Toward
A Palestinian-Led Rebuilding
By Osamah Khalil
16 July 2007
The
Electronic Intifada
As
Middle East envoy of "the Quartet," Tony Blair, the former
British Prime Minister, has been charged with helping to "build
up" Palestinian institutions. It is a cruel irony that one of the
handmaidens of the destruction of those very institutions is now being
dispatched with the portfolio of resurrecting them. Yet, this should
not come as a surprise. In spite of Blair's passionate rhetoric to resolve
the Palestinian-Israeli conflict during his decade of rule, he joined
Washington in actively subverting Palestinian institutions and their
hopes for self-determination. In reality, the Quartet that Blair represents
as envoy, comprised of the United States, the European Union, Russia,
and the United Nations, is a hollow organ designed to provide international
legitimacy to the staunchly pro-Israel policies of the Bush administration.
Blair's task now, as it was for the invasion of Iraq, is to provide
Washington with an erudite spokesman for its Middle East policies. By
delaying his political retirement to serve as envoy, Blair perhaps hopes
to atone for his sins in Iraq through a pilgrimage of "peace"
to the Holy Land. Palestinians are right to be skeptical of his intentions
and question whether he will bring peace or further entrench and enshrine
the Israeli occupation by formalizing institutions which have long since
lost their legitimacy. "What rough beast slouches toward Bethlehem,"
indeed.
Blair will be joined by the
Jordanian and Egyptian foreign ministers, Abdul Ilah al-Khatib and Ahmed
Aboul Gheit, traveling to Israel under the flag of the Arab League for
the first time. The revolving door of Middle East envoys represents
the "peace process" component of the "Palestine Industry,"
whose main product has been the endless volumes of vacuous political
and economic solutions and programs. Historically peace missions and
summits have occurred as the last gasp of American "lame duck"
presidents for relevancy. Invariably, these attempts to resolve the
Arab-Israeli conflict have occurred when American presidents are at
their weakest point domestically, beset by either political scandals
or unpopular wars, or in the case of George W. Bush, both. While the
United States and its European allies have consistently armed and underwritten
Israel's occupation, they have simultaneously served as the mediators
and facilitators of the peace process. Rather than achieving peace,
this has enabled Israel to further entrench its system of occupation
and apartheid, while undermining the Palestinian people's quest for
independence and self-rule. That this has continued for forty-one years,
in opposition to numerous UN resolutions confirming the Palestinians'
inalienable right to self-determination, the right of Palestinian refugees
to return to their homes, and the illegality of the Israeli occupation
over the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem, reduces the breathless
drama surrounding these negotiations to farce.
Over the past three decades
Palestinians have struggled to develop governance structures under extreme
conditions of exile, occupation, and sanctions. While conservative Arab
regimes exist as thinly veiled police-states and faux constitutional
monarchies, the Palestinians have held several elections all monitored
by international observers and deemed to be fair, in spite of Israeli
and American attempts to interfere. Despite these efforts, the international
community has served to impede, rather than promote, Palestinian self-rule.
If there is to be a peaceful resolution of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict
resulting in a viable Palestinian state, as Bush has declared is his
goal, it can only be achieved through institutions which are representative
and effective. As the international community has abdicated its responsibility
in supporting a nascent democracy in Palestine, Palestinians must reform
their institutions themselves.
Building viable and effective
governing bodies is a difficult and challenging process under the best
circumstances, an environment that has hardly existed in the "post-independence"
Middle East. Yet, in the past four decades the Palestinians have managed
to build two separate but related para-state institutions, both designed
to serve as a nucleus for a future Palestinian state: the Palestine
Liberation Organization (PLO) and the Palestinian Authority (PA). At
its height, the PLO developed robust health, education, and welfare
services in the Palestinian refugee camps, while also maintaining an
active diplomatic presence internationally. Although these services
were curtailed sharply in Lebanon after the 1982 Israeli invasion, in
the rest of the Arab world and abroad they continued until the 1993
Oslo Accords. Even though it is still recognized internationally as
the "sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people,"
the PLO is now a mere shell of its former self.
In contrast, the PA has been
wholly dependent upon foreign assistance and controls since its inception.
Now headquartered in Ramallah, the PA was initially tasked under the
Oslo Accords with overseeing civil administration and security coordination
with Israel for the Palestinian territories until final status negotiations
were completed. In addition, the PA appropriated many of the PLO agencies
and sources of funding, including the foreign missions in nearly 100
countries. However, the PA was never responsible for the Palestinian
refugees living in neighboring Arab states, who witnessed a dramatic
deterioration in their political and humanitarian standing after 1993.
Moreover, with the PLO starved of funding and personnel, Palestinian
refugees lost the main representative to their host governments and
the international community. Meanwhile, Israel's continued colonization
of Palestinian land, coupled with the overt corruption and ineptitude
of the PA and declining living standards of the population, led to an
increasing frustration among Palestinians. The second Palestinian intifada
in 2000 followed by Israel's reinvasion and reoccupation of the West
Bank and Gaza witnessed the destruction of much of Palestinian civil
society. In the past month, Hamas' defeat of Fatah in Gaza and the declaration
by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas of a "national emergency
cabinet," has resulted in the fragmentation of the Palestinian
territories, and the creation of two parallel governments, neither with
a mandate to represent all Palestinians. As the Palestinian economy
lies in shambles, the Israeli economy, largely unburdened by the expense
of its outsourced occupation, is booming. Now, more than ever, the PA
represents a fiscally and politically bankrupt junior partner to the
Israeli occupation.
Rebuilding Palestinian institutions
will require the full effort and expertise of Palestinians living under
occupation and in the Diaspora. More importantly it is dependent on
a belief in, and a program of, national unity and self-reliance. This
will entail separation from non-governmental organizations and think-tanks
associated with or sponsored by the governments of the United States
and the European Union. While individuals in solidarity with the Palestinians
from these countries can and should assist, this must be a Palestinian-led
effort. For this endeavor to be successful the PA must be abandoned
and the PLO revitalized with Hamas as a member. Only under the umbrella
of a new national unity PLO can institutions be developed to both successfully
confront the Israeli occupation and represent the needs of the Palestinian
refugee communities. An immediate benefit of this strategy will be a
respite for Palestinians from the paternalistic pseudo-experts who have
descended upon the West Bank, Gaza and Lebanon like CV-building locusts
since the Oslo Accords were signed. Comprised of international development,
humanitarian assistance, and conflict resolution "consultants,"
this aspect of the Palestine Industry has done little more than institutionalize
dependence and divert leadership roles and funds from qualified local
professionals.
The only solution to the
fragmentation of the Palestinian body politic is revitalization of Palestinian
institutions by Palestinians. These are certainly not the bodies Tony
Blair or the Arab League will work to assist. It is imperative that
the Palestinians resist these efforts to vitiate and co-opt the institutions
which will form the core of a revitalized national movement and an independent
state. While the obstacles to Palestinian self-rule are formidable and
historically rooted, they are not determinant and can be overcome. Talking
about a revolution may be emotionally palliative, but without the hard
work of building and renewing institutions it will not occur. What is
needed now is an organized and sustained effort by Palestinians to achieve
this goal.
Osamah Khalil
is a Palestinian-American doctoral candidate in US and Middle East History
at the University of California, Berkeley, focusing on US Foreign Policy
in the Middle East. He can be reached at: okhalil A T berkeley D O T
edu.
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