Sarra Grira.– After Beijing in July 2024, a meeting of the different factions representing the Palestinian people at home and abroad was held here in Doha in February 2025. A call was put out to reform and enlarge the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO), an initiative which was clearly not to the liking of the Pales-tinian Authority (PA). But beyond these pleas for unity, how much room for ma-noeuvre does the Palestinian resistance have, either politically or in terms of armed resistance ?
Azmi Bishara. –: That’s a hard question to answer since the present moment is too uncertain to consider any long term strategies. Emotionally and intellectually we are totally absorbed by the need to put an end to the genocide. The changes under way oblige us to think up new strategies, but this reflection cannot take place in a research centre like mine. It must first be carried out in the political movements. And the problem is that they cannot agree on a unified strategy. That would require a nationwide leadership, but the leaders themselves are deeply divided. And their disagreements are not confined to details. They concern fundamental issues. So long as the war in Gaza goes on and the political landscape isn’t more clear, it will be difficult to discuss the nature of the Palestinian leadership upon which these strategies will depend.
A twofold strategic failure
The leaders of the Palestinian Authority refuse to acknowledge the failure of their strategy which, the balance of power being as it is, has not made it possible to oblige Israel to stick to the basic principles necessary for negotiations. The result has been the expansion of the West Bank settlements and even an Israeli determination to annex whole new stretches of land. The PA’s strategy boils down to simply surviving as an authority under Israel’s occupation and they’re prepared to accept anything for that. Well, that doesn’t amount to the strategy of a national movement.
As for Hamas, there was no realistic strategy behind the operation launched on 7 October 2023, which was indeed a resistance operation – with the reservations one may have regarding a certain number of acts perpetrated. That attack was a consequence of the state of siege imposed on Gaza - and we must remember that the right of resistance is recognized internationally. As for Israel’s actions, they are much more than a simple riposte, they are part of a strategy aimed at getting rid of the Palestinians - physically in Gaza and as a people in the West Bank - in other words putting an end once and for all to the idea of a Palestinian state.
The Palestinian people in the Gaza strip is facing genocide, as is Hamas. Hamas’ main concern is not liberation or the creation of a state but rather the end of the war and its own survival. Hamas itself was surprised by the degree of complicity of the Arab regimes. That is something we should think about.
Part of the Arab world was expecting Israel to destroy Hamas and put an end to Palestinian resistance. Had there been an official unified Arab position, even a very minimal one, it would have been possible to use the situation in Gaza to put the Palestine question back on the negotiating table. It would have been possible to tell Israel it had used all the military force it could and that it was time to find a solution.
Most of the movements of national liberation around the world have been defeated militarily. But there came a moment when the coloniser realised he had used all the force he could - as with France in Algeria - and that he must put an end to that situation. If a unified Arab position had placed Israel in that situation, the military defeat of Hamas would not necessarily mean the end. But so long as there is this Arab complicity with Israel, that country will not be persuaded to look for a solution. The Arab retreat will be answered by an escalation of Israeli force, brutality and ferocity. Which will create the illusion that the logic of force is effective. .
The passivity of the Arab regimes
S.G.– You have said that certain Arab regimes could have stopped the bloodbath and the genocide in Gaza if they had so desired...
A.B.– Yes, I think so. At least those countries which have signed a peace treaty with Israel. Threatening to break those treaties could have put an end to the war. I’m thinking especially of Egypt.
S.G.– Could Egypt really have done that, given its economic and military dependence on the US ?
A.B.– Would such a decision have led to the US abandoning Cairo ? And would Egypt have been abandoned by the rest of the Arab world ? Had there been broad Arab support for an Egyptian refusal, the West would not have abandoned Egypt at the risk of seeing the Muslim Brotherhood take power. The Egyptian regime persists in playing by the rules laid down at Camp David, they don’t understand that what has happened in Gaza constitutes a fundamental change.
When Israel went into Gaza after 7 October 2023, the hysteria in Israeli society demanded the destruction of Gaza, but that offensive could have been limited to one, two or three months. When Israel became aware there would be no reaction from the Arabs nor indeed from any of the West, it was encouraged to go on, with the strong complicity of the United States. Better yet: it realised that the scenarios it had always dreamed of, such as the forced displacement of the Palestinian population, might now materialize. A dynamic has developed during this war, but it was not inevitable, it was linked to the behaviour of the world’s leaders or to our own reactions to the war.
