[News] Abbas is a mouthpiece for international impositions on Palestine

[Anti-Imperialist News]

https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20200206-abbas-is-a-mouthpiece-for-international-impositions-on-palestine/ 



  Abbas is a mouthpiece for international impositions on Palestine

Ramona Wadi- February 6, 2020

The Palestinian Authority has learned nothing from decades of futile UN 
Security Council Resolutions. Do the people of Palestine really need 
international consensus regarding the already very clear illegality of 
US President Donald Trump’s so-called deal of the century?

Pushing on regardless, PA leader Mahmoud Abbas is pursuing repetitive, 
useless and time-wasting options to give an impression of being engaged 
diplomatically with the international community and its impositions. 
While Abbas pleads at the UN to obtain another symbolic show of alleged 
international support, Israeli Ambassador to the UN Danny Danon is 
lobbying the Security Council “to enlist their support for the joint 
US-Israeli action and to prevent support for any Palestinian 
declarations of protest.”

The draft resolution calls 
<https://www.timesofisrael.com/palestinians-float-un-resolution-against-trump-peace-plan/> 
for a rejection of Trump’s deal and seeks yet another endorsement of the 
two-state compromise, despite the impossibility of its implementation. 
Abbas’s refusal to consider a unified Palestinian approach that 
encompasses all legitimate forms of resistance against Israeli 
colonisation makes UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres’s job of 
presiding over the constant Israeli violations of international law and 
human rights easier. As long as the PA scrambles after the international 
community for a solution, the UN only has to regurgitate the same 
rhetoric about its two-state vision. Accountability in this regard is 
not applicable, as the PA and the UN know full well.

In what would now be perceived as a weak condemnation of Trump’s deal, 
Guterres cautioned against “actions that would erode the possibility of 
a viable and contiguous Palestinian state,” with reference to Israeli 
settlement expansion. However, the US-Israeli scheming goes beyond 
expansion to formal, rather than merely fact-on-the-ground annexation. 
The UN is, as usual, several strategic steps behind, so as not to run 
out of the plethora of violations to speak out against during opportune 
moments in which the Palestinian cause is exploited yet again.

If the US vetoes the resolution, which is certain, the PA is likely to 
get another round of passive support from the UN General Assembly. For 
Abbas, a show of votes might be enough to claim validity, yet again, for 
the two-state compromise, as opposed to Palestinians’ political rights. 
The truth, however, is that the international community has only 
supported rhetoric about Palestinian rights. Altering its trajectory now 
would spell disaster for the UN in terms of its own complicity in 
endorsing Israel’s colonisation of Palestine. Hence, the cautious 
warnings against settlement expansion while refusing to advocate in 
favour of decolonisation. Likewise, the UN will entertain Abbas and his 
overtures because the PA has proved that it squanders any potential for 
change.

Trump’s deal is the least of the international community’s concerns. 
Abbas is only accentuating his irrelevance with resolution gimmicks at 
the UN. Palestinians are voiceless at the UN primarily because of the 
UN’s protection of Israel, but also due to Abbas consolidating his role 
as spokesman for international demands and counter-narratives about what 
Palestinians want. A resolution confirming what is already known makes 
no difference to the political violence that Israel continues to inflict 
upon Palestinians. The PA should be turning towards its own people, as 
it should have done on previous occasions and refused, instead of 
wasting time at the UN for yet another opportunity to lament about delays.

*READ: The schizophrenia of Mahmoud Abbas as he looks for an ‘honourable 
end’ 
<https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20200204-the-schizophrenia-of-mahmoud-abbas-as-he-looks-for-an-honourable-end/>*

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not 
necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.

-- 
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