Friday, June 4, 2010

The Lessons of Gaza

The Dangers of Disaggregating Sovereignty

By DIANA BUTTU
CounterPunch

".....Yet while Israel can and must be held to account for its desire to perpetuate its control over the Palestinians and their land, so too must the PLO be criticized for falling into the trap of approaching negotiations in a piecemeal fashion and sticking to the six pre-defined issues without looking at the broader implications of Israel’s strategy of disaggregating the components of sovereignty. By accepting to approach the negotiations process in such a manner, the PLO communicated that “compromise” could be reached on essential elements of sovereignty. Palestinian negotiators must also be heavily criticized for buying into and continuing to hold onto a failed process that seeks to grant Palestinians little more than a statelet without real sovereignty. The experience following Israel’s unilateral evacuation from the Gaza Strip sheds light on its future plans for the West Bank. It is hoped that Palestinian negotiators will learn from their experience of negotiations with Israel and realize that the sum of the disaggregated parts can never be greater than the whole."

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