Said's Real Legacy

Last week, the movement for Palestinian justice lost one of its most eloquent and inspirational voices when Professor Edward Said passed away after a long battle with leukemia. The announcement of his death on the Columbia web site was a long list of achievements and accolades, recognizing Professor Said's stature as an internationally respected literary scholar. President Bollinger's official statement declared that "his death [was] an irreplaceable loss to the realm of ideas."

But what made Edward Said a great man was precisely the fact that he did not confine himself to the realm of ideas. Interwoven with his career as an academic was Said's unyielding determination to see justice for his Palestinian people. It was a cause that chose him more than the other way around--his family left Jerusalem in 1947, the year that the U.N. allotted 55 percent of historic Palestine to Jewish settlers, even though they were only one third of the population. In the long listing of publications and honorary degrees, President Bollinger forgot to mention that Edward Said was a Palestinian exile. Although the relative affluence of his family meant he did not face the same hardships as others, it was a legacy Professor Said could never quite escape, and he returned to the West Bank and the Gaza Strip again and again in his writing. But he did not merely write--he spoke and protested whenever he could.

Professor Said's death is particularly tragic since his voice has never been needed more. Ten years after the signing of the Oslo Accords, everything that Professor Said argued in his book The End of the Peace Process has been proved to be true. The 1993 Oslo Accords were heralded as a historic compromise that would bring peace and justice to both sides. But, 10 years later, it is clear that the Palestinians did almost all of the compromising, and peace and justice are in short supply.

During the seven years of alleged "peace" under Oslo, the number of Israeli settlers living illegally in the West Bank and Gaza nearly doubled, from 110,000 before Oslo to 200,000 in 2001. These settlements are connected by a network of 300 military checkpoints and roadblocks and at least 29 "bypass" roads, often 150 to 200 meters wide, on which Palestinians may not travel. Add to that the staggering unemployment rate--currently 40 percent--the demolition of Palestinian homes, and the everyday brutality of the Israeli occupation, and you have the conditions that led to the outbreak of the second Palestinian intifada, or uprising, in September of 2000.

Since the beginning of the intifada, Israel has used massive military force, demolition of people's homes, and "targeted killings" of suspected militants to attempt to terrorize the Palestinian population into submission. According to a recently released United Nations report, Israeli soldiers and settlers have killed at least 2,755 Palestinians and wounded 28,000 since the beginning of the intifada. In a period of four days in June, Israeli helicopter gunships killed 27 people in the densely populated Gaza Strip. The report describes just one of many incidents: "On 12 June 2003, IDF [Israel Defense Forces] helicopters bombarded the car of Yasser Taha. He was immediately killed, together with his wife and young daughter. In addition, five other civilians were killed in the attack and 36 were wounded, including 10 children."

The Israeli government claims that these raids--plus the construction of a massive "separation wall" in the West Bank, plus the plans to assassinate Yasser Arafat--are necessary for Israel's security. But let us be clear who is occupying whom. The most basic fact is that Israel was founded on stolen land. In years following World War II, young Zionists like Ariel Sharon conducted a campaign of terrorism to compel families like Edward Said's to leave historic Palestine, eventually leading to the expulsion of over 700,000 Palestinians from the land that is now Israel. The Israeli state has no right to play the victim--it is based on the oppression, expulsion, and murder of another people.

The point is that the Israeli government does not want peace. It wants pacification. It wants to eliminate all resistance to the project of colonizing all of historic Palestine. The fact that over 50 years of military occupation has been unable to grind down Palestinian resistance suggests a continual danger to nations like the U.S., which has its own occupied territories to pacify in Iraq. It is also a continued inspiration to people in the Middle East and everywhere to fight back against colonialism, military occupation, and state terrorism.

Edward Said will be remembered for his commitment to Palestinian liberation long after his discourses have been deconstructed and his literary criticism has been forgotten. After all, it is not theories that change the world, but struggle. As another prolific writer and activist, Karl Marx, was known to say, "Philosophers have merely interpreted the world. The point is to change it."

Laura Durkay is a Columbia College senior majoring in history.