Ramona Wadi
Middle East Monitor / March 8, 2022
The Palestinian Authority has caught up belatedly with the international community’s double standards when it comes to professing support for Palestine while upholding the impunity with which Israel is allowed to act. However, the PA is still a long way from acknowledging these tactics in its own politics, which in itself is quite a contradiction given that Ramallah is beholden to the international consensus on Palestine and its repercussions.
In a recent statement reported by Wafa news agency, the PA’s foreign ministry declared that, “The international community’s policy of double standards has become a cover for Israel’s persistence to steal Palestinian land and deepen its rebellion and disavowal of signed agreements, international law, United Nations resolutions, and prospects for peace.” Only it has not just become a cover; it was always a cover. That is why the UN will not commemorate its 1947 Partition Plan, and expresses fake concern with an international solidarity day for Palestinians, for example. Not to mention that the attached symbolism to this day is also a veneer through which the UN portrays itself as the leading human rights agency rather than an accomplice in international law violations.
The UN’s role in Israel’s colonization of Palestine can neither be overlooked nor overstated. The PA would have been commended for calling out the discrepancies, were it not for its own role in ensuring that the Palestinians remain far from political autonomy and independence.
It is an incontrovertible fact that the PA is synonymous with security coordination with the colonial-occupation state and the violence it metes out, particularly against Palestinians involved in resistance activities or those who are popular for espousing views in opposition to PA leader Mahmoud Abbas. Occasionally, the PA suspends and then resumes security coordination with Israel, exploiting the people’s anti-colonial struggle by threatening to call off existing agreements. However, the PA knows that it is unable to achieve such a political feat due to its dependence on international donor funding, which in turn depends on it acting in accord with Israel on security matters. Where is the difference between the PA and the UN, other than the fact that the PA cannot exist without funding while it must adopt the same double standards as the international community?
The two-state compromise is the most prominent example of the international hypocrisy to which the PA actually adheres. It seems that the Ramallah authority sees no double standard in calling for Palestinian independence through the means of a defunct paradigm which has actually facilitated Israel’s colonial expansion and entrenched its system of apartheid.
If the PA wants to challenge international double standards, its first action should be to dissociate itself from the international consensus on the two-state “solution”. The PA, though, sees no discrepancy in calling for international peace conferences based upon a defunct paradigm under the auspices of an international institution complicit in Israel’s colonization of Palestinian territory. As far as security coordination and state-building are concerned, the PA turns a blind eye to the double standards of donor funding in order to coerce the Palestinian population in a perpetual humanitarian project which leaves no space for political rights. This begs a question about how the PA perceives the democratic aspirations of the people in occupied Palestine and the diaspora in relation to its own authoritarianism and the multitude of excuses given to justify the postponement of last year’s scheduled Palestinian elections. When it comes to double standards, the PA is well versed not only in recognition, but also in implementation. It mirrors international hypocrisy over Palestine.
Ramona Wadi is an independent researcher, freelance journalist, book reviewer and blogger; her writing covers a range of themes in relation to Palestine, Chile and Latin America
