Abbas is naïve

Khalid Amayreh

Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas is quite optimistic these days. He is even nearly euphoric about the recent recognition by a number of South American states of Palestine. His Fatah organization cites these "diplomatic successes" as a proof for the correctness of Abbas's approach.

However, it is crystal clear that his optimism in this regard is unwarranted and nearly totally unjustified.

It is always good to be optimistic and hopeful, and it is nice to receive diplomatic support or any kind of support from foreign states. In fact, all Palestinians, irrespective of their political orientation, applaud and appreciate the courageous steps taken by major South American states in recognizing Palestine.

These steps do represent a direct challenge to American hegemony in the western hemisphere as well as a clear diplomatic failure to the thuggish state, known as Israel, especially its hoodlum foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman.

None the less, things shouldn't be blown out of proportion since doing so could be disastrous for our national cause and interests.

I'm in no way trying to belittle the laudable and courageous steps taken by our friends in South America. I am trying rather to have a careful reading and objective assessment of the possible impact these steps are going to have on the situation in occupied Palestine where Israel, with effective American acquiescence, is carving more and more of our homeland and carrying out more ethnic cleansing against our people.

We in Palestine have never suffered from the dearth of international support for our cause. Nearly all countries represented at the United Nations General Assembly, with the exception of the US and Israel , support our right to self determination, independence and freedom. Most of these states seem more or less willing to lend recognition to a Palestinian state within the 1967-borders. But this is not the problem.

The problem is that Israel, which enjoys virtually unrestricted and unlimited support from the greatest and most powerful empire of our time, the United States, decides reality by imposing its will, not only on its direct victims, the Palestinian people, but also by defying the international community.

Israel is an outlaw, a renegade state that never did or never would heed international law which obliges her to terminate its military occupation of occupied territories and allows for the repatriation of millions of displaced Palestinian refugees.

Israel, thanks to the wanton American embrace of Zionism, which stems from the manifest Jewish-Zionist control over American policies and politics, feels too strong to heed international law and international will. It is very much like Nazi Germany in the late 1920s and 1930s which adopted the policy of lebensraum against neighboring countries, very much like Israel is now doing in the West Bank.

Therefore, it is futile to rely on diplomatic achievements alone in expediting Palestinian statehood. This is, of course, unless the PA leadership in Ramallah wants to repeat the Algiers's declaration of 1988 when the late PLO leader Yasser Arafat declared Palestinian independence on paper while Israeli bulldozer kept pulverizing our land then as they are doing now.

In fact, even these diplomatic achievements could eventually be proven dubious if we Palestinians didn't do our homework thoroughly. And homework, we have much to do, if only at the groundwork level, the sort of things that everyone else expects us to do.

For example, we must stop waiting for America's approval for every little step we want to take since there is simply no independent American will as US views and stands with regard to the Palestinian plight are similar if not identical to those of Israel. Indeed, if the US had had a will of its own, a will that is independent from that of Israel, we most probably would have reached a peaceful arrangement of the conflict with Zionism a long time ago.

Hence, it is pointless, self-defeating and politically counterproductive to wait for the impossible to happen, e.g. the US pressuring Israel to give up the lands occupied in 1967.

Moreover, if the PA has the right to justify its involvement in this utterly mendacious process by citing reality and pragmatism, then its critics can likewise easily refute the entire process, also by citing reality and pragmatism.

The West Bank, after all, is thoroughly dotted with Jewish colonies and East Jerusalem has been going through an ugly metamorphosis so much so that any talk about the city becoming the capital of a future Palestinian state can only be acceptable within the realm of wishful thinking, not reality.

Added to this is the fact that Israel is now a decidedly fascist state where an absolute majority of Israeli Jews reject any suggestion at giving up the spoils of the 1967 war, even for full peace and normalization.

Hence, the assumption that Israel would give up the whole or most parts of the West Bank, especially East Jerusalem, and allow for the creation of a viable and territorially contiguous Palestinian state, is wishful thinking at best.

As to the negotiations, direct or otherwise, they have been tried ad nauseam and proven a real waste of time as Israel is allowed, with de facto international approval, to go on devouring the proverbial "disputed piece of cheese."

The US, Israel's guardian-ally, understands this reality, and has no real reservations or compunctions about colluding with the Zionist entity to further torment the Palestinians. In the final analysis, America is too immoral to let morality factor in its approach toward the enduring Palestinian plight.

More to the point, old Europe would still want to give diplomacy, however disingenuous, however morbid, however mendacious, the benefit of the doubt.

In a recent statement, EU Foreign Policy Chief Catherine Ashton utterly ignored all the factors that made negotiations between Israel and the PA constantly and scandalously pointless, saying that there is no alternative to a negotiated settlement.

Given Israeli behavior in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, where Israeli bulldozers do the negotiation, Ashton's words are very much like asking a rapist and his victim to sort it out amongst themselves.

I am in no way suggesting that we should ignore the rest of the world. However, it is plainly clear that the rest of the world will not help us if we don't help ourselves.

So let us show the world that we are doing our job, first by ending the national rift between Fatah and Hamas and, second, but stopping being at Israel 's beck and call. We must stop pretending that we are a state or a quasi-state or even a state in the making because we are not. We are no more or no less than a people languishing under a sinister military occupation, an occupation that doesn't flinch from murdering babies in their mothers' laps and elderly men sleeping in their beds as we saw recently in Hebron.

These crimes, which are swept under the carpet under the rubric of a whoring peace process, should be highlighted and thrown at the face of a hypocritical world that keeps babbling about negotiations while watching Israel devour the remainder of our homeland.

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Khalid Amayreh (Arabic: خالد عمايرة‎, b. 1957 Hebron) is a Palestinian journalist based in Dura, near Hebron. Amayreh has experienced years of restrictions on his activities and travel, including imprisonment. Some of his many articled can be found here: http://www.xpis.ps/

Amayreh has been a correspondent with numerous newspapers and news outlets:

● Sharja TV, correspondent, 1994-2001
● Iranian News Agency (IRNA), 1995-2006
● Middle East International (London) 1995-2003
● Al Ahram Weekly (English) 1997-present
● Aljazeera English (aljazeera.net): 2003-2006
● Palestine Information Center: 2000-present.
● Palestine Times (daily newspaper) (has ceased publication)

Furthermore he is a prolific freelance writer contributing to many websites, e.g., PalestineThinkTank.

Books

● Journalism and Mass communication, Theory and Practice (Arabic, 1996)
● Refutation of Western Myths and Misconceptions about Islam and the Palestinian question (Arabic, 1988)
● Living Under the Israeli Occupation, (Forthcoming)

Resources
List of Amayreh's articles in French
List of Amayreh's articles in Spanish

[Information gleaned from Wikipedia and PIWP Database]
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URL: http://www.a-w-i-p.com/index.php/2011/01/10/abbas-is-naive