At last week’s US Democratic party platform drafting meeting, I introduced Bernie Sanders’s amendment to the Israel-Palestine section calling for an end to the occupation and settlements. This column is devoted to my comments when I spoke for the amendment, which was voted down. The debate will continue, however, when the full platform committee meets later this month:
During her opening comments, chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz spoke about “putting ourselves in others’ shoes.” That’s what we’ve tried to do with our amendment. We do not often see the Arab-Israeli conflict through Palestinian eyes. As Mr Sanders has made clear, there are two peoples in this conflict who need to be understood and whose pain needs to be recognised.
While the platform calls for a “two-state solution”, just using language about two states doesn’t acknowledge the reality that the Palestinians are living under occupation. Palestinian land is being taken by settlements. Palestinians endure checkpoints that bring horrific humiliation every day – denying them freedom of movement, employment and the opportunity to give their children free space in which to live. That’s the situation in the West Bank and Jerusalem.
Gaza is another story entirely, with 60 per cent unemployment and even higher youth unemployment. You must understand that in Gaza, if you’re a young man under 30, you have probably never had a job, have no prospect of a job and therefore have no opportunity to have a family or build a decent future. And so death becomes a more desirable option for some. Suicide rates are up, mental illness is up, drug addiction is up. The situation is unsustainable and it must change.
If you review the Democratic party’s past platforms, they have lagged behind reality. I remember being in this same debate in 1988, when we called for our party’s platform to include “mutual recognition, territorial compromise, and self-determination for both peoples”.
Back then, people reacted as if the sky was going to fall in. It didn’t, we survived. We did not recognise a Palestinian state in our platform until 2004 after George W Bush said it.
Now we have an opportunity to send a message to the world – to Arabs, Israelis, Palestinians and to all Americans – that America wants to move towards a real peace because it understands that there’s suffering there that is unsustainable.
The term occupation shouldn’t be controversial. George W Bush said that there was an occupation. Ariel Sharon said that there was an occupation. Barack Obama has said there was an occupation. There is an occupation. It denies people freedom. We have to be able to say in politics what we say in our policy. We can’t think with two brains. If our policy says it’s an occupation and settlements are wrong and they inhibit peace, why can’t our politics say it? It doesn’t make sense.
The next administration will behave just as the last one, but our politics won’t change. And so I urge you to consider passing this amendment because of the message it will send. A message of hope to Palestinians, a message to Israel and a message to the American people – that this time we’re going to make a difference. And we are actually going to help the parties move towards peace.
I can’t get into the airport in Israel without hours of harassment because I’m of Arab descent. I’m not even Palestinian, but I get stopped because my father was born in Lebanon. When I was working with Al Gore when he was vice president, I almost missed a dinner at the Knesset because I sat in the airport for hours being grilled by people about why I was there and what I was doing.
That was bad enough. But the treatment meted out to the people who live there is so much worse. They suffer horrific discrimination. We have to be able to call it what it is. It is an occupation that humiliates people, that breeds contempt, that breeds anger that leads to violence. All that we are asking is to accept the reality of the situation. There’s an Israel that the US accepts, supports and wants to do everything for. But there’s also a Palestinian people living under occupation, being drowned by settlements. And recognise too, what is happening to the people in Gaza.
There is a dynamic that Anerica must understand. The Israelis may be insecure about the Palestinians but they are very secure about America. Palestinians are not secure. America has never treated them fairly. In 1988, when we tried to call for mutual recognition, we could not get that done. We couldn’t even get the word Palestinians in the platform.Reality has moved way beyond just recognising Palestinians are there. We need to hear their voices, understand their pain, and say that the Democratic party understands that this is conflict that must be resolved by respecting the rights of both peoples.
Dr James Zogby is the president of the Arab American Institute and is part of the US Democratic party’s platform drafting committee
On Twitter: @aaiusa