[News] Gaza: A Palestinian War of Independence

[Anti-Imperialist News]

  Gaza: A Palestinian War of Independence

July 30, 2014
http://www.turkeyagenda.com/gaza-a-palestinian-war-of-independence-954.html


CAIRO's Negotiations Should Focus on Freedom and Dignity for the 
Palestinians.

The PLO announced the sending of unified delegation to Cairo to 
participate in intense negotiations with Israel through Egyptian 
intermediaries intended to institute a ceasefire in Gaza. Leading up to 
the PLO delegation announcement, PA President Mahmoud visited Saudi 
Arabia to coordinate and reaffirm support for the Egyptian ceasefire 
plan. As such, one has to be clear on the unfolding process and the 
negotiation lines that will become transparent in the next few days. 
More importantly, how best for the Palestinians as a people, to confront 
plans coming from the smoke filled rooms in Cairo which seeks to 
dispossess them one more time but with the complicity and participation 
of the PA, Arab "leaders" and the Western powers.

Gaza's resistance and steadfastness, in reality, is a Palestinian war of 
independence witnessing complete self-reliance and internal grassroots 
solidarity in the face of Israeli, PA, Arab and Western collusions to 
maintain the Occupation intact.

Let us again be clear on Israel's approach to the Cairo negotiations, 
which at present sees high level coordinating of its positions with 
Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the US with the specific short-term goal of a 
ceasefire to immediately be followed with restoring Abbas's authority 
and power inside Gaza. Israel's failure in this campaign is as much a 
result of the lack of intelligence on the ground as it is the success of 
resistance planning on the ground. As such, immediate reconstitution of 
Abbas and the PA in Gaza would be the game changer for Israel if the 
same framework present in the West Bank is permitted to sink roots in 
the Strip.

Observing the sudden shift in Abbas's statement and articulating a 
veneer of "resistance" should be understood as part and parcel of a 
coordinated strategy to place him and the PA's security ahead of the 
popular resistance train and in control of possible immediate outcomes. 
Palestinians in the West Bank have been subject to an intense 
de-programming campaign as well as structured economic and social class 
engineering to create an elite with interest firmly embedded into the 
Israeli occupation infrastructure and against the best interests of the 
Palestinians.

The long term plan for Israel is to transform Gaza's security to the PA 
and to something akin to the existing framework successfully in place in 
the West Bank since Oslo whereby security coordination is undertaken 
with Israeli occupation forces and US-Jordanian training and technical 
know-how (in the case of Gaza Egypt intelligence will have a big hand). 
Israel's major challenge since its inception is the presence and 
continued generational trans-communication of Palestine as an idea and a 
reality; as well as, an unending demand for a free Palestine in the face 
of overwhelming power.

In Cairo we will witness diplomatic violence at the highest levels 
directed at Palestinians who have the temerity to resist, demand freedom 
and an immediate end to the Occupation in Gaza and Palestine. The 
parties gathered are coming with their political, economic and 
diplomatic knives ready to dismember the Palestinian resistance in the 
same way the Gaza population was dismembered one child playing, one 
hospital, one mosque, one street, one family, and one building at a time.

The Egyptian, Saudi, US, European and PA positions will be coordinated 
and extreme pressure will be placed on all the factions representing 
Gaza's resistance. Gaza's Palestinian population is what will be at the 
bargaining table. And the lives and wellbeing of the 1.8 million will be 
utilized to force concession from the Palestinian delegation on the 
un-negotiable: the end to the siege and occupation.

Egypt's current government will attempt to score domestic points against 
the Brotherhood Movement by pressuring Hamas's delegation and extracting 
the most restrictive conditions so as to bolster its claims against the 
movement that was deemed an enemy outfit. Furthermore, Al-Sisi's 
government is indebted to Israel's assistance and lobbing on its behalf 
after the coup. Israel did help keep away any real European or American 
opposition to the removal of a democratically elected president in Egypt 
and this is a real opportunity to settle the debt.

Some Gulf States will participate in the negotiations from a distance 
via a phone link. They do hold the purse strings for the possible 
reconstruction efforts. On the one hand, their anti-resistance stand is 
informed by their opposition to the Brotherhood Movement program while 
on the other is dictated by a desire to settle the Palestine file so as 
to shift toward a more sustained confrontation with Iran. Israel is a 
key "ally" and would provide the needed military strength, in their 
view, to confront Iran. Their involvement in the negotiations from a 
distance will have a profound impact on the resistance and the 
Palestinian delegation. Abbas's role is very critical and the Gulf 
States are banking on him to deliver the resistance on a silver platter.

