Ramona Wadi
Middle East Monitor / January 5, 2023
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is building upon the international community’s strong support for the apartheid state’s colonial expansion, as well as the international indifference to the legitimate political rights of the Palestinian people. The Palestinian Authority, on the other hand, is only prepared to continue sounding a death knell for Palestinians, with its interminable focus on the two-state compromise.
According to the PA’s official news agency, WAFA, the foreign ministry issued a statement announcing that, “Netanyahu’s position is a blow to the countries that take pride in their adherence to the two-state solution and the principles of human rights, and whose double standards provide protection for the Israeli occupation in international forums.”
The PA has yet to explain its statement. It is correct to say that countries adhering to the two-state paradigm have employed double standards when it comes to Israel. Hence, Netanyahu’s statement is aligned with, and indeed facilitates, the erasure of the currently employed double standards when it comes to international support for Israel’s colonial expansion. The two-state compromise is the main double standard employed by the international community and promoted by the PA, against the aspirations of the Palestinian people for their land.
As Israel moves towards annexation – remember the insistence of former US Ambassador David Friedman that annexation plans were merely halted not cancelled? – the PA is clinging to defunct political paradigms, much to the satisfaction of the international community. The two-state compromise is no longer viable, and if some altered version of the original plan were to take place, not even Israel’s occupation would be eliminated, let alone its colonialism.
Keeping in mind that the only hypothetical Palestinian state that Israel envisages is a demilitarized entity, what sovereignty and independence would the Palestinians actually possess? Israel will not relinquish its profitable security narrative and its illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank and Jerusalem would take priority. It is clear that in any circumstances, the two-state compromise which the PA is so fond of promoting as a solution for the Palestinians will only ensure that they do not gain political independence.
Furthermore, Israel’s annexation plans are a priority for Netanyahu. The international community will only speak out against the formalization of annexation, not the actual expansion that created the conditions for territorial annexation. Netanyahu’s policy, therefore, is no blow to the international community. On the contrary, he lays down the guidelines for the international community to adopt and in turn pressure the PA to follow.
Has the PA not yet grappled with the fact that the defunct two-state approach facilitates annexation? Two states are now impossible to achieve, and the PA is completely dependent upon external funding to maintain its precarious position, given that it has meagre support among the Palestinian people who it oppresses through its security services working in Israel’s best interests. When the PA spoke about a return to the status quo after the US presidential election in 2020, it completely ignored the fact that Israel continues to alter the status quo to the point that one cannot speak of it at all. And yet, for all its rhetoric on pointing out international double standards, none are as competent in upholding them as the Palestinian Authority.
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
