May 06, 2014
The
collapse of the American-mediated Palestinian-Israeli negotiations last week
ushers in a period of uncertainty that will most likely be dominated by many
unilateral moves, combined with appropriate threats and warnings from all
sides. The Palestinians are in the most difficult position, given their
relative weakness militarily, their fragmentation politically, and their
vulnerability economically. Yet this moment is also an opportunity for the
Palestinians on three important fronts: national unity, coordinated political
resistance, and mobilizing international support.
The
absolute requirement for Palestinians now is to reconstitute a minimum of
national unity, which goes well beyond implementing the Fateh-Hamas
reconciliation agreement. The Fateh-Hamas agreement aims to form a technocratic
national unity government that will in turn supervise new elections in the
Palestinian Authority (PA) regions. This is an important first step, but full
national unity requires more.
The
critical need is to revitalize the institutions of the Palestine Liberation
Organization (PLO) that have been moribund since the Oslo agreements gave birth
to the PA two decades ago. The PLO has always been the sole legitimate
representative of the Palestinian people as a whole, because it is the vehicle
through which Palestinians engage the world diplomatically (including its
non-member observer state status at the UN) and the forum in which Palestinians
express their views and seek to achieve national consensus.
A unified
and coherent Palestinian people represented by a single, democratic and
consultative body like the PLO would be able to overcome the inherent
weaknesses of being scattered around the world. In fact, they can turn their
fragmentation into an asset, by using the PLO to adopt a series of political
strategies that fall into the category of national resistance to the continuing
dangers posed by Zionism and the state of Israel—dangers that will be quickly
and dramatically manifested in the months ahead by probable Israeli plans to
annex unilaterally more occupied lands in the West Bank-Jerusalem area.
The
Palestinians now need to agree on a division of responsibility among their
people across the region and the world in order to implement more diligently
that range of coordinated political action and national resistance strategies
that they have been using in an uncoordinated and episodic manner to date.
These options include:
a.
Diplomatic negotiations, which have failed for many decades but cannot be
dropped from the political toolkit, especially if a more credible mediator than
the United States appears on the scene.
b.
State-building in areas under Palestinian control, which was promoted by former
Prime Minister Salam Fayyad without leading to any diplomatic advances, but
should be continued because state-building is good for the Palestinians in its
own right.
c. Joining
international organizations to give the PLO greater global diplomatic clout in
its bid to gain more rights under law for the Palestinian people, whether under
occupation or as refugees in Arab countries, and also to use available legal
measures to stop or reduce ongoing Israeli actions against Palestinians like
colonization, assassination, annexation, imprisonment, siege, and others.
d. Mass
non-violent civil disobedience by Palestinians everywhere on earth (inside
Israel, in occupied lands, in Arab countries and around the world) could be
used effectively to simultaneously dramatize Israeli oppressive, inhuman and
illegal measures, enhance the sense of common action by the scattered
Palestinian community, and harness international support.
e.
Promote the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement globally as the
international arm of a non-violent resistance movement, which is already
drawing steady support from mainstream organizations around the world.
f.
Another uprising, or intifada, in the occupied Palestinian lands, which is
likely to have limited impact in light of the first two uprisings in recent
decades.
g. Armed
resistance, which has been tried in many forms and has never achieved the
desired goals of forcing Zionism and Israel to come to terms with the
legitimacy of Palestinian national rights, suggesting that massive non-violent
political resistance through a unified Palestinian national effort, backed by
international support, is much more likely to succeed.
The third
requirement now is to utilize a combination of the above options to mobilize
significant international support for the Palestinian national cause, which
already enjoys widespread support around the world—but that support has never
been effectively channeled into a clear diplomatic strategy. The growing
support for the BDS movement around the world indicates the huge potential
here, especially as unilateral Israeli measures increasingly see Israel’s
treatment of Palestinians described in parallel with Apartheid South Africa.
This
dangerous moment for the Palestinians also includes new possibilities for
productive advances in the peaceful quest for national rights for the
Palestinians, and peace, justice and legitimacy for all in the region,
including Israel. Let us hope that the Palestinian leadership behaves more
intelligently and responsibly than it has in similar historical junctures in
the recent past, and embarks on a nationally coordinated political resistance
strategy that would be widely supported by Palestinians, Arabs and people of
good will around the world.
Rami G. Khouri is Editor-at-large of The Daily Star, and Director of the Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs at the American University of Beirut, in Beirut, Lebanon. On Twitter: @ramikhouri.
Copyright © 2014 Rami G. Khouri—distributed by Agence Global