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TechnoratiIn Occupied Palestine, A Desperate Throw of the Dice?
Thirty years ago, Israel minister Ariel Sharon told Knesset members that while they "shouted" about the settlements, "we lay another foot of pipe, another mile of road and build another house." Successive Israeli governments have agreed with the country's founding prime minister David Ben-Gurion's own view that the "precondition for discussion with the Arabs" is to "establish a great Jewish fact in this country." Now, however, the talk is of Palestinian "unilateralism." This began with the appointed Palestinian Authority (PA) Prime Minister Salam Fayyad announcing his two-year plan for statehood in August, but has reached a crescendo in the last few weeks. Fayyad's plan is still on the table, and although he has stressed that the emphasis is on institution-building, some reports have linked the initiative to a unilateral declaration of independence.
Fayyad himself has distanced his own plan from the "threat" that has made the most headlines, following statements by senior members of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and the PA.
It is this alleged proposal for the Palestinian leadership to declare a state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip that is causing a stir. Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat has pointed out that what is being put forward is not simply a unilateral declaration of statehood, but rather an idea of going to the UN Security Council for recognition of a state in the occupied territories.
The suggestion of any unilateral Palestinian steps has been greeted with scorn and angry dismissals by Israeli officials. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu himself issued a warning that there would be "unilateral steps from Israel's side" (somewhat meaningless, of course, given the daily unilateralism of Israel's occupation, home demolitions and settlement expansion). Other ministers talked about halting the release to the PA of Palestinian tax money collected via Israel, throwing up more checkpoints in the West Bank and annexing settlement blocs.
The plan has also been criticized by Hamas, US senators and the EU, with the latter describing such a move for independence as "premature." Negative noises do not seem to have fazed PA President Mahmoud Abbas and Erekat, however even though, given this opposition, it is hard to see how it could be any more effective than the PLO's previous, symbolic declaration of statehood in 1988.
Yet declaring statehood is only one possible "unilateral" step that has been mentioned of late. Another, related, step that has been discussed is getting rid of the PA altogether. This has been mooted by some Palestinians for a while now (with varying degrees of sincerity), affirming this assessment by political scientist Nathan Brown that the PA is "neither Palestinian nor an authority," but rather "an internationally-sponsored and partly internationally-financed protectorate administering some Palestinian towns and cities."
Now, the prospect of the PA's collapse has been raised in relation to an apparent peace process fatigue amongst the Palestinian leadership. Like the proposed unilateral declaration of statehood, this is seen by many as a tactic by Abbas and his group, designed to push the US administration into applying pressure on Israel. Despite the denials by the likes of Erekat that anyone has really called for dissolving the PA, there has been enough for some commentators like the Adelson Institute's Dror Bar-Yosef to look ahead and imagine the potential consequences, namely "a new intifada and call for a one-state solution" ("The groundwork for a third intifada is already laid," The Jerusalem Post, 15 November 2009).
The idea to abandon altogether the two-state framework in favor of some form of binational/one-state formula has also gained more column inches, as a few Palestinian "insiders" raise it as a possibility. Saeb Erekat, for example, told reporters in early November that "other options" including a "one-state solution" should be considered, given the impossibility of creating a Palestinian state in the occupied territories.
The discussion of the one-state solution has entered the mainstream discourse by commentators and journalists partly as a reflection of the way in which it is now invoked by a variety of officials. Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak, for example, spoke of how without a peace deal, there will be "a gradual rise in the demand for a bi-national state," a "threat" he believes should be not underestimated ("Fatah considers reverting to popular warfare," Ynet, 7 November 2009). Yet the current PA/PLO leaders, wedded to the two-state solution and largely dependent for their positions on the support of international sponsors of the peace process, are as unlikely to embrace such a sea-change as they are to adopt a return to resistance.
While the focus is on Palestinian strategies regarding the peace process, there are other important "unilateral" developments taking place; The Washington Post reported on 21 November that the PLO seeks to keep Abbas in power with the possibility of the transference of the authority of the Palestinian Legislative Council to the PLO's own Central Council. This is the current kind of "unilateralism" favored by too many Palestinian leaders: a move that is a transparently partisan, undemocratic tactic resulting from the desire to keep the same elite in control and sideline Hamas, carried out under the pretext of avoiding a so-called "constitutional crisis."
Israeli unilateralism has always focused on creating "facts on the ground": the settlements, land expropriation, the West Bank wall, colonizing East Jerusalem. There are many counter, unilateral Palestinian strategies with merit: rethinking the negotiations-resistance dynamic, harnessing the creative energies of popular resistance on the ground, following through on important victories like the International Court of Justice advisory opinion calling for dismantling the wall, expanding and embracing the international boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement, and conducting an organized dissolution of the PA with root and branch reform of the PLO.
