The mind must be decolonized first, in order for the undoing of colonialism to succeed in all aspects of our liberation.
By Ramzy Baroud
November 29, 2024
Source: Originally published by Z. Feel free to share widely.
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A child runs holding the Palestinian flag as he passes graffiti on the controversial Israeli separation barrier during the Palestine Marathon, Bethlehem, March, 2018. (Photo from Daily Sabah)
“Imperialism leaves behind germs of rot which we must clinically detect and remove from our land but from our minds as well,” Frantz Fanon wrote in ‘The Wretched of the Earth’.
What the iconic anti-colonial philosopher and psychiatrist was essentially arguing is that the mind must be decolonized first, in order for the undoing of colonialism to succeed in all aspects of our liberation.
Many in the Global South, but especially intellectuals and analysts concerned with Middle Eastern affairs, are still struggling with their relationship with the United States.
Though all signs indicate a rapid decline of US global status, many among our intelligentsia, possibly unwittingly, still believe that Washington holds all the cards, and that any US administration that controls the White House naturally must also rule the world.
Of course, US domestic and foreign policies are relevant to global affairs, as financial decisions by the US Federal Reserve, for example, will affect US-global trade volumes, and will impact the interest or disinterest in purchasing US treasury bonds. Some countries that are keen on standing at an equal distance between the US and China often jockey to refine their positions and to protect themselves in case of seismic political changes in the US. And more …
However, the vibe radiating from many in the Middle East is that the doomsday scenario is real, and that the big war is upon us. They ignore that, for many nations around the world, from Gaza, to Lebanon, to Ukraine, to Sudan and elsewhere, wars have already arrived, many of which are bankrolled by western funds and political blank checks. To warn of war while tens of millions are already suffering the outcomes of these western-funded wars reflects the degree of desensitization and opportunism of the followers of western order.
Some of those crying over the supposedly imminent doom had initially presented the Democratic Party’s presidential nominee, Kamala Harris, as the best worst-case scenario for Palestinians, Arabs and Muslims. Though they may have acknowledged the genocide in Gaza, and even criticized the Joe Biden Administration for enabling it, they recoiled at the mere suggestion that the Democrats must be punished for their many sins in the Middle East and beyond.
Another crowd presented Donald Trump as a savior, the strong man who, with a stroke of a pen, will end all wars, Gaza included. They cited the man’s repeated emphasis that “I’m not going to start a war, I’m going to stop the wars.” They even went on to argue that Trump, who would be serving a second and final term in office, is now immune to the political manipulation from the pro-Israeli lobby, and all other pressures.
Trump won. His crushing defeat of the Democrats on all fronts, including that of the popular vote, indicates that he would have won regardless of those who considered ending war on Gaza a top political priority. But the early announcements that Trump’s future administration will include the who’s who in the pro-Israel Republican circle reignited the debate of the ‘bigger genocide’ awaiting Palestinians and other fear-mongering tactics.
However, both sides of this inconsequential debate conveniently ignore obvious facts, that America’s ruling elites are rooted in pro-Israeli political allegiances; that though there might be a difference in style, US foreign policy, under the Democratic Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Trump’s future hire, Marco Rubio, is likely to be identical; that the Biden-Harris administration have given Israel all the help it needed to sustain its wars in the Middle East over the course of 13 months and counting.
This stifling debate, however, misses some of the most critical points that should be discussed, and urgently so.
First, the Middle East region is not a single political monolith. It has its own political calculations, conflicts, alliances and options that include other political heavyweights such as China, Russia, among others.
Second, that several Middle Eastern countries are joining the increasingly influential BRICS alliance. The latter is not just a trade club, but a powerful economic alliance with a strong political discourse to match. Thus, the future and survival of the Middle East does not hinge on US economic policies.
Third, that the war in Gaza is a war that also involves the Palestinians, the Lebanese and their Arab and international allies. The people of occupied Palestine and Lebanon have agency, choices and strategies that are not wholly dependent on the ideological identity or political inclinations of a lone American man dwelling in the White House.
