I call on the Palestinian National Authority to publicly declare its permanent withdrawal from the peace negotiations with Israel. I had never imagined that I would stand, one day, against a peace plan. At any rate, this is not what I am doing today; however, peace with the Netanyahu government is impossible, and the price of trying is too high. I supported the Oslo process in the nineties and stood by Abu Ammar. Then, I asked him to resign, in this very column, after we were brought to a dead end. I returned to supporting the peace process with Brother Abu Mazen, even when I wrote, each time, a “refrain” that no peace is possible with the fascist government in Israel. Nonetheless, the negotiations are necessary for their own sake, and not for the sake of their impossible results, so that the Palestinians would not be accused of wasting another opportunity for peace and establishing their independent state. However, since my last article on the negotiations – not peace-, I discovered that the price of these futile negotiations is more than I am willing to pay, as an Arab citizen, even for peace itself. I therefore call on the Palestinian Authority to withdraw from the negotiations, before the United States pays the price through the incentive package given to Israel. The Obama administration, following the disaster of the midterm elections that afflicted the Democratic Party and the president himself, is looking for some kind of victory that would help put it back on the path to political recovery. I had hoped that this administration, however, would instead support the Palestinians in implementation of Obama's speech in Cairo last year, and his speech in Indonesia this month. However, what is being proposed between the U.S. administration and Israel is intolerable, and no Palestinian negotiator faithful to his or her cause should accept it. The U.S.-Israeli negotiations mainly include: - Providing Israel with 20 stealth American-made fighters that have not yet entered service in the U.S. air force, worth three billion dollars. This is in addition to the annual military aid given to Israel since the late seventies, which is also worth around three billion dollars. - Excluding Jerusalem from the settlement freeze without making a declaration. - Not demanding Israel for any other moratorium on settlements - Having an American opposition to any proposal to recognize the independent Palestinian state at the United Nations or any other international organization. - Having the U.S. administration support for the Israeli government's demand of maintaining military presence on the eastern border, i.e. the Jordan Valley, in any future agreement on the establishment of an independent Palestinian state. All this and other terms, such as Netanyahu's request that Israel's security - and not just the borders- be also on the agenda, in return for what? In return, they are offering a three month moratorium on settlements, which excludes Jerusalem that was annexed by Israel after its occupation in 1967. Israel is hence asking for a written U.S. letter of guarantees that outlines its demands in exchange for a three month freeze on settlements. Again, all of this for three months? Settlement began four decades ago and is ongoing today. It definitely did not stop during the ten month freeze declared by the Netanyahu government. Today, there are 430,000 settlers in the West Bank and Jerusalem, and 2.5 million Palestinians. The settlers control 40 percent of the West Bank, and there are around one hundred settlement outposts deemed to be illegal by the Western press, in the sense that they are not approved by the Israeli government. Here, I want to place on the record my own opinion and what I also believe to be the opinion of every Arab reader, namely, that all of Israel is an illegal settlement outpost in the lands of the Palestinians. Palestine is the land extending from the sea to the river. If some Arabs have accepted, just like me, an independent state on 22 percent of the land of Palestine, then many other Arabs do not agree to the peaceful solution that I accepted. In truth, the brutality and racism of the occupation is only increasing the numbers of naysayers as they see the settlers seizing control of 80 percent of the waters of the West Bank, and as the Israeli government expels the Palestinians from their homes and demolishes these in Jerusalem, while announcing again and again new plans for building housing units in Palestinian neighborhoods. The strangest thing about the whole issue is that the Israeli right itself has rejected the U.S offer to the extent of becoming divided as a result. For instance, 14 Likud Members of Knesset out of 27, including 4 ministers, oppose a settlement freeze. Meanwhile the pig Ovadia Yosef, the godfather of Shas, demanded for a written American letter of guarantees to exclude Jerusalem, while several Members of Knesset signed a letter drafted by settler leaders opposing a freeze on settlements. The Israeli extremists might be saving Abu Mazen by rejecting the American offer. But if they don't, then I call on the Palestinian Authority to withdraw officially, permanently and publicly from the negotiations, in order to abolish the cause for the U.S. letter of guarantees before it reaches Israel. [email protected]
