[News] Rhetoric about international intervention is an excuse for risking nothing, while Palestinians risk their lives

[Anti-Imperialist News]

https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20210511-rhetoric-about-international-intervention-is-an-excuse-for-risking-nothing-while-palestinians-risk-their-lives/
Rhetoric
about international intervention is an excuse for risking nothing, while
Palestinians risk their lives
Ramona Wadi  - May 11, 2021
------------------------------

The international community is quite happy to keep up the narrative of the
"barren land" until Israel's colonial violence escalates to attract global
attraction and condemnation. When this happens, the UN rediscovers the
existence of the colonised Palestinian population, albeit while feigning
ignorance about its own role in maintaining the colonial state and settler
violence. If we depart from the premise that the UN exists to fail in its
mandate to protect human rights, then its political stance is to be both
expected and abhorred.

When the Palestinian Authority emulates a similar stance in terms of
recognising the perils that the people of occupied Palestine face when it
makes news headlines, it is horrific.

"Storming Al-Aqsa Mosque is a crime committed by the occupation," tweeted
the PA's Civil Affairs Minister, Hussein Al-Sheikh. "The Palestinian
leadership is examining all options to respond to this heinous aggression
against the holy sites and the citizens." *Wafa* news agency, which is the
PA's media arm, ran the brief news report
<https://english.wafa.ps/Pages/Details/124382> akin to an official
statement.

*OPINION: Sheikh Jarrah is a historic Jerusalem neighbourhood
<https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20210511-sheikh-jarrah-is-a-historic-jerusalem-neighbourhood/>*

Meanwhile, *Wafa*'s reports on PA leader Mahmoud Abbas's statements show
how abysmal the Palestinian leadership is. Abbas holds the Israeli
government "fully responsible" for the aggression against Palestinians in
Jerusalem and the aerial bombardment of Gaza, without having any framework
for pursuing culpability. Following the PA's usual script, in the full
knowledge that it has no political power to wield, Abbas appealed
<https://english.wafa.ps/Pages/Details/124399> for international
intervention to stop the violence against Palestinians and halt the
dispossession of the residents of the Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood in
occupied Jerusalem.

In the face of such an aggressive display of Israeli colonial violence, the
PA's "all options" are still tied to rhetoric, allowing Israel once more to
distort the narrative away from the Palestinian people who are out on the
streets protecting what is left of their heritage. A quick online search
reveals one omission for which the PA should be held to account: where are
the Palestinian security services and why are they not protecting the
Palestinian people?

[image: Israel preventing Palestinians from returning to their homes in
Jerusalem - Cartoon [Sabaaneh/MiddleEastMonitor]]

Israel prevents Palestinians from returning to their homes in Jerusalem –
Cartoon [Sabaaneh/MiddleEastMonitor]

A few years back, the PA security services were out beating Palestinians
for opposing Abbas's policies on Gaza but were absent when the president
called for street protests over the US recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's
capital, knowing full well that protestors would be facing the Israeli
occupation forces. Rights organisations have spoken about the role that the
PA security services play in funnelling Palestinian detainees to Israeli
jails. Abbas has, on occasions, reiterated that security coordination is
"sacred". Sacred for who? The Palestinian people have not benefited from
the only entity that could, hypothetically, offer some form of protection,
but the international community funds PA security personnel in the occupied
West Bank for other reasons, namely to act as an extension of their Israeli
counterparts — and bosses — in the territory.

So while Israel continues its aggressive display which has sent shockwaves
around the world, spare a thought for the way that the PA rises to the
occasion to masquerade as a political power without actually wielding any
independent authority whatsoever. The international community had an
obligation to prevent Israeli colonialism even before it started. That
would have protected Palestinians from all the violence and displacement
that they have faced since the 1948 Nakba. Without true leadership, they
are risking their lives in an attempt to protect what is left of their
land. The PA, meanwhile, has shown through its "official" position on
"international intervention" that it is risking nothing.

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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