Hudna or Not Palestinian Rights Must Be Preserved

By Ramzy Baroud

"....The media, once more, indulged in analysing the recent developments, with the full confidence that Olmert's verbal commitment to ending the conflict was indeed genuine. The ball, once again, was placed in the Palestinian court. All eyes are now on Hamas: will it heed to the voice of reason and moderation, as embodied in the character of Abbas? Or will it continue to nurture its sinful alliance with Iran and Syria?

As western governments - led or intimidated by the United States - rushed to punish the Palestinians for their democratic choice, the media largely followed suit: exaggerating Hamas' military strength and its ability to 'destroy' Israel, its adherence to violence as the only means of struggle, its religious fanaticism, and all the rest. Such a portrayal helped contextualize the three unfair conditions imposed on the Palestinian government, to unconditionally recognize Israel, renounce violence and accept previous agreements signed between the former Palestinian Authority governments and Israel, starting with the infamous Oslo Accords, reached in total secrecy in 1993.

I took just 10 months to consolidate such a discourse: where the Palestinians, as always were forced on the defence, desperately trying to show that all the allegations made against their government are untrue. Meanwhile, Israel was left with the gift of time, a desperately needed factor in its colonial war against the Palestinians: robbing more land, expanding its apartheid wall, killing with impunity and so on. Though such means of repression are commonplace tools in the ongoing conflict, exasperated in the last six years of Palestinian Uprising or Intifada, the election of a Hamas-dominated parliament introduced a newer element: starvation, plain and simple.

The Palestinian government, armed with the popular support of its people, which is yet to fade despite all attempts, refused to succumb to such pressure. It continued to argue that recognizing Israel while the latter claims both historic Palestine and the 1967 Occupied Territories as theirs is out of the question. Who would so naïve as to accept the existence of its occupier, oppressor, while the latter does its outmost to deny the occupied its right to live or to exist? ........

.....However, it must be stressed that this position should neither serve as, nor be understood as a personal indictment; Palestinian violence is hardly comparable to that of Israel, the fifth strongest army in the world; death tolls on both sides effortlessly express the disparity of power. While proposing a hunda is maybe an expression of the current Palestinian government's commitment to peace, or perhaps a way out of a terrible bind; regardless, it should neither override nor cancel out the Palestinian people's uncompromising adherence to their just demands for freedom and rights, determined by a Palestinian national consensus and cemented in international law. "