A
Case For The Palestinian Government
By Ramzy Baroud
21 April, 2006
Countercurrents.org
Responding
to successive decisions made by the US, the European Union and various
European and non-European countries to boycott the Palestinian Authority
and deprive it of urgently needed funds, Palestinian Prime Minister
Ismail Haniyeh described these dictates as both “hasty”
and “unjust”.
Hasty for the obvious reason
that the new Palestinian government has just been sworn in and is yet
to formulate any workable political program, according to which it should
be judged. In fact, the democratically elected government has made several
overtures and has provided ample evidence that it is willing to comprise
on what is perceived as an extremist political stance. The Prime Minister,
his foreign minister, Dr. Mahmoud al-Zahhar and various officials made
it uncompromisingly clear that they are willing to live in peace “side
by side” with their neighbors.
But it appears as if the
seemingly contagious boycott campaigns (which confirms beyond a shadow
of a doubt that neither the US, the EU and less significantly Canada
are truly interested in genuine Middle East democracies, nor is even-handedness
on their foreign policy agendas) were meant to impede the new government’s
attempt to alter its image through a decided political program that
might create an embarrassing political milieu for Israel.
Indeed, these boycotts (which
included less distinctly hostile countries such as Norway) were also
unjust, not only because the current Palestinian government was elected
through, according to various European observers, fairly contested and
transparent democratic elections. They were unjust because the demands
that accompanied them are unfair.
So, what’s so unfair
about forcing the Palestinian government to recognize Israel’s
right to exist?
Those truly familiar with
the disparity of power between Israel – a formidable nuclear power
- and Palestinians with their dysfunctional police apparatus must find
the notion tragically funny. It gets even more amusing when one understands
that those expected to recognize Israel’s “right to exist”
are the descendents and immediate decedents of those who have been utterly
victimized by Israel’s policies, and who continue to endure on
a daily basis the pain and hurt of Israel’s military occupation.
But is it not unjust to expect
the Palestinian government to recognize Israel who has intentionally
left its borders undefined with the hopes of robbing Palestinians of
the leftovers of the original size of their homeland - 22 percent of
the total size of Palestine?
Maybe the EU should hold
on for a few months before making such demands, enough time to allow
Israel to unilaterally determine how much it wishes to keep and how
much it wishes to spare of the Occupied West Bank, so that Palestinians
know what they are recognizing exactly.
Is it not unfair to demand
an occupied nation to recognize the same entity that has illegally expropriated
its future capital - East Jerusalem - to become part of its own “greater”
capital, in defiance of international law? Wouldn’t the PA be
recognizing Israel’s sovereignty over what Israel conceives as
part of “proper Israel” which includes much of the West
Bank and all of Jerusalem?
What’s even more sanctimonious
is demanding that the Palestinian government disown violence. Is this
some sort of crude joke that the West insists on playing on Palestinians,
keeping in mind that Hamas has religiously adhered to a self-declared
one-sided ceasefire with Israel for over a year?
Let’s juggle some hypotheses.
If the international community thinks that it is imperative that Palestinians
abandon violence and terrorist ways of resistance, is it prepared to
pressure Israel, through economic boycotts, denial of aid and travel
restrictions on its officials to end all forms of collective and individual
violence inflicted on Palestinians? More, if such pressure fails, is
it prepared to provide Palestinians with a tangible form of protection
against wanton Israeli violence, such as the most recent onslaught in
Gaza that left 15 people dead and many more wounded?
How about the third demand
that the new Palestinian government must commit to peace?
Detached from reality, the
demands look and feel both fair and legitimate. But is it not strange
that the EU and the US are too busy congratulating the victorious Kadima
party in Israel – whose victory was based on a unilateral platform
that further espouses the notion that Israel will do what it sees fit,
including the illegal annexation of large swathes of the occupied West
Bank – while at the same time it punishes the Palestinians for
allegedly disowning past commitments to peace, commitments which Israel
has openly refused to acknowledge?
Such an approach reeks with
hypocrisy.
I wish I could make a similar
declaration to that made by the courageous Jewish American lawyer, Stanley
Cohen in a recent BBC debate, where he said: “Palestinians don’t
need your money.”
True, Palestinians are too
dignified to succumb to such debasing pressure, but the reality is that
the Israeli occupation and the past corruption of the former Palestinian
government has left them broke and totally reliant on foreign assistance.
Their economy was intentionally kept with no prospects of self-reliance
precisely for a moment like this where such unwarranted pressure is
needed.
Palestinians in the Occupied
Territories are on the brink of a humanitarian disaster, being punished
for making a democratic choice that has been deemed unacceptable from
an Israeli point of view and from its benefactors elsewhere.
Palestinians should recognize
Israel, quit violence and commit to peace, but only when such demands
are equally required of Israel. Until then, they are simply unmerited.
Ramzy Baroud
teaches mass communication at Australia’s Curtin University of
Technology, Malaysia Campus. His most recent book is entitled, Writings
on the Second Palestinian Intifada: A Chronicle of a People’s
Struggle (Pluto Press, London.) He is also the editor-in-chief of the
Palestine Chronicle online newspaper.