If the political views of the American president were indeed the most decisive aspect in the fate and future of the Palestinian people, Palestinian aspirations would have been suppressed decades ago due to the inherent US pro-Israeli bias. They didn’t, not due to the compassion of US administrations, but due to the sumoud, the resilience of the Palestinian people.
It is time that we abandon the archaic thinking regarding our collective colonial past, or present, that saw western leaders as masters, and our peoples as mere subjects, struggling to survive, imploring, though never obtaining, prudent western foreign policies.
The world is vastly changing, and it is time for us to change as well. Fanon had already discovered the cure: We must clinically detect and remove the rot, not only from our land but from our minds as well.
l
A child runs holding the Palestinian flag as he passes graffiti on the controversial Israeli separation barrier during the Palestine Marathon, Bethlehem, March, 2018. (Photo from Daily Sabah)
“Imperialism leaves behind germs of rot which we must clinically detect and remove from our land but from our minds as well,” Frantz Fanon wrote in ‘The Wretched of the Earth’.
What the iconic anti-colonial philosopher and psychiatrist was essentially arguing is that the mind must be decolonized first, in order for the undoing of colonialism to succeed in all aspects of our liberation.
Many in the Global South, but especially intellectuals and analysts concerned with Middle Eastern affairs, are still struggling with their relationship with the United States.
Though all signs indicate a rapid decline of US global status, many among our intelligentsia, possibly unwittingly, still believe that Washington holds all the cards, and that any US administration that controls the White House naturally must also rule the world.
Of course, US domestic and foreign policies are relevant to global affairs, as financial decisions by the US Federal Reserve, for example, will affect US-global trade volumes, and will impact the interest or disinterest in purchasing US treasury bonds. Some countries that are keen on standing at an equal distance between the US and China often jockey to refine their positions and to protect themselves in case of seismic political changes in the US. And more …
However, the vibe radiating from many in the Middle East is that the doomsday scenario is real, and that the big war is upon us. They ignore that, for many nations around the world, from Gaza, to Lebanon, to Ukraine, to Sudan and elsewhere, wars have already arrived, many of which are bankrolled by western funds and political blank checks. To warn of war while tens of millions are already suffering the outcomes of these western-funded wars reflects the degree of desensitization and opportunism of the followers of western order.
Some of those crying over the supposedly imminent doom had initially presented the Democratic Party’s presidential nominee, Kamala Harris, as the best worst-case scenario for Palestinians, Arabs and Muslims. Though they may have acknowledged the genocide in Gaza, and even criticized the Joe Biden Administration for enabling it, they recoiled at the mere suggestion that the Democrats must be punished for their many sins in the Middle East and beyond.
Another crowd presented Donald Trump as a savior, the strong man who, with a stroke of a pen, will end all wars, Gaza included. They cited the man’s repeated emphasis that “I’m not going to start a war, I’m going to stop the wars.” They even went on to argue that Trump, who would be serving a second and final term in office, is now immune to the political manipulation from the pro-Israeli lobby, and all other pressures.
Trump won. His crushing defeat of the Democrats on all fronts, including that of the popular vote, indicates that he would have won regardless of those who considered ending war on Gaza a top political priority. But the early announcements that Trump’s future administration will include the who’s who in the pro-Israel Republican circle reignited the debate of the ‘bigger genocide’ awaiting Palestinians and other fear-mongering tactics.
However, both sides of this inconsequential debate conveniently ignore obvious facts, that America’s ruling elites are rooted in pro-Israeli political allegiances; that though there might be a difference in style, US foreign policy, under the Democratic Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Trump’s future hire, Marco Rubio, is likely to be identical; that the Biden-Harris administration have given Israel all the help it needed to sustain its wars in the Middle East over the course of 13 months and counting.
This stifling debate, however, misses some of the most critical points that should be discussed, and urgently so.
First, the Middle East region is not a single political monolith. It has its own political calculations, conflicts, alliances and options that include other political heavyweights such as China, Russia, among others.
