Friday, September 19, 2014
Donors will fail Gaza again
By Nicola Nasser*
On 12 October, Cairo
is due to host a conference, sponsored and chaired by Egypt and Norway ,
of international and Arab donors for the reconstruction of Gaza
This means that the donors who attend the
upcoming Cairo
Meanwhile, the Palestinian people under blockade in
Fulfilment of the donors’ old/new pledges is still contingent politically on the imposition of the status quo in the West Bank on
Even should these conditions be met, the donors’ fulfilment of their pledges will remain contingent on the Palestine Liberation Organisation’s (PLO) continued commitment to negotiations as its sole strategy, and to the agreements that led to the creation of the Palestinian Authority (PA).
All the evidence indicates that the PLO and the PA have spearheaded the battle to impose the donors’ conditions on their behalf. Beneath the rubric of “legitimacy”, “the national project” and “the single central authority” that “alone holds the powers to make decisions on war and peace,” the PLO and PA have demonstrated that they are ready to abide by the donors’ political conditions.
The irony is that Israel
has never met the conditions it compelled the donors to impose, not just in
order to proceed with the reconstruction of Gaza
Currently, the occupation authorities are threatening to dissolve the Palestinian national reconciliation government if it does not assert its full authority over
However, all the evidence also indicates that the resistance is there to stay in
The only possible way to read all of the foregoing, and other facts, is that the reconstruction of Gaza under such conditions and circumstances will be deferred until further notice and that deferring reconstruction and linking it to a process of cloning the West Bank model in Gaza is actually a strategy that paves the way for yet another invasion of Gaza.
It is also a fact that reconstruction needs in
A recent report by the Palestinian Economic Council for Development and Reconstruction (PECDAR) estimates that it will cost around $8 billion to rebuild what was destroyed during the last Israeli attack on
Clearly, the reconstruction of Gaza requires a new Palestinian strategy, one that draws a line between the grants donors offer and their political conditions, and that rejects once and for all any Palestinian commitment to those degrading conditions that, as the years since the so-called “peace process” began have proven, have brought more destruction than construction, and have served as the chief incubator of Palestinian divisions and not brought even a minimum degree of national benefit.
At the same time, any new government that emerges from a national partnership must embrace resistance against the occupation. The current national reconciliation government, with its six-month term and its principle tasks of preparing for presidential and legislative elections, is by definition an interim government and is not qualified to shoulder heavy and long-term burdens such as the reconstruction of Gaza and securing the end of the blockade.
Both of these tasks are humanitarian and national goals that are higher than any political or factional disputes. Yet the Palestinian presidency’s determination to toe the line with the donors’ conditions, which make no distinction between humanitarian needs and political ends, is a strategy that fails to discriminate between national needs and factional interests. It is a strategy that protracts the humanitarian disaster in
Unfortunately, the need to separate politics — factional or otherwise — from the humanitarian issue does not appear to be on the agenda of either foreign and Arab donors, or of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, in spite of the letter he sent to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon on 30 July declaring Gaza a “disaster zone” in the grips of a “dangerous humanitarian crisis.”
This “dangerous humanitarian crisis” is the product of forms of collective punishment that were inflicted against the people of
The collective punishments that have been and continue to be visited on
To insist that Gaza’s reconstruction be linked to the reinstatement of the “full” authority of the Palestinian presidency and the PA over Gaza, and to the donors’ political conditions which, in fact, are the conditions of the occupying power, is merely another way to say that the reconstruction of Gaza should be linked to the imposition of Fatah’s factional agenda on Gaza.
It also means that civilians in Gaza are to be collectively punished for the factional disputes that Fatah has with Hamas, in which case it becomes very difficult to avoid pointing fingers of accusation at Palestinian complicity in the ongoing collective punishment of the people of Gaza, and more difficult yet to defend any possible Palestinian contribution to the perpetration of such a war crime.
As long as the current situation persists, reconstruction of
It is not too late to opt for the national alternative, which is still available given good intentions, to save the people of
This alternative entails following through on
implementation of the mechanisms for national reconciliation, activating the
unified command framework for the PLO, agreeing on a new Palestinian strategy
based on the principles of partnership and resistance, and creating a new
national unity government committed to this strategy and qualified to shoulder
such enormous tasks as the reconstruction of Gaza and lifting the blockade.
All of the foregoing requires no more than
honest introspection, the prevalence of national conscience, and political free
will.
* Nicola Nasser is a veteran Arab journalist based in
Birzeit, West Bank of the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories (nassernicola@ymail.com).
This article was first published and
translated from Arabic by Al-Ahram Weekly on September 19, 2014.
Monday, September 15, 2014
Palestinian reconciliation at crossroads
By
Nicola Nasser*
President Mahmoud Abbas and the Fatah
movement, which he commands, have unleashed a media campaign against Hamas and
the resistance. If pressure from the Palestinian public fails to stop the
campaign, Abbas may achieve politically what Israel
failed to achieve militarily: forcing the Palestinian presidency to choose
“peace with Israel
It appears that President Abbas has, indeed,
prioritised “peace with Israel
Abbas sent his negotiators — Saeb Erekat,
Majed Faraj and Maen Erekat — to Washington, where they met with US Secretary
of State John Kerry a week ago last Wednesday. US State Department spokesperson
Jen Psaki described the more than two-hour meeting as “constructive”. Abbas
then prepared to obtain an Arab mandate, which seems guaranteed in advance, for
his plans from the 142nd session of the Arab foreign ministers conference, held
in Cairo
However, US Gaza
“We don’t think there are shortcuts or
unilateral measures that can be taken at the United Nations or anyplace else
that will bring about the outcome that the Palestinian people most seek,” Power
said in a press conference last week. “To think that you can come to New York
This clearly translates into an unequivocal US
“No.” The Palestinian president’s new plan has run up against the same American
wall that Palestinian negotiators have faced since negotiations were adopted as
a strategic approach. The Zionist route remains the only way these negotiators
can access the White House and the UN Security Council.
