- 7 كانون الثاني 2018
- أقلام مقدسية
By: Walid Salem
After the American 6th of December Decision regarding Jerusalem, followed in the beginning of this year by the Israeli Knesset resolution regarding the preservation of the” United Jerusalem as the capital of Israel”, and the Likud decision to annex West Bank to Israel.
Also, in the eve of the upcoming Israeli Govermemt resolution( this week), to resume building Israeli Settlements in all West Bank territory without exceptions, and in the eve of the Israeli Knesset upcoming discussion to the law of “ Greater Jerusalem”.
Besides that,in the preparation for the PLO Central Council meeting of the 15th of January:
The following ideas represent more or less the discussions and the statements made by different Palestinian personalities and factions.
First among these ideas is the one to do with reconsidering all the Palestinian political, economic and security relations with Israel, including the commitments to Oslo agreements. Some went further to call for the withdrawal of the PLO recognition of Israel as much as it does not recognize the Palestinian State.
Secondly, there are all those set of ideas for further internationalization such as calling for a new UN Security Council Resolution that recognizes Palestine in 1967 borders, seek more states recognition of Palestine, joining additional UN organizations, ask for international protection, submit more cases to the international Criminal Court, Request membership of Palestine in the UN, activate the international Court of Justice 2003 resolution regarding the illegitimacy of the separation wall, and Finally call for an international conference that will be facilitated by a new international body that bypass the United State since the latter became completely biased after its declaration to move the American Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem in the 6th of last December.
Thirdly, there is the Palestinian responsibilities, including the complition of the national reconciliation, promoting civic resistance to the occupation,and declaring Palestine as a state under occupation.
Fourthly and last, asking the Arabs and others to decalare clearly East Jerusalem as the capital of Palestine Andy that their embassies to Palestine will be located in Jerusalem, ask the Arab coutries who have diplomatic relations with Israel to cut these relations, and ask the other Arab countries not to create additional normal relations with Israel. Some went further by asking for the withdrawal of Arab financial assets from the United States, cancel all purchases including the weapons purchases from it, ask the American Ambassadors to the Arab and the Islamic countries to leave, and reject clearly the American mediation in the Israeli Palestinian conflict, including rejecting to meet any American envoy visiting the region.
Each of these ideas have a price, and many of them are dependent on the readiness and the willingness of others to do them. More importantly many of them
are incapable to stop the Israeli procedures in the ground, nor capable to stop the Americans from taking further steps such as stopping the American support to the UNRWA signalling the will to cancel the right of return of the Palestinian refugees, or going ahead to support the Israeli settlement expansion, and taking the “ Jerusalem issue of the negotiations table” as President Trump already tweeted two days ago.
Therefore what is the way out?.
It is no doubt that the Palestinian problem entered a new stage towards the unilateral imposition of the Israeli one state solution in the ground with an American support. Such imposition will need the change of our starting point of responding in order to be able to acheive our national independence . So far we are responding politically and diplomatically, and to the lesser extent in the ground. This need to change. The lesson of the South African success in the 1990’s tells that for the diplomatic to succeed , there will be a need for pressure from the ground. Such a pressure can be made effective if we transcend the limit of our struggle in the ground to days of rage, and to expand it alternatively to include creative practical, political, diplomatic, economic and developmental , and legal aspects that we also ask the peoples and the governments of the world also to join, as explained in my former article in Akhbar Al Balad.
Shall the upcoming meeting of the PLO Central Council lead us in that direction?.