Second, that several Middle Eastern countries are joining the increasingly influential BRICS alliance. The latter is not just a trade club, but a powerful economic alliance with a strong political discourse to match. Thus, the future and survival of the Middle East does not hinge on US economic policies.
Third, that the war in Gaza is a war that also involves the Palestinians, the Lebanese and their Arab and international allies. The people of occupied Palestine and Lebanon have agency, choices and strategies that are not wholly dependent on the ideological identity or political inclinations of a lone American man dwelling in the White House.
If the political views of the American president were indeed the most decisive aspect in the fate and future of the Palestinian people, Palestinian aspirations would have been suppressed decades ago due to the inherent US pro-Israeli bias. They didn’t, not due to the compassion of US administrations, but due to the sumoud, the resilience of the Palestinian people.
It is time that we abandon the archaic thinking regarding our collective colonial past, or present, that saw western leaders as masters, and our peoples as mere subjects, struggling to survive, imploring, though never obtaining, prudent western foreign policies.
The world is vastly changing, and it is time for us to change as well. Fanon had already discovered the cure: We must clinically detect and remove the rot, not only from our land but from our minds as well.
No More ‘Deals’ – What Palestinians Want and Will Fight to Achieve
By Ramzy Baroud
By Ramzy Baroud
November 28, 2024
Source: Originally published by Z. Feel free to share widely.
Brussels, 00/00/2018: Ahead of the EU Foreign Affairs Council meeting Avaaz members seen at Palestinian Lives Matter are bringing the Gaza tragedy with a monument of over 4,500 pairs of shoes, one pair for every life lost in this conflict in the last decade, right in front of where ministers enter the building on Monday 28 May 2018 in Brussels.
Brussels, 00/00/2018: Ahead of the EU Foreign Affairs Council meeting Avaaz members seen at Palestinian Lives Matter are bringing the Gaza tragedy with a monument of over 4,500 pairs of shoes, one pair for every life lost in this conflict in the last decade, right in front of where ministers enter the building on Monday 28 May 2018 in Brussels.
(Olivier Matthys/AP Images for AVAAZ) Foto: Olivier Matthy
A major problem in American thinking in the Middle East is the utter rejection of the notion that Palestinian rights are fundamental, if at all relevant, to the coveted peace and stability.
Long before Donald Trump’s first ‘Deal of the Century’ was officially revealed on January 28, 2020, successive US administrations attempted to ‘stabilize’ the Middle East at the expense of Palestinians.
Earlier plans, or deals, rested on the premise of total marginalization of the Palestinian people and their cause. They included the Roger Plan of 1969 and Roger Plan II in the early 70s, which culminated in the Camp David Accords later that same decade.
When all had failed to subdue Palestinians, Israel and the US began investing in an alternative Palestinian leadership that would be compliant with Israeli will, often in exchange for money and a minimal share of power. The outcome was the Oslo Accords in 1993, which initially segmented Palestinians politically, yielding competing classes, but eventually failing to defeat the Palestinian quest for freedom.
Numerous other initiatives and plans, mostly by the US and other western entities, tried to conclude the Palestinian struggle in favor of Israel without having to deal with the inconveniences of pressuring Israel to respect international law. They all failed.
Trump’s so-called ‘Deal of the Century’ was another failed attempt. It was situated in previously thwarted Israeli plans centered around Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s so-called ‘economic peace‘ in 2009. For Israel, the new ‘deal’ was meant to represent a win-win scenario: ending Israel’s regional isolation, amassing wealth, making the Israeli military occupation permanent, avoiding any accountability under international law, thus permanently defeating Palestinians.
The ongoing Israeli war and genocide in Gaza, the destabilization of the whole region and the ongoing Palestinian steadfastness and resistance are the final proof that there can never be real peace in the Middle East without justice for Palestinians and other victims of Israeli brutality. No number of future US-western deals and initiatives can ever alter this fact.