S.G.– Do you think there is really a danger of the displacement of the majority of the Palestinian population of Gaza, despite Egypt’s steadfast refusal to accept them - a refusal which is not to be explained by solidarity with the Palestinians, but by the regime’s own considerations ?
A.B.–There are several scenarios which depend on the Egyptian and Arab responses. For example, Israel might make the displacement issue so real that any other proposition it might make would be regarded as a concession. In other words, if it gave up the idea of ethnic cleansing and declared that half the population of the Gaza strip should be concentrated on one third of its territory, this would appear as a proof of “moderation”.
There are other scenarios. For example, the living conditions will become so difficult in Gaza that once the war is ended and reconstruction begun - if it ever is - a huge emigration process would be started, even if it involved “only” one million individuals. With the help of relatives living abroad, they could leave, helped also by the fact that certain countries will open their doors to them, without there being an organised migration policy. Making life practically impossible in Gaza will certainly bring about those departures.
At the beginning of the war we saw how the Egyptian authorities - or their representatives at the Rafah crossing - made the Palestinians pay to cross. Anyone who had five or ten thousand dollars could leave. Israel was counting on that, and it has everything to gain by making life impossible in Gaza. But a mass displacement will of course be impossible without the complicity of the Arabs or Egypt. Israel has moreover begun to consider applying the same policy in the West Bank, using the same methods to drive all the Palestinians off their land.
S.G.– Very early on, you favoured the idea of a democratic state for all, an idea which is not so far from the thinking of Fatah itself. Today, other Palestinian political leaders, like Mustafa Bargouti, also advocate that conception. While it is obvious that the two-state solution which the PA continues to defend is outdated, the single state solution is equally utopian considering the fascist tendencies of a good share of Israeli society and the fact that most countries around the world are still talking about a two-state solution. Given this context do you think there is any “in-termediate” objective to be pursued today ?
A.B.– Such an objective does not exist. The real objective is the end of the occupation, whether the solution involves one or two states. The Israelis will never give up the Zionist character of their state. They will never accept the return of the refugees or agree to live alongside the Palestinians as equal citizens in a state without a national Jewish character. For them, this would mean the disappearance of Israel, which would not be the case for a Palestinian state in the event of a two-state solution.
As you said, movements like Fatah have referred to that objective but it was purely rhetorical: “We will liberate Palestine by the force of arms and the Jews and others will be able to live there as equal citizens,” and they described it as a democratic state. But that was part of a strategy of armed struggle that has failed. And in fact it was never a true strategy, but mainly it enabled the restoration of Palestinian identity through resistance to Israel.
As time went by, two “nations” or two peoples have taken shape in Palestine and this can no longer be ignored, even if one speaks of a single state or of coexistence, with a recognition of individual rights, etc. There is a Hebrew language, a Hebrew culture, and an Israeli people, quite separate moreover from the rest of the Jews around the world. Similarly, the Palestinians will never give up their identity as Arabs and Palestinians. To speak of a secular democratic state with no national identity is just as unacceptable for the Palestinians. Any discussion of a single state must recognize the existence of two “nations” and two languages - otherwise what would be the official language ? English ? Just as the Israelis will never accept Arabic as the sole official language, the Palestinians will never accept only Hebrew.
Both the one-state solution and the two-state solution contain the notion of bi-nationalism. These are ideas on the basis of which strategies have to be developed by all the political forces. What will Israel do after Gaza ? They could drop a nuclear bomb on the Palestinian people. If all this cruelty and destruction continue and we don’t back down and if Israel doesn’t find anyone to normalise their relations with, when the Palestinian problem remains unresolved, it will be obliged to deal with it. Then we can discuss the solutions.
But for the moment, we are not dealing with a situation in which the other side finds itself obliged to resolve the Palestinian problem. Why ? Because the Arab countries are prepared to normalise their relations with Israel and forget about Palestine. And because there exists a Palestinian Authority ready to serve Israel’s security requirements. So why should Israel want to solve the problem ? This is no time to propose solutions, it is time for us to acquire enough allies in the Arab world, in Europe and elsewhere to force Israel to negotiate.
An Israeli sphere of influence ?
S.G.– In Israel’s immediate vicinity, there is no resistance force left. What can stop Israel’s geographical and military expansion, already so real in Syria and Lebanon ?
