PALESTINE'S MOMENT OF RECKONING: ON ABBAS' DANGEROUS DECISION TO 'POSTPONE' ELECTIONS

7 May 2021

Palestine’s Moment of Reckoning: On Abbas’ Dangerous Decision to ‘Postpone’ Elections

by Ramzy Baroud

Photograph Source: U.S. Department of State – Public Domain

The decision on April 30 by Palestinian Authority President, Mahmoud Abbas, to ‘postpone’ Palestinian elections, which would have been the first in 15 years, will deepen Palestinian division and could, potentially, signal the collapse of the Fatah Movement, at least in its current form.

Unlike the last Palestinian parliamentary elections in 2006, the big story, this time, was not the Fatah-Hamas rivalry. Many rounds of talks in recent months between representatives of Palestine’s two largest political parties had already sorted out much of the details regarding the now-canceled elections, which were scheduled to begin on May 22.

Both Fatah and Hamas have much to gain from the elections; the former relished the opportunity to restore its long-dissipated legitimacy as it has ruled over occupied Palestinians, through its dominance of the Palestinian Authority, with no democratic mandate whatsoever; Hamas, on the other hand, was desperate to break away from its long and painful isolation as exemplified in the Israeli siege on Gaza, which ironically resulted from its victory in the 2006 elections.

It was not Israeli and American pressure, either, that made Abbas betray the collective wishes of a whole nation. This pressure coming from Tel Aviv and Washington was real and widely reported, but must have also been expected. Moreover, Abbas could have easily circumvented them as his election decree, announced last January, was welcomed by Palestinians and praised by much of the international community.

Abbas’ unfortunate but, frankly, expected decision was justified by the 86-year-old leader as one which is compelled by Israel’s refusal to allow Palestinians in Jerusalem from taking part in the elections. Abbas’ explanation, however, is a mere fig leaf aimed at masking his fear of losing power with Israel’s routine obstinacy. But since when do occupied people beg their occupiers to practice their democratic rights? Since when have Palestinians sought permission from Israel to assert any form of political sovereignty in occupied East Jerusalem?

Indeed, the battle for Palestinian rights in Jerusalem takes place on a daily basis in the alleyways of the captive city. Jerusalemites are targeted in every facet of their existence, as Israeli restrictions make it nearly impossible for them to live a normal life, neither in the way they build, work, study and travel nor even marry and worship. So it would be mind-boggling if Abbas was truly sincere that he had, indeed, expected Israeli authorities to allow Palestinians in the occupied city easy access to polling stations and to exercise their political right, while those same authorities labor to erase any semblance of Palestinian political life, even mere physical presence, in Jerusalem.

The truth is Abbas canceled the elections because all credible public opinion polls showed that the May vote would have decimated the ruling clique of his Fatah party, and would have ushered in a whole new political configuration, one in which his Fatah rivals, Marwan Barghouti and Nasser al-Qudwa would have emerged as the new leaders of Fatah. If this scenario were to occur, a whole class of Palestinian millionaires who turned the Palestinian struggle into a lucrative industry, generously financed by ‘donor countries’, risk losing everything, in favor of uncharted political territories, controlled by a Palestinian prisoner, Marwan Barghouti, from his Israeli prison cell.

Worse for Abbas, Barghouti could have potentially become the new Palestinian president, as he was expected to compete in the July presidential elections. Bad for Abbas, but good for Palestinians, as Barghouti’s presidency would have proven crucial for Palestinian national unity and even international solidarity. An imprisoned Palestinian president would have been a PR disaster for Israel. Equally, it would have confronted the low-profile American diplomacy under Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, with an unprecedented challenge: How could Washington continue to preach a ‘peace process’ between Israel and the Palestinians, when the latter’s president languishes in solitary confinement, as he has since 2002?

By effectively canceling the elections, Abbas, his benefactors and supporters were hoping to delay a moment of reckoning within the Fatah Movement – in fact, within the Palestinian body politic as a whole. However, the decision is likely to have far more serious repercussions on Fatah and Palestinian politics than if the elections took place. Why?

Since Abbas’ election decree earlier this year, 36 lists have registered with the Palestinian Central Elections Commission. While Islamist and socialist parties prepared to run with unified lists, Fatah disintegrated. Aside from the official Fatah list, which is close to Abbas, two other non-official lists, ‘Freedom’ and ‘Future’, planned to compete. Various polls showed that the ‘Freedom’ list, led by late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat’s nephew, Nasser al-Qudwa, and Marwan Barghouti’s wife, Fadwa, headed for an election upset, and were on their way to ousting Abbas and his shrinking, though influential circle.

