Friday, December 29, 2006

Olmert and Abbas "push the wedge" in Palestine


James Brooks, The Electronic Intifada, 29 December 2006

"The recent "peace" overtures between Israeli Prime Minister Olmert and Palestinian Authority President Abbas do not promise significantly improved conditions for Palestinians or an end to the Israeli occupation. More likely results include intensified efforts to split the Palestinian public and undermine their legally elected government......

......If Mr. Abbas were sincerely interested in forming a national unity government with Hamas, he would not have sold their prisoners of state so cheaply. Had he been truly committed to democracy last March, he would have led his defeated party into loyal opposition in the newly elected Hamas government. By closing ranks with Hamas, Abbas and Fateh could have shown the world that Palestinians would obey their own constitution, work out their own issues, and would not be prey to outside interference or blockades.

Instead, he set out to commandeer the PA's security forces and led Fateh into the disloyal opposition they have maintained to this day. Lately he has taken the PA into new constitutional territory by claiming the unilateral power to call new elections. His Fateh-packed Supreme Court recently declared that decisions made by the current PLC are "null and void". Fortified by a significant new supply of US weapons and training, Mr. Abbas appears dangerously close to usurping both the Palestinian constitution and the will of the people by pretending to be the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian Authority.

In following this course, Mr. Abbas has made himself available to external forces that wish to make him the ultimate spoiler of last January's free and fair elections. The ultimate goal of these parties, Israel foremost among them, may be to trigger Palestinian civil war and fatally split the Palestinians' national solidarity, their key to survival. Perhaps to this end, the myth that Israel has "no partner for peace" is being transformed into the myth that Israel has "only one partner for peace", one that, under present conditions, cannot claim to represent the Palestinian people."

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