A.B.– In my opinion, nothing, except perhaps the anger of the Arab peoples, who do not accept this situation. The effect of this resentment towards Israeli behaviour and the official Arab reactions will ultimately be transformed into concrete action.. but when ? I have no idea, but I am sure it will. We are witnessing the transformation of the Mashreq into an Israeli sphere of influence. This is a veritable sea-change and it is unprecedented. Even the countries allied to the United States - and there are many - or who were allies of the United Kingdom in the colonial era, did not, in the past, accept this region becoming an Israeli sphere of influence. A zone of US, French or British influence, yes, but not that of a colonial entity created only recently in the region and which wants to control Syria and Lebanon, decide how the populations of the Gulf States should behave, or what should figure in the Moroccan school curricula, etc.
Even the traditional Arab rulers, loyal or at least allied to the West against the communists during the cold war or, later, against political Islam, could not accept that situation. What is new is the existence in Washington of an administration which gives all that its blessing. Its international vision consists of dealing with the strongest powers and recognizing the spheres of influence of all the countries in the region. Ukraine is regarded as belonging to the Russian sphere of influence; and as for China, despite the commercial and economic conflicts with the United States, Washington doesn’t deny it the role of regional superpower, with the right to exercise a regional influence, perhaps even over Taiwan. As for Japan and South Korea, they either have to cooperate with China or develop their own defence strategies.
The same goes for Europe with Russia. Look at the way Trump has declared that Syria is part of Turkey’s sphere of influence. Concerning Syria, he sees Israel as a little country and thinks it should expand in Syria because the Golan Heights aren’t enough. So why should Israel hold back ? The country has proven the effectiveness of the logic of force, so it has the right to do all that. That’s the US logic, terrifying and dangerous. But if there is no official Arab response, then I’m convinced there will be one from the peoples.
It is true enough that today there is no armed force capable of opposing Israel, and certain Arab regimes are probably glad of that. But I think that among the people, this logic of the expansion of Israeli influence will not be accepted. It has begun to be strengthened by the return to what was once a colonial logic in this region, i.e. the instrumentalization of confessionalism and the different minorities, especially in the Mashreq. This shows clearly that having destroyed the self-styled “Axis of Resistance”, Israel believes that no other country is qualified to exert a similar influence. Normally, Egypt should disagree with this and I’m not talking about the politics of its rulers, I am talking about the Egyptian state. The same should apply to other countries in the region, but it seems to me they won’t dare to push back. The Mashreq is fragmented and occupied with confessional conflicts. It wrongly believes the enemy to be Iran. We have been rattled by the conflicts between Shi’a and Sunnis, from Iraq to Syria via Lebanon, and the whole region is now riddled with confessionalism. If the Arab populations avoid that trap, popular resentment will be aimed at Israel’s expansionism. Hence the effort to embroil them in these confessional conflicts.
Syria, distinguishing the regime from the state
S.G– Considering all that, what can be the role of the new administration in Damascus ? Syrian society is exhausted after all these years of war, the country is fragmented, its economy destroyed, and at the mercy of armed groups and the designs of its neighbours. Do you think the country can overcome this crisis without more years of armed violence and fragmentation ?
A.B.– Nothing is unavoidable, everything depends on the behaviour of the new rulers, on the messages they send to their population, their plans and their orientations. Naturally enough, I hope for the success of the Syrian experiment after the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime. But I can’t be overly optimistic in view of the behaviour of the new rulers.
Let’s begin with a first point: their inability to distinguish between the regime and the state. Without that distinction, any transition – and I’m not talking about a democratic one but simply to the rule of law, and a minimum of pluralism –will be difficult. There are two dimensions : With regard to the past, the present rulers are acting as though there has never been a Syrian state, whereas they have to take into consideration the institutions, the civil servants, the technocrats, etc. Not all of them are Baathists and not all Baathists are guilty of crimes, as the new rulers seem to believe. So as regards the future, they act as if they themselves were the state. The regime must understand the difference between political authority and the logic of the state and its citizens.
Secondly, the belief that the Alawites ran Syria is false. The regime was dictatorial but the Alawites were like the Sunnis and the other confessions, they were among the governed, not the governing. The security apparatus was controlled by using a fanaticism widely present in the region and later transformed into confessionalism, but the regime never defined itself in confessional terms. It was supported, for example, by large sections of the Sunni population. That belief - like in Iraq where it is thought that under Saddam Hussein the Shi’a were among the governed and that now the Shi’a majority should run the country - is very dangerous. In the first place, it turns the majority of the population into a single, homogenous confession and destroys any possibility of pluralism. Secondly, it treats the others as a minority, tolerated by the majority but not full-fledged citizens. A tolerance under conditions.
