NEGOTIATIONS AND HIGH TREASON IN
ISRAEL-PALESTINE 'PEACE'.
The corrupt PA (Palestinian Authority)
is incapable of achieving the dignity of Palestinian self-determination, writes
Susan Abulhawa, a Palestinian Journalist
Main Thesis: "Intergovernmental diplomacy is not a pathway to
a just peace, but rather a sinkhole for Palestinian rights."
No good for Palestinians will come
of the current Middle East talks. Worse, harm seems likely. These negotiations
threaten to undo years of work by Palestinian civil society and solidarity
partners around the world who have been working tirelessly for a just peace.
Their work has been done -principally- through global nonviolent resistance
campaigns such as the Boycott Divestment & Sanctions campaign (BDS), the Russell Tribunal, and
mounting popular local and international protests, among other tactics.
What we are hearing is that US
Secretary of State John Kerry has presented both parties with an interim
agreement to "serve as a framework for continued negotiations towards a
permanent agreement". The "final status agreement" would be "based
on the 1967 borders". Concrete concessions with profound implications are
being demanded of the Palestinians, but not so for Israel, which is
"negotiating" on territory, rights, and resources that already belong
to Palestinians.
Much of this rhetoric is familiar,
as it is recycled from the failed Oslo Accords, in which an agreement was
reached exacting permanent Palestinian concessions in exchange for promises of
Israeli reciprocity that never materialised. Thus, Palestinians are now being
sold the same lie they bought 20 years ago. This time, the concessions demanded
of Palestinians amount to a complete relinquishment of our rights as a native
people, in exchange for the same empty promises and pocket change from the EU
and US to sustain the status quo a little longer, enough time to permanently
alter the landscape and complete the economic, political and social engineering of the Palestinian population
towards the goal of permanent impotence, in which profound divisions,
corruption, and dependence preclude the emergence of organised impactful
resistance.
Known truths
The details of the agreement, we are
told, "are being worked out between the parties". But here are some
certainties: Palestinian self-determination will not be realised from this
agreement. A viable Palestinian state with a contiguous
land mass will remain impossible given the physical alterations
of the landscape Israel has made through rapacious land theft, colonisation,
and "Judaisation" of Jerusalem and large parts of the West Bank.
Israel will not cease illegal settlement construction, even if it does so
temporarily. Palestinians will not have control over their airspace, natural
resources (eg water, newly-discovered oil), borders or economy. Segregated
roads, housing, and buses will still be a reality.
Demolition of Palestinian homes will
continue. The siege of Gaza will remain and perhaps tightened further. The
separation wall will still be there with guard towers and snipers. Israel will
still bomb our world when they please. They will still conduct night raids.
They will continue to terrorise our children. Administrative Detention will
remain a cost of living for Palestinian youth. Our Jerusalem, a few kilometres
away, will still be as far as the moon for the majority of Palestinians. Israel
will continue to import foreign Jews from all over the world and settle them on
stolen Palestinian land, where they take up arms against the native Palestinian
population.
The incentives being offered to
Palestinians in the current talks are so insignificant, suggesting that the
Palestinian Authority (PA) will accept funding over freedom. There is talk of
an "unprecedented economic package", and other "concessions",
all of which amount to temporary anaesthetics. On the other hand, Israel will
likely walk away with Palestinian blessing for their theft of the Jordan
Valley, the most fertile land in the West Bank, and continued control of
Palestinian lives and resources.
There is also talk that they might
achieve a boost to their racist demographic goals - touted by Foreign Minister
Avigdor Lieberman and Henry Kissinger, a WINEP adviser - by transferring large proportions
of their undesirable non-Jewish citizenry to Palestinian control. But that's
gravy. Their immediate aims are two-fold: To deal a heavy blow to the growing
Palestinian solidarity and boycott of Israel; and to finally gain legitimacy as
a racist state.
