Ramona Wadi
Middle East Monitor / June 11, 2020
Further proof that the Palestinian Authority will not attempt to safeguard what remains of Palestine, let alone insist on decolonisation, is the plan submitted to the Middle East Quartet which does nothing other than confirm subjugation to the two-state compromise. Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammed Shtayyeh is reportedly calling the plan “a counter-proposal” to the US deal of the century.
Scant details are available at the moment. The PA’s proposal, however, puts forth the creation of “a sovereign Palestinian state, independent and demilitarised,” while allowing for “border modifications”.
According to a senior official of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO), Wasel Abu Yousef, “No Palestinian leader can agree to the American and Israeli conditions to give up the right of return of Palestinian refugees, agree to the annexation of Jerusalem or allow Israel to annex parts of the West Bank where it has built its illegal Jewish settlements.”
However, the Palestinian leadership sees no contradiction in abiding by the earlier plans to colonise Palestine which were determined by the international community. As long as the PA remains entrenched within the two-state framework, it cannot claim that it is countering the “deal” concocted for Israel’s benefit by US President Donald Trump.
The PA has no allies in the Quartet, which consists of the UN, the EU, Russia and the US. The US, despite departing from international consensus with its slavish gifts to Israel, is still part of the group. Trump’s plan does not truly contradict the two-state paradigm’s aims; it hastens the process to bring the international community’s intentions to fruition.
From the illusion of state-building, the deal of the century moves towards eliminating the idea, which puts the Quartet’s insistence upon the two-state diplomacy on a par with Trump’s plan. The PA is acquiescing, once more, to the colonisation of what remains of historic Palestine.
At a time when Palestinians need an alternative that departs from further colonisation, the PA is strongly emphasising what UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres is fond of describing as “no Plan B”. The PA is rejecting the deal of the century, as it should, to uphold a defunct imposition that actually supports Trump’s plan. Or perhaps the PA’s concept of “Plan B” is to facilitate Israeli colonisation by championing the international community’s violent political blunders.
A sovereign, demilitarised Palestinian state is not politically independent but an entity which, in theory and in fact will please Israel and the international community. The PA’s purported counter-proposal supports Israeli colonisation and presents another obstacle to the legitimate anti-colonial struggle which should be guiding Palestinian politics. Palestinians have long ceased to believe that the PA’s propaganda will produce any results, yet its representatives will continue to exploit the people of Palestine to ensure that Israel can complete its colonial project.
Far from opposing Trump’s deal, the PA is entrenching its corrupt stance and strengthening the international community, at the cost of the Palestinian cause disintegrating politically on a permanent basis. If the PA’s notion of a counter-proposal is aiding the international actors to implement the final phase of the Zionist colonisation process, it would do better to stop its pompous posturing and admit that it is an ally of the collective that seeks to destroy Palestine forever.
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
