Interview: Palestine's red lines of struggle (Al Thawabet)

Interview: Palestine's red lines of struggle Hazem Jamjoum October 7, 2010 - While many of the key concepts of the Palestinian struggle, the likes of intifada (uprising) and awda (return), have become familiar in other languages, an integral term in the Palestinian lexicon has yet to be understood by non-Arabic speakers. Thawabet (plural of thabet) is an Arabic word that literally means "constants." For Palestinians it generally refers to the red lines of the struggle, those demands on which there can be no compromise and which have acquired a certain sanctity over the decades of struggle. The part of the Palestinian leadership, represented by the Palestinian Authority (PA), that has sought to achieve its goals through a negotiated settlement has defended its own actions by couching them in interpretations of the thawabet. In light of the political and legal compromises that the Oslo negotiations process has entailed, much of the Palestinian and Arab opposition to the negotiations process has also been framed with reference to the thawabet... Read the full article: http://www.uruknet.de/?p=70528