THE Palestinian leadership in Ramallah is working on the basis that the peace talks with Israel will fail and that both sides know that this is the case because the US and Israel are proposing, on top of everything else, that the Israeli army be stationed along the Palestinian border with Jordan.
In other words, Israel is demanding that it be allowed control over entry and exit into Palestine.
The obvious implication is that Palestine is not to be a sovereign state but a puppet state, a protectorate dominated by the same Zionist leaders that are currently in charge of the occupation.
Yesterday, one of the Palestinian, long-time leaders, Nabil Shaath, confirmed that no peace deal would emerge after the nine-month limit ‘because of what Israel and the United States are proposing’.
The Fatah official expects 2014 to be dedicated to ‘reactivating’ Palestinian resistance. The Palestine Authority, he said, is expected to join more UN organisations and to dedicate efforts to achieve reconciliation with Hamas.
‘We have to use smart and fruitful means of struggle rather than violent struggle in order to maintain international support, as negotiations have failed to make a single step forward,’ said Shaath.
He added: ‘The minimum of what we were offered in the year 2000 hasn’t been reached, not to mention that the US has failed to exert pressure on Israel to guarantee Palestinian rights.’
It was this minimum that Yasser Arafat refused, saying that he would not surrender the right to return and that East Jerusalem should be the capital of Palestine.
This position led to him being virtually imprisoned in his compound in Ramallah where he was poisoned.
Now we learn that Israel and the US are not even offering what Arafat rejected.
It seems ‘impossible’ to reach an agreement, says Shaath, due to Israeli demands of maintaining security control, annexing Palestinian lands, refusing Palestinian sovereignty in Jerusalem and requesting that the PA recognises Israel as a Jewish state.
‘We will not recognise Israel as a Jewish state, and would like to ask John Kerry if he agrees that we recognise the US as a Christian state,’ Shaath said.
Thus, he added, the Palestinians have the right to practice resistance by all means.
‘However, we should choose a smart resistance which will not cause us calamities like what happens when a missile is launched from Gaza. We have to make sure the world will show solidarity with us just as in Europe where settlement products will be boycotted by the beginning of 2014.’
Meanwhile, Israeli forces are continuing to rampage all over the West Bank.
The West Bank town of Yaabad near Jenin has been beseiged for six days with all of the town’s entrances closed by military checkpoints, preventing residents from moving in and out.
Israeli military checkpoints have been erected at the main entrance in the east and all side streets and agricultural roads. Residents have been prevented from leaving the town to go to their work or universities.
Activists from Nabi Saleh have just released a video showing an Israeli soldier shooting a Palestinian woman in the leg at close range following clashes there last Friday afternoon.
The video shows the woman walking towards two heavily-armed Israeli soldiers who raided the village and being shot with a rubber bullet from a distance of only a few metres.
The incident is reported to have occurred as Israeli forces deployed in residential areas of the village of Nabi Saleh amid clashes following the weekly demonstration against the wall.
Israeli forces shot five Palestinians, including two journalists, and dozens suffered from tear gas inhalation during the clashes near the village. Israeli troops then deployed into the village itself.
The reality is that the failure of the peace talks will not see Palestinians adopting passive resistance to the aggressive, brutal Zionist enemy, but organising another Palestinian uprising, a Third Intifada.
In preparation of the talks’ breakdown, Palestinians must urge western trade unions to organise a complete boycott of Israel, and to take militant actions to show their support for a new Palestinian uprising.
The Zionist ruling class will never agree to a just peace, or any peace in Palestine.
They will have to be defeated by the Palestinians and their allies, as they were by the Lebanese people when Hezbollah drove them out of the Lebanon. There is no other way.
