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Nearly 1,700 internal and diplomatic documents known as the “Palestine Papers”
were released by the Al Jazeera news network in January. The documents deal
mainly with negotiations between the governments of the U.S., Israel and the
Palestinian Authority (PA), the quasi-governmental agency that administers
Palestinian affairs in parts of the West Bank.
First
and foremost, the released documents prove beyond the last shadow of doubt that
the often-repeated Zionist mantra, “Israel wants peace but it cannot find a
partner for peace,” is nothing but pure propaganda.
The
proposals put forward by the PA in 2008—including a surrender of most of
Jerusalem and the right of return for more than six million Palestinian
refugees, and acceptance of Israeli domination over a future Palestinian “state”—could
justifiably be characterized as abject surrender to the Israeli side on all the
biggest issues on the table.
But in
reality the biggest issue from the Israeli standpoint is not on the table at
all: Israel’s absorption of all or nearly all the land of Palestine. Since the
Oslo “Peace Process” began in 1993, the Israelis approach to negotiations has
been, in the words of a former Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) adviser Michael Tarazy: “We are negotiating about
sharing a pizza and in the meantime Israel is eating it.”
The
consistent Israeli approach, regardless of whether a Labor or Kadima or Likud
party-led government was in office, has been to talk peace while creating new “facts
on the ground” in the West Bank in the form of hundreds of settlements.
Underlining
this reality was the response by then-Israeli foreign minister Tzipi Livni to
the PA negotiators’ offer of surrender on virtually all major points: “We do not
like this suggestion because it does not meet our demands.” In typical
condescending colonialist fashion, she added, “Probably it was not easy for you
to think about it, but I really appreciate it.”
The class character of the Palestinian Authority
It
has been clear for a long time that the leadership of the PA, headed by
President Mahmoud Abbas, is collaborationist. It represents the comprador
bourgeoisie, that is, the capitalist elements tied to and dependent upon U.S.
imperialism. It is willing—more than willing—to compromise the historic demands
of the Palestinian cause in order to gain some territory, even if very truncated,
that it can rule over.
This
has been the aim of every emerging capitalist class, comprador or otherwise.
Above all, they want to rule over a state and be able to exploit the labor of
the working class and peasants within the borders of their state.
The
PA has violently repressed opposition forces in the West Bank, called upon the
Israeli, Egyptian and the U.S. governments to tighten the blockade of Gaza (whose
government is led by its rival Hamas), and collaborated with the Israelis in
the targeting and imprisonment of resistance fighters from other organizations
in the West Bank.
Abbas’s
term in office officially ended in 2009. But realizing the widespread
unpopularity of its government, scheduled elections have been put off
indefinitely by the PA.
More
than 60,000 PA security forces are being trained and armed by the Pentagon. These
security forces dispersed a recent demonstration in Ramallah in solidarity with
the Egyptian people in their struggle to oust the Mubarak regime.
The
PA, ironically aligned with the Israeli government, continues to support
Mubarak in the face of overwhelming Palestinian and Arab solidarity with the
Egyptian people’s liberation struggle. Hamas has also stopped anti-Mubarak
protests in Gaza, where it is the governing party.
The
PA’s core doctrine is based on the concept that only the U.S. is in a position
to force an economically and militarily much more powerful Israel to negotiate
a Palestinian “state,” albeit of some truncated size, shape and rights.
In
order to maintain its relationship with Washington, the current PA leadership
must serve U.S. interests. A particularly odious example of its subservient
position came in 2010 when, at Washington’s behest, the PA opposed a U.N. vote
on the Goldstone Report. The report accused Israel of war crimes in its
2008-2009 invasion of Gaza.
Abbas’s
position came as a shock even to the supporters in Fatah, the dominant party in
the PA. Washington’s policy has aimed to make the PA another client government
in the regime, like those in Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Yemen, Iraq,
Tunisia, Morocco and elsewhere.
As
the Palestine Papers make clear, U.S. negotiators, with a sharp understanding of
the dependent position of the PA, relentlessly pressured PA negotiators to
accept Israeli demands.
The Palestinian left and revolution in the
Arab world
The
Palestinian left, working-class and progressive nationalist forces have opposed
and denounced the sham “peace process” since the Oslo Accords were signed in
1993. Their predictions about where this process would lead have been fully
confirmed.
The left
has maintained that negotiations based on the current relationship of forces
can only produce negative and potentially disastrous outcomes for the
Palestinian cause. The Palestinians have had to confront a formidable triple
alliance: Imperialism, Israel and the reactionary Arab regimes.
The
Arab masses feel deep solidarity in general with the Palestinians, but have
themselves been suppressed by the reactionary client regimes that fear both the
Palestinian struggle and their own masses.
Real
hope for the Palestinian cause, the left has argued, is tied to a major shift
in this relationship of forces, particularly revolutionary developments in the
Arab world.
Now
that hope may be coming to fruition. The growing revolutionary movements in
Tunisia, Egypt and Yemen are the basis of great encouragement not only for the
people in those countries, but the Palestinians and all the Arab people. Of the
greatest importance is what happens in Egypt, the largest Arab country with 80
million people.
The
1978 Camp David Accord, orchestrated by President Jimmy Carter and signed by
Mubarak’s predecessor Anwar Sadat, Israeli leader Menachem Begin and Carter has
been generally portrayed in the United States as a great step forward for “peace” in the Middle
East.
It
was anything but. Camp David broke the historic Arab alliance, in which Egypt
was the leading power, and brought Egypt into the U.S. orbit and led to the
opening of its economy to capitalist neoliberalism. It paved the way for the
devastating U.S.-backed invasion and occupation of Lebanon in 1982—an
occupation that lasted for 18 years until Israel was finally driven out by a
popular resistance movement.
After
Sadat’s assassination, Mubarak took over in 1981. His brutally repressive regime
has received vast “security assistance” (mostly for use against the Egyptian
people) from the U.S. government, played a key role in maintaining the blockade
of Gaza and brought added pressure to bear on the Palestinians to capitulate to
Israel and the United States.
The
fall of the Mubarak regime would be a social earthquake in the Middle East.
In contrast to the traitorous
position taken by the PA leadership, the Popular Front for the Liberation of
Palestine, the second largest organization in the PLO, issued a statement emphasizing the link
between the Palestinian cause and the revolutionary struggle that have erupted
in the Arab world.
“At this pinnacle moment for
the Arab people, we totally and unwaveringly stand by the choice of the
Egyptian nation for democracy and progress … the Palestinian people and its
national liberation movement is an integral part of the struggle of the peoples
of the Arab nation. Every step forward of this great emancipation movement of
the Arab people affects the Palestinian cause and empowers our struggle for
liberation.”