The same inference applies to those operating at a less official capacity, but still committed to the same perusal of creative ‘solutions’ to the so-called ‘conflict’. Such notions may suggest that the lack of solutions reflects the lack of imagination, resolve or the dearth of legal text that makes a just end to the ‘conflict’ impossible.
However, a solution is readily available. Indeed, the solution to military occupation, apartheid and genocide is ending military occupation, dismantling the racist apartheid regime and holding Israeli war criminals accountable for their extermination of Palestinians.
Not only do we have enough international and humanitarian laws and court orders to guide us through the process of holding Israel accountable, but more than the needed critical mass of international consensus that should make this ‘solution’ possible. The main obstacle is the stubborn and unconditional US support of Israel, which has allowed it to flout international law and consensus for decades.
International law regarding Palestine is not an outdated resolution, but a robust and growing legal discourse that refuses to entertain any Israeli or US interpretation of the war crimes, including the crime of genocide underway in Gaza and the rest of the occupied Palestinian territories.
Last February, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) began holding hearings that allowed representatives of over 50 countries to articulate their political, legal and moral stances on the Israeli occupation of Palestine.
While the acting legal adviser at the US State Department argued that the 15-judge panel at the Hague should not call for Israel’s withdrawal from the occupied West Bank, China’s Foreign Ministry’s legal adviser, Ma Xinmin, contended that Palestinian ‘use of force to resist oppression is an inalienable right’.
Later in July, the ICJ issued a landmark ruling that the Israeli occupation in all of its expressions is illegal under international law, and that such illegality includes the occupation of East Jerusalem, all Israeli Jewish settlements, annexation attempts, theft of natural resources, and so on.
In September 2024, international consensus again followed, as the United Nations General Assembly passed a resolution demanding Israel to end “its unlawful presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory” within 12 months.
This is but a footnote in the massive body of international law regarding the Israeli occupation of Palestine. Yet more is constantly being added to the already clear discourse, including the latest arrest warrants by the International Criminal Court (ICC) of top Israeli leaders, including Netanyahu.
With such clarity in mind, why then should Palestinians, Arabs and the international community entertain or engage in any new deals, plans and solutions that operate outside the realm of international law and standards?
The issue is obviously not the lack of a roadmap to a just peace, but the lack of interest or will, namely on the part of the US and a few of its western allies. It is their relentless backing of Israel and financing of its war machine that makes a just solution in Palestine unattainable, at least for now.
As far as Palestinians are concerned, there can only be one acceptable ‘deal’, a deal that is predicated on the full implementation of international law, including the Palestinian people’s right of return and right to self-determination.
Continued US-Israeli attempts at circumventing this fact will never impede Palestinians from carrying on with their struggle for freedom.
A major problem in American thinking in the Middle East is the utter rejection of the notion that Palestinian rights are fundamental, if at all relevant, to the coveted peace and stability.
Long before Donald Trump’s first ‘Deal of the Century’ was officially revealed on January 28, 2020, successive US administrations attempted to ‘stabilize’ the Middle East at the expense of Palestinians.
Earlier plans, or deals, rested on the premise of total marginalization of the Palestinian people and their cause. They included the Roger Plan of 1969 and Roger Plan II in the early 70s, which culminated in the Camp David Accords later that same decade.
When all had failed to subdue Palestinians, Israel and the US began investing in an alternative Palestinian leadership that would be compliant with Israeli will, often in exchange for money and a minimal share of power. The outcome was the Oslo Accords in 1993, which initially segmented Palestinians politically, yielding competing classes, but eventually failing to defeat the Palestinian quest for freedom.
Numerous other initiatives and plans, mostly by the US and other western entities, tried to conclude the Palestinian struggle in favor of Israel without having to deal with the inconveniences of pressuring Israel to respect international law. They all failed.
Trump’s so-called ‘Deal of the Century’ was another failed attempt. It was situated in previously thwarted Israeli plans centered around Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s so-called ‘economic peace‘ in 2009. For Israel, the new ‘deal’ was meant to represent a win-win scenario: ending Israel’s regional isolation, amassing wealth, making the Israeli military occupation permanent, avoiding any accountability under international law, thus permanently defeating Palestinians.