Yet, none of this is likely to go away simply because Abbas reneged on his commitment to restoring a semblance of Palestinian democracy. A whole new political class in Palestine is now defining itself through its allegiances to various lists, parties and leaders. The mass of Fatah supporters that were mentally ready to break away from the dominance of Abbas will not relent easily, simply because the aging leader has changed his mind. In fact, throughout Palestine, an unparalleled discussion on democracy, representation and the need to move forward beyond Abbas and his haphazard, self-serving politics is currently taking place and is impossible to contain. For the first time in many years, the conversation is no longer confined to Hamas vs. Fatah, Ramallah vs. Gaza or any other such demoralizing classifications. This is a major step in the right direction.

There is nothing that Abbas can say or do at this point to restore the people’s confidence in his authority. Arguably, he never had their confidence in the first place. By canceling the elections, he has crossed a red line that should have never been crossed, thus placing himself and few others around him as enemies of the Palestinian people, their democratic aspirations and their hope for a better future.

Ramzy Baroud is a journalist and the Editor of The Palestine Chronicle. He is the author of five books. His latest is “These Chains Will Be Broken: Palestinian Stories of Struggle and Defiance in Israeli Prisons” (Clarity Press, Atlanta). Dr. Baroud is a Non-resident Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Islam and Global Affairs (CIGA), Istanbul Zaim University (IZU). His website is www.ramzybaroud.net

arte

The Palestinian people will forever deserve our unwavering solidarity for freedom

• Jessie Duarte
• 27 Nov 2017 01:03 (South Africa)
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Wednesday 29 November 2017 will be the 40th anniversary of the declaration of the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian people. It will be the 70th anniversary of Resolution 181-2 and the 50th anniversary of the Six-Day War. As we commemorate these anniversaries, we must ask ourselves as a people who suffered oppression and as an international community, whether what we are paying to the people of Palestine is mere lip service.

Resolution 181-2. This is one of the many resolutions adopted by the United Nations but violated by the State of Israel. In sum, the resolution adopted a plan for the partitioning of the land of Palestine into the Jewish State of Israel and the Arab State of Palestine. The plan also suggested a special recognition of the city of Jerusalem which would serve as a capital for both the Israeli and Palestinian states.

The resolution was adopted in 1947. Thirty years later, in 1977, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian people on the day that Resolution 181-2 was adopted, 29 November. The Assembly did so because it recognised that 30 years later, Palestinians were nowhere close to having a state of their own. In fact, 10 years after the Six-Day War of 1967, the lot of Palestinians was worse and Israel continued to violate international law.

Wednesday 29 November 2017 will be the 40th anniversary of the declaration of the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian people. It will be the 70th anniversary of Resolution 181-2 and the 50th anniversary of the Six-Day War. The Six-Day War itself had direct devastating effects as, among others, Israel occupied East Jerusalem and the West Bank while over 300,000 Palestinians fled the West Bank. Israel continues to occupy the territories, again, in violation of international law.

As we commemorate these anniversaries, we must ask ourselves, as a people who suffered oppression, and as an international community, whether what we are paying to the people of Palestine is mere lip service. We must use this day of solidarity to make bold once again the assertion by Tata Madiba that South Africa will not be free until Palestine is free.

In his address at the state banquet hosting President Yasser Arafat, the late former President Nelson Mandela noted the supporting role played by Palestinians towards the liberation of the people of South Africa despite not possessing freedom themselves. This recognition was important, alluded Madiba, as it showed the immense sacrifices that Palestinians made, even placing the liberation of others above their own.

In that same tribute to President Arafat, Tata Madiba went on to state that: “… South Africa is proud to be part of the international consensus affirming the right of Palestine to self-determination and statehood…” Yet despite these long years and anniversaries, Palestinians are nowhere near to attaining justice and the right to self-determination.

Instead, Israel has continued to violate international law, occupation continues and the brutality of the Israeli system of oppression has, rightly, been likened to apartheid. Today, there should be no doubt that Israel is an apartheid state and in the words of former Israeli Prime Minister, Ehud Barak, it is fast turning into a tyrannical, fascist one.

