Palestinians Should Follow Kosovo Example: Negotiator
A senior Palestinian official on Wednesday called for a Kosovo-like declaration of independence in the absence of progress in talks with Israel but Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas insisted he will continue negotiating.
“Our people have the right to proclaim independence as the people of Kosovo did. We were occupied long before the Kosovo problem emerged,” Yasser Abed Rabbo, one of the Palestinian negotiators, told AFP.
“Measures must be taken with a view to a unilateral declaration of independence as Kosovo did, and the world will then have to ensure the end of the occupation of our land,” he said.
He pointed out that the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat symbolically proclaimed independence in 1988 but that “it never was applied on the ground as we wanted this to be done through negotiation.”
“Today we want to unilaterally proclaim our independence on the ground and through peaceful means, and will call on our people to protect their state, borders, institutions and the future of their children,” Abed Rabbo said.
Palestinians should consider this option as talks with Israel “have made no progress” since they were relaunched in November.
“Israel is seeking to gain time to grab more land and impose facts on the ground that would lead to the creation of a Palestinian state with temporary borders, that is a truncated state in the West Bank,” he charged.
Abbas distanced himself from the remarks. “We will continue negotiations aimed at a peace accord in 2008,” he said in a statement.
“If that becomes impossible and we reach a deadlock we would refer to the Arab nation (world) so the decision is taken at the highest level,” said Abbas, who on Tuesday held the latest round of talks with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert in a bid to advance the negotiations.
Senior Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat also played down Abed Rabbo’s comments.
“Independence is not just a declaration and the Palestinian cause is not like that of Kosovo,” he told journalists. “As far as I know, the Palestinian leadership is not considering a unilateral declaration of independence.”
Israel expressed surprise at Abed Rabbo’s statement.
“This does not coincide with the position of the Palestinian leadership that is currently negotiating with Israel,” foreign ministry spokesman Arye Mekel told AFP.
Kosovo on Sunday declared independence from Serbia, which vowed never to recognise the move.
Several countries including the United States and Britain have recognised Kosovo as a new state, but Israel has said it “will formulate its position later on.”
“We will not be part of the first wave of countries that recognize Kosovo,” said an Israeli official, who asked not to be named.
“We believe such issues should not be determined by unilateral steps but through negotiation,” he said, warning of what he called “possible repercussions in this area”.
The Gaza Strip and the West Bank, where Palestinians hope to establish their state, have been occupied by Israel since 1967 although Israel pulled out troops and settlers from Gaza in 2005.
© 2008 Agence France Presse
Palestinians can’t just go and declare independence the way that Kosovo is doing.
The anglosphere would not recognize the declaration. So the EU would not either.
Besides, all the things that Israeli military does to Palestinians would be breaking international laws.
(…well, a new set of international laws.)
Sure! And, like the Albanians, and unlike the Serbians, all the Palestinians have to do is allow a huge US base on their territory, promise to allow big business to do wahtever that want on your territory. And oh yes…wave a bunch of US flags during their independence celebration.
But, entrities of ethnic cleansing at the hand or Israel will NOT work, unlike those of the Albanians, Bosnians, or Croatians (who cleansed vastly more Serbs from their homelands than Serbs did the latter)
Here’s a good article:
http://www.counterpunch.com/johnstone02182008.html
But just the same, it is a good idea even if just to show up the US’s hypocracy…
Practically speaking, Palestinians can declare independence unilaterally. It has been done before; does 1776 ring a bell?
They cannot enforce it. However, an attitude that they are a state that is occupied by a foreign state is one they should have adopted years ago. Then, they would have a stronger claim to declare that illegal aliens were illegally there, that IAs carrying guns were committing felonies, “settlers” owe them back taxes at a rate set by Palestine, and so on.
As a political matter, I note that the West Bank and Gaza would need to be separate states, and that Gaza would still be totally inviable economically. Still, Palestinians would do far better when dealing with the Western MSM if they used Western concepts of law when describing Israeli acts.
Israel is Palestine ……… declare it so.
I believe that there are 3 ways that this could pan out.
In it’s simplest essence The Zionists are between a rock and hard place of their own making. They created and therefore they “own” the catastrophe.
They can…
1) Maintain the situation as is, pushing the Palestinians further and further into their tight corner. This will surely lead to more violent events, rivers of blood and will finally bury the Zionist/Jewish supremacist mythology.
