Out of place, out of time: Gaddafi and the Palestinian resistance in the 1970s
2023; Routledge; Volume: 26; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1080/13688790.2023.2178702
ISSN1466-1888
Autores Tópico(s)Middle East and Rwanda Conflicts
ResumoABSTRACTIn this article, I look at the nature and significance of Mu’ammar al-Gaddafi’s support to the Palestinian Resistance in his early years of power (roughly 1969–1980) and connect it to the broader anti-colonial, anti-imperial message that was an important part of his early years. My intention is neither to portray Gaddafi as a great hero nor emphasize his eccentricities to the point of obscuring all other aspects of his political persona. Rather, it is to provide balance to a discussion of a figure whose political ideas are often portrayed as being rooted merely in impulse and egoism. This latter portrayal was pushed by Western powers, providing them with justification for their at-times reckless approach towards Libya and its leader who posed a threat to the West’s interests. Ironically, the cartoon-like portrayals of Gaddafi that Western governments perpetuated demonstrate a point that Gaddafi tried to make, that representative rather than direct democracy was a problematic form of governance, causing those in charge to impose their will on the people. Arab leaders also disliked Gaddafi, in part due to their shift from Arab unity towards economic privatization; with such a shift came a certain complacency towards imperialism, colonialism, and Palestinian resistance.KEYWORDS: GaddafiPalestinian resistancepost-colonialismrepresentative vs. direct democracyanti-imperialism AcknowledgementsI would like to thank Professor Alina Sajed and Professor Timothy Seidel, for their dedication to this larger project, their perseverance and support. Final drafts of this work were written during my time as a Research Fellow at the Institute for Near and Middle Eastern Studies at Ludwig-Maximilians-University, and so I would also like to thank Professor Doctor Andreas Kaplony of the Institute for Near and Middle Eastern Studies at LMU.Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Notes1 For more on Gaddafi’s actions in Chad, in which, among other actions, he annexed the Aouzou Strip, rallying some Chadian factions against other French-backed ones, see here: Mario J Azevedo, The Roots of Violence: A History of War in Chad, vol. 4, Routledge: War and Society London, 2004, Chapter 7.2 While Israel has not publicly declared its nuclear arsenal, its existence is largely accepted to be true, given a dearth of evidence. Clive Williams, ‘Nuclear Double Standards in the Middle East’, Australian Institute of International Affairs, 2021, https://www.internationalaffairs.org.au/australianoutlook/nuclear-double-standards-in-the-middle-east/. John Gambrell, ‘Secretive Israeli Nuclear Facility Undergoes Major Project’, Associated Press, 25 February 2021.3 Jean Bricmont, Humanitarian Imperialism: Using Human Rights to Sell War, New York: Monthly Review Press, 2009, p 10.4 See for example: Bricmont, Humanitarian Imperialism. And Noam Chomsky, ‘Humanitarian Imperialism: The New Doctrine of Imperial Right’, Monthly Review, 60, 2008.5 Chomsky, Pirates and Emperors, Old and New: International Terrorism in the Real World, Cambridge, MA: South End Press, 2002, p 84.6 Guy Arnold, The Maverick State, London: Cassell, 1996, p 68.7 Bricmont, Humanitarian Imperialism, p 12.8 John Wright, Libya: A Moden History, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1982, p 172.9 Thomas Meaney, ‘The Myth of Henry Kissinger’, The New Yorker, May 18 2020, p 62.10 Chomsky, ‘Humanitarian Imperialism: The New Doctrine of Imperial Right’.11 Shlomo Slonim, ‘Egypt, Algeria, and the Libyan Revolution’, The World Today 26(3), 1970, p 125.12 Aurélie Andry et al., ‘Rethinking European Integration History in Light of Capitalism: The Case of the Long 1970s’, European Review of History: Revue européenne d'histoire 26 (4), 2019. p 554.13 Rasmus Mariager, Helle Porsdam, and Poul Villaume, ‘Introduction: The “Long 