Despite the resolve of the Israelis and the friends in the West and, sadly, East to ensure that the quest of Palestinians is drowned out by smokescreens such as the threat Iran poses, as South Africans we must use our international muscle and clout to guarantee that we will keep Palestine firmly on the international agenda.

While the Obama administration abandoned the peace process and while the Trump administration kowtows to the whims of the Netanyahu regime, we must position ourselves in order to ensure the correction of this historical injustice despite the time that has elapsed. Now more than ever, we must ensure that the Palestinian people receive support and encouragement during this time of marginalisation. 

The National Policy Conference of the ANC in July this year, in preparation for the National Conference in December, was emphatic about the support that the ANC continues towards Palestine. The ANC reaffirmed its “unwavering steadfast commitment” towards Palestinians but expressed its disappointment in Israel’s lack of commitment towards peace. 

After debating the possibility of downgrading our embassy in Israel, the National Policy Conference recommended two options of proposals which the 54th National Conference must consider and decide upon. First, we downgrade our embassy in Israel based on the continuous violation of international law and UN resolutions by the Israelis and the ongoing building of settlements in the Occupied Territories. The second option is to shut down our embassy completely, taking or not taking into account the associated risks. 

As the ANC therefore prepares for its National Conference, South Africa’s future relations with Israel hangs in the balance and rightly so. For over two decades, South Africa has pleaded with Israelis and worked with them, together with local groups, to ensure that injustices do not continue. Yet these have gone on unabated and Palestinians are continually denied the right to return and to declare a state with East Jerusalem as its capital. 

At the same time, the ANC has also noted the importance of ensuring that Palestinian unity remains a priority as the fight for liberation and justice is intensified. The ANC’s historical relationship with the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO) and, in particular, Fatah, must not be compromised through its engagement with Hamas. In fact, evidence already suggests that Palestinians recognise the urgent need, given the current cooling down on the international front of issues pertaining to their plight, to unite. The ANC certainly would support any initiative that unites Hamas, Fatah and the larger PLO formation. 

The Policy Conference went on to propose that the National Conference adopt a resolution whereby a Global Solidarity Conference on Palestine, consisting of the liberation movements of Palestine and all other progressive international organisations who support the liberation of the Palestinian people, are invited. It is in this respect that the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian peoples becomes pertinent. 

This particular sentiment was expressed by the former president of the ANC, Comrade OR Tambo, and it is fitting, as we close the year in which we celebrated his centenary, to be reminded of his words, when, sharing the stage with Yasser Arafat, he said: 

“… the unconditional upholding of the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination must be an essential condition for a comprehensive settlement of the Middle East conflict, including Israeli withdrawal from occupied Arab territories and the security of all states in the region, including the state of Israel.”

There will be no peace in the Middle East, no secure and prosperous Israel, without a secure and prosperous Palestine. No justice, no peace. DM

Jessie Duarte is Deputy Secretary-General of the ANC 

Jessie Duarte

WEEKEND EDITION COUNTERPUNCH JULY 18 2014

It’s Money, Not Blood

Is Israel’s Operation Protective Edge Really About Natural Gas?

by TASCHA SHAHRIARI-PARSA

While many articles have debunked the myth that Israel is acting out of “self-defense,” very few have attempted to establish why Israel is continuing its assault on Palestine through Operation Protective Edge, aside from the supposition that Zionists have a fanatic penchant for drawing Palestinian blood. Behind the operation, behind the mass Israeli and U.S. propaganda attempting to justify the massacre, and behind the death of every child in Gaza is a conflict rarely discussed, an imperialist conflict and a contradiction that rests on Israel’s ambitions to appropriate and profit from Gaza’s natural gas resources.

To provide some background, the natural gas issue arose in the year 2000 when British Gas (BG) discovered what they claimed to be $4 billion worth of natural gas reserves off the coast of Gaza. The Palestinian Investment Fund (PIF) and British Gas (BG) both invested in the project, with BG holding 60% of the rights. Since then, more gas has been found in the region. Michel Chossudovsky, a Canadian economist, has estimated that the amount of gas in Palestine is so grand that it could make Palestine as rich as Kuwait. In due reaction, since 2000, Israel has strengthened its maritime blockade on Gaza, denying Palestine basic rights over its territorial waters, driving away Palestinian fishing boats, and contaminating the waters so heavily from its naval attacks that the fishing industry essentially collapsed. “On its coastal littoral,” reported Peter Beaumont from Gaza several years ago, “Gaza’s limitations are marked by a different fence where the bars are Israeli gunboats with their huge wakes, scurrying beyond the Palestinian fishing boats and preventing them from going outside a zone imposed by the warships.” It is discernible that this is directly due to Israel’s appetite for Palestinian gas.

