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<div class="header reader-header reader-show-element" dir="ltr"> <font
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href="https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/07/10/the-book-of-palestine-national-liberation-vs-endless-negotiations/">https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/07/10/the-book-of-palestine-national-liberation-vs-endless-negotiations/</a></font>
<h1 class="reader-title">The Book of Palestine: National
Liberation vs Endless Negotiations</h1>
<span class="post_author_intro">by</span> <span
class="post_author" itemprop="author"><a
href="https://www.counterpunch.org/author/ramzy-baroud/"
rel="nofollow">Ramzy Baroud</a> - July 10, 2019</span></div>
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<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>It is, rather, a book that is written by Washington,
from which brazen pro-Israel agenda has preceded the
Donald Trump administration by decades.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>“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’.”</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>“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.”</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>It is as if Haley, et al are now members of the Israeli
Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu’s rightwing Likud
party.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>The determined and gratified look on Friedman’s face
spoke volumes about the ‘hysterical, erratic’ and
extremist US foreign policy under Trump.</p>
<p>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?</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
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<p> <em><strong>Ramzy Baroud</strong> 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.</em> </p>
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