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Mahmoud Abbas’ bombshell

Oct 06,2015 - Last updated at Oct 06,2015

For months before the current UN General Assembly session, ideas floated from Ramallah as to what Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas would do next, following the total and final collapse of his peace strategy with Israel.

No one took seriously his hints that after turning 80 he would resign his many responsibilities at the top of almost all Palestinian institutions.

Nor did anyone think his threats to abrogate the Oslo accords and end security cooperation with the occupation were serious either.

If nothing else, these threats have been uttered too many times.

There is no denying that Abbas’ approach — of abandoning all options except negotiating with a ruthless and stubborn occupier while pleading for help from powers whose only concerns are to comply with Israel’s desires — has produced only disastrous outcomes.

This futile approach encouraged Israel to hasten its colonisation of Palestinian lands and to create irreversible facts on the ground.

Abbas’ constant assurances to the Israeli occupiers that he would never allow any form of resistance, a third Intifada, economic boycott or resorting to the usual legitimate actions international law grants people under occupation to struggle for their freedom, also reassured Israel that it could conquer and plunder in peace.

Abbas stuck to his peculiar tactics despite unprecedented atrocities committed against the Palestinian people, not only in Gaza but in the West Bank as well.

Even mandatory action required by appropriate international bodies, in accordance with international law, to censure Israeli war crimes against the Palestinians was often obstructed with Palestinian help: remember the Goldstone report that was withdrawn by the Palestinians in Geneva following the Israeli attack on Gaza in 2008-2009.

The Oslo accords were primarily designed by the Israelis with the specific purpose of turning an illegal occupation into a permanent status quo.

Israel turned the occupied into servants of the occupier and created a Palestinian Authority specifically to fulfil that role.

Israel turned all the burden of the occupation over to the Palestinians, including the responsibility for repressing Palestinian resistance.

International donors financed the creation of Palestinian security forces to protect the occupier and its extremist settlers by suppressing any Palestinian move even in self-defence.

Meanwhile, these forces were unable and indeed specifically prohibited from acting to protect Palestinians from settlers who destroy their property, steal their land and even burn their children alive.

Oslo reversed the Palestinian struggle. Rather than maintaining the struggle until the Palestinian people and the Palestinian land were fully liberated, the Palestine Liberation Organisation moved into occupied Palestine to become occupied as well and to serve the occupier’s plan at the expense of its own avowed goals.

Those who dared warn that Oslo was a disaster right from the beginning were chastised as cynics and “enemies of peace”.

In hindsight, and after 20 full years of sterile negotiations that only served as a perfect smokescreen for Israel’s depletion of Palestinian rights and colonisation of their land, this stark reality hits everyone in the face.

After all the failures, Abbas has been spreading ideas about dissolving the Palestinian Authority and turning the keys over to Netanyahu, to force Israel to face its responsibilities as the occupying power.

Disbanding the PA and ending Oslo are by no means simple steps for Abbas. They could have shattering effects on the Palestinians. But such a decision could be devastating to the Israelis too.

The occupation has not only been costless for the Israelis, thanks to Oslo, it has also been a profitable business.

Israel sells billions of dollars worth of goods each year to a captive Palestinian market.

Its banks, construction and real estate companies thrive from building settlements on free land with cheap Palestinian labour.

On top of this, Israel controls all the water.

Israel, also under Oslo, collects all the taxes on behalf of the PA. It freely deducts from this money whatever it thinks it is owed, for water or electricity for which it charges Palestinians exorbitant rates.

Sometimes, Israel withholds all the money for long periods to punish the PA for doing anything Israel dislikes.

And rather than spending their own money on the people they occupy as they should, the Israelis managed to get the EU and other funders to pay for the occupation on their behalf, including paying for infrastructure mega-projects from which Israel also benefits.

In his UN speech, Abbas was vague, saying only that at some future point, the PA would no longer be bound by the existing agreements.

But what is left to wait for?

In the present dire circumstances, the only right decision Abbas could take is to hand the occupation back to Israel.

 

Nothing, as a result, would be worse than the status quo.

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