Israel and the US Backed into a Corner

Agreeing to the conditions attached to the peace process that followed the first Gulf war represented a fundamental change in Palestinian strategy. The late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat declared in May 1992 that he was “left only with a fig leaf.” This statement was widely misinterpreted at the time; it should have been understood as a reference to a necessary evil, or an evil exchanged for a good. The Palestinians may have been weakened, but they took to the limit the logic on which Israel’s closest allies had reneged.

In an attempt to wrong-foot the often zealous defenders of what is called international law, the Palestinians have decided to appeal to the authority charged with preserving it, and to call things by their name. Furthermore, in order to shatter the vicious cycle that restricts them, they are emphasizing the occupier-occupied relationship, a relationship that is now being considered in light of those international treaties. The necessary evaluations are brought about as a consequence, and the truth of the matter becomes more evident.

In doing this, the Palestinians are choosing to bring an end to the kind of hoodwinking that in truth, although they never asked for it, they have accepted in the face of a balance of power that has closed all the spaces available to them, the U.N. being foremost. Despite the Israeli threats on Wednesday, nothing seems likely to change the Palestinian position: a refusal to add their signature to a document that stipulates that total and definitive negation of their national rights.

Abbas Defiant Facing Kerry

During a conversation with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas refused to go back on his signing of 15 international conventions and treaties, despite Israeli threats. A Palestinian official revealed that during a telephone conversation last Thursday evening, Mr. Kerry asked Mr. Abbas to renounce his calls for Israeli adherence to these treaties.

The same official revealed that Mr. Abbas “stated that he would not go back on his signature of international agreements,” not least of which is the Geneva Convention on the protection of civilians, signed last week and sent to the U.N., Switzerland and the Netherlands, guarantors of these texts. One cannot fail to notice the Palestinian leader’s weariness; indeed he has shown prudence in these matters ever since the process began in Oslo in 1993. “There is no historical agreement,” he was keen to impress upon us from his Tunis offices, shortly before he left for Washington for the Sept. 13 ceremony.

And indeed the accord was almost immediately blocked, and would be on several further occasions, before its final burial by General Ariel Sharon, who became Prime Minister in 2000. As early as 1995 it was said of then Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that he wanted “peace and the territories,” a twist of the principle that called for “peace in exchange for the territories.” Today, the Palestinians believe that they have given everything and been given nothing. Their various uprisings seem proof that this belief is unshakeable. Mahmoud Abbas, who was forced to express his opposition to the army of the Intifada, does not hide his opinions on the matter.

“We do not demand much, and threats from the Israelis no longer scare anybody. They are allowed to do as they wish,” he declared. We shall see an end, then, to taps on the shoulder and forced smiles. Israeli repression will become more violent, but for the Palestinians, the time has come to put an end to a grim lie. Meanwhile, their leaders wish to avoid accusations of treachery. New information is surely going to come to light, and with real implications for the international authority that is still kept at arm’s reach from the Palestinian issue. For this authority, it will be a case of defending positions of principle, without submitting to blackmail.