Kerry’s second visit to abort the intifada

John Kerry came to meet Netanyahu and Mahmoud Abbas a week after the outbreak of the third intifada. He was unable to hold a four-party meeting in Amman with himself, Netanyahu, Jordan’s King Abdullah II and the Palestinian president, so he found that the best thing he could do to abort the intifada was to announce what was known as the “Kerry-Netanyahu understandings”. This included Netanyahu’s assurance that he would not change the status quo at Al-Aqsa Mosque (which the US secretary of state referred to as “Temple Mount”), meaning that he would back down from the implantation of his coalition decision to divide the prayer times between Muslims and Jews. This was a victory for the intifada. However, these understandings maintained the presence of the Israeli security forces in Al-Aqsa, especially to supervise the visits of non-Muslims, adding surveillance cameras which Kerry and Netanyahu wanted to monitor the young men and women protecting the sacred mosque.

The first goal of the understandings is to stop the intifada as long as the retraction of the temporal division of Al-Aqsa Mosque is maintained. This is because it is considered to be the prime reason for the outbreak of the popular uprising, which then turned into an intifada.

They failed to achieve the first goal for two reasons. First, because the understandings allowed the Israeli army to have security control over Al-Aqsa Mosque and supervise the visits of non-Muslims. These are the same Zionist gangs that raid Al-Aqsa with the protection of the Israeli army in order to impose the temporal and spatial division of prayer between Muslims and Jews. The second reason is the fact that this intifada has other goals that go beyond thwarting the temporal division of the mosque, no matter how important that might be.

The goals of the intifada are to defeat the Israeli occupation, dismantle the settlements in Jerusalem and the West Bank, lift the blockade imposed on Gaza, and the unconditional release of all Palestinian prisoners with no negotiations, no deals and no recognition.

These are real-time goals that can be achieved by the intifada if it turns into a comprehensive, continuous and widespread uprising that cannot be reversed, in order to force the enemy to withdraw and dismantle its illegal settlements. We can do this by making withdrawal less costly than continuing the occupation, building settlements and suppressing the intifada.

Neither the Zionist enemy nor its allies in America or Europe can afford to face a comprehensive and complete intifada that is well-planned, long-term and under one national banner. This is because if the intifada continues, it will mobilise the Arab and Muslim masses, as well as international public opinion, in the Palestinians’ favour. This will embarrass every government that has tried to ignore the uprising, conspired to stop it or supported Netanyahu’s government under the pretext of the “right to self-defence”, as Obama and other Western leaders have claimed.

The compass of the Palestinian struggle has shifted, making the first goal the establishment of a Palestinian state on the “borders before 5 June 1967”. This has made it adopt the strategy of negotiations and agreement on the final resolution of the Palestinian issue (a “two-state solution”). The experience of the negotiations in Madrid and Oslo, along with the negotiations of Mahmoud Abbas in the name of the Palestinian Authority and the PLO, has proven that this path is a complete failure. It has simply bought time for the expansion of Israeli settlements, the Judaisation of Jerusalem, the attack on Al-Aqsa Mosque, brutality against prisoners and oppression of the resistance and popular movements. It also allowed Israel to launch military offensives against Lebanon and the Gaza Strip, as well impose a suffocating blockade on Gaza. It has contributed to knocking the Palestinian cause off the top of the list of Arab, Muslim and international priorities. None of this debatable; it is cited from bitter experiences over the past 24 years, beginning with the Madrid Conference.

Keeping the door open to the “two-state solution” allows John Kerry to come to occupied Palestine today and propose, once again, proposals that pave the way to a new round of negotiations in order to abort the intifada. There is a fear that Israel will be defeated by a popular uprising, and fear of America and the West becoming more disgraced by their support for Israel while it continues to commit massacres against the Palestinian people.

However, if Kerry is surprised by a unified Palestinian position which insists that the intifada aims to defeat Israel’s occupation and dismantle its settlements without any limits or conditions, then we will cross that bridge when we get there. He will have nothing to say, as he cannot negotiate in favour of an occupation and settlements while his government maintains that they are illegal. In this event he will be backed into a corner. He will have to either announce that he defends the occupation and the settlements, or that he wants to reward Israel for them by offering it yet more Palestinian, Arab and Muslim concessions.

The equation will then no longer be about negotiations, but the dissolution of the Palestinian cause by means of the liquidating and delusional “two-state solution”, which is a cover for the occupation, settlements, the Judaisation of Jerusalem, the blockade on Gaza, and the failure to release Palestinian prisoners. At that point, the defeat of the occupation, the dismantling of the settlements and resolution of the issues of Jerusalem, Al-Aqsa Mosque, the Gaza Strip and the prisoners will be linked to reaching a final agreement by means of negotiations, or it will be linked to giving priority to establishing a Palestinian state. This would be like putting the cart before the horse.

What will we do after the land is liberated? We will leave that to a popular referendum, as there are several options.

Anyone talking about the national Palestinian project must be aware that the only solution is the liberation of Palestine from the River Jordan to the sea and implementing the right of return for refugees. As such, it is wrong to propose any other project, such as a two-state solution, a binational state or a Palestinian state on the 1967 borders.

Those who are concerned with rescuing Al-Aqsa Mosque and the holy sites of Muslims and Christians, as well as liberating Jerusalem and the West Bank, lifting the siege on Gaza, releasing all the prisoners and moving forward towards the liberation of all of historic Palestine, must be aware that there is nothing more important than making that list the goals of the current uprising. These goals can unite all of the Palestinian factions and can be achieved by the intifada.

Mahmoud Abbas should place these goals in front of John Kerry. The secretary of state will be unable to face them and will seek respite in negotiations and a two-state solution. At that point, Abbas should try to tell him that this intifada will continue; if not, then the occupation, settlements, Judaisation of Jerusalem and violations of Al-Aqsa will continue. This is what happened after the second intifada was stopped.

It goes without saying that Mahmoud Abbas will not do this, but Fatah and the other factions which supported negotiations and the two-state solution at any point should. Of course, they should do this alongside Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the youth of the intifada. John Kerry must return to the US unsuccessful in his attempt to abort the intifada.

Translated from Arabi21, 25 November, 2015.

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