Black September: Palestine’s Wailing Wall - II

The Pakistani resistance poet Habib Jalib wrote a few years later in his elegy titled Yazeed Se Hain Nabard-Aazma Falasteeni (The Palestinians Confront Yazeed) about the plight of Palestinians in Beirut but he could have been writing the same for the massacre in Amman:

“Hua Labnan main voh hashar bapaa

Zameen khoon-e-shaheedaan se hai rangeen

Shayookh-o-shah ko samjho na paasbaan-e-haram

Yeh bandagaan-e-zaro-o-seem hain khuda ki qasam

Shayookh-o-shah toa hain khud shareek-e-zulm-o-sitam

Shayookh-o-shah se rakh na kuch umeed-e-karam

Emir kaise na Washington ke saath rahen

Inhi ke dam se hain saari imaarten hamdam

Yeh maangte hain duaen baraye Israel

Israel se hain baadshahaten qaim

Gharz inhen toa faqat apne takht-o-taaj se hai

Inhen shaheed Falasteeniyon ka kyun ho gham”

(Such a commotion in Lebanon occurred

With the blood of martyrs, the earth is coloured

Consider not the guardians of the sacred mosque to be the sheikhs and the lord

They are slaves of gold and silver, by God!

The sheikhs and the shahs are themselves participants in the cruelty and oppression

Do not expect from them any hope for compassion

How could the emirs not support Washington

Friend, because of it exists their dominion

They pray for Israel

In that it preserves their kingdoms, they feel

In short, their only interest is their throne and crown

Why should the Palestinian martyrs elicit their frown)

The destruction of the Palestinian resistance in Amman forced it to relocate to Beirut; whereas in Jordan sporadic attacks on the remainders of the resistance continued until July of the following year. Many remaining Palestinians preferred handing themselves over to Israelis rather than rot in Jordanian jails. The Palestinians were now a broken movement in search of a sanctuary. But as in Jordan, likewise in Lebanon they became willy-nilly a part of the fractures of a sectarian artificial state, now in thrall to Riyadh and Damascus, and then to Tel Aviv. Prior to another September massacre in Beirut in the refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila more than decade after their Amman exodus, the Palestinians decamped to Tunis, most of their leadership exiled and away from the hopes and travails of the people they claimed to represent.

Black September was the beginning of a template which saw the gradual attrition and destruction of the Palestinian resistance

Black September was the beginning of a template which saw the gradual attrition and destruction of the Palestinian resistance, which itself began to split into rival and rogue terrorist groups, supported and/or controlled by any number of Arab states. One group taking its name after Black September descended into wanton terror, not even sparing Israeli civilians or athletes. As Israel’s clout in the Middle East grew on one hand, and Saudi influence on the other, any Arab leader or politician considered sympathetic to Palestine and inimical to Zionist interests was assassinated or overthrown. Nasser’s death left a huge vacuum, which could have been filled by the charismatic Moroccan politician Mahdi Ben Barka, who was disappeared on the streets of Paris with the complicity of Israeli commandos in 1965, five years prior to Black September; in Syria, the champion of Palestinian people’s militias Salah Jadid was overthrown by his erstwhile comrade Hafez al-Assad just a couple of months after Black September; in Tunisia, which was among the first Arab states to establish diplomatic relations with Israel, the charismatic rival of Habib Bourguiba, Salah ben Youssef was assassinated in 1961, while inside Bourguiba’s own Destour Party, the socialist direction of the Party under Ahmed ben Salah was neutralized with Salah’s expulsion and subsequent trial in 1970.

What of the Palestinians themselves? Some of the most capable comrades of Arafat were picked out and assassinated by Israel one by one. Abu Ali Iyad, one of the most capable Palestinian commanders in the events of Black September was killed in Jordanian prisons in 1971, while Salah Khalaf, one of the historic founders of the PLO was believed to be killed by a rogue Palestinian terrorist group Abu Nidal in Tunis in 1991; the rest were all take out by Israel, undoubtedly with the complicity of the host countries: the flamboyant ‘Red Prince’ Ali Hassan Salameh and the PFLP’s Ghassan Kanafani – ‘the commando who never fired a gun’ - in Beirut in 1971 and 1979 respectively, both yet not even 40; Abu Jihad, the greatest Palestinian tactician of the Palestinian struggle, was ambushed and assassinated in Tunis in 1988; Abu Ali Mustafa, the Secretary-General of the PFLP in Al-Bireh in 2001.

