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- Barak's Resignation and the
Palestinian Dimension
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by Hanan Ashrawi
- The conventional, diplomatic
Palestinian response to Barak’s resignation and its impact on the
Palestinians is the usual refusal to meddle in Israeli domestic
issues or internal politics. Despite these protestations, the
Palestinian-Israeli equation and realities are so interdependent as
to create a multi-tiered, direct impact zone or interface between
the two.
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- Regardless of the domestic reasons
behind such a political maneuver, be they Barak’s need to preempt
Netanyahu or his Labor challengers or his own parliamentary crisis,
or even to take the initiative on the inevitable, it is clear that
both the causes of Barak’s political demise as well as the
ramifications are directly, if not exclusively, linked to the
Palestinian scene.
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- Barak first wreaked havoc in the peace
process by claiming to be the most decisive peace partner and then
presenting proposals that failed to meet the minimal requirements of
peace. By denying the basic rights of the Palestinians and violating
the legal foundations of the peace process, Barak proved that he
lacked the vision and political will necessary for ending the
conflict. In addition, his racist policies of occupation, settlement
expansion, collective punitive measures, and land confiscation did
not signal to the Palestinian people any seriousness of intent or
good will. This culminated in his brutal military assault against
the captive Palestinian people as evidenced by the deployment of
tanks and helicopter gun ships, the shoot-to-kill policy of snipers
using lethal high velocity bullets, the deliberate assassination and
extra-judicial killings of activists and faction leaders, the
shelling of Palestinian homes and institutions, the uprooting of
trees and destruction of crops, and the imposition of a multiple
siege on all Palestinian villages, towns and camps.
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- Now, Barak by going over the heads of
the Knesset (where he has lost his majority) is seeking a new
mandate from the Israeli people as a vote of confidence in his
vision of peace. The question is: does Barak have a new vision of
peace? So far, the evidence is negative. Having failed with his
previous, short-sighted and flawed policies, what makes Barak think
that he can sell this “vision” once again—whether to the
Israeli public or to the Palestinians—as a policy capable of
succeeding now where it had failed before? Does he think that having
brutalized the Palestinians (whether in Israel or in Palestine) he
can now convince them that he has suddenly and miraculously become a
genuine advocate of peace and justice? Or is this another desperate
attempt to gain more legitimacy with the Israeli electorate by
proving to be just as hard line and cruel as the right wing
alternative?
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- The mentality of the military general,
tainted by decades of a brutal and racist occupation, is that which
makes Barak suffer from the illusion that the purpose of both the
peace process and his policy of military repression is to
- “defeat” the Palestinians and
break their will. It is not surprising that he has failed in both.
Barak has to decide whether he can present himself as the savior of
peace or the champion of settlements or the military oppressor of
the captive Palestinian people. He cannot be all things to all
people.
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- Now that he has delivered his
bombshell and created a new 60-day time frame, a new form of
mobilization is taking place. Most western capitals, not least of
which Washington, have rallied to save Barak under the misguided
notion that they are saving peace. It is expected that tremendous
pressures will be exercised on the Palestinian Authority to come to
Barak’s rescue as a means of salvaging peace, the alternative
being much worse.
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- The clear response is that Barak has
not proven himself to be a peacemaker; his own policies and measures
have led directly to this latest tragic breakdown and have destroyed
any vestiges of confidence or trust that may have existed earlier.
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- Nor can the Palestinians be
“scared” into signing a flawed agreement to save Barak’s
political career out of fear of the Likud. He himself has outdone
the Likud (and with total impunity) thereby leaving the Palestinians
with nothing to fear.
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- The Palestinians cannot use their
credit to offer Barak a political lifeline—the credit being our
rights and lands and the legitimacy of the leadership with their own
constituency. Neither self-sacrifice nor self-negation by the
Palestinians can serve the cause of peace. On the contrary, an
unjust and fatally flawed agreement, forced on the Palestinians by
misguided pressure and panic politics, will only backfire.
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- The real requirement is for a drastic
and genuine transformation in the prevailing mindset within the
Israeli body politic and political elite. Any strategy for peace
capable of achieving its minimal aspirations has to address the
basic requirement of full Israeli withdrawal to the 1967 boundaries
(including Jerusalem) and the removal of all settlements. Rather
than accommodating the illegal and unjust realities imposed by force
of occupation, a real peace process must nullify them and create new
paradigms for a different set of relationships based on mutuality
and parity.
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- Regardless of the name of the
individual or party concerned, the Palestinians are in search of an
Israeli peace partner who not only recognizes the imperatives of a
just peace, but who also has the courage and leadership to act
accordingly. Peace is not just an Israeli domestic issue, nor is it
a factor of individual political careers or party rivalries and
maneuvers.
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- When the fate of nations and the
future of generations are at stake, the ethos and vision of peace
remain much larger than the sum of individual components and
careers.
- Source:
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by the same author:
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