Abbas’s oscillations glorify the betrayal of Palestinian collective memory

Following news of renewed attempts at diplomatic negotiations with Israel, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas sought to impart a purportedly different stance that is laden with evident contradictions. According to the Times of Israel, Abbas aired his views on Palestine TV, invoking the right to autonomous decision-making as “Palestinians”.

Both the US and Russia have attempted to arrange meetings between Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The uniting factor between both countries as regards Palestine is their insistence upon the two-state compromise, an impossibility which Abbas and the international community continue to insist upon while Israel occasionally upholds the rhetoric as a strategy to buy more time for settlement expansion and, in turn, contribute to the impossibility of its implementation.

“Our relations with everyone must be good,” declared Abbas, “but no one will dictate to us any position or idea. Therefore, let us think as Palestinians. I will think about Palestine, not Washington or Moscow.” Expanding this line further, he added, “Release us from the capitals, and from the money of the capitals, and the influence of the capitals.”

The utterance of such statements is a display of pathetic theatrics. The absence of a revolutionary leader has rendered such discourse abominable and abnormal, given that Abbas is trying to portray a new stance departing from his usual compromised, collaborative foundations. It is possible to create a detailed timeline that would render Abbas’s words invalid, yet even a brief recapitulation will suffice, departing from Palestinian historical memory to the present.

Colonisation is an external imposition upon Palestinians, as is the ethnic cleansing forced upon them by Israel’s presence in their country. Helping to sustain Israel was normalised through the years, the epitome of which was the creation of the Palestinian Authority and its subsequent role as a willing collaborator. There is no validity in Abbas’s statement, particularly in his plea to be allowed to “think as Palestinians.” Since the PA is the product of international interference in Palestine and completely subjugated to the allure of power and economic benefits, there is no possibility of absorbing the collective memory of Palestinians for articulation, inspiration and implementation of ideas, notably anti-colonial struggle. The PA needs colonialism to survive; hence, its thought is perpetually aligned to that of its benefactors, notably Israel and the international community. Any alleged diversion is blatant hypocrisy.

All Abbas has accomplished is a simplification of Palestinian requirements for a farcical statement directed at the international community. Deriding decades of Palestinian anti-colonial struggle is evident in Abbas’s words, considering that his mission is not to further the struggle for Palestinian liberation, but rather create an environment in which violations can flourish unhindered and with complete impunity while magnifying overtures such as recourse to the International Criminal Court or waiting for the passing of a century before announcing the intention to sue Britain over the Balfour Declaration. Political antics seem to be a requirement of the PA, if only to promote the occasional and often erroneous notion that the entity rethinks its warped priorities. However, it is common knowledge that the PA will acquiesce to whatever demands are imposed upon it in order to safeguard its twisted dynamics of power.

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