Palestine Now: Mahmoud Abbas, Barack Obama, and the Upcoming Israeli vote (Israeli 2013 Election Coverage, 2)

Over a year ago, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas attempted to have Palestine recognized as a full member state of the United Nations; unfortunately, the Americans vetoed this, causing many to lose hope in US President Barack Obama. A little over a year later, Abbas is planning to go back to the UN to rally up support in the General Assembly for a vote on recognizing Palestine as a non-member state. While many Palestinians have lost faith in Abbas, with time, he has shown that he is dedicated to see a Palestinian state established in the shortest time possible.

For many Palestinians, Mahmoud Abbas has betrayed them; two weeks ago, he appeared on Israeli channel two, and declared in Arabic and English that he believed in the two-state solution, and has no aspiration to return to live in Safad (Tzefat), his birthplace which is located in the northern Israel.  He declared that for him, Palestine is the West Bank and Gaza strip, with Jerusalem as its capital (shared with Israel).  This contradicts the will of many Palestinians who believe in the right of return to historical Palestine, to the lands that they lived on before the 1948 Nakbah. 

Realistically speaking, I think we all know that for now the Right of Return is not on the agenda; and if so, it would be for a limited number of people negotiated under a settlement. In any case, we are so far from a settlement that under the circumstances, those who oppose Abbas should reassess their stance. More than any other Palestinian politician, Abbas has systematically demonstrated that he is dedicated to peace and a struggle which is achieved through diplomacy. I would argue that he has made serious progress at placing Palestine on the agenda. Now that Obama has won a second term, Abbas can safely brush off Israeli claims that he is at fault for not making progress towards a peace agreement.   

Over the last almost four years, Israeli PM Netanyahu and his very undiplomatic Foreign Minister, Avigdor Lieberman, have demonstrated over and over again that they are not interested in peace (for more on Netanyahu/Lieberman and elections, click here).  While the Iranian threat is real, Netanyahu has used it as a way to divert attention from the Israeli occupation and the continued colonization of Palestinian lands. Furthermore, Lieberman has not missed an opportunity to try to delegitimize Abbas and the Palestinian authority. More recently, Israel is threatening the Palestinian authority that if they go to the UN for recognition, Israel will hold back revenues it owes them.    

The real test now begins for Barack Obama to push the Israeli government to either work towards a two-state solution, or accept the consequences: a shared state with Palestinians; in other words, a bi-national state. With the Israeli elections only two months away, a major speech concerning the Middle East is more important than ever, and if Obama does have something in mind, it needs to be stated even before the second inauguration. Let us not forget that concerning foreign policy, Obama has a golden opportunity to make change; not like domestic politics where his hands are tied by the Republican house, with foreign policy he is free to set the agenda on his own.  If he were to do this, the Israeli electorate would have the chance to see that the game of stalling is over and the time has come to take a major step at ending the occupation, or to bear the consequences. By doing this, Obama will place the peace process back on the agenda, breathing debate into the Israeli society concerning its future.  

A Hunger Strike:An Opposition behind Bars

During the last 53 days, many things have happened in Turkey and the world. For me, I started the university semester and I cannot believe that next week midterms will begin.  Summer ended, lasting extra long, and finally it is getting quite chilly outside. A film about Muslims sparked outrage. More recently, a hurricane named Sandy battered the East coast. I could go on and delve into different news stories. However, one thing we perhaps missed was that in Turkey, for the last 53 days, almost 700 Kurdish prisoners in Turkish jails have gone on a hunger strike (starting on different dates). They are demanding their right as Turkish citizens to study in their mother tongue , have the right to speak Kurdish in courts (with a translator), and want an end to the solitary confinement of the outlawed Kurdish PKK’s leader Abdullah Ocalan.

Kurds in Turkey's western city of Adana protest in the name of the hunger strikers

Those following the Turkish news, or my blog during the last almost four years, will know that Turkey has for over thirty years been subjected to an ongoing armed uprising of its Kurdish population in Turkey’s southeastern regions. During these years, over 40,000 Turkish citizens have been killed (on both sides) and throughout the 1990’s Turkey offered no negotiations, and sought out a military solution. The Kurdish organization, the PKK, recognized by most of the western world as a terrorist organization, has no chance of winning their armed struggle, but they also inflict great challenges on the Turkish military, and this year alone, there has been almost 100 security personnel killed. 

While the armed struggle is led by the outlawed PKK, with their leader, Abdullah Ocalan, being jailed on an island prison not far from Istanbul, the civil branch of the Kurdish struggle is played out through a political party, the Peace and Democratic Party (BDP). This party is in the Turkish parliament and the Turkish Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, is currently in the process of trying to strip some of the BDP members of their parliamentary status due to an event where the MPs took photos embracing PKK guerrillas.  Erdogan, who for the first part of his ten-year tenure worked to reach an agreement with the Kurds, more recently has switched to a zero-tolerance policy towards their demands.

During the last few months, as a result of the growing rift between the Turkish state and the Kurds, we have seen an increase in the violent clashes between the Turkish military and the PKK fighters.  On the civilian front, thousands of Kurds have been jailed (along with their Turkish allies), including academics, writers, journalists, and elected officials (mayors to MPs). Many are held months and years without trial, and often charged on anti-terrorist laws, which the United Nations Human Rights Committee recently criticized as "incompatible with international law," and implenting "unacceptable restrictions on the right of due process for accused people."