The ongoing Israeli war and genocide in Gaza, the destabilization of the whole region and the ongoing Palestinian steadfastness and resistance are the final proof that there can never be real peace in the Middle East without justice for Palestinians and other victims of Israeli brutality. No number of future US-western deals and initiatives can ever alter this fact.
The same inference applies to those operating at a less official capacity, but still committed to the same perusal of creative ‘solutions’ to the so-called ‘conflict’. Such notions may suggest that the lack of solutions reflects the lack of imagination, resolve or the dearth of legal text that makes a just end to the ‘conflict’ impossible.
However, a solution is readily available. Indeed, the solution to military occupation, apartheid and genocide is ending military occupation, dismantling the racist apartheid regime and holding Israeli war criminals accountable for their extermination of Palestinians.
Not only do we have enough international and humanitarian laws and court orders to guide us through the process of holding Israel accountable, but more than the needed critical mass of international consensus that should make this ‘solution’ possible. The main obstacle is the stubborn and unconditional US support of Israel, which has allowed it to flout international law and consensus for decades.
International law regarding Palestine is not an outdated resolution, but a robust and growing legal discourse that refuses to entertain any Israeli or US interpretation of the war crimes, including the crime of genocide underway in Gaza and the rest of the occupied Palestinian territories.
Last February, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) began holding hearings that allowed representatives of over 50 countries to articulate their political, legal and moral stances on the Israeli occupation of Palestine.
While the acting legal adviser at the US State Department argued that the 15-judge panel at the Hague should not call for Israel’s withdrawal from the occupied West Bank, China’s Foreign Ministry’s legal adviser, Ma Xinmin, contended that Palestinian ‘use of force to resist oppression is an inalienable right’.
Later in July, the ICJ issued a landmark ruling that the Israeli occupation in all of its expressions is illegal under international law, and that such illegality includes the occupation of East Jerusalem, all Israeli Jewish settlements, annexation attempts, theft of natural resources, and so on.
In September 2024, international consensus again followed, as the United Nations General Assembly passed a resolution demanding Israel to end “its unlawful presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory” within 12 months.
This is but a footnote in the massive body of international law regarding the Israeli occupation of Palestine. Yet more is constantly being added to the already clear discourse, including the latest arrest warrants by the International Criminal Court (ICC) of top Israeli leaders, including Netanyahu.
With such clarity in mind, why then should Palestinians, Arabs and the international community entertain or engage in any new deals, plans and solutions that operate outside the realm of international law and standards?
The issue is obviously not the lack of a roadmap to a just peace, but the lack of interest or will, namely on the part of the US and a few of its western allies. It is their relentless backing of Israel and financing of its war machine that makes a just solution in Palestine unattainable, at least for now.
As far as Palestinians are concerned, there can only be one acceptable ‘deal’, a deal that is predicated on the full implementation of international law, including the Palestinian people’s right of return and right to self-determination.
Continued US-Israeli attempts at circumventing this fact will never impede Palestinians from carrying on with their struggle for freedom.
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Ramzy Baroud is a US-Palestinian journalist, media consultant, an author, internationally-syndicated columnist, Editor of Palestine Chronicle (1999-present), former Managing Editor of London-based Middle East Eye, former Editor-in-Chief of The Brunei Times and former Deputy Managing Editor of Al Jazeera online. Baroud’s work has been published in hundreds of newspapers and journals worldwide, and is the author of six books and a contributor to many others. Baroud is also a regular guest on many television and radio programs including RT, Al Jazeera, CNN International, BBC, ABC Australia, National Public Radio, Press TV, TRT, and many other stations. Baroud was inducted as an Honorary Member into the Pi Sigma Alpha National Political Science Honor Society, NU OMEGA Chapter of Oakland University, Feb 18, 2020.
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