- 19 كانون الثاني 2018
- أقلام مقدسية
By : Walid Salem
Among the international responses to President Abbas speech in the opening of the PLO Central Council, I noticed that only Sergey Lavrov the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Russia showed an understanding to what Abbas said. The Europeans in the other han expressed concerns towards what they thought to be as Abbas cancellation of Oslo 1993 Declaration of Principles( DOP). At its end, the United States responded by additional steps such as cutting the support to the UNRWA.
As a matter of fact Abbas speech and the PLO Central Council resolutions that followed made the differences between the Palestinian approach and the European one more manifest.
Europe in one hand wants to continue playing it safe, by calling for the preservation of calmness, supporting the Palestinian Authority financially, and keep calling for the resumption of negotiations with the de facto lead of the United States to it. In between there are no clearly declared EU positions towards issues such as the Palestinian refugee problem, nor a decisive agreed upon position between all the EU capitals to support sustaining the Palestinian presence in area C, and in East Jerusalem, or to stand openly in support for the Palestinian non violent struggle, or to recognize the state of Palestine.
For those reasons, the EU felt that Abbas and the Central Council resolutions are threatening to their modus operandi that they are performing by paying money in one hand and call in statements to the resumption of negotiations in the other.
No body can expect yet, what this shake made by the Palestinians to the European “balance” will lead to. Till then Palestinian wise the following three Old/new options are back to heated discussion among the Palestinians since the decision of President Trump to move the American Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem in the sixth of December 2017.
The first is about declaring the end of Peace process, and going back to the path of struggle, some call to be practiced by non violent means, and others by using all means.
The second sees the global balance of power, and think that the Palestinians cannot achieve their right for self determination by national struggle. Accordingly they call for keeping the relations with the USA, and the engagement with the peace process.
Besides these two options, The position of the majority that was adopted by the PLO Central Council in its final statement was a third option representing a kind of playing in the middle between these two options. In one hand it shared the call for resistance with the first option, but made it limited to “ peaceful resistance”. While in consistency with the second option the statement kept the commitment to the Arab Peace Initiative, called for an international Conference that will implement the two states solution in the ground within a time limit. In regard to the managent of the Peace process the statement called for the coordination with other actors for that purpose, rather than the United States including Europe, Japan, China and Russia.
Besides these point the statement made a lot of calls but without mechanisms to implement them. For instance it said that the interim period is over and that Palestine will start behaving as a state in the ground without telling how this will be implemented. The same goes for the resolutions regarding freezing the security and the economic cooperations. Here also no mechanisms were presented which makes the declaration about ending Oslo to be an empty one. Finally the statement included a resolution to “put the relations with Israel on hold” till Israel will recognize the State of Palestine, stop settlement expansion, and cancel its decision to annex Jerusalem to Israel. This decision in between was an alternative to cutting these relations with Israel as Hamas and the left wing PLO organizations called for.
Therefore the resolutions are: we want to go back to peaceful resistance, but at the same time we are still searching for the revival of the peace process within a new framework. We do not want the USA mediation, but we will look for other international mediators.
These kind of ambiguous and indecisive resolutions are results to the fact that are determining the international actors positions these days, and the willingness of the Palestininas of not to get in trouble with other states rather the the USA and Israel. This is something that Europe need to understand and therefore to be able to see the balance in the PLO Central Council resolutions between PLO need to keep its international relations in one hand and to preserve the Palestinian needs in the other hand.
The other Central Council resolutions are mostly empty as well, due also to the prevailing facts in the international politics, therefore no international protection to the Palestinians is foreseen, nor UN membership to Palestine, while the membership in further international organizations is still possible, and also as well the possibility of submitting cases against Israel to the International Criminal Court.
Real politics and interests are running the international theatre regarding Palestine rather than ethics about independence, the right to struggle and the right of self determination.
If a change to ethical politics will take place, it will then start by adopting a policy to make Palestine emerge in the ground by creating Palestinian facts in the ground mainly in area C and East Jerusalem, rebuilding Gaza, Create dignified life to the Palestinian refugees, support the Palestinian non violent struggle, and collectively recognize the State of Palestine.
