Time To Admit
It Is Only Gravel
By Hasan Abu
Nimah
02 June, 2005
The
Electronic Intifada
Mahmoud
Abbas has just completed a "successful" visit to Washington.
He expressed great satisfaction with the results, and comparing what
he had expected to what he had achieved, he must be right. But what
benefits the visit did bring the Palestinians is a different matter:
simply nothing.
The visit as such
was very important. Chairman Yasser Arafat spent the last years of his
life besieged in his dilapidated headquarters in Ramallah, completely
shunned by President George Bush and Washington officialdom. When Colin
Powell, or other American officials, needed to meet lower rank Palestinians,
they preferred to avoid Ramallah altogether, in favour of Jericho, to
ensure adequate distance from Arafat. To reopen the White House doors
to a Palestinian president must then be a great development.
Having been spotted
as the best alternative to a leader who had "blocked peace in favour
of terror", Abbas, since his early days in office, was promised
the honour of being received by Bush in the White House as a way of
recognizing his peace credentials. The political value of this distinct
"honour" has been so much on the rise that it has emerged
as a precious end by itself.
Arafat paid heavily
to qualify for the honour, and it must have been a severe punishment
for him when it was finally withdrawn. It is obvious, therefore, that
opening the White House doors to Abbas was more than a mere symbolic
triumph. To further emphasize the significance, Bush was visibly cordial.
He praised Abbas, described him as "a man of peace," thus
elevating his stature to that of Sharon, and addressed him right from
the start as "Mr President", when Arafat had never achieved
anything beyond "Mr Chairman".
On the more "substantial"
issues, Bush was also generous. He reiterated his vision of a Palestinian
state, stressing the need to preserve territorial contiguity in the
West Bank, and the relationship between the West Bank and Gaza. He referred
to the roadmap and even quoted from it, urging Israel to withdraw from
the areas its forces occupied in September 2000. He called on Israel
to "remove the illegal outposts and not to expand the settlements."
In referring to
the separation wall which Israel continues to build deep into occupied
Palestinian lands -- and what actually looks like an endorsement --
Bush said the wall must be a security rather than a political barrier
and Israel must minimize its impact on Palestinian civilians. For Israel
there is nothing easier than saying yes to Bush, promising that it is
a security wall which will have no impact on the Palestinians. Who is
going to prove the contrary?
In an apparent contradiction
to his letter of guarantees to Sharon which recognized Israeli-created
facts on the ground as irreversible in any final settlement, a year
earlier, Bush this time decided that any "changes to the 1949 lines
must be mutually agreed" upon, and warned Israel not to undertake
activity that would "prejudice final status negotiations with regard
to Gaza, the West Bank and [even] Jerusalem".
And probably with
the clear intention of facilitating Abbas task of "agreeing,"
Bush promised $50 million in aid to the Palestinian Authority; and rather
than repeating the call for "dismantling the terrorist organisations"
the US president called for defeating Hamas (which he still considers
a terrorist organization) at the polls in a democratic fashion, not
of stripping it of its arms by violence.
Admittedly, some
of the presidential promises and policy statements would be considered
positive if they were meant to have any real effect on the ground. They
do not, however, mainly due to the absence of a time frame or mechanism
for implementation; and because the president gave no hint as to what
would happen if Israel paid no attention, as usual, to all the president's
appeals, calls and warnings.
It is well known
on the basis of past and recent experience that Israel will only continue
to implement its plans for expansion and colonization, without fear
of any consequences from anywhere.
The difference between
promises made by Washington to Israel and promises made to the Palestinians
is that Israel, as an occupier, has the power and the means to see such
promises implemented, while the Palestinian Authority has no such means
and has to wait for Washington to make good on its word. This has never
happened before and it is very unlikely to happen now. Equally unlikely
is that Abbas will be reminded of this obvious reality, his expressed
satisfaction with the results of the visit notwithstanding. More than
the actual success, probably what Abbas was seeking was a convenient
formula to return home with proof of the success of his visit.
The entire peace
process has been based on open-ended formulas and promises, which only
served so far to provide interested politicians with the time needed
to prolong their political life and to provide Israel with the time
needed to implement in full its expansionist plans on the whole of Palestine.
Israel, since the
peace process industry was established, never committed itself to any
of the peace plans which have been internationally approved since 1967.
Even the plans which Israel pretended to have accepted, beginning with
Security Council Resolution 242 and finishing with the roadmap, 35 years
later, and all the countless peace projects in between, were never taken
seriously. Israel never respected any American demand to stop building
settlements or implement any measures required by any agreement to reduce
tension or to show real goodwill towards an acceptable reasonable settlement.
Actually, to the contrary, Sharon continues to announce that he is not
interested in any final settlement with the Palestinians, and all he
wants to achieve is an open-ended, unarmed truce; in other words, peace
to enable Israel to absorb the occupied land without the people.
The sad irony is
that although such facts are too obvious to be ignored by even the most
ignorant, they continue to be ignored by the most intelligent. Why?
Simply because it is convenient for political opportunism to invest
in false hopes rather than expose the futility of failure.
Bush knew that his
statements were no more than expressions of goodwill, not for implementation,
and Abbas accepted them on that basis.
In early school
days, we were taught of the mother who had no food for her children,
but her maternal sentiment prevented her from presenting to the starving
kids the cruel reality. She chose, instead, to pretend that she was
preparing some food by endlessly stirring gravel until, out of hunger
and exhaustion, they would fall asleep. The caring mother did it to
reduce suffering, and not to deceive. Cooking gravel seems to be the
only option left for the peace process operators. The difference is
that more people discover daily what is simmering in the pot.
Ambassador Hasan
Abu Nimah is the former permanent representative of Jordan at the United
Nations, and was a member of the joint Jordanian-Palestinian team at
the Washington peace talks in the early 1990s.