The Palestinian Authority and supporting settlement activity

By Abdel Sattar Qassem

The anchor at the TV station was surprised when I told him that the Palestinian Authority supported settlement activity and that I do not care what I hear in the media as much as I do for what I see on the ground. At this stage of the interview I had thrown his prepared questions into disarray and he had no option but to follow my train of thought and examine what I had said.

I did not expect the anchor to agree with my opinion because the media was full of news about the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations; settlement is a Zionist activity which continues to hinder progress at the talks. He might, therefore, have regarded my statement as an attempt to smear the Palestinian Authority. However, I still believe that I am correct with my opinion, for the following reasons:

We have to be careful about what we see, hear or read in the Arab-owned media, especially anything about Palestine. Much of what we are told is based on poor research with little background reference or logical argument. Even so, most people are affected by the news and have to make do with the daily news bulletins, which contain little reasoned analysis or solid argument.

---

For example, an Arab leader gave a speech at an Arab Summit conference in which he called for inter-Arab differences to be overcome and reconciliation to take the Arabs into a new era. The media reported on the speech for more than a month, with expanded analysis and comments on the wisdom of the great leader. Nobody mentioned that this particular leader doesn’t have a free hand in what he can say, and could not do much, let alone go ahead with Arab reconciliation, without the go-ahead from the United States. You will not be surprised to learn that reconciliation did not happen and inter-Arab controversies persist.

At Camp David in 2000 there was extensive media coverage, and Palestinian supporters of the PA talked at length about the steadfastness of the Palestinian leadership and its adherence to Palestinian constants. None of the media outlets provided a single detail about the agenda and content of the negotiations, nor about what was proposed to Yasser Arafat or he rejected. It was all media hype; later, it was discovered that in actual fact there had been no negotiations for two weeks and the negotiating teams sat together for an hour at most.

The third example is that of a Palestinian leader who was leaving a bar in Beirut when he said that the Palestine Liberation Organization would destroy US interests in the Gulf. The media picked this up and there was outrage; did anyone mention that the man was drunk at the time and his statement had to be understood in that context?

The Arab world is not democratic; there are no freedom of information acts to aid media and scientific research. The Arab public are fed a lot of misinformation and lies by their leaders and the media and you have to be extremely discerning about what you believe or reject. Neither the Palestinian media nor the Palestinian leaders are exempt from this critique; all are capable of blowing hot air for public posturing but all have also seen their fine words and slogans leading nowhere over many years.

Negotiations have been going on between Israelis and Palestinians since 1994; post-Oslo, settlement activity was supposed to stop. It hasn’t, but that hasn’t stopped the Palestinian Authority from blowing hot air in protest, and then continuing with the talks. No matter how many voices from around the region and the rest of the world are raised in protest at the settlements taking ever more land and leaving nothing for a viable Palestinian state, the PA keeps on talking. It is reasonable to say, I think, that those who continue to negotiate with “partners for peace” who ignore previous agreements and continue with their settlement building are, in fact, themselves supporting such settlement activity.

The Palestinian Authority’s position on settlements – that they are an obstacle to peace – has not changed for many years and is in line with that of the USA. However, neither the PA nor the US has turned that position into action intended to force Israel to stop building and expanding its illegal settlements on occupied territory. Zionist settlements continued; negotiations continued.

In his speech in Cairo last year President Barack Obama announced his opposition to Israeli settlements; the PA had to catch up with him, announcing its own opposition even though it had never before said that without a settlement freeze there would be no negotiations. But settlement activities continued, as it was never very likely that President Obama would match his words with action. And true to form, the PA has gone back to negotiations without standing firm on the “no freeze, no negotiations” position. Meanwhile, the Zionists have continued to build and expand settlements across the West Bank and in occupied Jerusalem, visible for all to see; except the PA officials, of course, and the Americans.

Despite this, the PA agreed to return to indirect and then direct negotiations. It looks as if linking negotiations to a settlement freeze is gesture politics. In any case, security coordination between Israel and the PA never stopped during the “will they, won’t they” charade for the media’s benefit.

The most important point in all of the agreements with Israel is in fact security coordination, whereby the Palestinian security forces must police the occupied territories on behalf of the Israelis; the security of the Zionist state takes precedence over everything else. This is the true measure of the commitment of the Palestinian Authority to Israeli demands, upon which its funding and very existence depends. It is also the core issue for any Arab state considering a peace treaty with Israel; will the Arab country act as a watchdog for the Jewish state?

Israel is not interested in negotiations which might result in Arabs getting their full rights; its own security comes first and foremost. That is why Israel is negotiating, not to reach an agreement with the Palestinians, but to give them more time to build facts on the ground, all the while convincing the PA that they might be given some crumbs off the Israeli table one day in an indeterminate future.

Accordingly, the seriousness with which the Palestinian side regard settlement activity can only be reflected if security coordination is suspended. To pull out of negotiations while maintaining security coordination is illusionary, an attempt to mislead the Palestinian people that the PA is against the settlements. As long as the Palestinian security services arrest anyone engaged in resistance against, and defiance of, the occupation of their land, pulling out of negotiations is a worthless gesture. By such acts the security services are working against the very people who oppose the settlers and haunt them.

Ever since 1994, the essence of the negotiations – or the taking part in negotiations for appearances sake – has been “security for bread”; as long as the PA acts as an arm of the Israel Defence Forces and security apparatus, the PA will receive its finances and pay its salaries; if they’re really lucky, the Israelis might remove a checkpoint or release a few detainees. The national rights and aspirations of the Palestinian people have on occasions been addressed, but as a sideshow, not the main attraction.

Even the inalienable right of return and right to self-determination have not been taken seriously by the Palestinian Authority, which has focused its efforts mainly on the establishment of the State. This is not one of the inalienable rights. Since 1994, the PA has done nothing to liberate its people from financial bondage; instead, they are still hanging on the tail of donor countries, jumping at their commands which are, in the end, toeing the US and Israeli line. Anyone so reliant on the enemy’s tail cannot be serious about opposing that enemy’s policies, not least the settlement policy.

The Palestinian Authority says it is against settlements and that it has the option to negotiate and go to the UN Security Council to lift the crisis. That is extremely naive, given that the US is a pillar of the Security Council and has a habit of casting its veto every time a vote looks set to go against Israel.

In any event, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has said that he will negotiate even if the negotiations fail; and he will negotiate if failure fails; and he will negotiate if the failure of failure fails. His chief negotiator believes that life is negotiations, something that is very new in human experience; negotiations as life rather than a tool to achieve something tangible. For Palestinian philosophers negotiation does not deviate from the continuation of negotiation, and if the settlements are to continue, then failure does not mean that negotiations will stop.
 
On the wider stage, Arab regimes have been co-opted to provide a fig-leaf of legitimacy for the Palestinians returning to the negotiating table. If the talks fail, the PA is not left standing all alone to bear the responsibility.
The Arab dimension is not something to bet on for the future of the Arab nation, and it is usually used to push through foreign agendas or programmes. Most Arab regimes are brought to power, and kept there, by a third party, have no political free will and no real decision-making process to call their own.

The Palestinian Authority may threaten to halt the talks if Israel returns to settlement building and expansion. Negotiations may stop for a while; but they will continue as long as the PA remains weak, meek and subordinate. Whatever happens, Israel-Palestinian Authority security coordination will go on, providing support for the illegal settlers in the ever-expanding illegal settlements. If Israel has any worries at all, they are not focused on the Palestinian Authority. While the later persists in giving such support to Israel, which in turn helps Israeli settlers, it has to be said that the PA supports settlement activity in practice; the denials are reserved for the media’s consumption.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.