[News] ‘The Donald Trump I know’: Abbas’ UN Speech and the Breakdown of Palestinian Politics

[Anti-Imperialist News]

https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/02/21/the-donald-trump-i-know-abbas-un-speech-and-the-breakdown-of-palestinian-politics/ 



  ‘The Donald Trump I know’: Abbas’ UN Speech and the Breakdown of
  Palestinian Politics

by Ramzy Baroud <https://www.counterpunch.org/author/ramzy-baroud/> - 
February 21, 2020
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A precious moment has been squandered, as Palestinian Authority 
President, Mahmoud Abbas, had the chance to right a historical wrong, by 
reinstating Palestinian national priorities at the United Nations 
Security Council on February 11, through a political discourse that is 
completely independent from Washington and its allies.

For a long time, Abbas has been a hostage to the very language that 
designated him and his Authority as ‘moderates’ in the eyes of Israel 
and the West. Despite the Palestinian leader’s outward rejection of the 
US ‘Deal of the Century’ – which practically renders Palestinian 
national aspirations null and void – Abbas is keen to maintain his 
‘moderate’ credentials for as long as possible.

Certainly, Abbas has given many speeches at the UN in the past and, 
every single time, he has failed to impress Palestinians. This time, 
however, things were meant to be different. Not only did Washington 
disown Abbas and the PA, it also scrapped its own political discourse on 
peace and the two-state solution altogether. More, the Trump 
administration has now officially given its blessing to Israel to annex 
nearly a third of the West Bank, taking Jerusalem ‘off the table’ and 
discarding the right of return for Palestinian refugees.

Instead of directly meeting with leaders of the various Palestinian 
political parties and taking tangible steps to reactivate dormant but 
central political institutions such as the Palestinian National Council 
(PNC) and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), Abbas preferred 
to meet with former Israeli right-wing Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, in 
New York, and to carry on regurgitating his commitment to a by-gone era.

In his UN speech, Abbas said nothing new which, in this instance, is 
worse than not saying anything at all.

“This is the outcome of the project that has been introduced to us,” 
Abbas said, while holding a map of what a Palestinian state would look 
like under Donald Trump’s ‘Deal of the Century’. “And this is the state 
that they are giving to us,” Abbas added, referring to that future state 
as a ‘Swiss cheese’, meaning a state fragmented by Jewish settlements, 
bypass-roads and Israeli military zones.

Even the term ‘Swiss cheese’, which was reported in some media as if a 
new phrase in this ever-redundant discourse, is actually an old coinage 
that has been referenced repeatedly by the Palestinian leadership 
itself, starting with the onset of the so-called peace process, a 
quarter of a century ago.

Abbas labored to appear exceptionally resolute as he emphasized certain 
words, like when he equated the Israeli occupation with the system of 
apartheid. His delivery, however, appeared unconvincing, lacking and, at 
times, pointless.

Abbas spoke of his great ‘surprise’ when Washington declared Jerusalem 
as Israel’s undivided capital, subsequently relocating its embassy to 
the occupied city, as if the writing was not already on the wall and 
that, in fact, the embassy move was one of Trump’s main pledges to 
Israel even before his inauguration in January 2017.

“And then they cut off financial aid that was given to us,” Abbas said 
in a lamenting voice with reference to the US decision to withhold its 
aid to the PA in August 2018. “$840 million are held from us,” he said. 
“I don’t know who is giving Trump such horrid advice. Trump is not like 
this. Trump that I know is not like this,” Abbas exclaimed in a strange 
interjection as if to send a message to the Trump administration that 
the PA still has faith in the US President’s judgement.

“I would like to remind everyone that we have participated in the Madrid 
peace conference, and the Washington negotiations and the Oslo agreement 
and the Annapolis summit on the basis of international law,” Abbas 
recounted, signaling that he remains committed to the very political 
agenda that reaped the Palestinian people no political rewards whatsoever.

Abbas then went on to paint an imagined reality, where his Authority is 
supposedly building the “national institutions of a law-abiding, modern 
and democratic state that is constructed on the basis of international 
values; one that is predicated on transparency, accountability and 
fighting corruption.”

“Yes,” Abbas emphasized, as he looked at his audience with theatrical 
seriousness, “We are one of the most important countries (in the world) 
that is fighting corruption.” The PA leader, then, called on the 
Security Council to send a commission to investigate allegations of 
corruption within the PA, a bewildering and unnecessary invitation, 
considering that it is the Palestinian leadership that should be making 
demands on the international community to help enforce international law 
and end the Israeli occupation.

It went on like this, where Abbas vacillated between reading pre-written 
remarks that introduce no new ideas or strategies and unnecessary rants 
that reflect the PA’s political bankruptcy and Abbas’ own lack of 
imagination.

The PA President, of course, made sure to offer his habitual 
condemnation of Palestinian ‘terrorism’ by promising that Palestinians 
would not “resort to violence and terrorism regardless of the act of 
aggression against us.” He assured his audience that his Authority 
believes in “peace and fighting violence.” Without elaborating, Abbas 
declared his intention of continuing on the path of “popular and 
peaceful resistance,” which, in fact, does not exist in any shape or form.

This time around, Abbas’ speech at the UN was particularly 
inappropriate. Indeed, it was a failure in every possible way. The 
least, the Palestinian leader could have done is to articulate a 
powerful and collective Palestinian political discourse. Instead, his 
statement was merely a sad homage to his own legacy, one that is riddled 
with disappointments and ineptitude.

Expectedly, Abbas returned to Ramallah to greet his cheering supporters 
once more, who are always ready and waiting to raise posters of the 
ageing leader, as if his UN speech had succeeded in fundamentally 
shifting international political momentum in favor of Palestinians.

It has to be said that the real danger in the ‘Deal of the Century’ is 
not the actual stipulations of that sinister plan, but the fact that the 
Palestinian leadership is likely to find a way to co-exist with it, at 
the expense of the oppressed Palestinian people, as long as donors’ 
money continues to flow and as long as Abbas continues to call himself a 
president.

/*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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863.9977 https://freedomarchives.org/
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