Annexation Aggression: The Lebanese Diplomacy Standpoint!
*Expert in Public Policy and Refugees
Palestine has not rested from successive aggressions since 1948. The United Nations has failed to enforce any resolution related to restoring rights, specifically establishing a Palestinian State with Jerusalem as its capital and the return of refugees. Israel has aborted the Arab League initiative for peace, welcomed by the United Nations. It was a regional and international convergence of positions to rectify some, and in fact very little, of the injustice. Israel has checked its brazen racism. Not only did it declare a Jewish-theocratic state against the legal and international principles, and not only did it gradually implement a forced displacement of the Palestinians, but it has pursued an evil settlement plan coupled with a separation wall. And today, it is moving to a new step, which involves occupying and annexing parts of the West Bank in a highly complex and confusing phase. Israel is betting on the “Deal of the Century,” though the whole world is condemning, or let us say, basically rejecting or objecting. Even the American public opinion and that of Europe are highly alerted to find a way to avoid a catastrophic slide that would kill any possibility for peace in the future. Some are at least pondering and hoping for some sort of a breach. Conflict with Israel is an existential conflict, not a conflict of borders. This is the core of the issue.
The annexation aggression is a historical extension of the Israeli mind that takes the liberty of seizing lands. The Palestinian individual has provoked anger among Arabs and the whole world, at the civil and religious level. Anger translated through media stances is not enough. In the human conscience and according to political logic, it is only part of the traditional tools. Maintaining these positions, in their legal, political, and ethical dimensions, paves the way to building interactive public diplomacy that converges with active civil resistance on the one hand and is protected by conscious community forces, including those in power, on the other. Hence the necessity of an comprehensive framework at all levels of networking and civil communication for pursuing the Palestinian-Lebanese struggle. Moreover, the international dimension should not be ignored, since Lebanon got the seat of the Vice-President at the United Nations General Assembly, which this year celebrates the 75th anniversary of its founding.
The Palestinian Nakba has been ongoing for 72 years. The United Nations is only three years older. At its birth, and while still fragile, the United Nations had to deal with the Nakba. The world was still suffering from the aftermath of the devastating World War II, which extended into a Cold War. Colonialism had a devastating impact. The Western mindset did not understand that global Zionism relied on an Eschatological Talmudic approach, transforming it into a real conviction, a criminal conviction that authorizes land usurpation and the assassination of a whole population. According to the Western mindset that was gripped by the complex of Auschwitz, the horrible act of slaughtering Palestine and the Palestinians was well tolerated. That was the greatest sin.
Seventy-two years later, this great sin was still there, just looking at the other sins of this entity, the last of which was the annexation. After 75 years, the United Nations must have a non-traditional wake-up call of its conscience. A wake-up call that transcends the situation. Transcends condemnation. Transcends the dead initiatives of condemnation. Transcends siding with the imbalance of power. Transcends compliance with vetos, and illusionary reluctance stands. A wake-up call of conscience belonging to the diplomacy of action instead of reaction. Diplomacy that would adopt alliances that transcend mercantile coalitions. Here comes the role of civil, religious, and economic organizations and vital forces in the media, in detaching the Machiavellian mind from the determination to kill Palestine and its people. This mind should be transformed into a capacity to establish accountability to make the right real.
The Lebanese diplomacy, regardless of the difficulties it is experiencing, from its position in the vice-presidency of the General Assembly, and in parallel with managing the tragic reality of Lebanon, can handle the engines of transition. It should address the UN’s role again and change it from being a relief or development group to being an international institution that addresses crisis causes rather than drowns in repairing its structural or side-effects. This is also a core issue.
Dealing with the causes of the Palestinian crisis becomes possible when international justice is used to hit with an iron fist when an Arab-international legal team is formed. This is the main part in this context.