BDS' effect
The Boycott, Divestment and
Sanctions (BDS) campaign, launched in 2005 by Palestinian civil society as a
nonviolent means of national and human liberation from Israeli colonisation and
apartheid, has spread into mainstream culture, promising global action on the
scale that helped end the similar system of apartheid in South Africa. I
believe that the popular BDS movement (including related solidarity actions) is
the principal factor motivating Israel to try to come to some interim agreement
with Palestinians at this point.
Israel is panicking, and rightfully
so, because its power lies only in the realm of government and corporate
elites. Israel has no defences against mass mobilisation calling for justice
and basic human rights. This was precisely the case in the late 1980s, when the
first intifada captured the popular imagination of the world. Even before mass
communication and instant information, the images of Palestinian children with
rocks facing heavily armed soldiers and tanks began to sear into international
consciousness, threatening Israel's image as the victim despite their best
public relations and hasbara campaigns.
Thus, Israel, in concert with the
US, orchestrated the Madrid Conference, followed by the Oslo Accords. Although
Palestinians made the painful sacrifice of relinquishing claim to 78 percent of
Historic Palestine, agreeing to establish a state on a mere 22 percent of our
homeland, Israel continued to act in bad faith, escalating the colonial and
ethnic cleansing projects to create "fact on the ground" that
currently preclude any meaningful realisation of a Palestinian state as
envisioned by the Oslo Accords.
Not only did the Oslo "diplomacy"
consolidate the land Israel took through terror and war in 1948 and create a
new baseline from which to expand Israel's settlement endeavours, it also
effectively siphoned the only real power we had - popular mobilisation - and
broke our collective back by giving us false hope that liberation was around
the corner. In return, we got an illusion of self-rule - a contingency of
elected-for-life "leaders" who helped turn our proud people into a
nation of beggars, dependent on international aid for sustenance. We saw
further colonisation of our lands, which are now Jewish-only domains. And we
got a well-trained Palestinian police force that, far from protecting
Palestinians, collaborates with Israel to suppress legitimate resistance
against tyranny.
We are now in a similar place to
where we were in the late 1980s. After years of struggle, organising and
activism, Palestinian resistance has once again captured popular imaginations
and civil society around the world - academics, activists, clergy, intellectuals,
artists, trade unions, universities, municipalities, churches, and other
individuals and institutions of conscience - are mobilising in solidarity with
Palestinian aspirations for basic human rights and to hold Israel accountable
for its unrelenting systematic crimes against the indigenous Palestinian
population.
High treason
As Israel has no legitimate argument
against demands for Palestinian basic rights, they are looking to stamp out BDS
as they did the first intifada, both popular nonviolent resistance movements,
by recycling the charade of negotiations. While the Palestinian people cannot
be fooled again, such interim agreements do risk fooling our solidarity
partners.
And so, the stakes now are far
greater. Curtailing the expansion of BDS might actually end up being a sweet
aside. The real prize for the supremacist and imperialist ideology of Zionism
is Palestinian recognition of Israel as a Jewish State. Many ask why is
this such an important goal for Israel. The answer is simple. When the true
heirs of the land, those who are native in every sense - historically,
culturally, legally, genetically - recognise Israel as a Jewish state, they are
effectively giving away their claims to their own homeland. Like a home owner
who officially relinquishes her home to a squatter, Palestinians would give
Israel the only real legitimacy it can ever hope to have. Making such a
declaration is tantamount not only to renouncing our Right of Return to a land
we just sanctified as belonging to world Jewry, but it would also mean
abandonment of our Palestinian brothers and sisters who hold Israeli
citizenship to permanent second-class status and institutional racist
inequality.
Continued bilateral negotiations in
the current gross imbalance of power will destroy us. In the words of Richard Falk, "Intergovernmental diplomacy is not a pathway to
a just peace, but rather a sinkhole for Palestinian rights."
One can forgive the PLO for being hoodwinked by Oslo the first time
(despite warnings from luminaries like Edward Said). But to lead us into the
same trap with the same language and empty promises is unconscionable. At this
point, any interim agreement that does not fully end Israeli occupation, end
Israeli apartheid (including full equality for Palestinians with Israeli
citizenship), and repatriate Palestinian refugees should be viewed as an act of
high treason against the Palestinian people.
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