But the Palestinian "unilateralism" making recent news is more like a game of politicking -- and a dangerous one at that. Abbas could be keen to push the proposal for unilateral statehood/Security Council recognition as a way of undermining Fayyad's own "two year plan," amid worries that the US has already designated Fayyad to replace Abbas, just as Abbas himself was "empowered" by the US to sideline and eventually embrace the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat. Certainly, Abbas is more preoccupied with addressing the US than his own people. This is indeed a time of transition; but the proposed unilateralism of the PA and PLO leadership is more like the desperate throw of a dice from a regime on its way out, rather than the first steps of a bold, new path.
10 Comments so far
Show AllI support Hamas 100%, and I say to all Palestinians that you cannot count on the USA to bless Palestine with independance and nationhood. All this talk by the USA and Israel for discussion leading to statehood for Palestine are mere delaying tactics and over the last 60 years have borne no results except talk and some more talk.
It is indeed sad that Palestinians were duped by the USA and Isreal into electing Mahmoud Abbas as President; he is nothing but a damned stooge, more because he does not know what he is doing than because he is complicit in the comspiracy perpetrated by the USA & the Jews.
There are too many lengthy comments, and while they make good reading, offer no solutions to the Palestinians. WHAT THE PALESTINIANS NEED IN TO CUT TO THE CHASE, as the current saying goes. I say to Syed Eraket (Chief Palestinian negotiator)that what you and the consensus of opinion among Palestinians have decided and implimented IS 100% the CORRECT WAY TO GO FORWARD. JUST DECLARE PALESTINE AS AN INDEPENDANT NATION STATE, and enlist UN support and do not worry that USA will veto as we all expect they will.
I remember as a student studying in Singapore, the DAY WHEN OUR PRIME MINISTER, MR LEE KUAN YEW, UNILATERALLY DECLARED SINGAPORE INDEPENDANT. That was the best decision that anyone will ever make, because by declaring Singapore independant, as an independant nation, Singapore was able to buy arms legally in Internation law. I believe this is the most important agenda for all Palestinians and they must make it right now. Palestinians by their very misery of their existence, will defeat Israelis, because Palestinians on their own and independant will live in conditions that they had never experienced before under the yoke of Isreali oppression.
Go and muster support by enlisting recognition from China, Venezuela, Bolivia, Iran, Cuba and more. This will be a start and Palestinians need only gain recognition and let the rest just HAPPEN. THE MOST IMPORTANT ACHIEVEMENT WILL BE TO WIN RECOGNITION HOWEVER FEW NATIONS MAY BE WILLING TO GIVE IT, BUT THAT WILL BE THE THIN END OF THE WEDGE. Connsider this, CHINA AT THE BEGINING HAD RECOGNITION FROM ONLY RUSSIA, ROMANIA AND ONE OR TWO OTHERS. I say to all Palestinians that Isreal can be beaten as the war with Labanon had shown. Fuck the Kasam rockets ! Their use has only given the Isrealis the pretext to attack Palestinians with impunity; 1400 Palestinians killed for the lost of 13 Isrealis (10 of them died of old age on that day) is no formula for success.
MY DEAR PALESTINIANS BROTHER & SISTERS PLEASE FIGHT WITH CUNNING AND INTELLIGENCE ! GET YOUR ARMS AND FIGHT A DECENT WAR AGAINST THE ISREALIS. Yes Isreal has all the modern weapons, but look at the USA, with all the firr-power, they are at risk of loosing the war in Afghanistan. Palestinians are just as good if not even better fighters than the Afghanis. GOOD LUCK PALESTINIAN BROTHERS.
"Lieberman's comments came a day after Israel proposed a 10-month halt in West Bank settlement construction, which the Palestinians swiftly rejected because it did not include east Jerusalem."
This will not stop evicting Palestineans from their own homes anywhere in occupied Palestine and installing Orthodox Jewish gangsters in their place in direct violation of UNSC Resolutions.
This will not stop evicting Palestineans from their own homes anywhere in occupied Palestine and raising them in preparation of future construction in direct violation of UNSC Resolutions.
This will not stop ongoing construction anywhere in occupied Palestine and installing Orthodox Jewish gangsters in direct violation of UNSC Resolutions.
This will not stop evicting Palestineans from their own homes anywhere in occupied east Jerusalem and installing Orthodox Jewish gangsters in their place in direct violation of UNSC Resolutions.