The Zionists have such absolute control over the lives of the Palestinians that if they Declared Independence, this could well be a first step on the way to this scenario.
2) There are 1.5 million Palestinians in Gaza and 4.5 million Palestinians in West Bank. The Zionists could produce their own “final solution” to “the problem” presented by these 6 million Palestinian untermensch. I suspect this number may invoke some terrible resonance amongst most Jews.
They can not really slaughter them (see 1 above and above) so they can only “push them out”. This loss of hostages and externalisation of enemies by the Zionists means that all bets would be off.
3) Work towards one person:one vote in (a Confederation of) one Palestine and Israel. This is the only option that has any real chance of a long term future, with real security and prosperity for all.
The details will be long and hard. It will require honesty, sacrifice and contrition, particularly on the Zionist side and recognition of some harsh realities, particularly on the Palestinian side.
Palestinian refugees must have a right of return, to identifiable family homes and probably to many of the illegal West Bank settlements, vacated by the relocated “new Israelis”.
It will make many lawyers very rich.
The outcome will be worth it.
The alternatives are more and more of the same, only worse and worse.
1) and 2) above have the very real potential to destroy Israel from within.
According to Wikipedia, he, Yasser Abed Rabbo, which is redirected to Yasser Abd Rabbo, is of the PLO, and while I guess that I can see somewhat why he’s referring to the independence of Kosovo, it also seems to me that he is neglecting some key facts.
It is the KLA, etc., these criminal Albanians, working for the U.S. and its imperialist, … ruling elites, so working with the U.S., NATO, and U.N., which have been entirely criminal in all of this; well, it is they who are dead wrong. Kosovo was part of Serbia and should remain that.
The Serbian pm or pres. of Kosovo opposed independence for Kosovo, that is separating it away from Serbia, while still being said to be pro-West and wanting, instead of independence, to join with the EU.
In any case, the only reason Kosovo has been forced into independence is NOT for any good or righteous reason, and has been totally criminal. It is as always with the US, ‘WAR IS A RACKET!’.
They STOLE Kosovo, hijacked it, and this is certainly not applicable to the Palestinian situation, where the problem is Israel stealing Palestinians’ territory.
I haven’t yet read the article, but Rabbo is surely overlooking critical differences between the two situations. He has to be.
Plenty of articles at, among surely other places, www.globalresearch.ca on the Kosovo situation and what it’s really all about.
Let me propose a 4th option, Therzal. If there are 2 million Palestinian households in Gaza and West Bank, and if we just took an equal amount to what we’ll spend on Iraq ($1.2 trillion, estimated conservatively,) we could buy each and every Palestinian family a $600,000 home on the Italian Riviera. Problem solved.
WmC maybe you want to live on the Italian Riviera, and maybe I do too. But these people don’t want to be Italians, they really seem to want to remain Palestinians. Go figure! And I think they have the right to do that.
As for the idea of declaring independence, it would be good if they had at least one heavy lifter for support who would assist them when the bombardment starts. Oh, wait, that’s been happening for quite some time already.
Some who were looking at this issue way back in the 1970s might recall that the PLO had for many years claimed that their struggle was for a single, secular, democratic, socialist state. Somehow over the years, each of those adjectives kind of dropped off the list until the list disappeared entirely, just like Palestine itself seems to be doing. My point is that the idea of a single state solution is not a “new” idea being introduced into the mix at this late date but rather something that was long considered, albeit in the form of a bi-national state, as untenable as that might be.
I have followed and cared (some say consumed) about this issue for many years, when I was the only one I knew who had even the slightest idea of what was really going on. It takes time to get all the background pieces in place. It’s good to have some company on this issue these days. (Now if we could just get rid of the neo-nazis who have no compunction about hijacking the Palestinians just cause for their own twisted aims.)
WmC
We..WE????
WhoTF is We?
The US taxpayer?
The European Taxpayer?
The Israeli who lives as he/she does ONLY because of massive injections of US subsidies and blood??
The Zionists purchased up to 7% of the land from absentee owners and dumb landlords.
They obtained the rest by the stupidity and duplicity of their own and other politicians of the day, ethnic cleansing and murder. They own the problem.. They have to find a just solution. It is their responsibility.. Of course, that means nothing to them so it will fall to the World Community to remind them .. and ensure they meet their obligations.