In recent years, Israel’s energy crisis has deepened, as marked by a letter by two Israeli scientists. “We believe Israel should increase its [domestic] use of natural gas by 2020 and should not export gas,” the letter reads. “The Natural Gas Authority’s estimates are lacking. There’s a gap of 100 to 150 billion cubic meters between the demand projections that were presented to the committee and the most recent projections. The gas reserves are likely to last even less than 40 years!” As the need for energy has grown in Israel, so have their ruthless attempts to seek it.

After the election of Hamas in 2006, Israel began negotiating with BG since, according to the former chief of staff of the IDF Moshe Ya’alon, the previously negotiated investment meant that a portion of the revenue could fall into the hands of Hamas and ‘threaten’ Israel. In other words, Israel wanted the gas, but they did not want part of the revenue to go to Hamas. Their solution, therefore, was to get rid of Hamas. More accurately, it is safe to affirm that Israel both desires a financially and militarily weaker opposition as well as a more subservient entity that may agree to willingly hand over its natural gas to Israeli profiteers.

Operation Cast Lead began in June 2008, at the exact same time that Israel contacted BG to discuss critical negotiations around Gaza’s natural gas. As these negotiations continued, Israel was killing 1,417 Palestinians, displacing over 50,000 Gazans and destroying over 4,000 homes through air strikes and a deadly ground invasion with the declared purpose of securing areas within the Gaza strip that rockets were fired from. In reality, it had nothing to do with the rockets, or a notion of “self defense”, considering how disproportionate the casualties were—just as they are now under operation protective edge. It was merely a means as part of Israel’s overall goal of appropriating Palestinian natural gas, both through territorial control and the failed attempt to defeat Hamas.

While Israel was fighting to get rid of Hamas, they were simultaneously supporting and negotiating with Fatah. In 2011, a new round of negotiations with Fatah completely excluded Hamas from the process; in turn, Hamas declared these talks as illegitimate. Even more shocking,wikileaks cables from December 2010 confirmed that Fatah had asked Israel to attack Hamas. Yuval Diskin, the head of Israel’s security agencyShin Bet, made comments on Israel’s desire to strengthen Fatah. “Fatah is in a very bad shape in Gaza. We have received requests to train their forces in Egypt and Yemen. We would like to get them to get the training they need, and to be more powerful, but they do not have anyone to lead them”. Before that, in 2006 after the election of Hamas, Israel authorized the delivery of “light weapons and ammunition” to armed forces loyal to Fatah.

All in all, it is clear that Fatah, heavily criticized by the People’s Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and other liberation-seeking groups in Palestine, has at least to a great extent sold itself out to Israel. It is also evident that Israel would much prefer Fatah over Hamas in negotiations on natural gas. Operation Protective Edge, very much like Operation Cast Lead, has neither anything to do with self-defense (as the right may tell us), nor is it a meaningless slaughter motivated principally by a hatred for Palestinians (as the confused left may believe). It is very clear what it is: a war driven by the hankering yet callous lust of the imperialist capital of a colonial state to expand its appropriation of Palestinian natural resources and profit at the severe expense of the Palestinian people.

While Palestine must receive the full support of people around the world in its struggle for national liberation, Israel must be unequivocally condemned for its indefensible war crimes and occupation of Palestine. It is clear that Israel’s Operation Protective Edge is a misnomer, as it should be renamed to something along the lines of Operation Capital-driven Genocide. The truth is, Israel’s brutality will continue and Palestine will never be free until the Zionist apparatuses of colonialism and occupation are dismantled once and for all.

Tascha Shahriari-Parsa is a student from Vancouver, British Columbia, who has recently found himself unable to allow an hour to pass by without seeking updates on the situation in Palestine. Angered and frustrated by the horrors of Israeli war crimes and occupation, he has been involved in Palestine-solidarity activism and does what he can to spread the truth about Palestine in his community. More generally, he is interested in the liberation of the oppressed from their oppressors across the globe and in the contradictions that necessitate such liberation.