Fantasy about Palestine

by Rima Merriman

Like powerless people everywhere, many Palestinians have fantasies they indulge in just as they are about to fall asleep. These fantasies start when they are children, but persist during adulthood. A Palestinian child might imagine having superpowers of some kind - being invisible or being able to fly at the speed of light. He or she then thinks of various scenarios that pit these super powers against the American-backed Israeli military machine. Such fantasies provide fleeting relief from the relentless bleak reality of their situation.

Since the one real superpower on earth is firmly aligned with Israel, regardless of who is president, I would like to indulge in a little fantasy of my own. Following is a speech by an imaginary US president. It is made up of excerpts from actual position papers tweaked to replace "Palestinians" for "Israel" with the addition of a few other changes that articulate the Palestinian cause in place of Israel's:

"The Palestinian people should know that, as president, my commitment to the creation and defence of a viable, safe and secure Palestinian state will be unwavering. The cause of the Palestinians must be the cause of America - and the cause of people of conscience everywhere. This is also my personal belief. We are not secure while the Palestinians remain the victims of an unrelenting expansionist campaign by Israel, while the Palestinian territories are occupied.

"Anti-Arab sentiment - often masked in pro-Israel rhetoric - is a dangerous trend threatening both the Palestinians and Middle East communities. I will launch an aggressive public diplomacy campaign in Israel to tackle head-on the anti-Palestinian propaganda that fuels ignorance and hatred.

"Over the years, America has gained a deep understanding of the everyday threats the Palestinian people face under occupation. I believe that we must stand with the Palestinians, supporting their rights and aspirations as a people. We must ensure that our allies are united in this effort, not working at cross-purposes by propping up a colonialist Israeli power structure.

"This is a pledge I will keep through the following guiding principles: We support the Palestinians' right to resist Israel's occupation of their lands; we will never pressure the Palestinians to compromise their right to self determination within the armistice lines of 1949.

"We will never expect the Palestinians to negotiate for peace without a credible partner. Experience has made very clear that new Israeli leadership is required, as Ariel Sharon and previous Israeli administrations have proven themselves not to be credible partners for peace during eight years of peace talks in the 1990s. They have refused to heed Palestinian demands that they withdraw their colonialist settlements from the occupied territories and suspend construction of new ones. Instead, they almost doubled the number of these settlements. We believe that these illegal settlements must go. Israel's desire now to incorporate them into Israel proper, thus sectioning off the territories and expropriating Palestinian lands and crowding their villages and towns must be stopped.

"We will always work to provide the political, military and economic help for Palestinians against Israel's colonialist project in the West Bank and Gaza."

This sounds very good to me, and I bet it would instantly rally every Middle Eastern country (with the exception of Israel that is) to the support of the United States in all its objectives in the region, and it would capture the mind and heart of every single Arab. However, until such a policy sounds good to Americans in large numbers, it will remain a fantasy - and even that thought is too simple.

According to a poll conducted by the Programme on International Policy Attitudes at the University of Maryland, a clear majority (73 per cent) of Americans already believe that the American administration's bias in favour of Israel is wrong, that the US administration should, at the very least, be evenhanded. Polls (Newsweek) also show that an increasingly strong majority (68 per cent) of Americans believe that the US Middle East policy (i.e., ties to Israel) is a major reason for the Sept. 11 attacks.

But in a democracy such as the United States', what matters is not what the majority thinks, but rather how well a minority can lobby.

This article was published in the Thursday, November 4, 2004 edition of the Jordan Times. It is used here with permission.