The Crime of Secret Negotiations

by Dr. Abdul-Sattar Kassem

5/August/20134

The Palestinian negotiations with Israel are, in their entirety, a crime and an assault on the Palestinian homeland and the fixed national rights of the Palestinian people, because from the outset they were not built on foundations and elements capable of wresting even a limited part of the Palestinian rights. The negotiations set out from a position of supplicating Palestinian weakness, whose bearer, the Palestinian, imagined at best that hostile outside powers might pressure the Zionist entity into relinquishing a little of its endless demands.

The secret negotiations with the Zionists began through European and American states at the beginning of the 1970s, and the leadership of the Palestine Liberation Organization kept this channel entirely separate from other activities, and hidden from the various Palestinian factions. And when the Madrid negotiating process began, the PLO chose a secret negotiating track running parallel to the semi-public negotiating track for which Washington was the stage.

Secrecy Serves the Powerful

The powerful usually insist on the secrecy of negotiations because they exert a wide variety of pressures on the weak and do not wish these to be made public. The pressures of the powerful include warning, menace, threat, insult, and abuse, and if such pressures were to reach the media they would place the powerful in deeply embarrassing human, moral, and international positions, and would bring them negative negotiating and media consequences. Alongside threatening the members of delegations, heads of state, and organizations, the powerful practice enticement and seduction, offering money and women to delegation members, as well as various privileges such as tourist trips and holidays, and so on, in order to obtain what they want. The powerful also pursue campaigns and schemes to manufacture good popular impressions of the negotiators among their own peoples, so as to give them false confidence and keep them making concessions. The powerful possess strong and far-reaching media, and are able to bestow descriptions of genius and outstanding negotiating skill upon the weak negotiators.

How many an Arab leader — an agent and a traitor — has the Western media described as clever, seasoned, and charismatic (inspirational), with illusions of professionalism, resolve, and firmness, in order to market him to the Arab people? And in most cases, peoples are deceived by what is said in the media, and do not wake up to the lying and deception until after the axe has already split the skull.

The Palestinian Negotiator and Secrecy

I had understood since the 1970s that the Palestinian leadership was leading the Palestinian people to the abyss, and I spoke and wrote about this subject at length, but the conditions of that stage left no room for balanced thinking about our leaderships. What I mean is that I understood that the entire negotiating project was not Palestinian, and could never lead to the Palestinians obtaining any part of their fixed national rights. The negotiations, from their beginning until now, have moved in the direction of:

Establishing a Palestinian Authority that provides security and administrative services to Israel, and that remains, in its entirety, under Israeli security and military domination. This is something Israel has accomplished.

Manufacturing internal and external conditions that lead to the social and moral tearing apart of the Palestinian people, such that the people is transformed into mere individuals, each searching for his own private interests, so that national rights dissolve and consumerist concerns rise in their place. This is something we live with now, in the sharp retreat of national values in favor of consumerist values, and the evaporation of national culture in favor of a culture of the salary. This circle has not yet closed, but it is on its way, and the matter ultimately depends on the Palestinian people, who hold the decision to rebel or to submit.

Even if we assume the good faith of the Palestinian negotiator, accepting the preservation of the secrecy of the negotiations is sheer foolishness and ignorance. Publicity in negotiations is a point of strength for the weak and a point of weakness for the powerful, and the minutes of the negotiating sessions ought to be released to the public so that the world may hear and see, and so that the Zionist side may be cornered in the media before the whole world. Accepting the secrecy of the negotiations serves Israel and spares it the trouble of the media, and the scrutiny of democracy and human-rights organizations.

The Necessity of Public Negotiations

As I began: there is no trust to be placed in negotiating sessions built on weakness. Strength is the single most important element in any negotiating process, and its absence means losing the negotiating table altogether. Whoever negotiates from a position of weakness has, in effect, already decided in advance that he will make concessions. This was evident when the Authority decided to halt the negotiations, suspending them publicly for three years without doing anything to confront settlement construction, and without asking anyone’s opinion on how settlement construction might be confronted, while at the same time continuing security coordination with the Zionists. This is conclusive proof of an insistence on weakness, not merely its perpetuation.

In any case, publicity in the negotiations is necessary because:

The Palestinian negotiator is a complete failure, and all he has done over the years is meet Israel’s requirements, while proving utterly incapable of fulfilling any of the promises he made regarding Palestinian national rights.

The Palestinian negotiator is ignorant of the art of negotiation, and needs lessons in diplomacy and negotiating skill.

As I observe, most people have lost all trust in negotiating and in the negotiations, and have lost trust in the negotiators. And it is clear that the bluster and bombast of Palestinian officials on television screens, about their great capabilities and their future plans for achieving accomplishments, is met by people with nothing but mockery and ridicule.

Most people believe that those who speak in the name of the Palestinian people have benefited materially and in status, and that the negotiating nonsense taking place is nothing but investment projects from which its owners reap benefits at the expense of this displaced people, whom doubt and suspicion have eaten away at from every side, just as the continuous Zionist assaults have done.

But how much longer shall we wait, O people?

Source: Translated from the original Arabic, “جريمة المفاوضات السرية” by Dr. Abdul-Sattar Kassem.