Al-Jazeera: Analyses, 24 Jan 08
Palestine Under the Burden of “Appeasement”
Abdullah Al-Hassan (Syrian)
- The Phenomenon of Appeasement
- Removal of Obstacles
- A Plan to Produce Two Models
- An Institutional Disaster
- The Right of Return Traded for the Dollar
The institutions of the Palestinian Authority have embraced the complete removal and discarding of the trio of “struggle, liberation and return” which has governed the path of the Palestinian nationalist movement since 1965, and has distinguished Palestine on the international map, in exchange for a new trio, which is—“money, fuel and grain”. This trio derives its definitions from the dictionary of neo-liberalism, where there is no society or nation and which sees the individual human as only a biological entity, a consumer, and paints the Palestinian as a “cosmopolitan” human detached from any national belonging—as was the Jewish situation in the Middle Ages—and thus deepen the Zionist presumption that there is no such thing as the Palestinian people.
And therefore what exists on the land of Palestine is only a human surplus on “Aritz Israel”. But with this there are conditions which much be met, and the most notable without doubt is the smiting of the nationalist Palestinian resistance movement. This will be facilitated by equipping and putting together a civic trend in the form of “modernist” leaderships under the cover of “technocracy” and the absence of the features of resistance in their diverse forms and programs. The peace of appeasement of the prime minister of the government running affairs in Ramullah plays the role of the midwife in this plan.
Phenomenon of Appeasement
And some analysts have come to say that a peace of appeasement is not only a Palestinian prime minister desired by the West, but it is also a “phenomenon of appeasement” born in the context of the Western American European Zionist view to eliminate the Palestinian cause.
This is to be done by demolishing the Palestinian political organization and re-ordering it in a way that removes the option of resistance from the Palestinian situation, “civilizing” and “internationalizing” it, and carrying the bloody, corrupt cycle from the Authority to the people by destroying the idea of citizenship and societal belonging; and aborting the social contract built upon liberation and return, and ripping apart the social fabric in exchange for the idea of population and groups.
Added to this is the exchange of the policies of economic and social planning for two forms of “new policies”: funds for aid and small programs, and marginal markets on one hand and the black market to launder money on the other. In this way the end of the ideology is accomplished by announcing the end of the policy, and starting from there the elimination of the popular movement.
And it appears that a part of this role could be played by non-governmental organizations, for these organizations, as is well-known, are programmed to take the role of the unions and political movements, and the rest of the powers of the civil society.
This explains the great interest which the American and Zionist intelligence circles have taken in the activities of these organizations, but what causes deep worry is the mentality of internalizing the acceptance of what the enemy wants.
Appeasement has been taking over political and social pillars, and among the first of these is the “Forum of Palestine” which was founded by the Palestinian millionaire Maneeb Al-Masry, with its economic and cultural personnel and its obvious message.
Removal of Obstacles
Appeasement, with its special trio which came in the place of the nationalist Palestinian trio, calls for the removal from the Palestinian sphere of any obstacles which oppose the path to substituting its trio. And it has taken the necessary steps for this, since it has taken over the mission of the government which runs affairs in Ramullah, and the first of these steps was the announcement that the resistance movements were “outlaw militias”.
And as the appeasement government was explaining this announcement in reality a security forces made up of 500 security men entered, with Zionist agreement last November, into the capital of the Intifadah and the resistance, the city of Nablus, to deprive the members of the resistance of their arms and to compel them to sign agreements to halt their military activities against the occupation.
On top of that the appeasement government took another stop along the same road by announcing an operation to dry up the financial resources of the Palestinian resistance, which translated into the closing of 103 Palestinian family societies in the West Bank. It followed this with another step which was closing the alms-giving committees in the West Bank under the same excuse, and reforming them as 11 groups under the control of the government of appeasement.
It is worth indicating that these decisions came at the same time that the Zionist army announced the formation of a new unit whose mission is monitoring and following all the civic institutions associated with Hamas in the West Bank, with the goal of eliminating them and bringing their officials before the courts under the accusation of “terrorism”.
