Palestine: ‘Statehood’ or liberation struggle?

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The Palestinian grassroots, including people in exile, continues the independent organizing that earlier this year led to the historic May and June Nakba and Naksa border-crossing “Marches for Return.” In August the focus turned to an intervention into the controversy over Palestinian Authority head Mahmoud Abbas’ plan to call for a vote on “statehood” at the UN in September.

In the United States, Palestinians and their allies are mobilizing for a rally outside the UN on Sept. 15 calling for support for the full panoply of Palestinian rights. While taking advantage of the media attention to Abbas’ plan, central organizers of the rally, such as the U.S. Palestinian Community Network (USPCN), have made clear that the UN vote is not only inadequate but an actual danger to Palestinian rights.

USPCN called on all Palestinian and Arab community and student groups and solidarity campaigns “to reject fully and unequivocally the Statehood initiative as a distraction that unjustifiably and irresponsibly endangers Palestinian rights and institutions.” They pointed to the danger of PA usurpation of PLO prerogatives, which would lead to the abandonment of historic rights such as the right of return.

Instead, they call for a return to struggle for liberation, rejecting a bogus independence through pursuing a caricature of statehood, saying that only when liberation and return are achieved will true independence be won. “Not before, and not without the mandate of the entirety of the Palestinian people. Indeed, it is in struggle and the emboldening of our emancipatory spirit that we free ourselves.”

“Through the PLO, and its countless popular committees, associations, unions, and camp formations, many (though not all) Palestinians had a voice within their movement. Indeed, it is that popular democratic mobilization that gave the PLO its legitimacy. And in its continued role as legitimate representative, the PLO, and only the PLO, has the legal mandate to advance the political will of the Palestinian people.

“We say this knowing full well that, in the last few decades, the PLO has been decimated by corruption, ineptitude, collaboration, and betrayal. It must be reclaimed, cleaned, revived and rebuilt. … The PLO must expand to truly represent all Palestinians, inside Israel, in the West Bank and Gaza, in the camps, and across the shatat … it is we who will breathe new life into our long too dormant national institutions through popular democratic mobilization. … We must return to a framework of genuine struggle and a cohesive and coherent strategy built upon our inalienable rights.

“The first step in such a strategy must be an escalated focus on Palestinian mobilization for direct elections to the Pal-

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