This will not stop evicting Palestineans from their own homes anywhere in occupied east Jerusalem and raising them in preparation of future construction in direct violation of UNSC Resolutions.
This will not stop ongoing construction anywhere in occupied east Jerusalem and installing Orthodox Jewish gangsters in direct violation of UNSC Resolutions.
This will not stop starting construction anywhere in occupied east east Jerusalem and installing Orthodox Jewish gangsters in direct violation of UNSC Resolutions.
These ongoing Ethnic Cleansing and International Crimes Against Humanity are applauded by our U.S. Government Gangsters in direct violation to UNSC Resolutions. These atrocities cannot be the deeds of human beings.
Israel's government has approved 28 new schools for settlements in the West Bank, a day after it announced a 10-month halt to new residential building.
Defence Minister Ehud Barak said construction would completed before the beginning of the 2010-11 school year.
QED
Hamas can get with the program or get out of the way with Fatah.
Palestinian people are tired of waiting for justice. They're going to make it and take it.
Israhell has just agreed to a 10-month settlement freeze in the west bank but the agreement does not include expansions in east Jerusalem.
As a kind token of appreciation by Obama to israhells settlement freeze in the west bank, the US has promised to deliver to israhell the US made radar-evading F-35 Joint Strike Fighter built by Lockheed-Martin to israhell by 2015.
Best destroy israhell now before they come after the US again.
Oh, but that does NOT include the 3000 settlement dwellings that are currently under construction. Which by the way they rushed to break ground on just a few months ago when Obama mentioned the wish for a freeze.
If Obama is truly "frustrated" by Israeli unilateral behavior, why doesn't he back it up some kind of symbolic slap on the wrist. Perhaps a 10% reduction in all US aid to Israel would send a loud and persuasive message to Netanyahu and the rest of the world. To be so publically ignored and defied is an insult to the basic alliance between Israel and the US.
Israel's right to exist.
Seemingly the whole thing is not Kosher
see: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article23883.htm
I quote:
"In the name of pragmatism, willingness to “merely to recognise” Israel – meaning to accept and live in peace with an Israel inside its pre-June ‘67 borders – has long been the formal Palestinian and all-Arab position. Why does it stop short of recognising Israel’s “right to exist”, and why, really, does it matter so much to Zionism that Palestinians recognise this right?
The answer is in the following.
According to history as written by the winner, Zionism, Israel was given its birth certificate and thus legitimacy by the UN Partition Resolution of 29 November 1947. This is propaganda nonsense.
In the first place the UN without the consent of the majority of the people of Palestine did not have the right to decide to partition Palestine or assign any part of its territory to a minority of alien immigrants in order for them to establish a state of their own.
Despite that, by the narrowest of margins, and only after a rigged vote, the UN General Assembly did pass a resolution to partition Palestine and create two states, one Arab, one Jewish, with Jerusalem not part of either. But the General Assembly resolution was only a proposal – meaning that it could have no effect, would not become policy, unless approved by the Security Council.
The truth is that the General Assembly’s partition proposal never went to the Security Council for consideration. Why not? Because the U.S. knew that, if approved, it could only be implemented by force given the extent of Arab and other Muslim opposition to it; and President Truman was not prepared to use force to partition Palestine.
So the partition plan was vitiated (became invalid) and the question of what the hell to do about Palestine – after Britain had made a mess of it and walked away, effectively surrendering to Zionist terrorism – was taken back to the General Assembly for more discussion. The option favoured and proposed by the U.S. was temporary UN Trusteeship. It was while the General Assembly was debating what do that Israel unilaterally declared itself to be in existence – actually in defiance of the will of the organised international community, including the Truman administration.
The truth of the time was that the Zionist state, which came into being mainly as a consequence of pre-planned ethnic cleansing, had no right to exist and, more to the point, could have no right to exist UNLESS … Unless it was recognised and legitimized by those who were dispossessed of their land and their rights during the creation of the Zionist state. In international law only the Palestinians could give Israel the legitimacy it craved.
And that legitimacy was the only thing the Zionists could not and cannot take from the Palestinians by force.
No wonder Prime Minister Netanyahu is more than a little concerned on this account.
Israel’s leaders have always known the truth summarised above.
It’s time for the rest of the world to know it."
How about that then?
"And that legitimacy was the only thing the Zionists could not and cannot take from the Palestinians by force"
They could torture it out of them. I'm sure the USA would be happy to help.
Obama's failure to halt Israel's settlements while Netanyahu thumbs his nose at Obama shows how weak Obama is. He is essentially a lame duck president in the first year of his first and probably only term.