Opinion
Recognising Palestine?
The efforts of the Palestinian Authority to push for statehood are nothing more
than an elaborate farce, writer says.
Ali Abunimah Last Modified: 13 Apr 2011 16:15
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If historical precedents in Lebanon and Syria are any indication, the
declaration of statehood by the Palestinian Authority will have little effect,
despite what Palestinian prime minister Salam Fayyad might say [GALLO/GETTY]
What do you do if your decades-long campaign to bring about an independent
Palestinian state on those fractions of historic Palestine known as the West
Bank and Gaza Strip have resulted in total failure?
The answer seems to be, if you are the Western-sponsored Palestinian Authority
(PA) in Israeli-occupied Ramallah, to pretend you have a Palestinian state
anyway, and to get as many other countries to join in this charade as possible.
This appears to be the essence of the PA strategy to gain admittance for the
"State of Palestine" to the UN General Assembly by September.
Already, the PA is lobbying hard for countries to support the move, and in
recent months a number of states, particularly in Latin America, have extended
full diplomatic recognition to the Ramallah authority. The New York Times cited
diplomats who say that if brought to a vote in the UN General Assembly, the
measure would likely pass.
A fantasy 'state'
The PA's push for recognition of a Palestinian state is the diplomatic
counterpart to its much-touted "institution-building" and "economic
development" efforts which are supposed to create the infrastructure for a
future state.
But the institution-building program is nothing more than a mirage, boosted by
public relations tricks and good press.
In fact, the main "institutions" the PA has built are the police-state and
militia apparatuses used to repress political opposition to the PA and any form
of resistance to Israeli occupation. Meanwhile the economy of the West Bank,
and the PA itself, remain completely dependent on foreign aid.
UN recognition of a Palestinian make-believe state would be no more meaningful
than this fantasy "institution-building", and could push Palestinians even
further away from real liberation and self-determination.
Figures from the Ramallah-based PA have justified their UN recognition strategy
as a way to bring international pressure to bear on Israel.
"Such recognition would create political and legal pressure on Israel to
withdraw its forces from the land of another state that is recognised with the
[1967] borders," Ramallah 'foreign minister' Riyad al-Malki told reporters in
January.
Similarly, Nabil Shaath, a top Fatah official, explained to the New York Times
that if a Palestinian state were recognised by the UN: "Israel would then be in
daily violation of the rights of a fellow member state and diplomatic and legal
consequences could follow, all of which would be painful for Israel."
But can anyone who has seen how the "international community" functions when it
comes to Israel believe such delusional expectations?
Lebanon has been a member state of the United Nations since 1945 and yet this
did not prevent Israel from occupying southern Lebanon from 1978 until 2000.
Israel's occupation of Lebanon ended not because of any international pressure,
but only because the Lebanese resistance drove Israel and its collaborating
militias out.
Since its massive bombardment of Lebanon in 2006, Israel has violated Lebanon's
sovereignty thousands of times according to the UN itself. But its constant
overflights of Lebanese airspace and kidnapping of Lebanese citizens among
other violations has never prompted "diplomatic and legal consequences" to hold
Israel accountable.
Similarly, since 1967 Israel has occupied the Golan Heights, which belong to
Syria (also a UN member since 1945). There has been virtually no armed
resistance on the Golan Heights nor has there been any international pressure
for Israel to withdraw or for Syrian refugees to return to their homes.
Even after Israel illegally annexed the territory in 1981 a move condemned by
the UN Security Council the international community's silence has allowed
Israel's colonisation of the Golan Heights to continue unabated.
Why would the situation in the "State of Palestine" be any different?
'Paper' victories
The effort to seek diplomatic recognition for an imaginary Palestinian state on
a fraction of historic Palestine is a strategy of desperation from a
Palestinian leadership that has run out of options, lost its legitimacy, and
become a serious obstacle in the way of Palestinians regaining their rights.
Relying heavily on diplomatic forums and the good will of the "international
community" has also been tried before and produced no results. Recall that in
2004, the PA expended enormous efforts to obtain an advisory ruling from the
International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague that Israel's apartheid wall
in the West Bank is illegal and must be torn down.
But beyond obtaining the ruling, the PA had absolutely no strategy to mobilise
Palestinians and their allies to pressure the world to actually implement the
decision. It was a paper victory that resulted in no change on the ground.
Indeed, there is significant evidence that while the PA's diplomatic corps and
negotiators were busy in The Hague, the leadership sought to stifle attempts by
Palestinian civil society organisations in the West Bank and East Jerusalem to
organise around and bring attention to the ICJ ruling, almost certainly due to
pressure by Israel and the United States.
Would the government of an "independent Palestine" still under Israeli
occupation and reliant on aid from the US and EU be able to stand similar
pressure in the future? The PA's record to date offers no basis for optimism.
In spite of these efforts, the ICJ opinion did have one important consequence.
It was not the PA or the defunct Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) that
began to mobilise.
Rather, amid the inaction from world governments to enforce the ICJ ruling,
Palestinian civil society independently issued the 2005 Palestinian Call for
Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (BDS).
This campaign seeks to isolate Israel and pressure it to respect Palestinian
rights and international law, through popular boycotts similar to those that
helped end apartheid in South Africa.
Rather than fetishising "statehood", the BDS campaign focuses on rights and
realities: it calls for an end to Israel's occupation and colonisation of all
Arab lands conquered in 1967; full equality for Palestinian citizens of Israel;
and respect for and implementation of the rights of Palestinian refugees. These
demands are all fully consistent with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights
and international law.
The PA has never endorsed this campaign, and in fact has sought to distract
from and undermine it by calling only for a half-hearted boycott of Israeli
settlement goods while actively promoting trade with Israel in violation of the
BDS call.
Reduxing the bantustans
Many have accurately likened the Palestinian "state" envisaged by the PA and
its sponsors to the "bantustans" of apartheid South Africa.
The bantustans were nominally independent states set up by the apartheid regime
to grant "citizenship" to blacks, as a way to derail demands for true equality.
World governments did not fall for the trick, and refused to recognise the
bantustans because they understood that diplomatic recognition for these
entities would actually set back the struggle to end South African apartheid.
Not coincidentally, the only country to have had extensive dealings with the
bantustans allowing them to open diplomatic missions and frequently receiving
their leaders was Israel. Israel saw the bantustans as a model for how it
would one day manage the Palestinians.
Recognition of a Palestinian "state" under Israeli occupation would certainly
solidify and perpetuate the privileges and positions of unelected PA officials,
while doing nothing to change the conditions or restore the rights of millions
of Palestinians, not just in the territories occupied in the June 1967 war, but
within Israel, and in the diaspora.
Far from increasing international pressure on Israel, it may even allow states
that have utterly failed in their duty to hold Israel accountable to
international law to wash their hands of the question of Palestine, under the
mantro of "we recognised Palestine, what more do you want from us?"
Palestinians and their allies should not be distracted by this international
theatre of the absurd, but should focus on building wider and deeper BDS
campaigns to end Israeli apartheid everywhere that it exists, once and for all.
Ali Abunimah is author of One Country, A Bold Proposal to End the
Israeli-Palestinian Impasse and is a contributor to The Goldstone Report: The
Legacy of the Landmark Investigation of the Gaza Conflict. He is a co-founder
of the online publication The Electronic Intifada and a policy adviser with
Al-Shabaka, The Palestinian Policy Network.
The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily
reflect Al Jazeera's editorial policy.
Source:
Al Jazeera
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