It is this atmosphere that Kurdish prisoners sought out to become active in their opposition; where they are silenced in jail, a massive hunger strike has awoken both Kurds and Turks (both Turkish citizens) to the ongoing Kurdish plight.  The Turkish government once again is showing that it is losing its grip over the society at large (see last week’s blog on Republican Day march), with the PM Erdogan ridiculing the BDP leaders as ones that feast at huge banquets, while their counterparts are on a hunger strike; he was basing his claims on a picture of the leaders at a feast, which was taken two months before the strike. On an official state visit to Germany, Erdogan, standing next to German PM Merkel, even went so far as to call the strike a political “show,” claiming that only one person is really on a hunger strike.  

Well, as Erdogan tries to brush off the strike, during the last two weeks, the mainstream Turkish media has been covering events on a daily basis. Massive demonstrations have been held in Turkey’s southeastern cities, such as Diyarbakir and Van, and in some western cities with large Kurdish populations, such as Adana.  A general strike was observed throughout most of the southeast last Tuesday with shopkeepers closing their shutters and children refusing to go to school.  There is no question that the Kurdish question just in a matter of a few months has managed to bring a huge split in the society, with Kurds and Turks reaching a dangerous divide.    

Turkey, almost a decade ago witnessed a prison “death strike,” held by a Turkish radical left movement with some dying; however, their support was limited, not like the Kurdish hunger strikers. Last year, the BDP member and MP Sebahat Tuncel, who herself might find herself behind bars due to an ongoing court case, wrote an article, which appeared in the NY Times. It was an op-ed which talked about that the Kurds in Turkey also might have their own “Arab Spring.” If the government does not act soon, and strikers start to die one by one, the Turkish government could be faced with a backlash that it has not seen until now, giving impetus to Tuncel’s words. Further, with the Turkish society polarized at the seams, such a scenario could lead to a general consensus that Erdogan, the invincible leader, might just not make it through the storm. 

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The Republican March in Ankara: Crossing the Threshold

Onlookers watch military band in Taksim, commemorating
89th year of the founding of the Republic with police in background

For Turkey, this last week could have been remembered as a nice combination of religion and state. The Muslim Kurban Bayram (Eid al-Adha) fell right before the state holiday commemorating the founding of the Republic. With Turkey’s secular and religious politicians polarized, there was a chance that both groups could celebrate the two important days in unison.  However, once news came out last week that Ankara’s governor banned the Republican Day’s October 29th annual march things began to heat up. Today, defying the AK party’s banning of the march, Turkey’s secular elite marched, and what ensued was an show of force by the Turkish police, who were trying to uphold the government’s orders.

Here is a link to a video showing the violent protests in Ankara, featured in Radikal.

Since coming to power, almost a decade ago, the AKP party, led by Prime Minister Erdogan, who can easily be defined as one of Turkey’s most influential leaders ever, has worked to curb the state’s secular institutions, which were historically guarded by the Turkish army. For the conservative secular elite, early on they accused the AKP as leading an Islamic revolution; claims that were exorbitant and baseless, but nevertheless, an expected reaction from a group whose influence was being cropped at the stem.  

Headquarters of the Youth Wing of the Secular People Republican Party

The competition of these two groups has touched upon the lives of meaning average Turkish citizens. For example, before the AKP, women were not allowed to wear the Islamic headscarf in universities, which the secular elite defined as a definitive way to block the influence of Islam into the public sphere. Let it be known, that with the Turkish society over 99 percent Muslim, the average citizen really never supported the headscarf ban (one that continues in public offices until today) and were perhaps even relieved when the AKP started allowing all women to study in universities. 

Another form of competition has been how each group defines Turkey’s history, the Republic itself, and how its founder, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, is memorialized. The AKP, while not banning the official republican days, has downgraded them, treating them to some extent as products of a secular republic which for years oppressed them. Erdogan has clearly maneuvered through these days, participating in them and respecting them; but not commemorating them with past zeal of the former secularists.  The AKP’s stance on the official Republican days also does not seem to represent the average Turkish citizen, who sees the national holidays as an integral part of their daily lives. 

It is for this reason that banning of the Republic Day March in Ankara, the capital of the Republic, should be seen as crossing a dangerous threshold.  The governor’s claim that it was cancelled due to security reasons was seen as a provocation, and once Erdogan publicly supported this move, the Republic People’s Party (CHP) leader, Kemal Kilicdaroglu, called the masses to join him at the march. What ensued was a scene that is becoming more and more common in Turkey: a police force utilizing massive force against civilians protesting in a completely peaceful manner; civilians, young and old, having their faces covered with pepper spray, with water cannons throwing people to the ground, and massive clouds of teargas hovering over. And, it was just not civilians; Kilicdaroglu and other parliament members were also among the masses inhaling the teargas.    

Today’s events should be worrying to the government since it is another sign that the polarization between the two camps is widening, and as was the case today, can turn violent. Further, the AKP, as a result, seems to losing a grip on their massive constituency, who many do not identify with their political agenda but rather have been happy with their economic policies. Furthermore, the government would be wise to investigate how such an important day for so many of its citizens could end so badly. Perhaps, only then, can the two sides start to work together to reach common ground and understanding.