The PA is still conspiring to undermine Palestinian resistance

Despite the increasing and systematic brutality of Jewish settlers and the Israeli military, the Palestinian Authority is still seeking ways to indulge in its own version of premeditated annihilation of Palestinian land and memory. After a brief outburst of outrage when PLO Secretary General Saeb Erekat countered Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s distortion of legitimate resistance as “terrorism”, the PA is still determined to reopen diplomatic negotiations as the means to counter the current uprising.

According to the Times of Israel, several “high-level meetings” between Israeli and Palestinian officials have been held within the past few weeks, during which the Palestinian representatives suggested a resumption of negotiations as the means to end the resistance. Predictably, Israel has rejected the notion and insisted on an end to the struggle as a precondition to diplomatic efforts.

The predictability of the Israeli government and the PA is now openly and obscenely synchronised. Since the commencement of the current intifada, the rift between the Palestinian people and its internationally-recognised representation has been all too obvious. Rhetoric about ending security coordination with Israel – once a clause eliciting a degree of fervour – has now been rendered obsolete. Meanwhile, Palestinian resistance factions have been urging a continuation of the intifada and proclaiming their support. Yet, despite clearly stating that a cessation of the struggle will have a disastrous impact upon the Palestinian population, the professed support has, so far, failed to materialise.

Following the news that Israel is planning the construction of over 55,000 more illegal settlement dwellings on occupied territory, Palestinian demonstrators were prevented by the PA security forces from approaching the settlement of Beit El last Wednesday. Not only is the action compatible with the current political subordination despite the people’s determination to continue the uprising, but it is also reminiscent of Mahmoud Abbas’s tactics during the previous negotiations. These paved the way for settlement expansion and further coordination in repressing the Palestinians’ anti-colonial struggle in return for symbolic and compromised gestures.

The PA’s failure to assert collective demands is evident in its regurgitated conditions of a hypothetical “State of Palestine” based upon the 1967 borders, the release of the remaining Palestinian political prisoners which were used as a bargaining tool in the previous negotiations, and a suspension of settlement expansion. These spasmodic demands have not altered Israel’s colonial intent. On the contrary, they are serving as an incentive to further expansion until such time when diplomatic negotiations will serve usurpation even better, which will then provide for another cycle of political violence that alternates between overt and covert offensives.

Read: PA cracks down on Fatah rally against Israeli settlement

If negotiations materialise – which at the moment seems improbable given the international community’s attention shift towards the mutating violence unleashed through the so-called Arab Spring – the PA will dredge up its long-standing conditions for talks while Israel will insist upon discussions without any preconditions, which will elicit another litany of accusations by both parties regarding unilateral action and settlement expansion. The truth, which is barely concealed and yet still overlooked, is that the seemingly jarring views depart from a common premise of pandering to colonial demands while the Palestinians are relegated to something even more ephemeral than remembrance.

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