By Veton Surroi
A response to Ben Blushi on the dehumanization of Palestinians, Jews, Bosniaks, Rwandans, and Albanians
I read Ben Blushi’s article regarding the non-recognition of the State of Palestine, namely the mistake which, according to him, was made by Great Britain and France (and many other European or non-European states such as Australia). Perhaps from the outset two clarifications should be made that separate the analysis of the act of recognition as state policy from the dimension of moral values, which in Blushi’s writing reach a troubling degree of dehumanization.
It is the sovereign right of states to recognize or not recognize Palestine, and if Albania and Kosovo, as two European states, do not recognize Palestine, they have their raison d’état (state interest), just as the great European states such as Britain or France had theirs when they did recognize it. Albania, for example, may find it in its interest to maintain relations with Israel as it exists today, and demonstrated this by warmly receiving in Tirana the President of Israel, Isaac Herzog—president of the state that on that same day (September 12, 2024) bombed a school in Gaza serving as a refugee shelter, killing 18 people, among them women, children, and six UN workers. Kosovo, on the other hand, has marked its distance from Palestine by the fact that Palestinian authorities repeatedly tell Serbian authorities that they will not recognize Kosovo’s independence.
In both states, the calculation of national interest has placed them in the camp of those that will not, or not yet, recognize Palestine.
Moreover—and this is the second point—recognition of the State of Palestine has little practical effect. Palestine should have been a state since 1947, and the UN has reiterated this ever since. Palestine is recognized by 157 states, has an ambassador at the UN guaranteed by its status as a permanent observer state, yet this dimension of legitimacy has not protected it from genocide, which Israel is carrying out against the Palestinian people.
Here, at the issue of genocide, I believe it is worth pausing to express my fundamental disagreement with Mr. Blushi, who describes Palestinians as a people incapable of creating democracy, an economy, or a state, and who, after suggesting that they “must go through a process of exorcism, must drive the devil out of their soul,” declares that “Palestine is not ready to coexist with the rest of the civilized world,” “is not ready to coexist with us,” “is not ready to live like us.”
Since I assume that by “us” Mr. Blushi meant Western civilization together with Albanians within it, I believe I can state clearly the deep dividing line in interpretation that I have with him.
There is one fundamental reason why Palestinians are in the condition they are in, and that is occupation and genocide. The Palestinian people, indigenous to their own land, have suffered ethnic cleansing since 1947 (the Nakba) to this day, with the daily colonization of the West Bank (as it is referred to in English, and cited in Mr. Blushi’s article). Since 2023, in addition to the silent genocide of ethnic cleansing, Israel has been carrying out an outright genocide in Gaza. And Gaza, in parallel with the founding of the State of Israel, was established as the largest refugee camp in the world.
The Palestinians have been denied their land, their property, and today, above all, their right to life. In such a condition, peoples do not build economies, do not hold democratic elections. Consequently—they are not like us.