And there is no doubt that this destruction is planned for the institutions of Palestinian family society, and the marginalization of the values of social solidarity which the Palestinian people has relied upon in confronting the humiliations and difficulties and indeed for its ability to go on; and thus make it hostage to the policies of the countries donating aid, in this way opening the way for American and European-finance non-government organizations to impose their values and priorities in the place of the values of Palestinian nationalism.
The Plan to Produce Two Models
The government of the peace of appeasement tries, with a focus on international support, to produce two models for Palestinian life, each one of them serving a political method and purpose: the model of “miserable” Gaza and the model of the “prosperous” West Bank.
This has appeared clearly in the text of the “Plan for Growth and Reform” which the appeasement government offered to the conference of Palestinian authority donor nations in Paris.
In spite of the appeasement government seeing in the plan job opportunities in four growth trajectories, economic experts are of the opinion that the plan lacks the philosophy and goals and message of growth. In addition to this it calls the Palestinians of the Gaza Strip “Gazans”, which is considered a racist distinction.
In the same way the plan studies interaction with the Strip while considering it a separate, blockaded entity, which cannot be worked with except from an entirely humanitarian standpoint as some countries sympathize with the Palestinian people, and send it material assistance.
The president of the “Bak Thant Center for Strategic Studies”, economic expert Omar Shaaban, has said that the plan works as if the division between the West Bank and Gaza will continue for three years, which is the duration of the plan, which does not offer alternatives in the case of Gaza returning to unity with the Bank.
Just as businessman Ala’addin Al-Araj is of the opinion that the plan gives the international community an excuse to cease support to the nearly 40% of the Palestinian people who are residents of the Strip, or to delay this support, or to substitute other areas for it, such as the West Bank.
And this means strangling the Gaza Strip, the plan instead of the placing the blame clearly on the Zionist occupation, seems in some of its words to exonerate these proceedings, seeing that it dies not mention the settlements or the wall of separation and Judaization.
And it is worth mentioning that the plan is nothing more than the result and the translation of the demands and the recommendations of the World Bank which it gave to the Palestinian Authority in 2005.
It is noticeable in the case that the “Growth and Reform” plan determined the requested funds during the three years 2008-2010 at 5.6 billion dollars, which will not be given out of the goodness of [their] hearts.
The donor countries and entities are made up of more than 90 countries and groups who are not charitable organizations, but who have goals and interests, which can be seen by confirming that the implementation of the plan is dependent on the stability of the security situation.
In one meaning or another these funds are nothing more than the bill for the requested civil war between the Palestinians and the ascendancy of “primordial chaos” in accordance with the logic of “the Goyems kill the Goyems” as Menahim Beigan said the morning of the massacres of Sabra and Shateela.
Institutional Disaster
It is not possible in any case to describe the “Growth and Reform Plan” as a coincidence, seeing that it is one of a string of “institutional” disasters which were founded for wide-spread destruction on all levels: political and social and cultural and psychological, taking us from teetering on the edge of the abyss to falling into it.
And the most dangerous in all of this is the collapse of the moral and human dimensions of the most just cause that humanity has ever known, and with it tearing down the legitimacy of the cause and scattering the gains of the Palestinian struggle.
With respect to what it offers, we can point to the social trend which has begun to tear at the national fabric through the coupling of political and tribal association and what it has brought in terms of the tyranny of the culture of rage and personal revenge.
This is the situation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip under the cruelty of the Zionist blockade and appeasement.
The Right of Return in Exchange for the Dollar
The worst feature of the trio of appeasement is the translation of the historical and national rights of the Palestinian people, specifically the right of return of the refugees, into economic vessels totaling up to nearly 90 billion dollars, as was given in the text of the “Iks Document” released by the “International Israeli-Palestinian Group” on the eve of Annapolis.