In the midst of such a stultifying climate, made worse by the surrender of mighty Egypt and tiny Jordan to humiliating peace treaties with Israel in 1979 and 1994 respectively, a beleaguered Arafat had no option but to sign the Oslo Accords in 1994, which imposed a bantustan model on Palestine, policed by Israel, with the Palestinian Authority (PA) created by it increasingly resembling an NGO at best – bloated by the copious amounts of aid which began to flow in – and a replica of the various Arab one-party states at worst, which had put paid to Palestinian dreams repeatedly, and which unravelled in the ‘Arab Spring’ uprisings of 2011. The first intifada which began spontaneously in December 1987 in the Occupied Territories was as much a response to the widespread excesses of Israeli occupation, as to Arafat’s perceived corruption; however instead of really building a grassroots initiative, he went ahead and signed the Oslo Accords. Had activists like Marwan Barghouti and Ahmad Saadat (both of whom are at present in Israeli jails) been allowed to represent their people, such capitulation to and collaboration with Israel might have been avoided.

As Habib Jalib had presciently foretold in his poem nearly four decades ago, the notion that the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain are signing normalization deals with Israel for peace is risible; their purpose is solely their own self-preservation

Another chance at taking the Palestinian resistance in another direction emerged twenty years ago also in September, when the Al-Aqsa intifada broke out spontaneously, ostensibly directed against a renewed round of negotiations between Israel and the PLO. The death of Arafat at the height of this second uprising in 2004 marked an end to the dominance of an icon, who for all his warts and corruption, was the undisputed leader of Palestine while he was alive. Following his death, the movement split following new presidential elections, with Hamas controlling Gaza and the PA controlling the rest.

As Habib Jalib had presciently foretold in his poem nearly four decades ago, the notion that the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain are signing normalization deals with Israel for peace is risible; their purpose is solely their own self-preservation, with Saudi Arabia, Morocco, Oman, Sudan and the two remaining petrol stations of the Gulf, namely Qatar and Kuwait possibly in tow. Just like Nasser’s Egypt in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, the aim now is to target and surround revolutionary Iran, if not by outright invasion, then by Israel’s recognition. Turkey, which was the first Muslim country to recognize Israel in 1949, makes noises about Palestine now and then, but it will not break off diplomatic relations with Israel over such a trifle; far better to call for the overthrow of the rulers in neighbouring Damascus.

As Gaza suffers an Israeli-imposed blockade since 2007 and continues to be pounded by Israeli jets as I write this, from the 50-year old journey which the Palestinians have travelled, from Black September in Amman to the multiple defeats of the present, there is a need to summon the same great spirit of determination which energized the First and Second Intifadas, and which may yet aid them to realize the unfulfilled dream and mission which the great Urdu poet Ibne Insha had mused about half a century ago in his poem Deevaar-e-Girya (The Wailing Wall) post-June 1967:

“Ya Akhi! Ya Akhi!

Aa ke in qatilon, vahshiyon, mujrimon

Ghasibon, aur in sab ke aaqaon ko

Voh jo sone ke bacchdon ki pooja karen

Saat sagar ke us paar se jo sada

Taar saazish ke bethe hilaaya karen

Sari duniya main aashob laaya karen

In ke apne gunahon ke sang-e-giraan

Kar ke zeb gulu

Aaj Aqba ki khaadi main gharqaab kar den.

Taake Amman-o-Makkah bhi mahfooz hon

Taake Lahore-o-Dhaka bhi mahfooz hon

Taake aur ahl-e-duniya bhi mahfooz hon.

Aur phir in ke pasmaandagaan ke liye

Aik deevaar-e-girya banayen kaheen

Jis pe mil ke yeh aansoo bahayen kaheen!”

(O brothers! O brothers!

Come that these savages, criminals, murderers

Usurpers, and those who are their masters

Those who worship the golden calves

Who forever from across the seven seas

Shake the threads of conspiracies

Within the whole world they bring afflictions

The heavy stones of their own sins

By adorning the neck

Today in the Gulf of Aqaba we will wreck.

So that there is safety too in Amman and Makkah

So that there is safety too in Lahore and Dhaka

So that for the other people of the world too there is shelter.

And then for their survivors

Build a wailing wall somewhere

Upon which they can shed tears together!)

All translations from the Urdu are by the writer.

Raza Naeem is a social scientist and an award-winning translator currently based in Lahore. He has been trained in political economy from the University of Leeds in the UK and in Middle Eastern history and anthropology from the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville, USA. He is also the president of the Progressive Writers Association (PWA) in Lahore. He may be reached at razanaeem@hotmail.com