More PA manoeuvres reaping identical consequences

In the absence of any consistency on behalf of the Palestinian Authority, any statement with the potential of raising a furore should be read as another chapter of obligatory, meaningless rhetoric.

Since the atrocities committed by Israel during Operation Protective Edge in 2014, international efforts to restore a semblance of negotiations betrayed the obvious intentions of allowing Palestinian rights to deteriorate beyond any hope of renewal. Mahmoud Abbas was a willing accomplice; discussing the PA’s hypothetical authority over Gaza as expressed by the US, while seeking to condemn and ridicule Palestinian resistance.

Recent efforts at establishing yet another round of negotiations that would inadvertently result in further erosion of Palestinian territory have been met with a statement by Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad al-Maliki: “We will never go back and sit again in direct Israeli-Palestinian negotiations.” Al-Maliki spouted identical rhetoric to that uttered by Saeb Erekat and Majed Faraj in a recent interview published by Defense News, stating that the lack of international involvement in any negotiations would result in a power vacuum that would be filled by Daesh.

“If the Americans are giving up and the Europeans don’t have the courage to do anything and Arabs are really worried about their own problems, what do you expect? Extremists might take over.” Al-Maliki’s simplified political discourse is intentionally lacking in any insightful analysis, notably the international community’s role in fomenting the current regional violence – a trend that Palestinians have experienced directly through imperialist support for Israel’s colonial project.

Meanwhile, the PA and Israel have been meeting to discuss aspects of security coordination, despite numerous statements by Abbas that the agreement would be halted. Each utterance of ceasing security coordination was given brief prominence by the media, followed by vehement assertions heralding the benefits of such an agreement which, for Palestinians, translates into administrative detention, collective punishment and mass arrests in order to prevent a proper organisation of resistance. Since the PA stands to benefit from the agreement, it is likely that there will be other bouts of reversed threats as befits the occasion.

There is nothing duplicitous as regards the PA’s stance in the above-mentioned scenarios. Its hypocrisy has been flaunted several times unabashedly. Hence, refusing direct negotiations with Israel while ensuring the continuity of security-coordination are synchronised, even if at first glance a certain dissonance, or contradiction, is detected. The PA’s predictability, however, is clear and depicts the characteristics of dependency and subjugation.

Regardless of whether negotiations are rekindled, the PA’s direct participation – either in direct talks with Israel or else in concordance with the international community – will ultimately prove an asset to Israel. In the rare event that the assertion is followed through, Israel will still reap benefits as its existence is not dependent upon any stance concocted by the PA. The issue at stake is Palestine. As long as the PA continues to undermine Palestinian resistance by adhering to Israeli and international expectations, there can be no real hope for Palestinians other than ineffective symbolic gestures that have served as diplomatic veneer masking the crude complicity which both the PA and the international community are no longer bothered to conceal.

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