Thirdly, when the rulers say “us”, they aren’t talking about all Syrians but about the Sunnis, and that’s a disaster. Besides preventing the emergence of an equal citizenry, it permits foreign countries to intervene on the pretext of protecting minorities. Managing the logic of “us” against “them” is very dangerous. Of course there are many other problems like the impossibility of running a country without relying on the state apparatuses, and suspecting everybody, etc.
But I think the two basic issues are the lack of distinction between state and regime, and behaving as if the state represented the Sunni majority and that the minorities were only tolerated, giving token representation to the Alawites and the Druze and treating women as though they were just another minority, with only one representative in the government when they are half the population of the country. Their “us” means the Sunni Muslim Arab males, their “them” is all the other Syrians. That is not acceptable.
Of course there are major problems which will certainly be solved during the next couple of years, like the economic sanctions. But the US conditions for lifting the sanctions are linked neither to democracy nor to the security of Syrian society, or even to normalisation with Israel – putting that issue on the table was a gift on the part of the Syrian leaders because they think that’s what the West wants. None of the Western conditions for lifting the sanctions is linked to the issue of equality. So it is our duty as peoples of the Mashreq to seize upon it, we mustn’t wait for the West to impose it. It’s the duty of the Syrians, for their wellbeing, not for that of the West.
Revisiting the history of Arab Jews
S.G.– To conclude, don’t you think that the Arab movements of solidarity with Palestine, in the Arab world and in the West, are committing a strategic error by clinging to an Arab-Islamic framework instead of internationalising the question and making common cause with anti-Zionist Jews ? Shouldn’t the Arab world reappropriate the history of the Jews in the Arab world as an Arab history, instead of abandoning it to Israel which has weaponized it ?
A.B.– It would take me a long time to answer that question. But there is no doubt that the rhetoric of the national movement against the occupation and the on-going injustice should be one of universal justice and human rights. As a region we have been overcome by successive waves - you’ve seen how Palestinian rhetoric was Islamicised in the wake of the wave of Islamisation which swept the Arab world when the PLO abandoned armed struggle.
History has reversed itself: in the sixties, it was the Muslim Brotherhood which rejected armed struggle, and the secular national movement that espoused it. In any case, I think that even if Hamas continues to rely on its arms, it has to address the world in a language it understands: a language of justice and equality. In so doing, it won’t abandon its cause or turn turn its back on what it is. Because at the end of the day, the Palestinian cause is a just cause, and translating it into a discourse of justice and equality is what has to be done.
We are not the first people to have suffered an occupation, and we haven’t suffered it because we are Muslims, but because we live on our land. Of course the rhetoric of national liberation is universally accepted. But as you know, all the national movements in history have used different strategies of mobilisation, including religious ones.
As for addressing Jews outside of Israel, that is undeniably important. We must help a large part of the Jews across the world to detach themselves from Israel and Zionism. We must not accept their being associated with Israel and being held responsible for its actions. Of course, anti-Zionist Jews are essential and now play a major role in the movement of solidarity with Gaza.
As for the Arab Jews, we must remember that the Arab regimes have never launched a true struggle against Zionism. Quite the contrary: with the wars of 1948 and 1967, an open collusion was created to facilitate the migration of Arab Jews to Palestine. Those regimes did not treat these people democratically, but their undemocratic methods were applied to other problems as well. It wasn’t as though they had been unfair only to their Jews. Any analysis of the history of Arab and oriental Jews in the region must avoid both the idealisation and demonisation of the Arab treatment of the Jews.
Jews lived in the Arab world as a religious minority. It was not political Islam that was dominant then, but a traditional culture. Hence they negotiated their living conditions, in accordance with the crises and the phases, just like all minorities down through history. Now what differentiated the situation of the Jews in the Arab world from that of their cousins in Europe was the absence of a specifically Arab or Muslim racism towards Jews - in other words the absence of antisemitism. There was no racial discrimination or any racial theories among the Arabs, and they never considered getting rid of the Jews. Of course there was discrimination against all minorities, but historically, the greatest targeted Muslim minorities - that is to say the Islamic sects which deviated from what was regarded as the norm - and not the Jews or the Christians. Those were traditional societies. There is nothing shameful about analysing them critically. I am against the idea of pretending that our societies were a paradise for Jews or talking about tolerance and Andalusia, and all that.. Those are illusions. But the notion that the Arab world was a nightmare for Jews is a calumny and most Jewish historians agree. From a historical point of view, if we compare the Arab world to medieval and modern Europe, the former comes out on top.
Translated from French by Noël Burch.