1970s”’, In: The “Long 1970s” : Human Rights East-West Dé tente and Transnational Relations, Abingdon: Routledge Taylor & Francis Group, 2016, p 2.14 Abdelsatar Heteita, Gaddaf al-Dam Yatahaddath (Nusf Qarn ma' al-Gaddafi) [Gaddaf al-Dam Speaks (Half a Century With al-Gaddafi)], Cairo: al-Kunuz, 2018, p 39.15 Sami G Hajjar, ‘The Jamahiriya Experiment in Libya: Qadhafi and Rousseau’, The Journal of Modern African Studies 18(2), 1980, p 183.16 Hajjar, ‘The Jamahiriya Experiment in Libya’, p 184.17 Arnold, The Maverick State, p 7.18 Arnold, The Maverick State, p 69.19 Daniel Kawcyznski, Seeking Gaddafi, London: Dialogue, 2010, p 17.20 Wahbi El-Bouri, ‘Speech by Mr. El-Bouri (Libyan Arab Republic)’ (paper presented at the United Nations General Assembly, Twenty-fourth Session, New York, 7 October 1969), p 15.21 Walter J Boyne, ‘The Years of the Wheelus’, Air Force Magazine, January 1 2008; Arnold, The Maverick State, p 7.; Robert Gorden Hartley, ‘Recent Population Changes in Libya: Economic Relationships and Geographical Patterns’, Durham University, 1968, p 19; Vittorfranco S Pisano, The Dynamics of Subversion and Violence in Contemporary Italy, Hoover Institution Press, 1987, p 133; Mustafa Fetouri, ‘The New Libya Has Forgotten Its Colonial Past’, Middle East Monitor, June 27 2019.22 Arnold, The Maverick State, p 69.23 Hajjar, ‘The Jamahiriya Experiment in Libya’, p 186.24 Hajjar, ‘The Jamahiriya Experiment in Libya’, pp 182–83.25 Hajjar, ‘The Jamahiriya Experiment in Libya’, p 184.26 Hajjar, ‘The Jamahiriya Experiment in Libya’, p 185.27 A recording of the speech can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KmHkCd5kQ08.28 Muammar Al Qadaffi, The Green Book, Tripoli: World Center for Studies and Research of the Green Book, 1980, p 11.29 Al Qadaffi, The Green Book.30 ‘Sadat Says Qadaffi Virtually Sabotaged Egypt's War Effort’, The New York Times, May 25 1974.31 Kawcyznski, Seeking Gaddafi, p 31.32 Kawcyznski, Seeking Gaddafi, p 30.33 Chomsky, Pirates and Emperors, Old and New, pp 81 and 86.34 Raymond H Anderson, ‘A Summons from the Oil Rich Activist’, The New York Times, 1 August 1971.35 Wright, Libya: A Moden History, p 166.36 Arnold, The Maverick State, p 71.37 Arnold, The Maverick State, p 71.38 Ali Abdussalam Treki, 29 June, 2012.39 Arnold, The Maverick State, p 69.40 ‘Arafat and the Journey of the Palestinian Revolution: An Interview with Shafiq Al-Hout’, Journal of Palestine Studies 39(1), 2009, p 50.41 As'ad Abdul-Rahman, interview by Katlyn Quenzer, 26 May, 2016, Phone interview.42 There is evidence of this from Yezid Sayigh, who says: ‘The decision to reconstruct the PFLP as a Marxist-Leninist party lacked both a political basis and concrete substance, and the front remained both ‘rightist’ and ‘bourgeois’ in this period, according to its own retrospective assessment in 1981.’ Yezid Sayigh, Armed Struggle and the Search for State: The Palestinian National Movement, 1949–1993, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997, p 233.43 Palestine National Council, ‘10 Point Program of the PLO (1974)’ (un.org/unispal: United Nations, 1974).44 Ghassan Sharbal, Asrār al-ṣundūq al-aswad: Wadīʻa Ḥaddād, Kārlūs, Anīs al-Naqqāsh, Jūrj Ḥabash [Secrets of the Black Box: Wadie Haddad, Carlos, Anis al-Naqqash, George Habash], Beirut: Riad el-Rayyes Books, 2008, p 385. Background on the secret talks here: Henry Tanner, ‘Palestinians Said to Seek a Meeting with Kissinger’, The New York Times, 2 September 1974.45 Shafiq al-Hout, My Life in the PLO: The Inside Story of the Palestinian Struggle, trans. Laila Uthmān and Hader Al-Hout, London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011, Chapter 21.46 A video of the referenced Arab League meeting can be found at these two locations: Ahmad Abdul Hakeem, ‘‘Ghazu al-Kuwait' … Tarikh Shahid ala ‘al-Tharwah' al-Inqisam al-Arabi’, The Independent, Arabic, 2 August 2020; alQanastv, ‘al-Ijtima' al-Jamia'ah al-'Arabi ba'd 'aam 1990 ba'd al-Ghazu al-'Araqi al-Ghashim’, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vO9FK2GM5OU. Further information on this