Hussein Ibish: Plaestine, between a rock and a hard place
[Hussein Ibish is a Senior Fellow at the American Task Force on Palestine. THE DAILY STAR publishes this commentary in collaboration with the Common Ground News Service (www.commongroundnews.org).]
It is almost impossible to adequately convey the present degree of Palestinian despair but the recent announcement that President Mahmoud Abbas might resign and that the rest of the Palestinian Authority (PA) leadership may follow – in effect dissolving the PA – should provide some indication.This seems to many to be the only real remaining weapon the Palestinian leadership has, albeit something of a doomsday scenario.
Abbas and the others clearly feel all their other options have been systematically foreclosed.
They embraced the “road map” and – at considerable political cost – fulfilled their responsibilities on security to the best of their abilities, as acknowledged by both the United States and Israel. When the Obama administration began its peace initiative, Palestinians were given every reason to expect that Israel would be compelled to fulfill its own roadmap responsibilities and end settlement activity.
From the Palestinian perspective, all of their substantive efforts have been met with stonewalling and disingenuous rhetoric from Israel’s new Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and deeply damaging ineffectiveness on the part of the Obama administration...
... The attitude among many ordinary Palestinians is, if anything, even more grim. For them, the 16-year era of peace talks has meant 16 years of further occupation, settlement building and land confiscation, bitter disappointment and denial of basic human and national rights. In addition to Israel and the international community, ordinary Palestinians also blame their own leaderships – both Fatah and Hamas – for not reuniting after the violent split in 2007, and blame all parties for the ongoing human catastrophe caused by the blockade of the Gaza Strip.
Under such circumstances, it should be readily understandable that the concept of a viable peace process now seems like a sick joke to so many Palestinians.
This is the political context in which the Palestinian leadership has to operate: an exceedingly skeptical public and international actors that don’t seem to comprehend the limitations of Palestinian patience.
At last, it seems, even the most die-hard adherents of negotiations have concluded that either the dynamic must be changed or abandoned...
Read entire article at The Daily Star
It is almost impossible to adequately convey the present degree of Palestinian despair but the recent announcement that President Mahmoud Abbas might resign and that the rest of the Palestinian Authority (PA) leadership may follow – in effect dissolving the PA – should provide some indication.This seems to many to be the only real remaining weapon the Palestinian leadership has, albeit something of a doomsday scenario.
Abbas and the others clearly feel all their other options have been systematically foreclosed.
They embraced the “road map” and – at considerable political cost – fulfilled their responsibilities on security to the best of their abilities, as acknowledged by both the United States and Israel. When the Obama administration began its peace initiative, Palestinians were given every reason to expect that Israel would be compelled to fulfill its own roadmap responsibilities and end settlement activity.
From the Palestinian perspective, all of their substantive efforts have been met with stonewalling and disingenuous rhetoric from Israel’s new Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and deeply damaging ineffectiveness on the part of the Obama administration...
... The attitude among many ordinary Palestinians is, if anything, even more grim. For them, the 16-year era of peace talks has meant 16 years of further occupation, settlement building and land confiscation, bitter disappointment and denial of basic human and national rights. In addition to Israel and the international community, ordinary Palestinians also blame their own leaderships – both Fatah and Hamas – for not reuniting after the violent split in 2007, and blame all parties for the ongoing human catastrophe caused by the blockade of the Gaza Strip.
Under such circumstances, it should be readily understandable that the concept of a viable peace process now seems like a sick joke to so many Palestinians.
This is the political context in which the Palestinian leadership has to operate: an exceedingly skeptical public and international actors that don’t seem to comprehend the limitations of Palestinian patience.
At last, it seems, even the most die-hard adherents of negotiations have concluded that either the dynamic must be changed or abandoned...