Likewise, US involvement will be informed by American domestic 
considerations and the upcoming November elections and the 2016 
Presidential elections. At present, Obama is a lame duck president and 
lost much of his power and influence with Democratic Party members' who 
are running for political cover and away from the White House. The 
Republicans and Tea Party activists are setting the terms of debate 
domestically and more so when expressing unconditional support for Israel.

Netanyahu and right wing settlers in Israel have more clout in 
Washington D.C. than the President himself. The US will represent 
Israeli interests and will mount extreme pressure on the Palestinian 
delegation through the funding provided to Abbas and the long-term 
coordination of PA security in the West Bank. The US will call for 
disarming the resistance in the Gaza Strip and instituting a security 
structure run by PA, Egypt, and Jordan with total Israeli and American 
coordination. The Europeans will follow suit and use their 
"humanitarian" funding to extract similar concessions favoring Israel 
and at the expense of the Palestinians in Gaza.

Seeing the level of systematic, structured and well-planned destruction 
in Gaza will for sure have calls in the Cairo meetings for a massive 
humanitarian response and the participants in the negotiations, who are 
directly involved in the room and those making the funding decisions in 
the Gulf from a distance over the phone, will pressure the PA delegation 
to bargain away Palestinian rights over food, medicine, and needed supplies.

Israel's stated goals in the Gaza campaign have failed at all levels and 
the Cairo negotiations will be structured to transform a strategic 
defeat into a possible political victory. The call from the US and 
European powers to disarm Gaza will be echoed in the meeting rooms by 
Egypt and sections of the Palestinian delegation through a plan to 
reconstitute the PA security and transform control of the Strip prison 
gates to this force. It also might include an introduction of US and 
European forces at the Rafah crossing to make sure that the Palestinian 
resistance is structurally dismembered and a prevention of the 
possibility of rearming in the future.

I wrote an earlier article stating that Israel is a child of Western 
colonialism and as such their involvement is set up to protect and 
ensure the success of this project for the foreseeable future.

Palestinians should make these negotiations about demands of all parties 
to recognize this is a war of independence and assert a unified position 
for the right to freedom and dignity. The PA representatives at the 
negotiations should be ready to assert or otherwise be pressured by 
Palestinians across the world to have a higher ceiling for Palestinian 
demands, and not accept the existing framework that brings them to the 
prison warden to dictate yet another sentence and further confining 
conditions.

We are a free and dignified people no matter what the Occupation 
structure says nor Zionism's historical and ongoing distortions. The 
Arab leaders "assistance" to the Palestinians in the past have managed 
in 1936 and 1948 to grant Zionism and Israel a victory in the middle of 
defeat. This means all the Palestinian delegates in Cairo should trust 
in themselves and not accept anything other than freedom, dignity and an 
end to the Occupation.

Furthermore, at no time should supplies or support to the Palestinians 
living under siege in Gaza be allowed as a pressure instrument or 
bargaining away from fundamental rights. In addition, Palestinians 
delegates should not, at anytime, agree to stop their attempts at 
pursuing Israeli leaders and those responsible for war crimes in Gaza at 
the International Court of Justice.

Failure to understand the significance of moment by the Palestinian 
leadership will have dire consequences in the long run as the time has 
come to transform the sacrifices on the ground into real and tangible 
results in the political arena. The Oslo framework is dead and the 
international community has failed the Palestinians many times over and 
the negotiations in Cairo is more than a mere ceasefire; rather it is an 
attempt to recentralize Palestine as the focal point for world peace. 
You have nothing to lose by asserting your rights to freedom and let not 
the factional differences and promises of momentary "funding" or "VIP" 
privileges take your eyes away from the prize, the important and 
significant demand for freedom and an end to the Occupation.

We, as Palestinians in diaspora, urge you to act in the best interest of 
our people and not allow offers of salary payments, food supplies, and 
foreign aid determines your will and the will of our people. We are 
tired of broken promises, endless "peace" negotiations, visits by 
western diplomat committed to Israel's protection with the audacity to 
call us names and insulting our people at every opportunity. No one will 
grant you freedom and dignity; rather you should seize it with your 
nails and teeth.

-- 
Freedom Archives 522 Valencia Street San Francisco, CA 94110 415 
863.9977 www.freedomarchives.org
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