Monday, May 17, 2010

Diplomacy 'failing Palestinians'


By As'ad AbuKhalil (Angry Arab)
Al-Jazeera

"....The symbols of Palestinian nationalism have suddenly changed. As far as the Palestinian Authority (PA) is concerned, revolutionaries belong in museums and the kufiyyah and musakkhan (a traditional Palestinian dish) are celebrated as the only elements of the rich tapestry of Palestinian national identity.

And with Mahmoud Abbas, the PA president, becoming increasingly insignificant, while Mohammed Dahlan remains an unacceptable prospect as Palestinian leader, Salam Fayyad, the Palestinian prime minister, has become the new darling of the West....

In fact, the Palestinian people had more freedom to choose their own leaders in the 1930s than they do now - although, of course, when the British did not like the Palestinian choice, as was the case with Muhammed Amin al-Husseini, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, they simply expelled them....

...the reality is that Arab regimes washed their hands of the Palestinian struggle long ago.

Anwar al-Sadat, the Egyptian president who signed an historic peace deal with Israel, set a new path for Arab regimes and they all now follow in his footsteps....

The path of diplomacy pursued by Yasser Arafat, the late PLO leader, and his successors has thus far resulted in the establishment of a weak and dependent authority in Ramallah which operates at the discretion of Israel and its Western allies.

Protecting Israel from legitimate Palestinian armed struggle is now the responsibility of a PA which ultimately answers to its enemies and the successes and failures of its diplomacy are set according to criteria established by Israel....

It always believed that Lebanon would be a safe and secure neighbour, but now Israel's most formidable enemy sits on its northern border. And its arsenal of nuclear and biological weapons will not save it from the bleak future Zionism sealed when the state was created.

The apartheid regime of South Africa once looked formidable, but that has now been assigned to the history books."

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