{"id":7137,"date":"2011-05-21T09:10:52","date_gmt":"2011-05-21T05:10:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/?p=7137"},"modified":"2011-07-16T13:57:58","modified_gmt":"2011-07-16T09:57:58","slug":"unified-now-palestinian-leadership-needs-to-raise-its-game","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/middle-east-politics-analysis\/unified-now-palestinian-leadership-needs-to-raise-its-game\/","title":{"rendered":"Unified: Now Palestinian Leadership Needs to Raise its Game"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>As the Palestine Papers demonstrated, the major obstacle to a real, lasting and just\u00a0peace in Palestine is the Israeli leadership’s unwillingness to accept anything less\u00a0than full domination over the Palestinians. Not only do Israeli leaders refuse to\u00a0partake in any serious peace talks, they also refuse to agree on universally\u00a0accepted notions, for example, the law.<\/p>\n

On 13 November 2007, then Israeli foreign minister Tzipi Livni told chief\u00a0Palestinian negotiator Saeb Ereikat that she despised the very notion of law.\u00a0According to the Palestine Papers, published by Al-Jazeera and the Guardian, Livni\u00a0said: “I was the Minister of Justice. I am a lawyer… But I am against law —\u00a0international law in particular. Law in general.”<\/p>\n

Livni is often contrasted with current rightwing Israeli leader Binyamin Netanyahu,\u00a0and has been described as a “dove” when compared to him. This unfounded reputation\u00a0caused many broken hearts when Netanyahu became prime minister of Israel in March\u00a02009, as chances for real peace supposedly diminished.<\/p>\n

Such Israeli obduracy was a prime reason for Palestinians to unify their ranks. The\u00a0signing of the Hamas-Fatah unity agreement in Cairo on 27 April was indeed a fitting\u00a0response to Israel’s incessant attempts at dividing the Palestinians.\u00a0Palestinian unity must not be co-opted into the peace charade, however. It should\u00a0not become a condition Palestinians are required to fulfil in order to demonstrate\u00a0their worthiness for Israeli-US-styled peace. Such a rationale, now gleefully argued\u00a0by many, would not explain why ordinary Palestinians celebrated throughout the\u00a0occupied territories. What compelled the celebrations was a common understanding\u00a0that political unity was necessary to confront that very Israeli intransigence, and\u00a0that the use of democratic and truly representative political institutions could\u00a0achieve such goals as liberation, sovereignty and the right of return for\u00a0Palestinian refugees.<\/p>\n

Following the official signing of the unity deal, Daniel Levy wrote in the Guardian\u00a0: “It makes sense to speculate that a course correction by Israel’s leaders towards\u00a0greater realism, pragmatism and compromise might emerge in response to a more\u00a0challenging, strategic and — one would hope — non- violent Palestinian adversary.”\u00a0Others have made similar points, arguing that Palestinian political unity will force\u00a0Israel to compromise. Hamas and Fatah could together prevent Netanyahu’s government\u00a0from expanding settlements, and also prevent further exploitation of disunity by\u00a0challenging the idea that Israel has no peace partner with which an agreement can be\u00a0reached and honoured.<\/p>\n

This argument, as thoughtful or well-intended as it may be, actually seems to ignore\u00a0recurring historical events. Israel’s colonial programme underway in occupied East\u00a0Jerusalem and the West Bank has never been affected by Palestinian discord or unity.\u00a0The real problem lies in Israel’s entrenched belief that only absolute military\u00a0domination over the Palestinians could guarantee Israel’s position in what Livni\u00a0described as a “rough neighbourhood”.<\/p>\n

However, Palestinian leaders, especially in the two main parties, Hamas and Fatah,\u00a0already know this. Fatah has been through nearly 20 years of frivolous negotiations,\u00a0and Hamas has, all this time, watched Fatah concede, both politically and\u00a0territorially, without gaining any significant peace dividends in return. Thus, it’s\u00a0a foretold conclusion that giving Israel yet another break to change its ways, as\u00a0proposed by Hamas’s politburo chief Khaled Meshaal, will bring nothing new to the\u00a0table.<\/p>\n

To avoid being viewed as compromising, Meshaal made his remarks in the form of a\u00a0threat. During a meeting with young leaders of the Egyptian revolution on 10 May,\u00a0Meshaal stated that Hamas was “willing to give Israel a one- year extension on\u00a0recognising a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders with Jerusalem as its\u00a0capital.” If Israel failed to do this, the movement would be forced to bring\u00a0additional “cards to the pack of resistance”. The Hamas leader made it clear,\u00a0however, that the additional cards wouldn’t necessarily indicate a declaration a war\u00a0on Israel.<\/p>\n

Giving Israel another year — enough time to confiscate more Palestinian land and to\u00a0build thousands of new illegal housing units in its ever expanding settlements — is\u00a0hardly the political strategy that Palestinians expect from the Hamas-Fatah unity.\u00a0In fact, neither Hamas nor Fatah have a political mandate to make such sweeping\u00a0political compromises, especially as Palestinians are very familiar with Israel’s\u00a0lack of tendency to reciprocate. In fact, Israel is likely to escalate, both\u00a0politically and militarily, to counter whatever strategy Hamas and Fatah have in\u00a0mind.<\/p>\n

Palestinian leaders need to use caution before making such offerings, especially as\u00a0the next phase in the Palestinian struggle for freedom and rights is likely to be a\u00a0very challenging one. The Arab revolution is sounding the alarms in Tel Aviv that\u00a0Israel’s rough neighbourhood is getting even rougher. Israel’s political contingency\u00a0is at an all-time high, as united Palestinian parties will be pushing for\u00a0international recognition of an independent state at the United Nations next\u00a0September. More, the US is likely to curtail its omnipresent role as the propeller\u00a0of the peace process, following the resignation of the Obama administration’s\u00a0special envoy for Middle East peace.<\/p>\n

The announcement of former Senator George Mitchell’s resignation after two years of\u00a0fruitless talks, in conjunction with the mobilisation of the pro-Israel lobby in\u00a0Washington, suggest that the coming months will see much arm-twisting, if not\u00a0outright coercion, of the Palestinian leadership.<\/p>\n

Fatah should not interpret unity as a mandate to carry on with its failed policy of\u00a0the past. And Hamas should take care not to repeat the kind of text-book mistakes\u00a0Palestinians have repeatedly committed, even if the reward might be greater\u00a0legitimacy or inconsequential recognitions.<\/p>\n

Palestinians didn’t celebrate unity out of love for Hamas or Fatah. Rather they were\u00a0eager to see a sound Palestinian strategy that could revitalise Palestinian energies\u00a0everywhere towards one common goal: freedom. The freedom Palestinians want is based\u00a0on Palestinian political constants, enshrined in international law. Any deviation\u00a0from such understanding for limited political and factional gains will turn the\u00a0prevailing sense of joy into grief, and celebrations into protests.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

RAMZY BAROUD: The newly unified Palestinian leadership faces a very rough few months in the lead-up to the key United Nations vote in September. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":7138,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[83,171,119,60],"tags":[2024,378,575,7082,227,18311,726,7081,191,5012,2452,2317,18297,1747,2204,2904,1541,4065,387,18302,2020,580],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7137"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7137"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7137\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7138"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7137"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7137"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7137"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}