Combining contradictions does not work

During this month, perhaps on the 29th day, which marks the anniversary of the decision to divide Palestine and is the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian people, the Jordanian representative at the UN is scheduled to represent the Palestinian people and the Arab Group to request that the Security Council vote on a draft resolution demanding an end to the occupation within a specified timeframe.

Regardless of the fate of the request and whether or not it will receive the nine votes required for it to be passed, or if the US will veto it or abstain from voting, especially if modifications are made to the resolution that are approved or rejected by the Arabs, I find it useful to review the course of the so-called “peace process” since the failure of Camp David.

Since May 1999, which marks the end of the period specified by the Oslo Accords to reach a final peace agreement, and after the failure of the Camp David Summit, the Second Intifada, which was desired by the Palestinian and the Israeli sides in order to achieve their objectives, broke out.

Ehud Barak began the aggression, following Sharon’s provocative visit, which was the spark that ignited the Intifada, and committed a massacre during the early days of the Intifada. Yasser Arafat also supported the Intifada because he saw it as a means to improve the conditions for negotiations in a manner that would allow for reaching an agreement that would reinforce the Camp David summit.

After Arafat was assassinated by means of poison, President Mahmoud Abbas tried to take a different path in an attempt to achieve what Arafat was unable to. Abbas reproduced the process of bilateral negotiations under US auspices and showed flexibility that surprised everyone. He also unilaterally applied the international Road Map without conditioning its application by Palestinians on Israel fulfilling its obligations. In addition to this, Abbas agreed to participate in the Annapolis Summit at the end of 2007, and engaged in negotiations with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert without his commitment to stop settlement activity and without a clear and binding reference for negotiations. Olmert ultimately fell due to the corruption scandals that caught up with him.

Abu Mazen also agreed to resume direct talks after the Washington Summit in 2010 after he partially and temporarily froze settlement activities. Then “exploratory” negotiations were conducted in Amman at the beginning of 2011, and now John Kerry has been trying his luck at resuming negotiations for the past nine months, in vain.

Successive Israeli governments have been behind the failure of the negotiations because they do not want to settle. Instead, they want to impose a racial settlement expansionist solution that has no place for the establishment of a Palestinian state. Meanwhile the Palestinian side continues to fulfil its political, security and economic commitments, even during times when negotiations were stalled and during the aggressive Israeli military attacks on the Gaza Strip in 2008- 2009, 2012 and 2014. The secret meetings continued in an effort towards making the negotiations work, but they, along with the public negotiations, failed.

During this long period, settlement expansion multiplied, reaching the point where the number of settlers was over 750,000 and Israel adopted racist policies and laws that deepen its occupation. Israel also went on to Judaise Jerusalem, violated its sanctities, and took various measures aiming to expel the Jerusalemites. It also began the process of separating the West Bank and the Gaza Strip in 1991, resulting in deploying its troops and maintaining a blockade on Gaza, reserving the right to wage wars, raids, carry out assassinations and commit all sorts of crimes whenever it pleases. It continued to dismember the country and construct a wall in the West Bank.

All the above has driven Abu Mazen to think of and initiate other options without ruling out the option of bilateral negotiations. He refused to resume negotiations after Kerry’s mission failed because attempts to resume the negotiations are ongoing. In 2011, Abbas requested Palestine be granted full membership in the UN from the Security Council. However, when the request was not granted because it did not receive the nine votes required, even though even if it had the US would have vetoed it, Abbas then made a request to be granted observer state status and 138 countries voted for Palestine to become recognised by the United Nations as a state. This provides Palestine with political and legal privileges that must not be underestimated, but it does not allow for the establishment of an actual state on Palestinian land.

This goal cannot be achieved without ending the occupation, and ending the occupation can only be achieved by changing the balances of power, making the occupation costly for Israel and those supporting it, especially the United States of America.

