With shame, hopelessness and helplessness, many Palestinians see their dream for an independent state being dismantled by their
own so-called national leaders.
This evolving reality is hard to comprehend, and it has caused
the majority of Palestinians, according to a recent survey from
the Ramallah-based Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey
Research, to blame both Hamas and Fatah leaders for what has
happened to them under the Israeli occupation.
Hamas claims to have "liberated Gaza," and in response Fatah
leaders declared they are "managers" of the West Bank. As a
result, there is no discussion of two-state solution of Israel
and Palestine. Instead, Hamas and Fatah seem to support a
two-mini-cantons solution in which each leadership can continue
to protect its narrow self-interest in cooperation with its
patrons (Israel, the United States, Syria, Iran).
Again, the Palestinian leadership has failed its people. The
competition between Hamas and Fatah, with each taking control of
a portion of the bread crumbs that the Israeli government left
when it pulled out of Gaza and agreed to elections in the West
Bank, entails disastrous results for anyone interested in
securing a free and democratic Middle East.
The Palestinians have been set back several decades, to the time
when they were fighting over who should represent them. Now there
are too many leaders, voiceless people, and an internal culture
of violence that has been nurtured by the Israeli occupation
system and the creation and growth over time of various
Palestinian paramilitary militias. Both Israelis and Palestinians
paved the way by tolerating the corrupt leadership of the
Palestinian Authority, thus giving it public legitimacy to operate.
The illusion among certain Israeli and American political forces
is that the two mini-cantons eventually will end the
Palestinians' demand for a viable and independent state and will
bring security or stability to the region.
However, as the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and
many other colonial and post-colonial struggles has taught us, a
cantonization of the Palestinian national identity will not end
people's yearning for their own single country and likely will
bring on only higher levels of violence.
In this case, Israeli security will be further threatened by the
proximity of Hamas and its allies in the region. And we can
expect Fatah's leaders to have trouble maintaining legitimacy,
meaning their own fighters are likely to turn against them.
The United States loses in that it will be blamed for failing to
push hard for the two-state solution endorsed by President George
W. Bush, for encouraging a weak Palestinian leadership to fight
each other and for collectively punishing Palestinians with
economic sanctions after they democratically elected Hamas last year.
How can the Israelis and Palestinians get themselves out of this
hole? The answer, not easily achieved, is that they must adopt
and promote a nonviolent political culture in which neither
Israelis nor Palestinians tolerate their own leaders' decisions
to launch military campaigns on the assumption that armed victory
can lead to peace. A new culture could take hold if moderate
Palestinians and Israelis, of whom there are many, are willing to
step up and publicly reject the status quo and campaign and vote
for political leaders who will move in this direction.
Second, the Palestinians must begin a dialogue among themselves
to re-evaluate national priorities. What do they want as a
people? Is the two-state solution still the most viable option?
Should the Palestinian Authority be dismantled, as many
Palestinians argue, because it has failed to fulfill its mission
to build an independent state?
Third, since Hamas and Fatah both claim political legitimacy and
support of the Palestinian people, new elections should be called
to allow the people to select their leaders. Neither coup
government is fully legitimate; the people need to decide.
It should be clear to Israelis, Americans and Palestinians that
this conflict cannot be settled by military means. But the steps
I am recommending can be effective only when the Israeli and U.S.
governments stop their collective punishment of Gazans. Further
isolation of Hamas and its leadership from any negotiated
settlement will drive Palestinians everywhere to hopeless
alternatives. A lasting settlement of this conflict has to engage
all parties, including the elements of Hamas that are willing to
negotiate.
BY MOHAMMED ABU-NIMER
Mohammed Abu-Nimer is an associate professor at American
University's School of International Service in Washington, D.C.,
and director of the university's Peacebuilding and Development
Institute.
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