Date: February 25th 2008

OPINION/EDITORIAL
Kosovo and the question of Palestine

By Ali Abunimah

The Electronic Intifada
25 February 2008

http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article9328.shtml

Kosovo's unilateral declaration of independence has
produced a range of reactions among Israeli and
Palestinian observers that reveal their anxieties about
their respective situations.

An editorial in the Israeli daily Haaretz called on the
Israeli government to immediately recognize Kosovo,
arguing that "the struggle of the persecuted Kosovar
people for independence is reminiscent of the struggles by
other nations for the right of self-determination." Of
course Haaretz was not talking about the Palestinians, but
about the "State of Israel, which was established in the
wake of the Jewish people's struggle for
self-determination" ("Recognize Kosovo," Haaretz, 18
February 2008).

By identifying Israel with the supposed underdog, ethnic
Albanians in Kosovo, Haaretz implicitly recognizes that
there are indeed some striking similarities though not
ones it would acknowledge. Kosovo, like Israel, was
illegally severed by force of arms from another country
against the wishes of the majority population of the whole
territory. Both entities came into being and can only
survive with the sponsorship and support of the Great
Powers of the day who sustain them in violation of
international law because it suits their imperial
interests. Furthermore, both entities are animated by a
virulent ethno-nationalism that is fundamentally
incompatible with the values of freedom, tolerance and
democracy that they claim to have come into being to
uphold. In this sense, Kosovo is the latest in a
collection of Western-backed pseudo-states that also
includes the Kurdish entity in northern Iraq.

Haaretz's desire to recognize Kosovo flows not merely from
selfless concern for the oppressed, but is also explicitly
opportunistic. First, doing so would please Washington
(Israel's main sponsor), and second it provides a "unique
opportunity" to "prove that the Jewish state is not an
enemy of the Muslims" -- though Haaretz was careful to
note that Albanians in Kosovo are "good" Muslims "who
ha[ve] not identified with extremist Islamic tendencies
and ha[ve] kept a distance from Israel's opponents in the
Arab world."

A radically different Israeli view by Haaretz columnist
Israel Harel echoes the position expressed by former
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in 1999 when NATO
forces bombed Serbia and then occupied Kosovo under the
pretext of protecting ethnic Albanians in the province
from abuses and ethnic cleansing by Yugoslav authorities.
(These reports were greatly exaggerated to justify the
war. By contrast massive ethnic cleansing of Kosovo Serbs
by Albanians since 1999 and NATO inaction to stop it is
well-documented.)

For Harel, Israel should identify with Serbia. "Muslims of
Kosovo constitute an absolute majority of the population,"
Harel worries, "and the same is true for the Galilee
Arabs," his dismissive term for Palestinian citizens of
Israel living in their native towns and villages in the
north of the country. Lamenting Israel's failure to
"Judaize" the Galilee, he repeats right-wing claims that
the Palestinians inside Israel are an ungrateful fifth
column receiving too many resources from an over-generous
and "impotent" Israeli state. Ignoring the decades of
racial, legal and economic discrimination, land
confiscation and forced displacement that Palestinian
citizens of Israel have suffered and continue to endure,
he charges that "Israeli governments have resigned
themselves to the blatant, unconcealed separatist actions
of the Galilee Arabs" ("Kosovo is already here," Haaretz,
21 February 2008).

Harel cites as evidence of this "separatism" the claim
that "Arab intellectuals and public officials have
compiled documents known as 'The Vision,' in which they
reject Israel as a Jewish state and the homeland of the
Jewish people." In fact, the various documents that Harel
seems to be referring to have set forward explicitly
democratic, inclusive constitutions for a unitary state in
which all citizens have equal rights regardless of
religion or ethnicity. These Palestinian "vision"
documents are more than anything an appeal against the
narrow ethno-nationalism and separatism of Zionism and in
favor of universal values.

So far, the Israel government has not recognized Kosovo's
independence and has indicated that it is unlikely to take
a stand on the issue in the near future.

Kosovo also presents dilemmas from a Palestinian
perspective. John Whitbeck, an international lawyer and
former legal advisor to Palestinian negotiators, pointed
out the obvious hypocrisy of the Western justifications
for recognizing Kosovo: "The American and EU impatience to
sever a portion of a UN member state (universally
recognized, even by them, to constitute a portion of that
state's sovereign territory), ostensibly because 90
percent of those living in that portion of the state's
territory support separation, contrasts starkly with the
unlimited patience of the US and the EU when it comes to
ending the 40-year-long belligerent occupation of the West
Bank and Gaza Strip" ("If Kosovo, Why not Palestine?" The
Jordan Times, 20 February 2008).

Whitbeck advocates that "the Ramallah-based Palestinian
leadership, accepted as such by the 'international
community' because it is perceived as serving Israeli and
American interests," seize the opportunity and declare
independence for a Palestinian state in the West Bank and
Gaza if "this leadership truly believes, despite all
evidence to the contrary, that a decent 'two-state
solution' is still possible." To give teeth to this
initiative, Whitbeck suggests that Palestinian leaders
make clear that if the world fails to recognize and
support their state, they will dissolve the Palestinian
Authority and seek a one-state solution in all of historic
Palestine.

Yaser Abed Rabbo, an aide to Mahmoud Abbas, president of
the Ramallah Palestinian Authority, made international
headlines by suggesting that if negotiations with Israel
continued to go nowhere, "we have another option," which
is to follow the example of Kosovo. "Kosovo is not better
than Palestine," he asserted.

Abbas and his other chief lieutenants, Ahmed Qureia and
Saeb Erekat quickly jumped on Abed Rabbo, assuring the
world that they would do no such thing -- they would
instead stick to the very "negotiations" that have been
going on for fifteen years and that they acknowledge have
made no progress. This makes perfect sense. As Whitbeck
noted, these leaders are merely clients of the US and the
EU. They will never bite the hand that feeds them.

What they recognize -- and were forcefully reminding Abed
Rabbo -- is that the only principle that applies in such
cases is that you do what your sponsors say and it is
they, not you who decide the law. The Albanian leaders in
Kosovo only acted when their US-EU sponsors told them to,
and Abbas and his cronies will do the same.

So what if anything can observers of the Palestine
conflict conclude from the events in Kosovo? Despite
growing anger in Serbia, Western officials and prominent
Balkan "experts" have blithely assured us that Serbs will
soon get over the severing of their country, lured by the
promise of being absorbed into the EU's ever-expanding
capitalist empire. Their optimism seems curious, given
that nine years of NATO occupation in Kosovo and a
decade-and-a-half of heavy NATO and EU presence in Bosnia
and Herzegovina have not succeeded in producing long-term
stability.

Imposed partitions in Palestine, Ireland, India, Cyprus
and -- it is to be feared -- Iraq have one thing in
common: they are always justified by their advocates with
the claim that though perhaps less than ideal, they at
least have the advantage of finality and clarity, and once
the initial unpleasantness passes, everything will settle
down into a new normality. As Israel's founding prime
minister David Ben-Gurion notoriously said of the
Palestinian refugees six decades ago, "the old will die
and the young will forget."

But in every case, such partitions have generated new
conflict, injustice and ethnic cleansing and have
reinforced nationalism and irredentism. What are the
chances that Serbia will prove to be the exception?

Co-founder of The Electronic Intifada, Ali Abunimah is
author of One Country: A Bold Proposal to End the
Israeli-Palestinian Impasse (Metropolitan Books, 2006).


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