Demonstrators block the Benjamin Franklin Bridge, which connects Philadelphia to New Jersey, during the “March for Gaza” rally (French)
In this article, I look forward to reminding you of the importance of starting an extended collective dialogue about the strategic repercussions of the “Al-Aqsa Flood” on us in the region.
I think this dialogue is urgent and necessary, and in my opinion it has been delayed despite our preoccupation with following up on the event and its tragedies that are weighing on all of our nerves.
Some intellectuals and researchers presented their vision of the effects of the event in the near and distant future, and some of them picked up some points from here or there, and some of them presented their vision through an extended historical view of the event linking it to the Crusades, and there are those who placed it in the context of the crisis that international capitalism and its neoliberal extensions are going through in the region. And, of course, some have realized it in a context related to the extended Palestinian struggle and its conflict with the Zionist project in its transformations, and there are those who see it in the context of the Arab Spring uprisings that broke out at the beginning of the last decade, but this effort remains individual, is characterized by limitedness and lack of accumulation, and lacks the broader strategic horizon of an event that will leave its effects - There is no doubt - regarding the overall situation in the region.
Extremist positions - from some Western governments towards activists and human rights organizations supporting Palestine - contribute to creating a wave of intimidation among supporters of the issue in the human rights community, who already feel anger and disappointment from the international community, especially with the failure of international mechanisms - on which reliance has increased recently. - To stop the war or reduce its severity
The writer of these lines was destined to participate in two important initiatives for dialogue on the subject, one of which was devoted - despite the lack of diversity of participants - to the impact of the event on many issues and topics such as: the future of the political solution, Palestinian national action, and the phenomenon of global public opinion supporting the Palestinians, in addition to Evaluating the positions of all regional and international powers regarding the flood.
The second initiative was characterized by the diversity of participants, but was limited to a more specific topic;
It is human rights and democracy issues in the region.
Those responsible for this initiative - the two institutions: Women for Justice and the Center for Democracy in the Middle East - realized several important elements for starting such a process, the most important of which are:
First: Drawing detailed maps of stakeholders that include four levels:
Those concerned with issues of democratic transition and human rights at the country level;
That is, within each Arab country separately.
Regional level, where the experiences and challenges of each individual country are diverse, so it becomes useful to share experiences, visions and influences on their work.
The third level focuses on international organizations working in this field, in addition to the active groups that came out to support the Palestinians.
last but not least;
Dialogue could extend with those concerned with these issues within Western governments and parliaments themselves.
Despite the apparent double standards and lack of credibility;
These governments are also in great trouble for many reasons that are not adequate in detail at this point, but we quickly point out three points:
The presence of people within these institutions who have a real bias towards democratic values and human rights principles.
The loss by Western official institutions of the moral and ethical justification to ensure they can compete as a “free, democratic” world with China and Russia;
As they are oppressive regimes.
Their loss of support from the countries of the South in their decisions and policies.
It was striking that Baroness Ashton, the former High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, titled her article published last month: “Stop taking the Global South for granted,” meaning it is taken for granted in support of the official Western position.
Ashton - who was also a former Vice-President of the European Commission - points to the dilemma that Western governments now face with the countries of the South. “The historical ties between European countries and parts of Africa, South America and Asia have largely disintegrated, with independent states no longer submitting to those countries,” she says. who once colonized it.
Second: Determine the goal that the participants saw it to be
Consider the repercussions of the foreign policy of influential Western governments towards Palestine on their individual and institutional efforts in the areas of advocacy;
For the purpose of supporting democracy and human rights in the countries of the region;
This will enable participants to analyze the foreign policies of Western governments towards Palestine, and to think about the advocacy and activist strategies available to support human rights and democracy in light of new contexts.
Third: One of the goals of any dialogue process is to create and form a common understanding that is shaped by listening to the visions of others. This enriches the subjective vision of each participant, and contributes to understanding the complex dimensions of the event.
The participants in the workshop, which was held on the last day of last month, tried to agree on their understanding of the American and European foreign vision and policy - especially in centers of influence such as England, France, and Germany - towards the war and its effects on the work of jurists in the region by imposing new challenges.
Such as issues of the credibility of democratic governments, stopping funding for organizations that reject Israeli violations, and targeting pro-Palestinian activists.
Participants made a number of important observations in an attempt to reach a common understanding, and among the most important observations were:
For the Arab region
The Israeli occupation is linked to the continuation and entrenchment of tyranny in the region, as the violations of the Arab regimes are turned a blind eye to, and even various forms of support are provided for the existing patterns of governance in exchange for silence about the occupation and acceptance of normalization with it.
This was clearly evident in the significant increase in the frequency of violations in many countries in the region after the outbreak of war, and this in light of Western silence amounting to complicity and giving the green light for more violations, in exchange for the silence of the Arab regimes regarding the atrocities of the war in Gaza.
The American administration’s narrative that the Hamas operation on October 7, 2023 was the main goal of stopping the Saudi-Israeli normalization path, and based on this, some conclude that the United States and the major Western capitals are not as interested in stopping the war as they are in completing the normalization path;
Which will give greater legitimacy to the Israeli occupation among the countries of the region.
