PA rhetoric encourages colonial rule

The permanently belated affirmations by the Palestinian Authority make a mockery of its leadership. In a meeting with British Minister of State at the Foreign Office Alistair Burt in Ramallah, PA Foreign Minister Riyad Al-Maliki flaunted the typical grovelling and feeble attempts at assertions, stating that the international community should “impose peace” by establishing a Palestinian state.

According to the Times of Israel, Maliki told Burt: “We convinced the international community that the best way to reach a state is through negotiations. But after 24 years of negotiations, we have not gotten anything.” The reality is, of course, that this sort of rhetoric from the PA simply encourages colonial expansion and rule.

Previous meetings between Burt and Saeb Erekat elicited equally defeatist rhetoric. The veteran PA negotiator called upon Britain “to accept the principle of a two-state solution on the borders occupied in 1967 and East Jerusalem as the capital of the state of Palestine.”

The PA has accepted unrealistic impositions by Israel and the international community since its creation by the Oslo Accords, because the entity was set up to support Israel’s colonisation of Palestine. Now that the charade of leadership has unravelled, with the PA taking increasingly punitive measures against Palestinian civilians while prioritising Israeli demands, Erekat and Al-Maliki can only utter superfluous statements, paving the way for non-committal responses by diplomats. Burt, for example, merely reiterated the purported commitment “to work with the Palestinian leadership to achieve a two-state solution.”

The PA, in line with international demands, adheres to regurgitating outdated statements for the simple reason that its political and economic dependence upon Israel and the international community will not allow it to do otherwise. However, the refusal to allow Palestinian society to consider other political options will continue to wreak havoc over the people through forced displacement, home demolitions, settlement expansion, imprisonment and settler violence.

Read: Committing to a two-state solution displays bias, claims US official

As much as Al-Maliki would like to have the world believe that the PA influenced the international community to hold diplomatic negotiations, the constant revelation of its inferior bargaining position derides any attempts to portray a formidable political front. The “imposition of peace” which Al-Maliki requested is a mere ambiguity when read within the two-state context. In fact, the PA foreign minister has not even defined any alternative to a fragmented Palestinian state which is not only lacerated into shreds due to Israel’s colonial expansion, but also bears the scars of political discord and PA vengeance.

A two-state compromise will not halt Israel’s colonial activities. It is unlikely that the Zionist state will ever agree to the paradigm as defined by the international community, more so that it has been declared obsolete by the same entities that continue to promote it as the only solution. Nor will there be any genuine independence in a state of Palestine cobbled together from piecemeal concessions. If Al-Maliki thinks that peace can be imposed by the international community simply with the creation of an inferior concept of a state surrounded by decades of colonial violence, a closer look at history and its ramifications is necessary.

Inventing Israel required the distortion of human rights and the subsequent maintenance of such violations at an international level. Continuing to seek a solution for Palestine without keeping Palestine at the forefront of concerns, as the PA intends to do, will only empower Israel and the international community as they deprive the Palestinians of any degree of autonomy whatsoever.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.