The symbolic achievements represented by international resolutions that advocate for the Palestinian cause and recognise a Palestinian state that have been issued or will be issued are important, but cannot lead to the establishment of a Palestinian state. On the contrary, they may, if they are not part of a new comprehensive approach that differs from the approaches that have been adopted in the past, provide a cover for the current complete liquidation of all Palestinian rights occurring on the ground. This is a much more dangerous matter than the establishment of a state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and it includes actual forfeiture of any actual possibility to embody national Palestinian entity on Palestinian land.

The main flaw lies in the belief in the possibility of achieving a settlement that fulfils the minimum Palestinian rights through negotiations and peaceful and diplomatic means, as well as counting on the United States, which is linked to Israel due to their shared strategy that serves their interests and objectives. The flaw also lies in the fact that only one side exhibits good behaviour and remains committed to the shared obligations.

The flaw cannot be changed by combining contradictions or by making simple reforms and changes. This poses a threat to the national reconciliation which must be treated as a necessity and not an option that is used tactically to improve the conditions for the resumption of negotiations. This flaw also cannot be changed by means of making threats of popular resistance or boycott, while, at the same time, announcing refusal to resort to an Intifada. It cannot be changed by submitting a draft resolution to the Security Council several months ago, but failing to immediately join the International Criminal Court and put an end to the security coordination with Israel as part of a plan that aims to liberate Palestine from all the Oslo commitments, including the recognition of Israel without Israel recognising any Palestinian rights, including the right to establishing a Palestinian state.

The starting point is cutting the umbilical cord that still connects the leadership, and specifically President Abu Mazen, to the Oslo Accords, bilateral negotiations, and American attempts to resume them, despite the fact that Israel has violated this agreement since the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin, if not before. Israel wants to use bilateral negotiations to cover up its imposition of a colonial and occupational fait accompli and also to stand in the way of adopting other options and opposing boycott, divestment, and sanctions.

We cannot combine heaven and hell or the Oslo Accords and changing the balances of power. What we need is not a simple change that can be achieved in a matter of weeks or months; we need a long-term multi-faceted struggle that would take years in order to be effective enough to cause fundamental changes that would make reaching a settlement possible.

Another very important point is that we must give priority to the efforts made towards ending the division, the restoration of unity, and changing the rules adopted to achieve this because postponing core issues such as the PLO, the political and security programme, political participation, as well as having the leaders of every party working alone and excluding other parties or treating them as a minorities does not achieve unity. Instead, it threatens the possibility of achieving it. In order to achieve this goal, as well as all the Palestinian goals, strong popular pressure capable of imposing popular will on the disputing parties is required.

The third important point is that multiple strategies must be adopted and implemented side by side and simultaneously, so that working towards the recognition of the Palestinian rights and state continues, either with countries acting individually or collectively to achieve this, while, at the same time, work is being done to implement international resolutions that support the Palestinian cause and to issue new resolutions.

Meanwhile, international agreements should be being signed and international institutions being joined, especially the International Criminal Court, and preparations should be being made to participate in negotiations that will be held in an international context and on the basis that the negotiations are openly aimed at ending the occupation, establishing a Palestinian state, and restoring all the rights stipulated in international law and international resolutions.

Everything I have mentioned will be of no real and tangible value if strategies aimed at providing the elements of steadfastness and Palestinian presence in Palestine are not adopted and if such strategies are not capable of uniting the efforts and energy of the Palestinian people wherever they are in the context of a resistance that upholds the right of Palestinians to resistance in all forms necessary.

The Palestinians must be prepared for the critical moment in which a comprehensive Intifada capable of achieving victory will break out. What we need is to provide the conditions of victory for the next Intifada, including the prevention of this Intifada slipping into chaos by providing political, economic, and organisational leverages instead of warning against them. If the Intifada breaks out without leadership, a goal, organisation, or a national front, it will not realise its objective.

Translated from masarat.ps, 18 November, 2014

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