Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas is ready to “go to the White House and continue what [he] started with [US President] Donald Trump.” With this and other confusing statements Abbas tried to articulate the new Palestinian political agenda to foreign reporters in Ramallah last month.
According to Abbas the PA is ready to return to negotiations with Israel if two conditions are met: Washington is to reverse its stance on East Jerusalem thus recognising it as an occupied Palestinian city; and there is a renewed commitment to the so-called two-state solution. “I will not accept a one-state solution because one state will be an apartheid state” Abbas insisted.
Aside from the Palestinian leader’s insubstantial logic the official Palestinian discourse emanating from Ramallah these days seems oblivious to the massively changing political reality in Washington over the past two years or so. Remarks by Abbas his recently-appointed Prime Minister Mohammed Shtayyeh or other PA officials are apparently based on the logic of a bygone era one in which the US claimed however falsely to be an honest broker for peace; a period that lasted for nearly 25 years and during which PA officials benefited from the massive “peace process” racket bankrolled by the US and other countries.
However the jig is up. The PA has ceased to serve any useful purpose for the Israelis and their American benefactors apart from the continued and shameful “security coordination” aimed largely at suppressing any Palestinian resistance to Israel’s brutal occupation.
Everyone seems to acknowledge this seismic change except the PA. While failing to understand the nature of the new challenge and redeem its past mistakes the PA insists on remaining a major stumbling block to a new Palestinian strategy one that should counter relentless US-Israeli efforts aimed at circumventing international law and as a result dismissing all Palestinian rights entirely.
Listening to PA officials speak makes one wonder if they are truly aware that the language coming out of Washington has shifted unmistakably not only in its degree of bias towards Israel but also in its complete adoption of the Israeli narrative in terms of nuances religious fervor and political priorities. US officials now speak as one with members of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing extremist coalition. The following examples illustrate the new US rhetoric that requires a complete Palestinian departure from their tired and clichéd language of the past.
On 6 December 2017 Donald Trump said in a White House statement: “Jerusalem is not just the heart of three great religions but it is now also the heart of one of the most successful democracies in the world. Over the past seven decades the Israeli people have built a country where Jews Muslims and Christians and people of all faiths are free to live and worship according to their conscience and according to their beliefs. But today we finally acknowledge the obvious: that Jerusalem is Israel’s capital. This is nothing more or less than a recognition of reality. It is also the right thing to do.”
Trump’s infatuation with Israel is paralleled by complete disrespect and disregard for Palestinians. On 2 January 2018 he tweeted: “We pay the Palestinians HUNDRED OF MILLIONS OF DOLLARS a year and get no appreciation or respect. They don’t even want to negotiate a long overdue peace treaty with Israel. We have taken Jerusalem the toughest part of the negotiation off the table but Israel for that would have had to pay more. But with the Palestinians no longer willing to talk peace why should we make any of these massive future payments to them?”
US Vice President Mike Pence concurs. On 15 May last year Pence said in celebration of Israel’s independence that Trump had done more to bring the US and Israel “closer together in a year than any president in the past 70 years.” He referred to him as “the greatest defender the Jewish state has ever had.” According to Pence “President Trump made history now.”
For her part former US Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley played a major role in trying to marginalize Palestinians on the international stage. On 6 October last year she insisted that “The Palestinians are not a UN Member State or any state at all. The United States will continually point that out in our remarks at UN events led by the Palestinians.”
US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman meanwhile has the perfect blend of Pence’s religious fanaticism and Haley’s political opportunism. In an interview with the New York Times published on 8 June he said that “Under certain circumstances I think Israel has the right to retain some but unlikely all of the West Bank.”
Friedman’s open support for Israeli colonialism was matched by comments made by US Middle East “peace” envoy Jason Greenblatt two weeks later: “We might get there [to a peace deal] if people stop pretending settlements or what I prefer to call ‘neighborhoods and cities’ are the reason for the lack of peace.” He brushed aside the fact that all of Israel’s colonial-settlements are illegal under international law since they have been built on Palestinian land under Israeli military occupation since 1967.
When the PA dared to protest against such political bullying Trump’s son-in-law and top adviser Jared Kushner lashed out on 3 July at the “hysterical and erratic” Palestinian leadership. “The door is always open for the Palestinian leadership… If they stop saying crazy things” he added.
According to the new American political lexicon Palestinians have absolutely no rights; international law has no relevance; and supposedly democratic Israel is a model state incapable of erring. In Washington’s la-la land there can be no room or tolerance for discussions about military occupation illegal settlements genocidal wars sieges and apartheid if they involve even the slightest criticism of Israel.
Considering America’s complete and unconditional adoption of the Israeli agenda Abbas should stop talking about negotiations and conditions. Instead he should revitalize and unite the Palestinian front to counter the US-Israeli menace and its political lackeys across the Middle East.
– Ramzy Baroud is a journalist author and editor of Palestine Chronicle. He has authored a number of books on the Palestinian struggle including ‘The Last Earth: A Palestinian Story’. Baroud has a Ph.D. in Palestine Studies from the University of Exeter and is a Non-Resident Scholar at Orfalea Center for Global and International Studies University of California Santa Barbara.
