One of the most celebrated images of the Palestinian struggle features 15-year-old Faris Odeh poised to throw a stone at an oncoming Israeli tank. It was October 2000, and the second intifada had just broken out. He was killed a few weeks later.
Now, that model is changing, says Husam Zomlot, a senior Palestinian diplomat and foreign policy adviser in Ramallah.
“For all these years we have been hitting our head against the tank,” says Mr. Zomlot. “We’re changing this…. You don’t use the power of arms, you use the power of logic, you use the power of law, you use the power of solidarity. It’s a shift of mind-set.”
There’s also a parallel shift, he says, from focusing solely on negotiations with Israel to simultaneously engaging international levers of pressure, such as legal action at the International Criminal Court, and recognition of Palestine by United Nations members.
“The biggest mistake we have made, and we are realizing this and we are correcting [it] … is that for 20 years we have managed to help Israel delay its moment of choice” between assuming full responsibility for about 4.5 million Palestinians, or relinquishing control over them, he says. “You cannot continue to have full control and no responsibility…. You must decide.”
“My generation will hit them with that moment of choice,” says Zomlot, an economist by training who is part of Fatah’s younger cadres.
Zomlot, who previously worked for the United Nations and spent two years as a fellow at Harvard University, is tall, charming, and talks so fast that I activate my audio recorder the second I walk in his office.
He does not drone on with monologues that could have been delivered in the 1980s. He does not seem burdened with the resignation that seems to snuff the energy and initiative out of other Palestinian officials. He jumps up and down from his desk as he talks, and makes his visitors laugh. But he is very serious when he says that in 10 or 20 years he thinks things will be much better.
“The overall situation is moving from the obsession in both camps about the big picture, about … a one-off event that will finish the other side,” he says. “I think both sides have realized by and large that this is not going to happen.”
So it’s not about waiting until the Israeli occupation ends, and then building a state. Even now, Palestinians can and should do more to improve societal conditions, such as education, says Zumlot.
“This is not giving up politics, rights, legitimate aspirations. This is a social hope,” he says. “It’s vital that you claim a state, but you also need to build a state.”
“My source of hope is that this equation that you either fight or negotiate is not going to be the only equation,” he says. “No, you fight, you negotiate, you communicate, you seek international action, you build on the ground, you bring creative ways of sustaining yourself … this is my source of hope.”
