It appears clear to all but the Palestinian president that resistance, not supine collaboration, is the only strategic option
By Ghada Karmi
Al-Ahram Weekly
"With the appalling death toll in Gaza, relentless assaults on the West Bank (in which negotiations chief Ahmed Qurei's own bodyguard was killed), and Israel's blatant settlement expansion, one must wonder what Israeli atrocity, if any, would make the Palestinian president change course....
Clearly the strategy has failed. No amount of collaboration, passivity and obedience to the other side has worked. The Palestinian situation is far worse today than in 1993, and a different approach is needed. The Palestinians may be weak, but they have one major strength: the power to say "No". Imagine if they now refused to negotiate with Israel on current terms, dismantled the PA as the scapegoat and whipping boy for Israeli occupation it has become, and established a leadership of resistance that refused to cooperate while under occupation. Such a move would wreck the whole construct so carefully designed by Israel and its allies and whose pivot is Palestinian acquiescence. President Bush would have no trophy to save him from total ignominy; Israel would face a rebellious Palestinian population without leaders to do its dirty work; and Europe would have to confront its own ignoble complicity with the occupation by its funding of it. Above all, Palestinians would regain their self-respect and their right to resist, and their cause would once again unite the Arab world against its enemies. Fear of such an outcome, disastrous to Israel and its allies, is the Palestinian trump card, if they care to use it."
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