NOVANEWS
Division within Palestinian society has reached unprecedented levels, becoming a major hurdle on the path of any unified strategy to end Israel’s violent occupation or to rally Palestinians behind a single objective.
Newly-appointed Israeli ultra-nationalist Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman understands this too well. His tactic since his ascension to office last May is centered on investing more in these divisions as a way to break down Palestinian society even further.
Lieberman is an “extremist”, even if compared with the low standards of the
Israeli military. His past legacy was rife with violent and racist declarations.
His more recent exploits include taking on the late Mahmoud Darwish, Palestine’s most celebrated poet. He went as far as comparing Darwish’s poetry – which advocates the freedom of his people – to Adolph
Hitler’s autobiography, Mein Kampf.
But, of course, this is not Lieberman’s most outrageous statement.
Lieberman’s past provocations are plenty. Fairly recently, in 2015, he threatened to behead with an axe Palestinian citizens of Israel if they are not fully loyal to the “Jewish state”, advocated the ethnic cleansing of Palestinian citizens of Israel, and made a death ultimatum to former Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh.
Outrageous statements aside, Lieberman’s latest ploy, however, is the most
outlandish yet. Israel’s defense minister is planning to color-code Palestinian communities in the Occupied West Bank, dividing them into green and red, where green is “good” and red is “bad”; accordingly, the former shall be rewarded for their good behavior, while the latter collectively punished, even if just one member of that community dares to resist the Israeli occupation army.
A version of this plan was attempted nearly 40 years ago, but utterly failed.
The fact that such appalling thinking is occurring well into the 21st century
without being accompanied by international uproar is baffling.
Lieberman’s color-code will be accompanied by a campaign to resurrect the “Village Leagues”, another failed Israeli experiment to impose an “alternative” Palestinian leadership by “engaging” Palestinian “notables”, not democratically-elected leaders.
Lieberman’s solution is to manufacture a leadership, which, like the Village
Leagues of the 1970s and 80s, will, most certainly, be regarded as collaborators and traitors by the wider Palestinian society.
But what is the “Village Leagues” exactly and will it work this time around?
In October 1978, elected Palestinian mayors, joined by town councilors and
various nationalist institutions, began a campaign of mass mobilization under
the umbrella of the National Leadership Committee, whose main objective was
to challenge the Camp David Treaty – signed between Egypt and…