conflict can also be found here: Bruce Maddy-Weitzman, ‘The Inter-Arab System and the Gulf War: Continuity and Change’, The Carter Center, 1991, p 8.47 Ali Carkoglu, Mine Eder, and Kemal Kirisci, The Political Economy of Regional Cooperation in the Middle East, London: Taylor & Francis Group, 1998, p 144.48 Sabri Jiryis, ‘The Arab World at the Crossroads: An Analysis of the Arab Opposition to the Sadat Initiative', The Journal of Palestine Studies, 7(2), 1977/78, p.33.49 Yehudit Ronen, ‘Libya's Qadhafi and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, 1969-2002’, Middle Eastern Studies, 40(1), 2004, p 88.50 Ronen, ‘Libya's Qadhafi and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict’, p 87.51 Dennis Kumetat, ‘Gaddafi's Southern Legacy: Ideology and Power Politics in Africa’, in Justin Dargin (ed), The Rise of the Global South: Philosophical, Geopolitical, and Economic Trends of the 21st Century, Singapore: World Scientific Publishing Company, 2013, p 134.52 Example here, in which Wadie Haddad’s son insists that Gaddafi’s financial support of operations was small: Sharbal, Asrār al-ṣundūq al-aswad: Wadīʻa Ḥaddād, Kārlūs, Anīs al-Naqqāsh, Jūrj Ḥabash, 134.53 Records of the Central Intelligence Agency, ‘Oil Rich Libya’, National Archives and Archives.org, 1972.54 Arnold, The Maverick State, p 5.55 Chomsky, Pirates and Emperors, Old and New, p 118.56 Arnold, The Maverick State, p 7.57 An example: The US-supported military coup in Chile in 1973, in which democratically elected Allende was ousted and replaced with the ruthless dictator, Pinochet. This is described in: Noam Chomsky and David Barsamian, Secrets, Lies and Democracy, Tucson, Ariz.: Odonian Press, 1994.58 For more on the villainization of Gaddafi and the West's actions against him, please see: Kristin Kushlan, ‘Constructing Muammar Al-Gaddafi', University of Richmond, 2007.59 Arnold, The Maverick State, p 5.60 Arnold, The Maverick State, p 93.61 Chomsky, Pirates and Emperors, Old and New, p 92.62 Chomsky, Pirates and Emperors, Old and New, p 9263 An Example can be found here: Ronen, ‘Libya's Qadhafi and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, 1969-2002’, pp 87–88.64 Some examples: Bernard D Nossiter, ‘Qaddafi Tied to Shooting of Libyan in U.S.’, The New York Times, 24 May 1981; Jack Anderson, ‘“Knuckle-Draggers” at Work for Libya’, The Washington Post, 22 October 1980.65 For examples of targeted killings: Mark Mazzetti, Eric Schmitt, and Robert F Worth, ‘Two-Year Manhunt Led to Killing of Awlaki in Yemen’, The New York Times, September 30 2011; Peter and Miller Finn, Greg, ‘Anwar al-Awlaki's Family Speaks Out against His, Son's Deaths’, The Washington Post, October 17 2011. For information on the causalities due to the war on terror: Neta Crawford, ‘Human Costs of the Post-9/11 Wars: Lethality and the Need for Transparency’, Brown Univeristy Watson Institute of International and Public Affairs, 2018. Of this figure, more than 244,000 are civilians. This is particularly gruesome when considering that the Iraq Invasion, as is widely acknowledged, was based on false pretences of Saddam Hussein having weapons of mass destruction.66 Bricmont, Humanitarian Imperialism, p 38.67 Arnold, The Maverick State, p 68.68 Treki, ‘Min al-thikrayat musaa'id al-Qathaafi: ‘Arafaat yatammata’ bi hankah ja'latahu yaltaf 'ala kul qa'adah wal-Qathaafi arsal li Mubaarak qaailaan lasna mu'athafeen 'andek [From the Memories of Gadaffi's Aid: Arafat Used His Skills to Turn to Every Leader and Gadaffi Sent a Letter to Mubarak Saying We are Not your Employees].’Additional informationNotes on contributorsKatlyn QuenzerKatlyn Quenzer is a Research Fellow at the Institute for Near and Middle Eastern Studies, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, Munich. Her interests include the early days of the PLO and anti-colonial resistance. She earned her PhD at the Australian National University, her MA at the School of Oriental and African Studies, and her BA at Barnard College of Columbia University.
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