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Israel/Palestine
Related: About this forumAbbas: Israel’s man in Ramallah (Larry Derfner)
Since his bid for statehood ended at the UN last September, Mahmoud Abbas, president of the Palestinian Authority, has become strictly an enforcer of the occupation.If Mahmoud Abbas had resigned as president of the Palestinian Authority last September, after the U.S. did Israels work and blocked the Palestinians UN bid for statehood, he would have accomplished something important. He would have inspired the Palestinians (like he did in his UN speech), left them with an example of integrity and shamed the West for allowing Israel to get away with the abomination it perpetrates in the West Bank and Gaza. If the PA had dissolved itself after the encounter at the UN, Israel would have suddenly had 2.5 million West Bankers on its hands with no Palestinian troops to keep them in line and no Palestinian bureaucracy to keep the economy from imploding. Abbas and Prime Minister Salam Fayyad have threatened to quit several times, and the threat of dismantling the PA and handing the job back to Israel has been raised continually, but never fulfilled. Now there are new threats, new plans to go back to the UN this September and seek recognition of Palestine not from the Security Council, where the U.S. can always veto it, but from the General Assembly, where the Palestinians cant get anything binding but can get a large majority of votes for a symbolic victory. Unfortunately, its too late, and my guess is that Abbas, Fayyad and the others know it. When they decided to swallow the U.S./Israeli refusal to recognize the Palestinians right to independence, they lost all respect from anybody. Theyre no longer advancing the Palestinian cause, theyre advancing the Israeli occupation thats their image now not only among Palestinians, but among everyone. A second bid for UN recognition would be a supreme example of history repeating itself, the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce.
I write this as somebody who, until this year, saw Abbas and Fayyad as the long-awaited answer to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, as the Palestinian leadership Israel always claimed to be dreaming of - one that demonstrably turned away from terror and thereby proved the sincerity of its peaceful intentions. Abbas has done this for eight years. His troops have been working with, or shall we say under, the IDF and Shin Bet, theyve arrested thousands of Hamasniks (and tortured many of them), theyve physically prevented mass people power demonstrations against the IDF, the wall and the settlements. A prime example of the PAs diligence came during Operation Cast Lead, when the West Bank was the only place in the world where Muslims werent protesting.
For all his strength within Fatah, Abbas owed his rise to power to George W. Bush and Condoleezza Rice, who picked him to be the moderate alternative to Arafat while the latter was living out his days in the Muqata. Abbas won the Bush administrations patronage because he spoke out from the beginning against the extreme violence of the second intifada and Arafats orchestration of it. Even Moshe Bugi Yaalon, the right-wing Likudnik who was then IDF chief of staff, credited Abbas as a consistent force for peace. What more could Israel want? As for Fayyad, he, too, was a favorite of the Bush administration, hed refused to serve in a national unity government with Hamas - hes a University of Texas-trained economist who spent his career at the U.S. Federal Reserve, World Bank and International Monetary Fund, for Gods sake. Hes a Western-oriented Palestinian technocrat. But he, like Abbas, is cynically branded a rejectionist by Israel, and Israel imposes its will on the U.S., which imposes its will on Europe, so in the absence of an Israeli partner for the two-state solution that Abbas and Fayyad seek, the only job available to them is that of occupation enforcer. And at some point after last September, they decided to accept it.
I dont know why they dont quit and close down the store, whether its that they gave up on Palestinian independence, or they just got too used to the power and perks, or theyre afraid Palestinian society will suffer too much if the PA isnt there to provide them jobs and a funnel for foreign aid, or all of the above. But objectively, Abbas, Fayyad and the PA have become Israels collaborators in the occupation, and no one by now can fail to see it. Israel has turned them. But then Israel has turned America into its collaborator, and Europe into its tacit collaborator, so turning the PA wasnt such a big chore.
http://972mag.com/author/larryd/
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Abbas: Israel’s man in Ramallah (Larry Derfner) (Original Post)
Violet_Crumble
Jul 2012
OP
azurnoir
(45,850 posts)1. The PA is quite important to Israel's security apparatus in OPT
so important that
IMF rejects Israeli request for bridge loan to PA
The Palestinian Authority is facing the worst economic crisis since its founding in 1994, the PAs labor minister told AFP on Sunday.
Minister Ahmad Majdalani said that if Arab countries fail to follow through with their pledged aid money, the government will not be able to pay its salaries or debts.
What is available to the Palestinian Authority at the moment in terms of funds is not enough to pay government employee salaries this month, with Ramadan approaching It is not sufficient to pay the bills that the Palestinian Authority owes to private companies, he said.
The International Monetary Fund recently refused an Israeli request for $1 billion in bridge loan funding for the Palestinians. The PA cannot ask the IMF for money on its own because it isnt a state.
The Palestinian Authority is facing the worst economic crisis since its founding in 1994, the PAs labor minister told AFP on Sunday.
Minister Ahmad Majdalani said that if Arab countries fail to follow through with their pledged aid money, the government will not be able to pay its salaries or debts.
What is available to the Palestinian Authority at the moment in terms of funds is not enough to pay government employee salaries this month, with Ramadan approaching It is not sufficient to pay the bills that the Palestinian Authority owes to private companies, he said.
The International Monetary Fund recently refused an Israeli request for $1 billion in bridge loan funding for the Palestinians. The PA cannot ask the IMF for money on its own because it isnt a state.
http://www.geneva-accord.org/mainmenu/imf-rejects-israeli-request-for-bridge-loan-to-pa
but one reading would never know this considering the number of times we see - PA/PLO/Hamas written as though they were all one and the same
bemildred
(90,061 posts)2. That was an interesting little story about the IMF loan. nt
shira
(30,109 posts)3. Do you want the PA to quit? n/t
bemildred
(90,061 posts)4. I want Abbas to quit, like Derfner.
What, if anything, to do about the PA would have to be worked out after.
Can't speak for azurnoir.
azurnoir
(45,850 posts)5. Undecided there are benefits and drawbacks to both
if Abbas quit that would effectively dissolve the PA and with it Oslo which IMO is not a bad thing, however at the very least the PA should hold verifiable elections soon very soon