Congratulations on the Resumption of the Negotiations

Abdelbari Atwan

31 July 2010

In response to a report in the Washington Times last week suggesting that Egyptian President Husni Mubarak's health was failing, certain Egyptian papers published commentaries on these 'false' rumours and claimed that they are part of a wider campaign against the Egyptian government triggered by its rejection of US and Israeli demands to back the resumption of direct Palestinian-Israeli negotiations.

Meanwhile, the PLO Executive Committee and Fatah's Central Committee held seperate meetings under the chairmanship of Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas. These Palestinian bodies re-iterated their refusal to enter direct negotiations for the following reasons: indirect negotiations have already failed, and Binyamin Netanyahu's government has refused to define terms of reference for the peace process, the border of the Palestinian state, and a timeframe for the negotiations.

During its meeting at the Arab League headquarters in Cairo the day before yesterday, the Arab Follow-up Committee on the Arab peace imitative made a decision approving resumption of direct negotiations, leaving the setting of the date for starting the negotiations to President Abbas and his Palestinian National Authority in Ramallah.

This decision was not at all linked to terms of reference, the border of the Palestinian state, freeze on settlement construction, or progress in the indirect negotiations. All of these conditions were humiliatingly dropped to the extent that Arab League Secretary General Amr Musa was not "eloquent" as usual in coming up with a new way-out to save face of the official Arab regimes after their retraction on their previous position. In a previous commentary, we had already predicted that the Arabs and Palestinians would retract on their position.

The big mystery here is what exactly prompted this U-turn in official Arab policy on this issue. The Palestinians say that they came under enormous US pressure to return to negotiations, including a threat to isolate the PNA and its chairman, stop financial aid, and give up sponsorship of the peace process. The Arabs spoke of regional strategic "interests," hinting at a desire to help the United States in its declared battle to besiege Iran. In other words, the official moderate Arab regimes now employ the Palestinian card not to pressure the United States and Israel, but to pressure Iran, and serve their own interests - retaining power and safeguarding their security by playing the Palestinian card.

The US Administration faces defeats in Afghanistan and setbacks for its project in Iraq. The Europeans are reconsidering their special relationship with the United States and are looking for new relationships with nascent major powers, like India, Brazil, and China. Only in the Arab region can the US Administration easily dictate its will on its Arab allies.

The old equation has not changed: Israel makes demands; the United States adopts them, and the Arab regimes fulfil them with shameful submissiveness and without question. Ever since Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu met with President Barack Obama at the White House early in July, and the latter endorsed Netanyahu's demand that the Palestinians' return to direct negotiations, it has become evident that starting direct negotiations was only a matter of time. Arab and Palestinian complaints that the time was not yet right, however vociferous, were just much ado about nothing, deliberate misleading, and the repetition of a play the beginning and end of which are already well known.

Let us ask this question: What if the Palestinians and the Arabs in general refuse America's request to resume direct negotiations? Some moderates in the PNA might argue that the Palestinian position is weak and that any opposition to the US Administration might entail blaming the Palestinians, holding them responsible for the collapse of the peace process and loss of the US Administration's support for a two-state solution, and, above all, isolating the PNA and denying it financial aid.

This is the argument of the impotent, lacking willpower and dignity; who opts for easy solutions; who does not want to resist the occupation or lose financial and personal privileges and fake posts. The collapse or dissolution of the PNA may turn out to be the biggest achievement the Palestinians could hope for in the march of their resistance.

Imagine how the situation would be in the West Bank if the Palestinians resume resistance and martyrdom-seeking attacks, and plant time bombs on the roadsides that lead to settlements, or are used by the Israeli army, as is happening in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The PNA has offered the greatest security service to Israel since the latter's inception, for throughout the past five years, not a single bullet was fired against Israel in the West Bank.

The Palestinian security forces have turned into a loyal guard of the Israeli settlements and settlers even at the peak of the expansion of settlements.

We saw the red carpet rolled to the commander of the Israeli Shin Bet during his visit to the Palestinian security headquarters in Jenin. He joked with the Palestinian commanders and had dinner with them as though he were among his kith and kin.

These Palestinian services are offered to Israel for free. Israel has not even displayed acceptance of terms of reference for the peace process or agreed on the border of the prospective Palestinian state. All that Israel wants is the Palestinians' return to direct negotiations without conditions. It is a return to the game of wasting time that has continued since the signing of the Oslo agreement 17 years ago.

As usual, Netanyahu will come out the big winner from these negotiations. His coalition will become stronger and his country will break out of its international isolation. He will look like a meek, peace-loving lamb, although in the eyes of the world, he was, and still is, the leader of a country that committed war crimes, used white phosphorus, and turned the Gaza Strip into history's largest Nazi detention camp.

We Arabs have become the butt of laughter of all peoples of the world. Unlike us, all other nations resist in defence of their dignity and national causes. Yet, we take pleasure in being humiliated and insulted, particularly if insults come from America and Israel!

Not so long ago, the Arab regimes would have sacrificed the interests and welfare of their peoples for the sake of the Palestinian cause, which epitomized the loftiest meaning of dignity. Now, these regimes sacrifice the Palestinian cause not in the interest of their peoples, but in their own, personal interest and to stay in power.

We could understand the Arab regimes sacrificing the Palestinian cause if it were to reflect positively on the Arab peoples. However, what is happening is that since the Arab regimes abandoned the Palestinian cause, corruption, repression, dictatorship, and the collapse of services have been on the rise, and Egypt's state of affairs is a stark case in point.

A former Arab foreign minister, who did not want to be named, confided to me that President Husni Mubarak told him one day that if he wanted something from the United States, he would turn to Sharon, and the US response would be quick to come, meeting his request.

Is it reasonable for a state with the standing of Egypt, its history, and civilization to deal with the Untied States through Israel? Yes, everything is possible these days.

After all, have the Arab regimes not fought all Israel's wars through the United States - in Iraq and Afghanistan - and against Hezbollah in Lebanon, and against Hamas in Palestine? And these regimes are now getting ready to fight a new war against Iran.

Netanyahu must have burst laughing at this new Arab submission to his conditions following the decision of the so-called Arab Follow-up committee on peace. He has emerged victorious from the battle of who will hold fast to his conditions to the end with the Arabs and the current US Administration. He has succeeded in dictating all his conditions. We congratulate him on this victory; we congratulate the PNA and its men on the continued financial aid and on the renewal of VIP ID cards for its senior officials. We congratulate the official Arab regimes on America's satisfaction with them, a satisfaction which may soon translate into dragging them into another war in the region, just as they backed all America's previous wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and its war on terrorism for free.

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