Momentum seems to be picking up for the November meeting in
Annapolis, Maryland, between the United States, Israel, and
representatives of roughly half the Palestinians, to achieve a framework
agreement for comprehensive peace negotiations, leading to permanent
peace. In many ways we are back to 2000, when Israelis and Palestinians
hurriedly huddled with Americans at Camp David to try and solve the
Palestinian-Israeli conflict that is at the heart of wider Arab-Israeli
tensions.
That attempt did not succeed, due to deficiencies on the part of all
three principal parties. We should avoid a similar rush-job scenario --
driven again by the slightly hysterical urgency of a disheveled American
presidency nearing the end of its term.
I have some comments for the Palestinians, who are hobbled by three
major constraints going into the meeting: President Mahmoud Abbas is
dangerously close to being seen by many in the Arab world as a
haplessAmerican-Israeli puppet; his political party Fatah has been largely
discredited as a corrupt, bloated and inefficient burden on society and no
longer represents majority Palestinian thinking; and, the absence of Hamas
from the Annapolis meeting makes the Palestinian delegation's credentials
rather thin.
There is one way that Abbas can overcome these constraints, which
recalls a major weakness that contributed to the collapse of the Camp
David talks in 2000: He should consult widely, deeply and sincerely with
ordinary and politically-active Palestinians throughout the world, in
order to be able to attend the Annapolis talks as a credible
representative of the Palestinian people, not a finger puppet
hand-picked by Condoleezza Rice and still playing by Dennis Ross' old
skewed and failed rules.
The hardest issue to resolve in this conflict comprises the status and
rights of Palestinian refugees, of whom there are now some 4.5 million
living outside Palestine (they were 750,000 when they first became
refugees in 1948). All other contentious matters -- land, sovereignty,
recognition, settlements, water, security, Jerusalem -- now appear
solvable, given the years of negotiations that have taken place by the
concerned parties. The Palestinian refugees issue, however, remains
bothintractable, and existential for both sides.
There is no excuse for Abbas to repeat Arafat's mistake. Abbas would be
immeasurably strengthened, and would negate his image as Condi's
Karzai-in-a-kefiyyeh, if he were to launch a blitz campaign of open
meetings with Palestinian refugee communities around the world, to
identify the main points that define refugee attitudes towards a
comprehensive peace with Israel -- what the Palestinians want, what they
would give, and what they would be willing to compromise on. Abbas fools
nobody by going to an American-Israeli-structured peace conference without
the essential compensatory credibility card of speaking in the name of the
proven majority of Palestinians everywhere. Fortunately, he can start this
process by reading a fine volume that is easily available to him and to
all Palestinian leaders.
In 2005-06, the Palestinian scholar Karma Nabulsi, at Oxford University,
directed a remarkable participatory project that consulted Palestinians
in every part of the world, to hear their views on the issues that
concerned them. The Report of the Civitas Project, as it was called, was
published last year by Nuffield College at Oxford. It offers powerful
insights into a national community of Palestinians scattered all over
the world, but also united by many shared sentiments and needs, and,
more importantly, by common perceptions of their rights as human beings.
Nabulsi herself points out that despite the very different circumstances
of Palestinians around the world, "one can immediately note certain key
commonalities in our current Palestinian discourse: the desire for
direct elections to the Palestine National Council (PNC), for the
reactivation and democratic reform of the PLO institutions, for the
implementation of the Right of Return."
How these and other desires can be fulfilled will only be known if these
positions are channeled into the negotiating process by fortifying and
defining the Palestinian negotiators in the first place. Tough issues
like the "right of return" and a democratic PLO will be negotiated and
agreed upon through a consensual process, not by one side imposing
American-Israeli rules or by another side ignoring the sentiments of its
own people.
Fulfilling the legitimate rights of Israelis and Palestinians is the key
to achieving peace. Israelis and Americans will be well represented and
prepared at Annapolis, Palestinians less so. Now is the time to redress
this perilous imbalance, and avoid the mistakes that were made in 2000.
The Palestinian leadership must generate the vital legitimacy,
credibility and sensible negotiating position that it requires to
succeed in such a process. It can get these essential assets from only
one source in the world: its own people. Condi Rice and Dennis Ross getyou
invited to long weekends in wooded Maryland estates; credibly
representing your own people, by consulting them widely, lets you be
taken seriously on such outings.
Rami G. Khouri is an internationally syndicated columnist, the director
of the Issam Fares Institute at the American University of Beirut,
editor-at-large of the Beirut-based Daily Star, and co-laureate of the
2006 Pax Christi International Peace Award.
Avoiding the Mistakes of Camp David
with
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Rami G. Khouri
Thanks
Very well-written by Mr. Khouri.
The leadership should be up to the challenge and try to get the majority behind it before going to such a conference. I tend to believe they don't have enough bravery to go back to the people right now, because simply people will kick them out of their representatives.
It's interesting to hear about the report which was mentioned in the article. I found the whole report on this link:
It seems very interesting but it's very long. I'll try to read it thoroughly later but can anybody provide us with a one-page summary for it??
Your efforts are appreciated, Mr. Qishawi, for giving us the opportunity to read such an article.
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