Palestine: Matters of Truth and Justice by Azmi Bishara (review)

Reviewed by: Palestine: Matters of Truth and Justice by Azmi Bishara Farid Al-Salim (bio) Palestine: Matters of Truth and Justice. Azmi Bishara. London: Hurst and Co., 2022, 360 pp. Professor Azmi Bishara has dual and contradictory identity: Palestinian origin and citizens of Israel. He is an intellectual, political philosopher, researcher, and author of numerous publications in social theory, philosophy, and literary works, including civil society, political thought, Arab nationalism, religion, and secularism. Some of these works have become key references within their respective field. Currently, he serves as the General Director of the Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies and the Chair of the Board of Trustees of the Doha Institute. His analytical thoughts are combined with a historical overview of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. He has a wealth of political experience in Israel, having spent more than ten years as a Knesset member. He is one of the founders of the Balad Party, which was established to defend the rights of Arab Israelis and expand democratic liberties. The major argument of Palestine: Matters of Truth and Justice is that Palestine is not simply a dilemma awaiting creative policy solutions, but a problem requiring the application of justice. Efforts by regional governments to marginalize the Palestinian cause and normalize relations with Israel have emphasized this aspect of the struggle and boosted Palestinian interactions with justice movements internationally. Bishara provides an ethical perspective on the current political situation in Palestine and different expectations for its future. The book examines key issues central to the question of Palestine and rebukes some common tropes and misconceptions. Depending on extensive research and rich theoretical analysis, Bishara considers the overlap between the long-discussed 'Jewish Question' and what he calls the 'Arab Question,' complicating the issue of Palestinian nationhood. He presents the Palestinian Liberation Movement's failure to achieve self-determination, and the emergence of a 'Palestinian Authority' under occupation. He contends that no solution to the problems of nationality or settler colonialism is possible without recognizing the historic injustices inflicted on Palestinians since the Nakba. The book has an interdisciplinary approach with the notion of justice–equality and freedom being its core elements – as the overarching analytical structure. The author End Page 79 argues that the immoral attitude rooted in this struggle may amount to amorality. In Britain's Zionist policy, rooted in the Balfour Declaration of November 1917, Palestinians did not exist as a people with a claim to self-determination. Bishara shows how Britain utilized early twentieth-century international law, with its roots in the colonial mindset and order, to ensure that native Palestinians were treated as "communities" case for purposes of administration under the British Mandate, and how that legal status and the emergency regulations and military law implemented by Britain to defeat the 'Palestinian Arab Revolt' of 1936–1939 were incorporated by the new Israeli state "to dispossess, displace, and above all, contain its native population." In the June 1967 War, Israel's conquest was viewed as illegitimate, and most of the world was demanding its full withdrawal from the territories it had seized. Israel leveraged United States support and counterposed its own legal framework concerning the mysterious legal consciousness status of the West Bank and Gaza to defy aspects of the occupation law preserved in the Fourth Geneva Convention and United Nations Security Council Resolution 242. Bishara presented in historical examination most stages of the Israeli-Palestinian situation, such as the emergence of Palestinian nationalism, the role of Arab regimes, the rise of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), and the development and founding myths of Zionism, in which it is important for Western readers who, as he pointed out, are overwhelmed with misinformation about the conflict. Attempts by regional governments to marginalize the Palestinian cause an normalize relations with Israel have emphasized this aspect of the struggle and boosted Palestinian interactions with justice movements internationally. Bishara provides a coherent perspective on the current political situation in Palestine and a fresh outlook for its future. What adds more attention to this study is its deep intellectual, rational, and theoretical analyses, with the comprehensiveness of the Palestinian issue, and its history and present it guaranteeing in a balance between...