The Arab Spring is the real 'peace process' for Palestine

For decades the West has maintained control of the oil-rich Middle East by arming Israeli apartheid and Arab dictatorships; it has denounced Palestinian resistance while preaching “peace process” negotiations with an increasingly complicit Palestinian Authority. But the Arab Spring is throwing this imperial structure into crisis.

Solidarity with Palestine has been an important part of the ongoing Egyptian Revolution, like September’s storming of the Israeli Embassy in Cairo. The revolution is threatening a key pillar of US control in the region, and exposing how much Israel relies on regional dictatorships.

The Arab Spring has also challenged the subservience of the Palestinian Authority (PA), which the Palestine Papers revealed has been a willing participant in Israeli apartheid. In order to salvage legitimacy and reassert its strategy of negotiating, the PA has symbolically stood up for Palestine with a UN bid for statehood.

In practice, the proposed state would be a disaster for most Palestinians, which is why many oppose it: it would cede to Israel majority control over historic Palestine, and ignore the majority of Palestinians who live outside Gaza and the West bank—either under apartheid conditions inside Israel, or in the global diaspora denied the right of return. This is the reality of the two-state solution, which will never bring peace and justice.

But even this minimal statehood bid has called the West’s bluff, revealing the “peace process” negotiated by imperial powers to be a sham. This has rallied many more to the Palestinian cause, further isolated Israel and exposed its Western backers. This could add fuel to the fire of the Arab Spring, which is the real peace process: a revolutionary wave with the potential to create a Middle East free of dictatorship and apartheid.