[News] 'Long live the (dead) peace process': Abbas prioritises US ties over Palestinian national unity

[Anti-Imperialist News]

https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20201207-long-live-the-dead-peace-process-abbas-prioritises-us-ties-over-palestinian-national-unity/
'Long
live the (dead) peace process': Abbas prioritises US ties over Palestinian
national unity
Ramzy Baroud - December 7, 2020
------------------------------

No one seemed as excited about the election
<https://time.com/5907973/donald-trump-loses-2020-election/> of Joe Biden
being the next President of the United States as Palestinian Authority
President, Mahmoud Abbas. When all hope seemed lost, where Abbas found
himself desperate for political validation and funds, Biden arrived like a
conquering knight on a white horse and swept the Palestinian leader away to
safety.

Abbas was one of the first world leaders to congratulate the Democratic
President-elect on his victory. While Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin
Netanyahu, delayed
<https://www.timesofisrael.com/after-hours-of-silence-netanyahu-and-rivlin-congratulate-biden-on-election-win/>
his congratulatory statement in the hope that Donald Trump would eventually
be able to reverse the results, Abbas suffered no such illusions.
Considering the humiliation that the Palestinian Authority experienced at
the hands of the Trump Administration, Abbas had nothing to lose. For him,
Biden, despite his long love affair with Israel, still represented a ray of
hope.

But can the wheel of history be turned back? Despite the fact that the
Biden Administration has made
<https://apnews.com/article/47c2d807cbb563b747cee29aaefeda5a> it clear that
it will not be reversing any of the pro-Israel steps taken by the departing
Trump Administration, Abbas remains confident that, at least, the 'peace
process' can be restored.

This may seem to be an impossible dichotomy, for how can a 'peace process'
deliver peace if all the components of a just peace have already been
eradicated?

It is obvious that there can be no real peace if the US government insists
on recognizing
<https://www.israelhayom.com/2020/11/08/biden-is-a-zionist-he-wont-move-the-us-embassy-back-to-tel-aviv/>
all of Jerusalem as Israel's 'eternal' capital. There can be no peace if
the US continues to fund illegal Jewish settlements, bankroll Israeli
apartheid, deny the rights of Palestinian refugees, turn a blind eye to de
facto annexation underway in Occupied Palestine and recognize the
illegally-occupied Syrian Golan Heights as part of Israel, all of which is
likely to remain the same, even under the Biden Administration.

The 'peace process' is unlikely to deliver any kind of a just, sustainable
peace in the future, when it has already failed to do so in the past 30
years.

Yet, despite the ample lessons of the past, Abbas has decided, again, to
gamble with the fate of his people and jeopardize their struggle for
freedom and just peace. Not only is Abbas building a campaign involving
Arab countries, namely Jordan and Egypt, to revive the 'peace process', he
is also walking back on all his promises and decisions to cancel
<https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/19/world/middleeast/abbas-palestinians-israel-west-bank.html>
the Oslo Accords, and end
<https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/19/world/middleeast/abbas-palestinians-israel-west-bank.html>
'security coordination' with Israel. By doing so, Abbas has betrayed
national unity talks between his party, Fatah, and Hamas.

Unity talks between rival Palestinian groups seemed to take a serious turn
last July when Palestine's main political parties issued
<https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/7/2/rival-factions-fatah-hamas-vow-to-fight-looming-annexation>
a joint statement declaring their intent to defeat Trump's 'Deal of the
Century'. The language used in that statement was reminiscent of the
revolutionary discourse used by these groups during the First and Second
Intifadas (uprisings), itself a message that Fatah was finally re-orienting
itself around national priorities and away from the 'moderate' political
discourse wrought by the US-sponsored 'peace process'.

Even those who grew tired and cynical about the shenanigans of Abbas and
Palestinian groups wondered if this time would be different; that
Palestinians would finally agree on a set of principles through which they
could express and channel their struggle for freedom.

Oddly, Trump's four-year term in the White House was the best thing that
happened to the Palestinian national struggle. His administration was a
jarring and indisputable reminder that the US is not – and has never been –
'an honest peace broker' and that Palestinians cannot steer their political
agenda to satisfy US-Israeli demands in order for them to obtain political
validation and financial support.

Trump and the Middle East – Cartoon [Sabaaneh/MiddleEastMonitor]

By cutting off
<https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-palestinians-idUSKCN1L923C> US
funding of the Palestinian Authority in August 2018, followed by the shutting
down
<https://www.france24.com/en/20180914-palestinian-mission-washington-closes-after-us-orders-shutdown>
of the Palestinian mission in Washington DC, Trump has liberated
Palestinians from the throes of an impossible political equation. Without
the proverbial American carrot, the Palestinian leadership has had the rare
opportunity to rearrange the Palestinian home for the benefit of the
Palestinian people.

Alas, those efforts were short-lived. After multiple meetings and video
conferences between Fatah, Hamas, and other delegations representing
Palestinian groups, Abbas declared
<https://www.haaretz.com/middle-east-news/palestinians/.premium-palestinian-authority-resumes-cooperation-with-israel-minister-announces-1.9314412>,
on November 17, the resumption of 'security coordination' between his
Authority and Israel. This was followed by the Israeli announcement on
December 2 to release
<https://www.aa.com.tr/en/middle-east/israel-transfers-tax-revenues-to-palestinian-authority/2063156>
over a billion dollars of Palestinian funds that were unlawfully held by
Israel as a form of political pressure.

*OPINION: Hamas and the other factions must act to stop Abbas destroying
the Palestinian cause
<https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20201201-hamas-and-the-other-factions-must-act-to-stop-abbas-destroying-the-palestinian-cause/>*

This takes Palestinian unity back to square one. At this point, Abbas finds
unity talks with his Palestinian rivals quite useless. Since Fatah
dominates the Palestinian Authority, the Palestine Liberation Organization
(PLO), and the Palestine National Council (PNC), conceding any ground or
sharing leadership with other Palestinian factions seems self-defeating.
Now that Abbas is reassured that the Biden Administration will bequeath
him, once again, with the title of 'peace partner', a US ally and a
moderate, the Palestinian leader no longer finds it necessary to seek
approval from the Palestinians. Since there can be no middle ground between
catering to a US-Israeli agenda and elevating a Palestinian national
agenda, the Palestinian leader opted for the former and, without
hesitation, ditched the latter.

While it is true that Biden will neither satisfy any of the Palestinian
people's demands nor reverse any of his predecessor's missteps, Abbas can
still benefit from what he sees as a seismic shift in US foreign policy –
not in favor of the Palestinian cause but of Abbas personally, an unelected
leader whose biggest accomplishment has been sustaining the US-imposed
status quo and keeping the Palestinian people pacified for as long as
possible.

Although the 'peace process' has been declared
<https://www.timesofisrael.com/mahmoud-abbas-calls-peace-process-clinically-dead/>
'dead' on multiple occasions, Abbas is now desperately trying to revive it,
not because he – or any rational Palestinian – believes that peace is at
hand, but because of the existential relationship between the PA and this
US-sponsored political scheme. While most Palestinians gained nothing from
all of this, a few Palestinians accumulated massive wealth, power, and
prestige. For this clique, that alone is a cause worth fighting for.

[image: The PA announced the resumption of security cooperation with
Israel, what does this mean for Palestine? - Cartoon
[Sabaaneh/MiddleEastMonitor]]

The PA announced the resumption of security cooperation with Israel, what
does this mean for Palestine? – Cartoon [Sabaaneh/MiddleEastMonitor]
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