Halting Negotiations Is Like Returning to Them

by Dr. Abdul-Sattar Kassem

News reports say that Palestinian-Israeli negotiations will resume after a public halt of roughly three years. This is merely news; we have not yet read anything in writing, nor have we heard clear statements about the text of the agreement reached by the U.S. Secretary of State with the leaders of the Palestinian Authority. It is not yet possible to analyze the content of the agreement, and we must wait until we can read it — noting that there is a possibility that nothing written will be issued on the matter at all. But the following can already be observed:

The Negotiations Never Really Stopped

Although the Palestinian side announced a halt to negotiations pending a freeze on Zionist settlement, it did not stop them entirely over the past three years. Negotiating meetings took place between Palestinians and Israelis in Jerusalem and Amman, and one of the pillars of the Palestine Liberation Organization stated that negotiations had been taking place in secret. The Palestinian side was not honest or truthful with the Palestinian people, to the point that it described the Amman negotiating meetings as merely “exploratory.”

More importantly, the Palestinian side announced a halt to negotiations, yet continued security coordination with Israel. Israel is not greatly interested in the negotiations themselves, but it is interested in security coordination, which is the essence of the agreements. Israel originally used the negotiations to turn the Palestinians into security and administrative agents of the occupation, and this is what it achieved in 1996; after that, the matter of negotiations no longer generated much interest. Security coordination means that if a Palestinian throws a stone at a settler, the Palestinian security apparatus pursues him, and administrative coordination means that when a Palestinian child is born today, the administrative apparatus sends information about the newborn — his ID number and place of birth — to the Israelis.

If the Palestinian Authority were serious about putting pressure on Israel, it would have cancelled security coordination, and then we would have seen a harsh reaction from the Israelis. But the halting of negotiations barely stirred Israel’s concern, and only for the sake of camouflage. The proof of this is that the Palestinian Authority halted the negotiations yet continued merely to watch as Israel built and expanded the settlements. Had the Authority truly been serious, it would have done something to stop the settlement drive, to frighten the settlers, or to trouble Israel. Instead, on the contrary, the Authority continued only to denounce and condemn the settlements, which reassured Israel that the Palestinians had no intention of confronting it.

Why Negotiate?

Israel and America use the negotiations for nothing more than consuming time. Since 1991, the Palestinians have not obtained any part of their national rights; all they have gotten is some money as wages for their security and administrative services to Israel. The goal is clear: to gain time in order to turn the Palestinians into mere individuals, each searching for his own private interests. This is what we have seen increasing ever since the establishment of the Palestinian Authority. People have acquired a culture of consumption, a culture of positions, swindling, fraud, and salaries, and the concern of a large share of the people has become the pursuit of private interests, without regard for the public interest or national causes.

The negotiations are used as a narcotic for the Palestinians. If America were serious about stopping the settlements, it would take measures against Israel, but instead it criticizes Israel in public while providing it with every form of military, security, political, economic, and financial support. And because we are either powerless, or conspiring against our own people, we prefer to believe America’s words rather than its actions.

They exchange kisses. In this there is a message to all Arabs: if the Palestinians, the direct owners of the cause, are sipping honey from the cheeks of the Zionists, then why, young Arabs, do you deny yourselves the warmth of a kiss — especially now that the negotiator is Tzipi Livni, who holds a religious license for adultery? America wants to soften the hostility of Arab youth toward Israel, and wants to influence them psychologically with the idea that defeat is always the Arabs’ lot, and victory always Israel’s.

Saving Face

With every low blow that America and Israel deal the Arabs and the Palestinians, the two of them work to produce something they inflate in the media so that it overshadows the underlying blow itself. This is similar to the days when the PLO recognized Israel, an act it tried to cover up by declaring statehood. It recognized Israel in 1988, and asked people to take to the streets in celebration of the declaration of the state, and the media played its part in misleading the people. People went out chanting, dancing the dabke, and handing out sweets, only to wake up afterward to no state at all.

So that the scene repeats itself — a scene which, unfortunately, passes over most of our Palestinian people, who believe it — America and Israel will take steps such as:

Providing some money to the Palestinian Authority to improve certain financial and economic conditions, especially since it is the month of Ramadan and the season of charity has arrived. This will distract people further and shift their attention from the national cause to the cause of consumption. This reflects a shameful weak point that Westerners and Israelis have found in us: that we, or no small part of us, are prepared to trade the national interest for money — indeed, to trade the homeland itself for money.

Facilitating more employment for Palestinian workers in Zionist facilities, presenting this as one of the Authority’s achievements, which leads to a revival of markets in West Bank cities. Here too lies a shameful problem: the Palestinians’ inability to develop economic projects capable of absorbing their own human productive forces, so that instead, Palestinian productive forces are put to work in the service of Israel’s interests.

The release of some detainees, with families coming out to welcome the freed. The premise here is that the prisoners made their sacrifices for national causes, and it is not permissible for them to be released at the expense of those very causes. The premise should be a Palestinian strategy to free the prisoners, not concessions made in exchange for their release.

Matters like these will be covered by the media in detail and repetition, so as to overshadow the concessions the Authority is making.

We Are Not the Decision-Makers

Whoever thinks that the Palestinian Authority possesses decision-making power, or a free will that enables it to make important decisions, is mistaken. The Authority can make minor, marginal decisions that do not affect Israel’s vital interests, but if the Authority comes close to touching anything Israel considers important to it, it meets with harsh treatment.

The matter is simple: whoever eats from another’s bounty must obey that other. America and Israel have arranged our economic and financial affairs in a way that makes us obedient tools. Whoever thinks we have a president of the Authority who can make decisions as he pleases, or a prime minister and ministers who genuinely decide matters, should reconsider his assumptions.

America kept us away from the negotiating table under certain circumstances, but it ordered a return to the negotiations once conditions changed.

The Meeting of the So-Called Leadership in Ramallah

We watched on television as leadership figures streamed into the venue of the leadership meeting in Ramallah to deliberate on resuming the negotiations, and a decision was issued by those assembled that there would be no return to negotiations except with a freeze on settlement. A number of them appeared on television screens roaring with grand words, as though they had won the battle of the green plains.

It was laughable when, about 24 hours after their historic decision, these same people were caught off guard by the U.S. Secretary of State’s announcement of the resumption of negotiations.

As I watched these men, one truth stood before me: that they could not be living in this state of bliss were it not for America’s money, and the money Israel collects and sends on to the Authority. America provides the money so that they will say yes, and whichever of them insists on saying no will find that bliss cut off from his consumerist bodily apparatus.

A measure of shame is called for, but in the end the matter rests in the hands of the people, and we, the people of Palestine, must not remain submissive, as though this homeland were not our own. The time for revolution has come.

Source: Translated from the original Arabic, “وقف المفاوضات كالعودة إليها” by Dr. Abdul-Sattar Kassem.