Lecturer of Peace and Justice Studies Sa'edAtshan called for better Palestinian leadership that more adequately addresses the peoples' grievances, and a one−state solution to the Israeli−Palestinian conflict at last night's "crash−course" on the Palestinians' bid to the United Nations for statehood.
The event, hosted by the Tufts chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine and the International Relations Program's Directors Leadership Council (DLC), marks the second "crash−course" hosted by the DLC this week. On Monday night, they held a crash−course on the Eurozone and the fate of the European Union.
"The idea is that they are short, condensed presentations on conflicts that are happening right now," DLC member AparnaRamanan, a junior, said.
"The goal is to inform the student body about topics they might not have a grasp on," she said.
Last night's "crash−course" featured Atshan, who has worked for organizations such as the United Nations High Commission on Refugees, Human Rights Watch, Seeds of Peace, the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) Negotiations Affairs Department and the Government of Dubai. He is currently completing his Ph.D. at Harvard University on the politics of international aid in the Israeli−Palestinian conflict.
"The majority of Tufts students are U.S. citizens, and Israel is the largest recipient of U.S. aid in the world...Americans have a right to know where their money is going and that their taxes are funding this conflict," Atshan told the Daily in an interview after the event.
During his lecture, he provided an overview of the root causes of the Israeli−Palestinian conflict, the main impediments to peace, and the impact of the Arab Spring and the recent request by Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas for full U.N. membership.
Palestine, which submitted an application last month to become a United Nations Member State, currently holds observer status at the United Nations.
Atshan said that Abbas' bid for U.N. membership pushed the plight of the Palestinians back onto the world stage.
"The post 9/11 policy is still fresh. There are still wars raging in Iraq, Afghanistan ... and that makes it easy for Palestinian suffering to be swept under the rug," he told the Daily.
The danger, he added, was that it also raised unrealistic expectations among Palestinians that significant progress to the Israeli−Palestinian conflict could be made by achieving U.N. statehood.
Atshan said that despair and violence could result if perceptible progress toward peace is not made, and in order to mitigate such risks, Palestinians must be represented by a leadership that better addresses Palestinian grievances than the PA, the current governing body of the West Bank.
"The PA needs to become less relevant and the PLO should become more significant," he said. "Everyone's voice needs to be heard. It's a matter of recreating a PLO that is more representative of the Palestinian people," he told the Daily.
He added that elections should take place not only in the West Bank and the Occupied Territories, but also in East Jerusalem and Palestinian refugee camps in Jordan and southern Lebanon so as to ensure adequate representation.
Atshan said that the Arab Spring led Palestinians to question the legitimacy of the PA's leadership and cemented the notion that unjust leadership is not legitimate.
"What are the alternatives? Do they [the PA leadership] have [the Palestinians'] best interests at heart? Questioning the leadership is healthy," he said.
"[The Arab Spring] reminded people that injustice does not last. Freedom will come one day," he told the Daily.
Atshan said that the PA leadership is currently suffering from "colonial hangover" that internalized a divisive ideology. He added that Jewish self−determination should not be mutually exclusive from Palestinian self−determination and that a one−state solution that grants rights to every community is preferable.
Rather than creating separate Jewish and Palestinian states, a one−state solution would create one state across all of Israel and the Occupied Territories, granting all citizens, regardless of ethnicity, equal rights. A solution creating separate states designated for only one ethnicity, Atshan said, would be unjust, as many communities throughout the area are multi−ethnic and multi−religious.
"We're deeply entangled. We're one society, and that's why we need a one−state solution," he said.
Atshan also addressed the issue of Hamas, an Islamic militant organization that controls Gaza, stating that it should be marginalized in the political process to avoid further radicalization of Palestinian youth as a result of the Israeli occupation there.
"Hamas is not a monolithic organization ... There are more moderate forces that recognize the 1967 borders. The challenge then becomes, ‘How do we minimize people who subscribe to radical ideology?' We must grapple with them."
Atshan acknowledged that Hamas created legitimate security concerns for Israel, but that it does not justify the current occupation, the brutality of which, he said, cannot be denied.
"Security is used to justify things that are unjustifiable," he said. "There's nothing wrong with building a fence in your backyard, but building a fence in your neighbor's backyard and in his house that separates his bedroom from his living room and prevents him from reaching the light in the kitchen? You don't have a right to do that."
Atshan also said the past negotiations between Israel, the Palestinians and the United States have failed due to a skewed power dynamic.
"The way negotiations have been set up over the last 20 years is problematic ... Essentially, the occupied are begging their occupiers for freedom. The U.S. as mediators are trying to impose a solution on the Palestinians. They have lost all credibility because of this."
