Friday, June 15, 2007

Oslo's baleful legacy

The Palestinian Authority is only a means to an end. Instead of fighting, the factions must focus on unified strategies to drive the colonisers out.

By Nimer Sultany
(a Palestinian citizen of Israel and currently a doctoral candidate at Harvard Law School)
The Guardian

"The Oslo endless-fruitless-negotiations peace process has created an ambiguous situation: the Palestinians are caught somewhere between state-building and liberation struggle without being or having either. As a result they bear the responsibilities of freedom without actually enjoying freedom. The world looks at them as if they were in a postcolonial stage while the colonialists are still around.

Additionally, the Oslo process has transformed the Palestinian revolutionary project into a corrupted comprador class that enjoys some benefits from the occupier. The victory of Hamas in the elections has caught this comprador class by surprise. Since then, the Fatah movement has refused to acknowledge its defeat, refused initially to join Hamas in a unity government, and waited eagerly to prove that Hamas has failed without initially giving it a chance to succeed......

Today, Ha'aretz reports that Israel intends to release the Palestinian taxes money it withheld since Hamas came to power, because the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, has just decided to fire the government. This seems like another immediate reward and encouragement of one faction over the other to inflame the civil war. The media has reported on several occasions in the last two years about money, training, and weapons from the US and Israel to Fatah. All of it is intended to overthrow a legitimately elected government......"

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