Dear all,
Here is a translation of the article that was published in Al Quds Al Arabi by Bari Atwan on 11 August 2007:
THE CLOSED DOOR MEETINGS OF Mr. MAHMOUD ABBAS
When Mr. Mahmoud Abbas, the Chairman of the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah, holds in Jericho three hours meetings with Ehud Olmert, the Israeli Prime Minister, and when these meetings are restricted to the two men for half the time, the agenda of these meetings must include issues of a very grave nature that require prior agreement.
Though it is difficult to ascertain what these issues are, it is not beyond reason to make an intelligent guess in respect of some of them, specially if we take into consideration the Americans' intensified moves in the area toward convening a peace conference this coming autumn and their endeavours to form an Arab-Israeli front against the Iranian/Syrian axis of evil and its extensions in Palestine (Hamas) and Lebanon (Hizbollah).
Many smoke screens are launched in the meantime to obliterate clear vision and all forms of misinformation are being implemented in order to steer through the new compromise settlement promoted with feverish pressure in order to anticipate the termination of President George Bush's second term of office. Such a settlement would assist him to concentrate more easily on the two more complicated issues, the Iraqi one with all its ancillary side issues and the Iranian nuclear problem with all the military, regional and strategic risks it entails.
Perhaps the most noticeable of these smoke screens is Mr. Abbas's repeated assertion in his press conferences of his desire to achieve in any discussions with his Israeli counterpart, Ehud Olmert, a framework agreement, rather than a declaration of principles, prior to the convening of the American peace conference scheduled for this coming autumn. This is no more than a play on words. After all, Mr. Abbas who was the promoter of the declaration of the Oslo principles is aware of the degree of revulsion that this term draws from the Palestinian people. It brings forth to their minds bitter and painful memories about the gravest deception they have been subjected to in their recent history. Hence, he has decided to introduce a new concept, that of a framework agreement, in order to delude people into thinking that this new and different route will culminate in a deal better than the infamous Oslo deal.
Unfortunately for Chairman Abbas, whose political record indicates an inclination towards dark rooms and secret negotiations, the Israelis retain no secrets and speak of their plans in a more transparent manner when the matter concerns their concept of a settlement with the Palestinians. Therefore, they have presently begun to emphasize their determination to handle the Palestinian refugees' problem at an early stage, prior to attending the peace conference next autumn. Indeed, they stipulate a prior agreement on this matter before conceding any other concessions in respect of withdrawals and the establishment of an independent Palestinian state.
The Israeli solution for the refugees issue is known and its context requires no special genius to analyze it. In brief, it requires the relinquishment of the Right of Return and the designation of the promised state as the only and ultimate destination for any Palestinian refugee. Much as the state of Israel was the solution for the return of the Jews to the Promised Land, so stands the Palestinian state as the solution for the return of the Palestinians to their fatherland.
The elimination of the Right of Return will be included in the framework agreement, now under discussion, by resort to creative solutions mentioned by Mr. Abbas in his statement to an Israeli newspaper. Thereafter, the negotiations will be restricted to the manner of the refugees' return to Ramallah, whether in one huge wave or in comfortable installments in accordance to the Israeli view, and who will it be to return first, the refugees in Lebanon or those in Iraq or Syria? What period and what timetable are required for their return, where will they settle and how will the economic infrastructure required to support them be established?
Ehud Olmert has stipulated two conditions for the acceptance of the Arab peace initiative. The first is the elimination of the item concerning the refugees' Right of Return, appended to the initiative by the Arab Summit of 2002 in Beirut. The second is the elimination of the item concerning the non admission of the settlement of refugees in the countries hosting them at present. It appears that there is some Arab flexibility in this respect for the process of normalization has accelerated since the visit last month of the Egyptian and Jordanian foreign ministers to occupied Jerusalem on behalf of the Arab League under the heading of activating the Arab peace initiative and the acceptance of some Arab states, particularly the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, to participate in the peace conference called for by President Bush next autumn. This means that its Foreign Minister, Saud al-Faisal, will sit face to face with Tsibi Levni, Israel's Foreign Minister, under the patronage of Mrs. Condoleezza Rice.
Conditions are completely ripe for Chairman Abbas to abandon the Right of Return indirectly through the creative solutions that are being drafted presently in secret negotiations in more than one European capital under Euro-American sponsorship. Having been rid of the burden of his cumbersome partnership with the Hamas Movement and of the heavier burden or the reservoir of extremism called the Gaza Sector, Chairman Abbas has firmly shut all openings to this Sector and tightened the siege against the Hamas Movement within it. He now has a completely free hand and has dumped all his eggs in the American-Israeli basket without any heeds whatsoever even to his closest Arab allies.
Perhaps the most dangerous point of all that is presently taking place is that pertaining to the exchange of land in case a settlement is reached. Among the creative solutions under close deliberation by the two parties is one which provides for the maintenance of the major (Israeli) settlement blocks in the West Bank against compensating the Palestinian State with some other tracts of land. The tracts under consideration comprise the locations of the densely Arab inhabited areas within the Green Line and, in particular, the Triangle (around the Tulkarm area) which has a very high population density.
This will achieve the Israeli dream of getting rid of the Arabs within the Jewish State thus transforming it into a purely Jewish state free of any Arab ethnic masses. Simultaneously, Israel would retain Jerusalem as its unified capital but with the Palestinian flag fluttering above the Aqsa Mosque as part of the deception to make people believe that it falls under Palestinian sovereignty over the holy sites, a sovereignty which is in all cases fake and incomplete.
Chairman Abbas had written off the legitimacy of the National Council when he substituted the Legislative Council for it. However, when the Hamas Movement and some honorable members of the Fateh Movement dominated the Legislative Council as a result of the latest elections, he froze it and circumvented its role to exercise complete unitary usurpation of authority with those of his ilk who support the settlement proposed in the context of the American-Israeli terms.
Neither the Arab inhabitants of the Triangle nor the Arabs living in the 1948 occupied areas had elected Mr. Abbas as their president. Consequently, they have not delegated unto him the right to speak in their name and resolve their fate. The same also applies to the Palestinians of the Diaspora in Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and, generally, everywhere else. Therefore, intensified Palestinian action is required to demand transparency and to stamp a veto on any move that aims at settling their cause behind their backs.
The acts of starving the Palestinians, besieging them and choking their voices in the homeland and in the Diaspora should not give fruit by the acceptance of quickly brewed solutions which fall short of achieving the minimum of their legitimate demands for exercising the Right of Return and the establishment of the Palestinian state on genuine Palestinian land not on a fake disfigurement of it.
The Palestinian cause is not one of salaries or of foreign aid in exchange for surrendering the inalienable rights of the Palestinian People. Better than surrendering the totality of this cause is to revert to the ration card and to survive on the aid of UNRWA.
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