It is worth mentioning that the mentioned group was formed five years ago on the initiative of the Moroccan-born Jewish-French Professor Zailbar Bakhoun, and received funding from the European Union and the World Bank and sources in Marseilles and southern France, in coordination with “Paris for Peace” and the “Data” academy for studies in Bethlehem, and the “Paul Susan” league in Marseilles.
The Document relied on data attributed to the “Onroe” indicating that the number of refugees in 2006 reached 4.4 million, 1.3 million of them in refugee camps mostly in Jordan and Syria and Lebanon and the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. 1.7 million refugees live in the areas of the Palestinian Authority, 555,000 of them in camps.
The document based its description of the solution on a view dependent on the sovereignty of the affected nations, in other words “Israel and Palestine”. The document added that at first glance the economic and financial measurements to implement an agreed-upon solution to the cause of the refugees seems to be fantastical, but that in comparison with the alternatives, and taking into consideration that it would be carried out over 10 years and be covered with generous international aid, the mission is not impossible. The total would come to between 55 and 85 billion dollars, according to the reckoning of the group.
According to the economic calculations of the group the complete total is somewhere between 15 and 30 billion dollars. Therefore the group recommends the creation of a fourth fund, needing 22 billion dollars, in order to compensate the refugees, without any consideration of the value of property or other items, with each registered refugee receiving five thousand dollars.
It is worth mentioning that last October Olmert’s government appropriated 100 million dollars with the aim of marketing a plan to cross out the right of return for the refugees, based on three principles:
1 – Resettlement of the Palestinian refugees in their host nations.
2 – The elimination of the camps.
3 – The creation of a strategic cooperation with Jordan, so that they can participate in managing the West Bank, while the sovereignty would remain with the Zionist entity.
And granting credibility to what he put forth is that the President of the Palestinian Authority Mahmoud Abbas showed some response to the Zionist desire to eliminate the right of return even before the Annapolis meeting. This is what the Maareef newspaper indicated saying: “Mahmoud Abbas will not push for the inclusion in any future agreement with Israel text which refers to the return of the refugees to their homes and properties.”
And the newspaper carried word for word Abbas’s statement to Eihoud Olmert in the sixth meeting between them: “When did you hear me demand the right of return to Israel, when we are demanding the right of return to Palestine? And where is this Palestine which we will agree upon?”
If Oslo took away the Palestinian land, then appeasement will take away Palestinian humanity if it meets with success and continuation, thus accomplishing the Zionist dream which Golda Mayer said that day: “There is no Palestinian people.”
Analysis:
The author makes a complex case against the policies of the current Palestinian Fatah administration, rich in facts, figures, and erudite references to history. As he does not consider either the Fatah prime minister or his government to be legitimate, he refers to them simply as “the prime minister of the government which runs affairs in Ramullah”. Mahmoud Abbas is the elected Palestinian President, so the author does refer to him by name and title, though certainly not in otherwise favorable terms. Also not considering the Jewish state to be legitimate, the author refers to Israel as the “Zionist entity” and makes no references to “Israeli land” during his discussion of the issues.
The main thrust of the article is that Israel and its backers want the Palestinians to give up the right of return to their homes and properties inside Israel, that Israel is manipulating Palestinian politics to produce a favorable result, and that European-backed NGOs are designed to remove the need for social organizations run by resistance organizations—all points which, looking at sources from both sides of the conflict, appear to be accurate. It is not a surprise that the author links the participation of the international community to the drive for a compromise peace solution, and indeed this is accurate—what is not as verifiable is the author’s claim that this participation is responsible for the disintegration of the Palestinian social fabric and a descent into violent crime and blood feuds. The author’s statement that Israel denies the existence of a real Palestinian people is also accurate, and he is correct when he says that Israel seeks to abort the Palestinian national spirit, insofar as that spirit depends on continued violent resistance.
The implied backdrop for all the author’s statements is that Israel has negotiated in bad faith since the first Oslo agreement and that peace negotiations have only brought the Palestinians more ruin and humiliation—points which are still a topic of public debate. The author speaks from his viewpoint. He sees Mahmoud Abbas as a Zionist tool—others may see him as a courageous leader.