Palestinian rights fall on deaf
ears Pierre Klochendler
JERUSALEM - The latest tit-for-tat
confrontation which earlier this week pitted
Israel against Islamist factions operating from
the Gaza Strip follows a conditioning pattern
which highlights the marginalization in the
international arena of the Palestinian aspirations
to freedom and independence.
The
cross-border hostilities adhered to a
pre-scripted, inescapable template: the targeted
killing by Israel of Zuhair al-Qaisi, the leader
of the Palestinian Popular Resistance Committees
(PRC), a dissident Islamist faction in Gaza, for
the purpose of foiling a planned "terror attack";
PRC and Islamic Jihad (another defiant group)
retaliating with rockets fired on cities in
southern Israel; Israeli jets bombing Islamic
Jihad and PRC targets.
All in all, 26
Palestinians (22 militants and four civilians)
were killed during the four-day escalation. Scores
were wounded on both sides. About 200 rockets hit
Israel's south, more than during
any previous round since
the Gaza war on Hamas in 2008-9. Anti-missile
"Iron Dome" batteries intercepted 90% of the
projectiles that risked hitting Israeli population
centers.
And then, as usual, Egypt stepped
in, re-installed the fragile status quo ante which
had prevailed since the previous round of
hostilities in October 2011. The next round is
probably only a matter of time, concur Israelis
and Palestinians.
Meanwhile,
diplomatically-correct expressions of concern for
the loss of civilian lives and calls for restraint
notwithstanding, the UN Security Council was
immersed in a quasi-academic periodic debate about
the 14-month Arab awakening. Palestine is being
largely ignored.
So long as their struggle
against Israeli occupation is a low-intensity,
manageable conflict, Palestinians are likely to
remain off the international radar, squeezed in
limbo between unfulfilled diplomatic initiatives
and an unresolved internal schism.
The
much-vaunted reconciliation agreement signed in
May 2011 by President Mahmoud Abbas's Palestinian
Authority (in partial control of the West Bank)
and Hamas (which rules the embattled Gaza enclave
since its violent takeover in 2007) has been
marred by disagreements.
Who would be
prime minister of a future national unity
government has been the most recent obstacle to
the internal reconciliation process.
When
Hamas Politburo Chief in exile Khaled Meshal
finally agreed that Salaam Fayyad, currently the
Palestinian Authority (PA) prime minister, be
replaced by Abbas, his colleagues in Gaza balked
at the compromise. Hamas itself is plagued with
internal divisions.
Vicissitudes due its
problematic allegiance to the embattled regime of
President Bashar al-Assad, and to Iran, has pushed
the Islamic resistance movement to tentatively
align with its original patron, the Muslim
Brotherhood, now a legitimate party and the
emerging power in post-revolutionary Egypt.
Hence, during the latest escalation, Hamas
cautiously remained on the fence. Supported
financially and militarily by Iran, Islamic Jihad
carried the brunt of retaliation on its own.
Meanwhile, a dejected Abbas is torn on how
to proceed in order to re-elevate Palestinian
rights to prominence, a difficult task when Arabs
are more preoccupied by their own freedom.
Abbas's September 2011 statehood bid
lingers in UN procedural meanderings. The US has
threatened to wield its Security Council veto
power. Under heavy pressure, the PA has refrained
from approaching the General Assembly though such
a vote, albeit largely symbolic, would enjoy
across-the-board endorsement.
In order to
circumvent the statehood quandary, the Quartet of
Mideast Peace mediators (UN, US , EU, and Russia)
pressed Abbas to reluctantly approve three rounds
of Jordan-mediated low-level talks. The
preparatory discussions held in Amman in January
ended in failure, revolving around the perennial
issue of an improbable Israeli settlement freeze.
Back in September 2010, Israeli Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's refusal to extend
his 10-month moratorium on settlement construction
pushed Abbas away from the negotiating table.
Since then, settlement building continues
unabated.
Abbas's diplomatic initiatives
have produced inconclusive results. His
indecisiveness in the form of recurring threats of
resignation and dissolution of the PA has left his
nation mired in confusion.
The
disillusioned president is now reportedly working
on the formulation of a letter to be delivered to
the Israeli prime minister and to the Quartet
which will detail the reasons that lay behind his
refusal to negotiate.
But with
international anxieties running high over a
potential leakage of stockpiles of chemical and
biological weapons to terrorist groups as a result
of a would-be collapse of Syria; with the danger
of regional atomic proliferation if suspicions
over Iran's controversial nuclear program are
confirmed, demands that Israel engage in a
meaningful peace process are no more than lip
service.
So, fresh from his White House
visit, Netanyahu could celebrate his stern vision
that the four-decade-long conflict is not the core
issue that the region is required to tackle
head-on. His campaign that Iran, not Palestine, is
the root cause for regional tumult is gradually
being endorsed, he stressed back home.
In
order not to divert attention from the "nuclear
duck", Netanyahu prudently refrained from
authorizing contingency plans for an all-out war
on Hamas (viewed by Israel as the responsible
authority in Gaza). Israel's military effort was
thus constrained to containing Iran's proxies.
Besides, a remake of the war on the Muslim
Brotherhood's Gaza offshoot could inflame an
already increasing anti-Israeli hostility and
trigger an Egyptian reconsideration of its peace
treaty with Israel. After all, post-revolutionary
democratic Arab states are bound to be more
responsive to public sentiment.
Gone are
the days when Israel could argue that Arab
hostility towards Israel is rooted not in genuine
demands for Palestinian liberation from the yoke
of colonial occupation but in manipulations by
Arab autocrats of their peoples as ersatz
compensating for the lack of civil liberties in
their own countries.
But the demonstrative
neglect of the Netanyahu government with regard to
the peace prospects with the Palestinians could
backfire. "It affects the US ability to promote
regional cooperation against the threats the
moderate Arab states share with Israel," warned
the liberal Israeli daily Ha'aretz in an
editorial, referring to Iran.
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