[News] The Book of Palestine: National Liberation vs Endless Negotiations

[Anti-Imperialist News]

https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/07/10/the-book-of-palestine-national-liberation-vs-endless-negotiations/ 



  The Book of Palestine: National Liberation vs Endless Negotiations

by Ramzy Baroud <https://www.counterpunch.org/author/ramzy-baroud/> - 
July 10, 2019

Those who are still hoping that the new American agenda on Palestine and 
Israel is temporary, or reversible, should abandon this false hope. 
Washington’s complete adoption of Israel’s messianic, extremist policies 
regarding Occupied Palestine has been a long time in the making. And it 
is here to stay.

Despite the unmistakable clarity in the American political discourse 
regarding Palestine, the Palestinian Authority (PA) is still trapped in 
a 25-year long, ineffectual political paradigm. Unable to move past 
their disproportionate reliance on American validation, and lacking any 
real strategic vision of their own, PA President Mahmoud Abbas and his 
men are operating within a clichés-centered trajectory of a ‘negotiated 
peace’ – a discourse that was, itself, invented and championed by 
Washington and its allies.

Newly-appointed (not elected) Palestinian Prime Minister, Mohammad 
Shtayyeh, conveyed this very sentiment in his June 24 interview with 
CNN’s Christiane Amanpour. “If you look at the literature, if you look 
at the statements, our President has been working by the book,” he said.

What book was Shtayyeh referring to? Certainly not the book of 
international and humanitarian law, which has devised a clear path aimed 
at achieving Palestinian freedom, rights and territorial sovereignty.

It is, rather, a book that is written by Washington, from which brazen 
pro-Israel agenda has preceded the Donald Trump administration by decades.

This is, in fact, the core ailment of Palestinian politics, as practiced 
by the PA. Throughout the years, the PA has received hundreds of 
millions in American funds, in exchange for sidelining the UN in favor 
of a complete American hegemony over the so-called ‘peace process’. 
Abbas’ recent attempts at reviving the role of the UN and its affiliated 
institutions is a belated attempt at correcting a historical mistake.

What will it take for Shtayyeh, and his boss in Ramallah, to abandon the 
American option and, instead, to develop a rounded strategy that is 
founded on national unity, democratic representation and international 
solidarity? Much precious time has been lost subscribing to the 
one-sided American book, which has no room for a Palestinian discourse 
of national liberation, unconditional freedom and basic human rights.

While Trump’s advisor and son-in-law, Jared Kushner, was referring to 
Palestinians as “hysterical and erratic,” following the two-day Bahrain 
economic conference (June 25-26), US Middle East ‘peace envoy’, Jason 
Greenblatt, was challenging the very terminology used by the entire 
international community regarding the illegal Israeli Jewish colonies in 
Occupied Palestine.

“People (should) stop pretending (that) settlements, or what I prefer to 
call ‘neighborhoods and cities,’ are the reason for the lack of peace,” 
the American envoy told participants at the ‘Israel Hayom Forum for 
US-Israeli Relations’.”

For the record, the widely-circulated rightwing Israeli newspaper, 
‘Israel Hayom’ which sponsored the conference, is financed by pro-Israel 
American casino mogul, Sheldon Adelson. The latter is known to be the 
primary advocate behind Trump’s misguided policies in Palestine, 
including Washington’s recognition of Occupied Palestinian East 
Jerusalem as part of Israel’s capital.

Greenblatt is but one of several unabashedly pro-Israel American 
politicians, who have taken the already biased US foreign policy to a 
whole new low. This clique also includes former US ambassador to the UN, 
Nikki Haley, and Washington’s Ambassador to Israel, David Friedman.

In an interview, also with ‘Israel Hayom’ on June 11, Haley tried to 
assure Israelis that “Israel should not be worried,” about having to 
make any political concessions in exchange for Trump’s recognition of 
Jerusalem as Israel’s capital or of Israel’s sovereignty over the 
occupied Syrian Golan Heights.

“Through the Middle East plan (so-called ‘Deal of the Century’), one of 
the main goals that Jared Kushner and Jason Greenblatt focused on was to 
not hurt the national security interests of Israel,” Haley said. “They 
understand the importance of security; they understand the importance of 
keeping Israel safe.”

While Haley’s, Kushner’s and Greenblatt’s statements can be viewed as 
part of the ever-skewed, pro-Israel language emanating from Washington, 
one must not be too hasty. The fact is, Washington has now fully 
embraced the Zionist Israeli discourse without the slightest attempt at 
playing the role of the impartial arbitrator.

It is as if Haley, et al are now members of the Israeli Prime Minister, 
Benjamin Netanyahu’s rightwing Likud party.

But no one represents this blatant American realignment into the Israeli 
camp better than Ambassador Friedman, who has, in an interview with the 
New York Times, on June 8, backed any future Israeli annexation of parts 
of the Occupied West Bank.

A few weeks later, in a disturbing and highly symbolic gesture, the 
American Ambassador carried a sledgehammer and broke open a tunnel that 
snakes underneath the East Jerusalem Palestinian neighborhood of Silwan. 
The tunnel, part of Israel’s expansionistic policy in Occupied 
Jerusalem, has already damaged the foundation of over 80 Palestinian homes.

The determined and gratified look on Friedman’s face spoke volumes about 
the ‘hysterical, erratic’ and extremist US foreign policy under Trump.

So what hope is left for the PA in Ramallah, now that Washington has 
taken all the political, financial and every other practical step to 
sideline Palestinians, to marginalize their rights and push them into 
submission? And what good will appealing to American sensibilities 
through CNN and any other platform do, considering that Washington’s 
strategy is deeply entrenched and irrevocable?

Much can be said about Palestinian failure to change course when it 
became repeatedly clear since the signing of the Oslo Accord in 1993, 
that Washington has no interest in pressuring Israel to end illegal 
settlement construction and to respect international law. Worse, while 
Washington paid lip service to ‘peace’, it supported the Israeli war 
machine, military occupation and settlement construction with billions 
of dollars.

While it is good that the PA is finally waking up to the fact that 
subscribing to Washington’s foreign policy book is a historic mistake, 
mere awareness is simply not enough.

It is time for the Palestinians to write their own book, one that is 
guided by the concept of national liberation, not endless negotiations; 
one that is predicated on unity, not mortifying factionalism; one that 
appeals to the whole global community, not to American handouts.

/*Ramzy Baroud* is a journalist, author and editor of Palestine 
Chronicle. His latest book is The Last Earth: A Palestinian Story (Pluto 
Press, London, 2018). He earned a Ph.D. in Palestine Studies from the 
University of Exeter and is a Non-Resident Scholar at Orfalea Center for 
Global and International Studies, UCSB./

-- 
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