The lie of the Palestinian state

The more that the pressure on the leaders of the Zionist state has intensified, the more that its friends in the West have promised to establish a Palestinian state in order to end the 76-year conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians and stabilise the Middle East. Such “promises”, though, are huge lies added to the many other lies and promises which have evaporated over the years.

Given that the Zionist state of Israel has lost militarily, politically, legally and morally since October’s Operation Al-Aqsa Flood and its invasion of Gaza, its friends in the West — basically the countries which created the occupation state in the first place — are trying to pull it out of the hole it has dug for itself. That’s why we are hearing voices in several Western capitals calling for the establishment of a Palestinian state as part of a deal between the Zionist enemy and the Palestinian resistance movements in the Gaza Strip to stop the fighting. This was said by British Foreign Secretary David Cameron and echoed by US President Joe Biden. Media reports say that there is a belief that significant progress has been made in this conflict in general that could help resolve the chronic regional crisis.

A believer doesn’t allow himself to be stung twice from the same hole, said Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him

In other words, once bitten, twice shy, as the English proverb goes. The Palestinians fell into the Zionist trap in the 1990s after the Israeli occupation forces were unable to control the aftermath of the First Intifada across occupied Palestine. The usurper state ran to its friends to save it, which led to the wicked Madrid negotiations and the cursed Oslo Accords signed on 13 September, 1993. The promise then was the establishment of a Palestinian state. It later became clear that the real aim was security coordination between the Palestinian Authority and the occupation state to protect the latter from the Palestinian people. The PA was always intended to be an arm of the Israeli security forces.

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Oslo ensured that the Palestine Liberation Organisation recognised the Zionist state and dropped the clause from its national charter about the armed struggle to liberate Palestine from the river to the sea, in exchange for governance with very little authority and a promise to establish a state that has still not seen the light of day. Instead, what we have seen is Israel’s theft of more of the land that was allocated to the promised state and the building of illegal settlements, thus shrinking the area of the “Palestinian state” to less than 20 per cent of the historic land of Palestine. The ill-fated Oslo Accords also led to more killings and arrests of the struggling Palestinian people under the pretext of security coordination with the occupation state.

The PLO was happy with this imaginary authority and its processions of luxury cars, red carpets and VIP aircraft, so it abandoned the liberation struggle and essentially granted Israel the right to exist on Palestinian land. Having taken control of all of the land of Palestine, the enemies are now searching for an alternative homeland for the Palestinians.

Ever since the PLO laid down its weapons, its leaders have been distracted by the false lustre of authority, and have sold the Palestinians’ birthright cheaply. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, those who represent the PA no longer have the right to speak on behalf of the Palestinians; nor do the rest of the Arab rulers who bow down on the steps of the White House. They have sold their people and Jerusalem to please the Zionist enemy.

In decades of negotiations post-Oslo — the so-called “peace process” — the Palestinians have made concession after concession, losing land to illegal settlements and people to displacement and massacres. The Zionist state has tempted and distracted the Palestinians and the Arab world with false “peace” while it its Judaisation dreams are fulfilled on the remains of historic Palestine. Jerusalem is now recognised by the US as the “undivided” capital of the apartheid state of Israel.

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The Second (Al-Aqsa) Intifada started on 28 September, 2000, and it restored the spirit of resistance to the Palestinian people under the auspices of the late leader Yasser Arafat. He returned from the US frustrated after the Camp David talks with then Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and US President Bill Clinton.

Arafat realised that there was no point in trying to reach a peace agreement with the Zionist state and that it was an illusion to think that there would be a Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital and the return of Palestinian refugees to their land. The Palestinians kept their hopes high for this for seven years after the Oslo Accords; then they woke up to reality, and returned to the struggle to liberate Palestine. The late Palestinian leader himself led the intifada alongside the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas), which had been created just before the First Intifada and had never abandoned the call for the return of all of historic Palestine from the river to the sea through legitimate resistance to Israeli occupation.

This began a new phase of the Palestinian struggle that did not end with the poisoning of Arafat in 2004 or the “disengagement” of the Zionist troops and removal of settlers from the Gaza Strip the following year; or the assassination of Hamas leaders Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, Dr Abdel Aziz Al-Rantisi and others. Israel has since launched five military offensives on the Gaza Strip (2008/9; 2012; 2014; 2021 and 2023) imposed a comprehensive blockade by land, sea and air since Hamas won the 2006 Palestinian Legislative Council election. None of this has weakened support for the resistance movement or its resolve. The Palestinian people are willing to sacrifice in order to liberate their land, and have shouldered burdens that no people in the world could bear for their independence, justice and dignity.

The resistance operation on 7 October turned the tables in a surprise attack, rather than Palestinians having to react to repeated Israeli attacks. The Zionist enemy has failed to bring the Palestinians in Gaza to their knees, despite Israel’s mass killing and starvation of civilians and the destruction of their infrastructure in the enclave. It has also failed to defeat Hamas and force it to surrender. The Palestinian compass has returned to its rightful position, having been pointing for more than a quarter of a century in the wrong direction thanks to the traitors behind the Oslo Accords. The Palestinians can no longer accept the false promises that the PA and its “sacred” security coordination accepted; they know that a Palestinian state can only be achieved through legitimate resistance.

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