The leak of confidential documents covering the ‘peace’ negotiations between the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) and Israel reveals starkly the bankruptcy and futility of any attempt to negotiate a settlement with the Zionist entity.
These Palestinian documents, running into thousands of pages and going back over a decade of talks with Israel and the US, reveal the enormous concessions PNA negotiators were prepared to make to the Zionists in order to secure a peace deal – concessions that fly in the face of everything the Palestinian people have fought for in decades of struggle.
They reveal that in 2007 PNA negotiators proposed that Israel annex all but one of the Jewish settlements in Jerusalem.
These settlements are illegal under international law and, more importantly, the city is regarded by all Palestinians as the capital of Palestine.
Agreeing to recognise Israel’s right to occupy any Palestinian land is a complete betrayal of the Palestinian struggle – to agree to give up the city of Jerusalem to the illegal occupiers goes into a realm beyond mere treachery.
Even this humiliating concession was not enough for the Zionists.
Their response was to reject the offer out of hand because it did not give them all of Jerusalem – they condescendingly stated that although it was not enough they ‘appreciated’ the offer.
This was not the only concession that PNA negotiators were prepared to make.
The leaked documents show that even the central issue of the right of Palestinians to return to their homeland was open to negotiations as far as the PNA were concerned.
Not just the Zionists treated the Palestinian negotiators with contempt.
Former US secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, dismissed the forced eviction of Palestinians from their homes by the Israelis, saying ‘bad things happen to people’.
What is crystal clear is that the PNA negotiators not just bent over backwards, they cut themselves in half in order to get an agreement but, in the words of one of their members, Israel would not even give them a ‘fig leaf’ to cover up their capitulation.
The message is loud and clear – there can be no ‘peaceful’ negotiated settlement with Israel.
As for the leadership of the PNA, they have betrayed the struggle of the Palestinians, who have refused to stop fighting for their homeland, and the memory of Yasser Arafat who led the Palestinians in rejecting outright any concessions on these main issues.
What is required is a leadership that is equally as steadfast as Arafat.
As Palestinians turn in revulsion from the obsequious treachery of these negotiations, they must turn to a new leadership that refuses to even contemplate concessions.
Immediately they must declare the existence of the state of Palestine with Jerusalem as its capital.
Already, many countries throughout the world are ready to acknowledge such a declaration.
As for the Israelis, despite the PNA negotiators being in awe of them and their US backers, the truth is that never have they been weaker or more vulnerable.
Israel is an economically unviable entity that only exists through the financial and political support of a crises-ridden US.
Its much vaunted military strength has been defeated by the heroic resistance of the Palestinian people when, despite all its weapons and its callous disregard for human life, it was driven out of Gaza.
Crucially, the Palestinians do not stand alone. Throughout the world millions of workers support their struggle.
Now is the time to put that support into practice by demanding a trade union boycott of all things Israeli, and, above all, insisting on support for the independent state of Palestine.
