The
Next Palestinian Struggle
By Ramzy Baroud
23 September, 2006
Countercurrents.org
LONDON -
An expert in international law and an old friend of the Palestinian
people wrote me with utter distress a few days after Palestinian President
Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Ismael Haniyeh were reported to have
reached an agreement Sept. 11 to form a national unity government. The
content of his message was alarming, especially coming from an objective
American academic who was involved in the drafting of past Palestinian
national documents. "The Palestinian people were being set up,"
was the underlying meaning of his message. To know why, here is a bit
of context.
The Palestinian declaration
of independence of 1988 in Algeria was structured in a way that would
allow the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) Executive Committee
to devise foreign policy, thus representing the Palestinian people in
any future settlements with Israel. The signing of the Oslo Accords
in September 1993 and onward demoted the function of the Executive Committee
and eventually undermined the import of the PLO altogether, concentrated
the power in the hands of a few at the helm of the Palestinian Authority
(PA): the late President Yasser Arafat and a clique of business contractors
and ex-revolutionaries turned wartime profiteers.
That combination destroyed
the achievements of the first Palestinian uprising of 1987-1993 in ways
that Israel could only dream of: It cemented a faintly existing class
society, destroyed the impressive national unity achieved by the Palestine-based
leadership of various parties, hijacked the people's struggle, reducing
it to mere slogans, and damaged Palestinian credibility regionally and
internationally. Israel, of course, enjoyed the spectacle, as Palestinians
bickered endlessly and as the PA's security carried out daily onslaughts
against those who opposed the autocratic methods of the government,
desperately trying to demonstrate its worthiness to Israel and the United
States.
The PA, itself a political
construct of various Fatah blocs, had its own share of squabbling, which
culminated at times in street fights and assassinations. Abbas, then,
was of the opinion that if Arafat refused to share power, the Fatah
dispute would exasperate and could lead to a failed government. Both
the U.S. and Israel backed Abbas, hardly for his democratic posture,
but with the hope that Abbas would hand over the little remaining political
"concessions" that Arafat wouldn't, a sin that cost Arafat
his freedom in his later years.
But events in the Middle
East often yield the exact opposite of what the U.S. and Israel push
for. Though Abbas was elected president a few months after Arafat's
passing in November 2004, he needed some political legitimacy to negotiate
or renegotiate Palestinian rights with Israel. That hope was dashed
by the Parliamentary elections of January 2006, which brought in a Hamas-led
government two months later. The U.S., Europe and Canada responded with
a most inhumane economic siege, and a promise to punish anyone daring
enough to aid the Palestinian economy in any way. Succumbing to pressure,
even Arab neighbors helped ensure the tightness of the siege. Some in
Fatah seemed also determined to ensure the collapse of the government
even if at the expense of ordinary Palestinians. The so-called liberated
Gaza, once hoped to be the cornerstone of Palestinian independence,
was deliberately turned into a hub of lawlessness and violence, where
hired guns ruled the streets, threatening the safety of an already crushed
people.
Palestinian morgues mounted
with bodies when Israel unleashed its tactlessly termed Summer Rain,
an intensive military onslaught that killed 291 Palestinians in the
months of July and August alone. The atrocious one-sided war was justified
to the Israeli public as a humanitarian endeavor to save the life of
Gilad Shalit, an Israeli soldier captured in June by Palestinian militants
wishing to exert pressure on Israel to ease its deadly economic siege.
Palestinians, though browbeaten
and fatigued -- denied salaries, physically besieged, politically isolated
-- were desperately trying to shield their democratic choice. The issue
by then had transcended to that of Hamas, Fatah and their ideological
differences, to that of a nation denied the right to make its own choices,
to choose its representatives and hold them to account.
But Hamas, too, was learning
the harsh reality of being in the position of leadership. Unlike Arafat,
Hamas wanted to seek support from its Arab and Muslim milieu, the devastatingly
unexplored strategic alliances undermined by the PA's reliance on the
West. But even Hamas itself seemed unaware of the extent of weakness
and political deficiency of the Arabs and Muslims, who could barely
assert their own rights, much less that of the Palestinians. Hamas learned,
the hard way, that the U.S.' rapport with Israel would hardly weaken
even if an entire nation must go hungry and hospitals run out of badly
needed medicine. That hard lesson in real politic is what the Palestinian
government is now scrambling to learn, amid dismay and confusion.
It was within this context
that Abbas and Haniyeh convened in intense discussions to form a coalition
government. Abbas -- and mainstream Fatah behind him -- must have realized
that the harder Hamas is hit, the stronger its popular support grows,
thus undermining Fatah's own chances of political recovery. Although
Hamas has called for a national unity government from the start, it
did so from a position of strength, and with a hint of arrogance. Now
a national unity government is its only outlet to the world: without
it, neither its survival, as a relevant political movement, nor achieving
any of its declared objectives are as secured as it may have seemed
in the heat of victory. Moreover, a generation of already malnourished
children are facing a formidable humanitarian crisis; something had
to be done.
But amid the rush to form
a government, key questions won't be laid to rest: Who will speak on
behalf of the Palestinian people internationally? Who will formulate
their foreign-policy agenda? And who will be entrusted with the task
of defending or redefining their national constants -- the refugees'
right of return, the end to the Israeli occupation, preserving their
water rights, removal of all settlements, borders, etc? Will it be Abbas,
chairman of the PLO, or the elected legislative council and government?
This quandary was the cause
of distraught for my friend, and should be for anyone who wishes to
see a real and lasting peace. If any peace settlement fails to adhere
to the democratic concept, according to which Palestinians wish to govern
themselves, then Palestinians should ready themselves for another Oslo-style
agreement, imposed from the top and rubber stamped by the PLO's Executive
Committee, long-devoid of its democratic principles and dominated by
the elitist few.
I, too, am worried. The Palestinian
democratic experience should not be squandered again.
Ramzy Baroud's
latest book: "The Second Palestinian Intifada: A Chronicle of a
People's Struggle" (Pluto Press, London) is now available.