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What Is Next For Palestinians? | |
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"Exploring The Powerful Issues & Emotions of The Middle East"
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Editor's Note:
As the US tries to shore up its preferred faction in the
Middle East, the strangulation of Gaza continues. This
happens outside the eye of the MSM.
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Video Clip Of The Week
Helen Thomas Blasts Use Of Torture in Press Conference
Virtually alone in the press corps, veteran Helen Thomas
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What Is Next For Palestinians? – Khalid Amayreh
The obvious failure of Palestinian Authority (PA) President
Mahmoud Abbas's latest visit to Washington has been
reverberating through Palestinian society, with many
intellectuals and pundits advising Abbas to "quit" or at
least stop acting at the US administration's beck and
call. Some critics have even called for dismantling the PA
and abandoning the two-state solution strategy in favour
of the one-state solution of a democratic state for all
its citizens.
Abbas, in a frank and daring admission, told reporters
following his meeting with President Bush at the White
House last week that he failed to obtain a commitment
from the US administration to pressure Israel into
halting its wave of Jewish-only settlement building in
East Jerusalem and the West Bank. The intensive settlement
expansion drive brazenly defies US-led peace efforts,
including the Quartet-backed roadmap and last year's
Annapolis conference.
For their part, the Israelis deny that they are reneging
on commitments or pledges. Israeli leaders argue that
they are only meeting housing needs related to "natural
growth" within existing settlements. They also cite a
private "understanding" contained in a letter sent by
President Bush to former prime minister Ariel Sharon
whereby Israel was given a green light to continue
expanding settlements irrespective of peace talks with
the Palestinians.
The Bush administration has been reticent to acknowledge
this supposed "understanding". However, its enduring
refusal to rebuke Israel for its continued colonisation
of Palestinian land underscores the extent of US-Israeli
connivance against Palestinian interests and exposes the
duplicity of US political calculations with regard to the
Israeli-Palestinian issue.
Palestinian sources close to PA-Israeli talks last week
reported that Israeli negotiators on many occasions
confronted their Palestinian counterparts with a series
of written "pledges" and "letters" from the Bush
administration assuring Israel that major Jewish
settlements, at least, would be annexed into Israel in
the context of a final-status deal with the Palestinians.
Hence, according to Israeli negotiators, there was no
justification for "vociferous" Palestinian protest every
time Israel decided to build additional settler units
in the West Bank.
Reportedly, Abbas was also especially upset by President
Bush's refusal to pledge that any contemplated Palestinian
"state" would be created on 100 per cent of the Palestinian
territories occupied by Israel in 1967. The implications
of Bush's refusal are as clear as they are painful for the
Palestinian leadership; namely that the Palestinians should
stop dreaming of a full and total Israeli withdrawal from
the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
According to sources within Abbas's immediate circle, the
PA leader has come to feel "betrayed" and "deceived" by
the Bush administration. "We thought there was only one
game in town, and that was the roadmap," one PA official
told Al-Ahram Weekly on condition of anonymity. "But it
turned out that the Bush administration had been giving
Israel all sorts of assurances and pledges behind our
back, which violate and nullify the essence of the
roadmap."
Asked what he thought the PA would do next, the frustrated
official said: "I would lie to you if I told you I knew
the answer."
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The Weekly asked senior Fatah official Hatem Abdul-Qader
for his view as to what the PA should do in light of US
refusals to pressure Israel to halt settlement expansion
in the West Bank. "I think it is time for all of us,
including President Abbas, to realise that it is probably
too late for the creation of a Palestinian state," he
said. "All peace talks with Israel seem to have been a
gigantic fiasco -- a total failure and big lie."
Like many PA and Fatah officials, Abdul- Qader believes
that Abbas is facing a real dilemma in having to choose
between appeasing the US by compromising the Palestinian
cause, or rebuilding Palestinian national unity with
Hamas, which would upset Israel and the US and which might
lead to the reinstitution of US-led sanctions on the PA.
"It is clear that talks with Israel have reached a dead
end. It is also clear that Israel is using the national
rift between Fatah and Hamas to impose its conditions on
us," Abdul-Qader said.
"All the promises and pledges the Bush administration has
made to us have evaporated," Abdul-Qader continues. "The
US is only indulging in an open-ended process of deception
for the purpose of giving Israel the time it needs to
build more settlements and make the task of creating a
viable Palestinian state unrealistic and unachievable."
Asked what he would advise Abbas to do in light of receding
prospects of reaching a breakthrough before the end of
2008, Abdul-Qader said he would advise the PA president to
"pay attention to our internal situation and stop bidding
on fruitless talks with Israel. Abbas should be courageous
enough to tell the Americans that he won't sacrifice
paramount Palestinian national interests for the sake of
American and Israeli interests."
Abdul-Qader adds that in order for Abbas to be able to say
"No" to the US and Israel, Hamas "will have to make the
first step by accepting the Yemeni initiative". Fatah
could facilitate this by refraining from "making impossible
preconditions for national reconciliation".
Earlier this week, Hamas officials in the Gaza Strip called
on Abbas to "draw the correct conclusion" from the "rebuff"
he received in Washington. "We call on President Mahmoud
Abbas to stop seeking water from the American mirage. We
urge him to immediately embark on tangible steps to re-
establish national unity. It is only with national unity
that we can restore our rights and safeguard the vital
interests of our people."
Abbas has not said what he will do next apart from
continuing in talks with Israel. Hani Al-Masri, a prominent
political analyst in Ramallah, told the Weekly that Abbas's
dilemma "stems mainly from the fact that he lacks a
plan-B." Abbas "trusted the Americans too much and for too
long. He should have explored alternatives to this futile
process."
"He should extend his hand to Hamas and re-establish
Palestinian national unity, irrespective of American and
Israeli reactions. He should stop this futile process
under whose rubric Israel is liquidating the Palestinian
cause," Al-Masri added.
Al-Masri acknowledges that if Abbas were to cut from the
so-called "peace process", the US and Israel would employ
all kinds of sanctions, including starving the Palestinian
population, to get him back in line. "But in the long run,
[the US] will accept the fait accompli. After all, if we
stand united, the whole world, including the Americans,
will respect us. The ball is in our court, and no one
else's."
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