American foreign policy would be a policy of non-alignment in regional conflicts. Why? Because when America the only remaining superpower aligns itself on one belligerent party in the regional conflict, not only does it antagonize and alienate all the other players in the region, but it also antagonizes a domestic actor, a domestic factor in its own national social fabric. It wasn't easy to be a Palestinian American and there are 400.000 of those. It wasn't easy to be an Arab American, and there are 4 millions of those as it wasn't easy to be a Muslim American and there are 8 millions of those. Why? Because of this uncomfortable feeling that our country of adoption is insensitive to the ordeal in our countries of origin. 

There isn't one America, there are two Americas. There is the America of the early arrivals, the European settlers that resulted in almost the total extermination of the indigenous population, and the America that established and institutionalized slavery. The America that shamelessly expanded at the expense of a neighbour country Mexico swallowing Texas, California, New Mexico, etc. 

And this is that America usually when they refer to shared values between Sharon, Netanyahu and that America. 

But, fortunately, for us there is another America. The America of the founding fathers, who defied the colonial power. The America that took the painful decision of a civil war to get rid of slavery, the America of Woodrow Wilson who came to the Versailles conference brandishing the slogan of self -determination. The America of. Martin Luther king that had a dream we shared across the oceans. 

That's the America that today our communities are engaging with. I’m proud to say they are scoring a lot of points and there is an alliance between our community and large segments of the American Jewish community. 

King Charles III has recently described the UK as a community of communities. Here in this country also I have seen the temperature and the mood of the Muslim community in the UK. I believe that in a western democracy, multi-party systems there is what I call the pendulum law. The conservatives have been for thirteen years in power. There is always an erosion of one’s popularity especially if you had a cascade of prime ministers who were uninspiring. 

So, the prediction is that the pendulum will move towards the opposition. 

I personally believe many are unhappy with the positions of the two major parties.

So, the liberal Democrats and the Greens who are usually recruited among the most adorable segments of any society will be receiving a ton of new votes that are not accustomed to go in that direction. And political observers will know from where they come and why they came.

I personally believe that we will have seminars in the next coming months on whether we are having a genocide, a politicide or a socio-cide or the three of them together. It would be a painful discussion. 

I personally miss de Gaulle as a president in this era of mediocracy.

In fact, de Gaulle in 1967 after the war had an initiative of his own called: « La coordination des quatre grandes puissances ».

“The Coordination of The Major Four Powers”. 

China was not yet in the security council. And the message was the following: 

Those four major countries, two of which USA & UK were closer to Israeli ambitions, and the USSR & France closer to Arab aspirations.

The four of them would signal to the local belligerent parties what the world expects from them and that's it. 

Now this idea did not fly very high simply because the Americans were not unhappy with the Israeli military victory of 1967 which compensated the humiliations of Vietnam.

The Soviet Union short-sighted like they frequently could be did not see why they should give equal status to lesser countries like England and France. 

The English where unenthusiastic simply because the idea was French to begin with. And ladies and Gentlemen, since then we are having a process- a durable process- instead of lasting, permanent peace.

I’m a realist, a principled pragmatist. I believe that's what we need since I mentioned self- inflicted impotence of the international community, what we need is an elegantly or an inelegantly imposed solution, which is mutually unacceptable. 

Knowing the psychology of belligerency and the pathology of conflict, I believe the concept of mutual unacceptability has more potential that mutual acceptability. 

If I know that the other side doesn't like it too, it becomes less unattractive to me. 

And since both societies rightly or wrongly believe the whole country is theirs, the two-state solution is this desirable elegantly or inelegantly imposed that is mutually unacceptable. 

I believe that's the only way out. We, Palestinians, have been unreasonably reasonable. We have been calling for thirty years for possible justice not absolute justice. We have aligned ourselves on the international consensus. It is not the international community that aligned itself on our preference. The Israelis have been reluctant to implement international law and international resolutions. I personally believe that without the international community stepping in the most decisive manner, what would happen is the following: Hamas will not become the majority tendency in Palestinian politics, rather it will become the moderate wing of Palestinian politics. 

Finally, we tried to play winner -winner. The Israelis all of them want still to play with us winner - loser. No society accepts to be the eternal loser of history. A minority with emerge and minorities make history. That would say if I’m condemned to be the eternal loser I play loser-loser- to hell with the temple and down with the pillar. 

I am still in favour of win-win. 

Thank you.