The Palestinian Authority is intent on a kind of Zionism in reverse. The approach is badly flawed
A Very Good Comment
Ahmad Samih Khalidi
(senior associate member of St Antony's College, Oxford, a former Palestinian negotiator and the co-author, with Hussein Agha, of A Framework for a Palestinian National Security Doctrine.)
The Guardian, Wednesday 28 October 2009
".....Statehood first" has a superficially attractive ring to it that has begun to gain some traction among decision-makers in Washington and the EU. But it is fundamentally flawed. The first problem is the assumption that unilateral Palestinian state-building is possible when every PA action is determined by the Israeli occupation. Even putting to one side the Fatah-Hamas split, the PA cannot exercise the most elementary of powers; it cannot independently trade on the world market, decide who can enter its soil or deploy the smallest unit of its security services from one village to another; its leaders cannot even move without prior Israeli consent. In short, it cannot freely exercise its authority over its citizens or territory in any meaningful manner.
At the heart of the PA's programme lies a basic contradiction: while it claims to be building a state against the occupation, it is in practice building state-like structures with the occupation. No genuinely sovereign state has been or can be built while still under occupation, and nothing in Israel's current stance on the basic issues of Palestinian sovereignty (territorial extent, control over borders, the right to self defence, and so on) suggests otherwise.
The second problem stems from a total misreading of history. The Zionist movement may indeed have developed its state-building capacity while under the British mandate, but Israel only came into being as a state by using force against British and Palestinians alike. By way of contrast, the only military capability the PA is building under US supervision is directed against those who seek to take up arms against the occupation. The "Zionist" option of military self-reliance and readiness to use force for political-territorial ends is totally absent from the PA's new approach and is inimical to its political outlook.....
Rather than lay the foundations for a truly viable and sovereign Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital, Palestinian "Zionism" as conceived is only likely to produce a partial, ersatz entity; one that differs little from the autonomous self-rule that has long been Israel's remedy for addressing the Palestinian problem.
The new PA approach is not really about building a state by stealth or undoing the occupation by other means. Its focus is apolitical: improving Palestinian living standards and fomenting state-like behaviour but without any of the advantages of a real state. Indeed, this approach dovetails all too neatly with Bibi Netanyahu's notion of "economic peace" – it appears as a pragmatic ambition, to supplement the peace process and path to a viable two-state solution. In reality it is destined to circumvent it altogether – or, at best, to ensure that the outcome is determined by Israeli national interests alone......"
Ahmad Samih Khalidi
(senior associate member of St Antony's College, Oxford, a former Palestinian negotiator and the co-author, with Hussein Agha, of A Framework for a Palestinian National Security Doctrine.)
The Guardian, Wednesday 28 October 2009
".....Statehood first" has a superficially attractive ring to it that has begun to gain some traction among decision-makers in Washington and the EU. But it is fundamentally flawed. The first problem is the assumption that unilateral Palestinian state-building is possible when every PA action is determined by the Israeli occupation. Even putting to one side the Fatah-Hamas split, the PA cannot exercise the most elementary of powers; it cannot independently trade on the world market, decide who can enter its soil or deploy the smallest unit of its security services from one village to another; its leaders cannot even move without prior Israeli consent. In short, it cannot freely exercise its authority over its citizens or territory in any meaningful manner.
At the heart of the PA's programme lies a basic contradiction: while it claims to be building a state against the occupation, it is in practice building state-like structures with the occupation. No genuinely sovereign state has been or can be built while still under occupation, and nothing in Israel's current stance on the basic issues of Palestinian sovereignty (territorial extent, control over borders, the right to self defence, and so on) suggests otherwise.
The second problem stems from a total misreading of history. The Zionist movement may indeed have developed its state-building capacity while under the British mandate, but Israel only came into being as a state by using force against British and Palestinians alike. By way of contrast, the only military capability the PA is building under US supervision is directed against those who seek to take up arms against the occupation. The "Zionist" option of military self-reliance and readiness to use force for political-territorial ends is totally absent from the PA's new approach and is inimical to its political outlook.....
Rather than lay the foundations for a truly viable and sovereign Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital, Palestinian "Zionism" as conceived is only likely to produce a partial, ersatz entity; one that differs little from the autonomous self-rule that has long been Israel's remedy for addressing the Palestinian problem.
The new PA approach is not really about building a state by stealth or undoing the occupation by other means. Its focus is apolitical: improving Palestinian living standards and fomenting state-like behaviour but without any of the advantages of a real state. Indeed, this approach dovetails all too neatly with Bibi Netanyahu's notion of "economic peace" – it appears as a pragmatic ambition, to supplement the peace process and path to a viable two-state solution. In reality it is destined to circumvent it altogether – or, at best, to ensure that the outcome is determined by Israeli national interests alone......"
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