Opinion Editorials, January 2014

Futility of Current Talks Between Israel and Palestinian Authority

By Khalid Amayreh

PIC, Al-Jazeerah, CCUN, January 13, 2014

 

Listening to media statements by some Palestinian Authority (PA) officials, one occasionally gets the impression that there will be light at the end of the long and dark tunnel of Palestinian-Israeli negotiations.
 
However, a careful examination of the facts shows beyond any doubt that expecting a breakthrough of any kind  from these futile talks would be tantamount to indulging in excessive wishful thinking, daydreaming and infinite naiveté.
 
Indeed, in order for the current talks to have any real chance of success, Israel would have to change its way of thinking, make a clear and lasting departure from her criminal modes, including showing a real willingness to give up occupied land, stop building colonies on occupied territories and stop transferring Israeli citizens to live on land that belongs to another people.
 
Obviously, any state that does what Israel is and has been doing for decades not only doesn't want peace, such a state actually doesn't have peace on the list of its national agenda.
 
Yes, Israeli officials and spokespersons would fill the ether with all sorts of lies about Israel's purported desire for peace. None the less, Israel remains, as it has always been, a murderer, liar and thief.
 
There is ample evidence that Israel not only doesn't desire peace but actually dreads it as well. The continuous provocations, including cold-blooded murder of innocent Palestinians, show that the Israeli state is after lebensraum, not peace.
 
More to the point, the arrogant dogged insistence by the Israeli government on treating the PA with utmost disrespect, proves that the Netanyahu government views the weak PLO regime not as an equal peace partner, but rather as a vanquished supplicant that should accept whatever is thrown unto it by the imperial Israeli entity.
 
In any case, it is highly unlikely that the two-state strategy still has any real chance of seeing daylight, given the cancerous metastasis of Jewish settlements all over the Occupied Territories of the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
 
True, things done can be undone. But Israel, which is intoxicated by characteristic Talmudic insolence, arrogance of power and the absolute domination of American political life, is in no mood to give up occupied land, especially settlements built since 1967 and viewed as the greatest Jewish achievement since King Solomon.
 
In fact, one doesn't exaggerate much by saying that Israel has effectively decapitated the two-state solution.
 
But Israel would never say so openly. Its ultimate goal is not to prevent the creation of a Palestinian political entity at any price. Its real aim is the liquidation of the Palestinian cause by cajoling the Palestinians. e.g. the PLO, to accept a "state" bereft of sovereignty, dignity and substance. Needless to say such a solution would be rejected by the vast majority of the Palestinian people especially if it involved the practical relinquishing by the Palestinian leadership of the paramount right of return for millions of Palestinian refugees uprooted from their ancestral homeland at the hands of Jewish-Zionist invaders coming from overseas.
 
Yes, there are certain Palestinians, probably people like Mahmoud Abbas and his aide Saeb Ureikat, who would make capitulationist arguments such as this: "This is the maximum we can achieve under current circumstances."
 
But these people, who will also try hard to induce Palestinians to support this national treason by promising them financial rewards and economic prosperity, will eventually be rejected and ejected by the Palestinian masses.
 
Yes, most Palestinians would probably like to see a dignified settlement of the conflict, one that meets fundamental Palestinian aspirations, including the repatriation of the refugees as well as an Israeli withdrawal from 100% of the West Bank, including East Jerusalem.
 
However, in Islam, as is the case in other monotheistic religions, one is not licensed to commit fornication if one doesn't possess the dowry he must pay for marriage.
 
I am not accusing any Palestinian leaders of treason. However, every Palestinian or Arab leader who deviates from our national constants will be a traitor who is entitled to receive a traitor's treatment.
 
One more point. There are definitive worrying signs that the Ramallah leadership may be trying to accept the effective liquidation of the Palestinian cause under the rubric of the Arab league.
 
Seeking to justify such perfidy, some PA spokesmen and mouthpieces would argue that "we cannot be more Arab than the Arabs themselves."
 
Well, but since when were Arab tyrants really qualified or trusted to liberate Palestine from the clutches of Zionism?  Indeed, it is a huge insult to common sense to expect charlatan generals like Abdul Fattah Sisi to make a real stand for Palestinian rights when he didn't hesitate for a minute to order his henchmen to open fire on and murder thousands of innocent Egyptians demanding the return to power of the democratically-elected Egyptian president.
 
Yes, Sisi may be Egypt's defense minister and de facto ruler of the largest Arab nation. However, he is also a tyrant of the cheapest caliber who is shamelessly acting on Israel's beck and call. In short, those who murder their own people in cold blood can't be expected to stand for Palestine. Palestine needs real heroes like Salahuddin, not real traitors like Abdul Fattah al Sisi.
 
The same principle applies to Arab kings and presidents- for-life who are answerable to Washington and Tel Aviv and who value the legitimacy that comes from American acceptance more than that which comes from their own people's acceptance.
 
These people are cowards and traitors par excellence and can't be trusted or entrusted to stand for Palestinian rights.
 
So, the next time President Abbas feels he has to travel to Cairo to consult with Arab tyrants or their puppet foreign ministers, he should keep in mind that we Palestinians, and no one else, have the sole right to determine our cause and destiny.
 
Yes, Arabs and other Muslims are welcome to support us extricate our rights from Israel's criminal hands.
 
But they are not and will not be welcome to act as America's and Israel's agents to pressure us to abandon these rights.
 
 
Khalid Amayreh is an American-educated journalist living in Occupied Palestine.

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