Absolute support for Israel - despite all the atrocities committed - will further erode the confidence of the Arab public regarding the effectiveness and universality of the human rights and democratic standards that Western countries supporting Israel praise.
Extremist positions - from some Western governments towards activists and human rights organizations supporting Palestine - contribute to creating a wave of intimidation among supporters of the issue in the human rights community, who already feel anger and disappointment from the international community, especially with the failure of international mechanisms - on which reliance has increased recently. - To stop the war or reduce its severity.
The growing anger - at the continuation of the war in light of significant Western complicity and revealing Arab silence - will only contribute to destabilizing the apparent stability of the ruling regimes in the region, which do not open up to their people about any efforts they are adopting to stop the war, if any.
With increasing anger from both the West and Arab governments, things could easily get out of control, and this alleged fragile stability could be undermined.
The American and Western position
The American position is not surprising, as it is consistent with its permanent and unconditional support for Israel, but some European positions were quite surprising, as is the case with the German position, as Germany adopts a discourse supportive of rights and freedoms, and embraces a feminist foreign policy, but at the same time it supports... Israel, politically, militarily, and even legally, is before the International Court of Justice. It also imposes restrictions and stops funding and support directed to organizations that defend the Palestinian cause and demand an end to the occupation.
The Western streets’ reception of the war differs from the positions of governments, and the absence of a reflection of strong popular demands to stop the war in government policies...all of this reflects a large gap in the representation of those blocs in the foreign policy-making process.
This continued popular pressure has borne fruit in shifting the positions of some Western governments supporting Israel, which have begun to demand an extended ceasefire.
Some major digital companies align with the Israeli position, as they impose electronic censorship on content supporting the Palestinian cause, such as META, the company that owns Facebook, which several reports revealed its bias in more than one place.
Fourth: The formulation of joint proposals between the interlocutors is of great importance for any dialogue process
They serve as common grounds on which one can build, and ultimately they serve as future action plans that can be collaborated on in dialogue, and they are products that can actually have an impact.
Any process whose ultimate goal is not to bring the different people together;
Despite the difficulty of this in the pre-dialogue stage, the purpose is not only to listen to the other’s logic and narrative, despite its necessity, but agreeing on a clear plan of action and joint procedures is the ultimate success of the dialogue.
Participants presented seven action strategies and proposals for dealing with the new contexts of human rights and democracy issues:
In light of the loss of credibility of Western governments, and the decline in the possibility of them pressuring the regimes in the region to implement real reforms, in exchange for their silence about the war on Gaza, it becomes more appropriate now to adopt strategies of activism and networking with peoples instead of advocacy from Western governments to change policies. This does not negate the possibility Employing advocacy to advance accountability efforts for Israel, not to change governments' positions on it.
The bet on the street and cross-border networking with potential partners of voluntary organizations in Western capitals should not be underestimated to maintain popular pressure on governments. These organizations include: Black Lives Matter, feminist groups, environmental and climate justice groups, LGBTQ groups, and indigenous groups. In Canada and the United States, the Jews for Peace movement, and certainly the large Arab and Muslim communities in some countries.
It is necessary to develop a Palestinian narrative to refute the Israeli thesis about their entitlement to the Promised Land. The gateway to this may be to completely remove the religious dimension from the occupation, and present the issue in its true form as an issue of national liberation.
Religiosity of the Palestinian issue serves the narrative of the extreme Christian and Zionist right, and is well exploited by Israel.
It is necessary for democracy and rights advocates to combine their efforts towards giving the Palestinian issue a central position in their work agendas, so that it is linked to all the issues they work on, so that their position will be better in the face of the aforementioned restriction and targeting attempts.
Using the language of rights in networking with partners outside the network of traditional allies enhances the chances of joint action. Finally, the language of human rights is universally accepted for all potential partners across borders, whether in the countries of the North or the South, and should never be abandoned due to anger at double standards among countries. Western countries are the historical sponsors of rights discourse at the international level.
Working at the grassroots level will allow strengthening the thesis of equal freedoms and human dignity, and the universality of human rights values, in contrast to what is presented by official Western approaches, which turn a blind eye to Arab regimes’ violations of the rights of their citizens, in exchange for those regimes’ silence regarding Israel’s violations of the rights and existence of the Palestinian people.
Relying on the state of activism with people directly as an alternative to advocacy with governments should not neglect the limits of activism, such as its ability to mobilize and mobilize, but at the same time the speed of its disintegration and disintegration, and its failure to achieve tangible goals across different parts of the world except in exceptional cases.
Continuing the dialogue is necessary to achieve its goals that the participants identified at its beginning. This has several requirements, the most important of which are: continuing consultation among the participants and not limiting it to dialogue sessions, in addition to crystallizing the results in agreed upon documents and position papers that can be shared with other parties and published among those interested.
The dialogue was concluded with a request from the audience to keep them informed of the developments and events that will be organized by the two institutions that invited the call, and their readiness to assist in similar efforts to deal with the new reality imposed by the Israeli war on democracy and human rights struggles in the region. They also stressed the need to ensure that the voices of the audience - which reflect the general situation - are heard. To the Arab human rights community - to all concerned international partners to determine the impact of their policies on the democracy and human rights struggles that they have always prided themselves on supporting.
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial position of Al Jazeera.