PALESTINIAN Prime Minister Ahmad Qurei has touched on a number of foreign and domestic policy issues, such as the relations with the USA, the truce with Israel and the economic situation in the Palestinian territory, in an interview with Palestinian TV on the occasion of the Id al-Fitr holiday.
He urged the USA to ‘play a more effective role’ in putting pressure on Israel to ‘play by the rules’ and return to the negotiating table.
Commenting on the security situation, Qurei noted that the Palestinians were facing ‘unmatched’ international pressure, both from the West and ‘some of our brethren’, not to ‘give excuses’ to Israel to launch military operations.
He pointed out that extending the truce was in the national interest and that there must be no unilateral decisions by factions on breaking the truce, otherwise Israel would be given a chance to ‘corner the factions one by one’.
‘A resistance gun is not a criminal gun,’ Qurei said but added that if the Palestinians wanted this truly to be the case, they had to agree to fight crime, control security and uphold the rule of law.
The prime minister talked about economic issues at length, saying that the Gaza Strip was being ‘economically strangled’ with the closure of border crossings, and described the PNA’s decision to invest 175 million dollars in education, health care and infrastructure as ‘the most important decision the PNA has made since its conception’.
The government wanted to build 130 schools, modernise hospitals, improve roads and water supply and build playgrounds and sports clubs, he said, and noted that foreign aid and donations were slowing down and that the PNA could not ‘sit and wait’, which was why it decided to invest in these projects from its cash reserve.
The following is the text of parts of the interview broadcast by Palestinian TV on 3 November:
He said: ‘Without doubt we are experiencing tough and serious conditions.
‘I see the situation repeating itself. President Yasser Arafat was a hero of Palestinian steadfastness and a symbol of Palestinian national struggle over the past four decades. He was a man of peace as well, because he is the one who waged the battle of peace starting with Madrid and even before that with several initiatives made by the PLO and until we reached Oslo and signed the agreement there, as well as the Wye River agreement and others, which form the groundwork for a real peace.
‘Despite all this, President Arafat was accused of not being a partner for peace, which is a great injustice.
‘The same situation is repeating itself today in a more vicious manner. They are now saying that the entire Palestinian generation is not a generation of peace.’
He continued: ‘They are talking about the entire Palestinian people. They are saying that the present generation, whether in the homeland or in the diaspora, in their eyes is not a generation of peace.
‘While they, with their tanks, their airplanes, their aggression, killing, invasions, assassinations, pursuit, arrests, their disintegration of the homeland, their racist discrimination embodied in the racist separation wall, their settlements and unlimited expansion, their annexation of Jerusalem and their military checkpoints that separate villages and even neighbourhoods, consider all these actions as peaceful actions and their generation is a generation of peace.
‘As for those oppressed by the Israelis and by the world’s silence over Israeli injustice, these are not considered a generation of peace.
‘Truly, the situation has been turned upside down and justice was never translated into anything meaningful with regard to the Palestinian cause and the suffering of the Palestinian people. The silence of the world and of the major powers over this situation and their constant blaming of the Palestinians entails a lot of injustice and is truly a situation of double standards.
‘We are a generation of peace. We are advocates of peace. We resist for peace. We are steadfast and persevering for the sake of peace. We are the ones who extended our hand in peace. . .
‘Nevertheless. . . We will not accept the peace they want. In that case, there will never be peace, not for this generation and not for future ones.’
Qurei then spoke about the ‘relationship’ with the US.
‘The relationship with the United States is one we care about and seek to develop. . . But we ask the United States, as a superpower in the world and a state with interests in our region – and our cause is an important issue in the region – only one thing: Do not allow time to pass with no results. Do not let conditionality be the rule in dealing with the Palestinian issue. The Palestinian issue is explosive and sensitive. The United States can undertake – not pressure – but its moral and historic role by asking Israel to play by the rules and to return to the negotiating table. . .
‘There are no rules of the game. Currently there are rules for just one player who is allowed to do as he pleases. Israel is allowed to be belligerent, to kill, to invade, assassinate, destroy, close down the homeland, close roadblocks, erect roadblocks and close down seaports and points of entry.
‘It does everything through force and only through force. It builds a wall. If you walk out of here, you will find a 10-metre-high wall only 25 metres away from here. It separates us from Jerusalem.
‘We are only two kilometres away from Jerusalem and we are completely blocked. This is the game of the powerful and this game will not exist forever.
‘There is always someone who is more powerful. There is no power that does not eventually disappear. This is the history of the rise of states. If Israel does not realise these facts, which are facts of the universe, I think it would be playing with its future and the future of its people.
‘The United States, which has a great moral and historic responsibility because of its strength, position, status and ties with the Israelis and with us and the Arab world, is required to play a more effective role.
‘It can do that. We are not asking it to do more than impose the rules of the game on a complicated process that can only be solved through negotiations.
‘Israel will not succeed in extracting anything from the Palestinians by force. No matter how great Israeli tyranny grows, the Palestinians will never succumb to anything created by Israel through force.
‘The only thing that the Palestinians can accept is the outcome of negotiations. Anything other than that is not possible.
‘What is acceptable is the outcome of negotiations that we negotiate over and agree on and our leaderships and people agree on. These will give Israel peace.
‘Anything else will only bring Israel more hatred and animosity.’
