I hope that Abbas disappoints us

I told one of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’s close friends that I would be writing a different article in which I would note his steadfastness in the event that he rejects US pressure to recognise Israel as a Jewish state, concede the right of return and accept “Beit Hanina” as the capital of the promised independent state, to be established on less than 20 per cent of historical Palestine.

Abbas’s friend came back to me with a letter from Dr Saeb Erekat in which he said that I should start writing my article now because President Abbas will not give in to American pressure and will not accept the conditions of the framework agreement that Secretary of State John Kerry is trying to impose on the Palestinians; a framework that meets all of the Israelis’ demands. I hope that Erekat’s words are true and that the president proves to me and the Arab world that our doubts about the firmness of his positions are unfounded. However, our past experience with the Palestinian Authority and President Abbas is not reassuring. Some applauded him when he declared that he would not resume negotiations unless settlement building stopped; he conceded that condition and returned to negotiations. The only thing that he vowed and committed to was to prevent any resistance to the Israeli occupation in the occupied territories.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu travelled to America on Sunday to meet with President Barack Obama; Abbas and Erekat will follow in two weeks time, during which Obama is expected to try to rescue his Secretary of State’s initiative by pressuring both sides to accept it. As usual, the pressures will be put on the Palestinian delegation, especially with regards to the clause stipulating the recognition of Israel as a Jewish state, a recognition that confirms the Torah concept of the Jewish right to Palestine and most of Jordan, extending to Iraq. This recognition will also relinquish the right of return for refugees and legitimises the expulsion of 1.5 million Palestinians living in the territories occupied in 1948. It also closes the door firmly on the concept of a two-state solution.

Netanyahu will meet with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) to get its help to lobby the US Administration before he meets Obama in California. The journalists accompanying him on the plane have confirmed that he will not accept any American demand to stop settlements in the occupied West Bank. Obama will not dare to confront Netanyahu and take a stand against his insolence, arrogance and egotism, even though he has no need for Netanyahu or the pro-Israel Lobby in any upcoming elections because he is in his second term of office. However, the US president feels weak and inferior to Netanyahu and his Jewish-American supporters.

Obama and his successors need to realise that the reason they are losing support around the world is because of their submission to the Lobby and their continued support for the Israeli racism that has outdone the Apartheid regime of South Africa in its brutality.

America was humiliated in losing all of its wars in the Middle East because it engaged in them in order to serve Israel’s interests, respond to its security fears and to support its regional hegemony. It will lose all of its political and economic interests if it does not accept the Israeli terms of the agreement and impose it on the weak Palestinian side. Kerry’s framework agreement will not and should not be accepted because it is an unfair agreement that promotes racism and Israel’s discriminatory policies. Even if Netanyahu accepts Kerry’s plan, the Palestinian people will reject it and will withdraw any mandate, no matter how little it is worth, from President Abbas to sign it.

Let US financial aid, which Obama uses as a sword on the throats of the Palestinian people, or at least one quarter of them, go to hell because these people will not go hungry; if they do, then all the equations in the region will change and they will regain their consciousness after being numbed by the culture of “easy salaries”, thought up by Middle East peace envoy Tony Blair’s evil ingenuity.

The Palestinian people have lived with dignity and were fighters over the past decades, and all foreign invasions to change their battling national identity have failed. Surely, the pressures by Kerry, Obama and Netanyahu, as well as the disappointment and failure of the Arabs and international plots will end in the same way; time will tell.

This is a translation of the Arabic text published in Alarab Alyawm on 3 March, 2014

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