There can be only one explanation for this
plan. It is in fulfilment of a Palestinian promise not to resist the occupation
and to offer the occupying power the opportunity to agree to yet another futile
round of negotiations. Such negotiations will give Israel
The purpose of this appropriation is to
separate the Hebron and South Bethlehem
governorates in the West Bank . It is also a
means to deflect international humanitarian pressure in reaction to Israeli war
crimes in Gaza , to evade Israel ’s obligations to the truce agreement with
the resistance in Gaza
It was not Hamas or the resistance that described Abbas’s new plan as a “spurious process”. It was independent Palestinian figures who expressed their views in a statement read out by Mamdouh Al-Akr, general commissioner of the Independent Organisation of Human Rights, on 2 September in Ramallah. They called for an urgent meeting of the unified leadership of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO), in accordance with the
Activating the unified leadership framework of the PLO will put President Abbas’s call for a “single Palestinian central authority”, uniquely empowered to “determine matters of war and peace”, into its concrete national context. Only this context can confer legitimacy on a Palestinian leadership that does not derive its authority from resisting the occupation in all forms.
Moreover, the currently missing “electoral legitimacy” is no longer sufficient in and of itself to allow Palestinian decisions on war and peace to remain in the hands of a leadership that is the product of elections that were held with the approval of the occupation power and in the framework of agreements signed with it.
The Palestinian presidency has dropped the available option of resistance from the lexicon of its negotiating strategy, let alone the option of war, which is not available. The PA, in coordination with the occupation’s security apparatus, has become “the security proxy for the occupying power, rather than an instrument to end the occupation and establish the state,” as Palestinian analyst Hani Al-Masri wrote on 26 August.
As a result, the occupying power, alone, holds the keys to the decision of war, which it continues to repeat, and to the decision of peace, which it still refuses to take.
It appears that President Abbas is working against the tide of Palestinian public opinion, as voiced in a recent survey conducted by the Palestinian Centre for Policy and Survey Research (PCPSR) in Ramallah. According to this poll, only 22 per cent of respondents supported a resumption of negotiations, while 53 per cent said they regarded resistance as “the more effective way” to realise the creation of a Palestinian state.
The results of the PCPSR poll contradict all the charges levelled by the president and Fatah against the resistance and Hamas. Of those polled, 79 per cent believe that the resistance emerged victorious from the recent war, while 86 per cent support the defensive use of rockets.
Respondents gave very low ratings to the performance of the Palestinian president, the PA, the national unity government and the PLO, while the approval rating for Hamas was 88 per cent.
What is the substance of this media campaign against Hamas? It ranges from blaming Hamas for prolonging the war and for the consequent loss of lives and material damage, to adopting the Israeli narrative regarding a Hamas-engineered “coup attempt” against the president in the West Bank and the existence of a “shadow government” in
Then there are the charges of keeping Fatah members under “house arrest”, of “opening fire on civilians”, and of “selling emergency relief on the black market.” On top of these come the accusation that Hamas has violated “the law that defines the colours and dimensions of the flag.”
President Abbas’s instructions to create a “committee to hold a dialogue” with Hamas to discuss the “fate of the national unity government,” as announced by Amin Maqboul, secretary of the Fatah Revolutionary Council, does little to encourage optimism. The national unity government, national reconciliation, the
This is because of the confrontation stirred by the systematic smear campaign that President Abbas and the Fatah movement are waging against Hamas and the resistance. The campaign has created a media smokescreen behind which the occupation authority can conceal its foot-dragging in carrying out its obligations under the truce agreement, which will probably be echoed in Israeli procrastination on continuing with truce talks due to be held in Cairo.
It should also be stressed that to accuse the resistance and Hamas of prolonging the war is to exonerate the occupation power of responsibility. The Israeli media was quick to capitalise on this, further proof of the extensive coverage the campaign has received.
Indeed, Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev virtually reiterated it verbatim when he said that the Egyptian initiative was on the table from 15 July and that while the Arab League and
The investigatory commission appointed by the UN Human Rights Council will most likely cite the president’s charges to strengthen the claims of the occupying power, as these charges would be regarded as “testimony of a witness from the other side.”
Abbas says that while the “final toll” from the most recent war in Gaza was 2,140 dead, “if added to the number of dead in previous wars, and those who died during the period of the Shalit problem, the number would be 10,000 dead and wounded, in addition to the 35,000 homes that were totally or partially destroyed.”
When Abbas says that “it would have been possible” to avert the human and material losses of the recent conflict he is effectively blaming the resistance, not the occupation, for the last war on
The spectre of discord once again hovers over Palestinian unity, with Palestinian opinion divided over a programme of negotiations versus a programme of resistance. This is the breach through which Arab and non-Arab “axes” penetrate into the Palestinian interior, deepening rather than mending Palestinian rifts.
* Nicola Nasser is a veteran Arab journalist based in Birzeit,
West Bank of the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories (nassernicola@ymail.com). This article was
first published and translated from Arabic by Al-Ahram Weekly on September 11,
2014.
