Aljazeera reports on how Palestinians in the West Bank town of Ramallah were so angered at the allegations against the Palestine Liberation Organization leadership in the leaked documents published at the Qatari news organization’s site that they tried to invade the Aljazeera offices in that city. They accused Aljazeera of lying about their leaders.
The site points out that if the Palestinian populace is so angered by the idea that their leadership was willing, e.g., to give away most of East Jerusalem, then the Palestine Authority (PA) leadership was derelict in preparing their constituents for these concessions, which it was in fact making.
The Muslim fundamentalist party Hamas in Gaza demanded that PA president Mahmoud Abbas be deposed and put on trial for betraying the interests of the Palestinian people by the magnitude of the concessions he offered the Israelis.
The leaks have the effect of undermining the secular, nationalist PLO with regard to Hamas.
Meanwhile, the leaked documents also show that the Obama administration insisted on keeping the Fatah faction of Abbas in power in the West Bank, long after its electoral mandate had expired. Washington in public maintained that the Palestinians were free to choose their leadership.
They attacked the Al Jazeera office because they were angry at the PA leadership? Isn’t that a classic case of shooting the messenger?
No, they did not believe the charges against their leaders, to whom they are loyal.
Juan, when one hears charges one doesn´t believe, then one laughs at it.
When one gets angered, is because one doesn´t want to be told an unpalatable truth.
And now we see the results of the US plot to install its own police force in Palestine to repress any popular uprising against the quisling government. The phrase “fighting terror” covers up for a lot of sins.
Yes, a rude shock to discover those you trusted were busily stabbing you in the back. Now the Israelis will get what they deserve–nothing–and the Palistinians will get what they deserve–new leadership. Hamas is vindicated.
Now, tie these revelations together with those regarding Lebanon and a new situation is born with the USA absolutely discredited, with Erdogan and Turkey emerging as the new honest broker.
so called “PA” are but Israel/USA puppets without ANY legitimacy. ANY!
So all words about them being “secular” and even “nationalist” are irrelevant.
I KNOW for long time now who they are and what they do. I VERY much doubt that Palestinians do not.
Even merely judging by the outcome of the peace process we get the feeling that the Palestinian side has been doing a very poor job, and I hope that the release of these papers leads to meaningful changes in that regard. But the US has also been far from unbiased and seems to disregard international law, in favor of considering Israel’s wants and needs as a platform for resolving the conflict.
My question is what would it take to replace the US as a mediator with, say, European countries who seem to have a much more objective view of the conflict?
It seems to me that at some point, the arbitrary, self-interested, greed-pride-arrogance-momentum-driven behaviors of all the “international players” adds up to sufficient proof that there is no such thing as “international law.” Except maybe as a set of convenient hooks for PR spinning, fictions to hide behind, or “rules” to be swallowed by closely-reasoned exceptions.
Marx had this notion of the state withering away. I wonder if he had even a tiny inkling of what would happen as Corporate Persons became the agents that apply the financial and military acid and poison to all those states…
EU has not been fair to the Palestinians either. How about letting giving (several) emerging countries, like Brazil, the mandate to be an impartial broker?
My question is what would it take to replace the US as a mediator with, say, European countries who seem to have a much more objective view of the conflict?
A collapse of the United States’ economy and their ability to project their power and influence internationally. The U.S. isn’t going to back out of the game because being seen as abandoning Israel seems like (and probably is) political suicide for a mainstream politician.
The Europeans are almost as bad as the Americans with their involvement in the middle east, aside from establishing the paradigm that the United States now dominates they’ve also played all sides against each other for their own gain ever since. It’s not just the Palestinians they’re messing with either, they’ve backed out of deals they had with the Iranians rather than honour pledges they’ve made to induce cooperation with nuclear weapons inspections to the point where the Iranians don’t trust them any more than they trust the Americans.
Turkey would be a much better choice for an arbitrating (not mediating) power in the dispute because living in the region they will inevitably have to deal with fallout if things go pear shaped; because they have long standing ties with Israel that neither side really want to abandon; and because they enjoy increasingly favourable relations with the arabs, in part, by demonstrating a willingness to stand their ground against Israel and the western powers.
Of course neither option (E.U. or Turkey taking over for the Americans) has any chance of coming to pass in the short-term because the United States has too much invested economically, politically, ideologically, emotionally (and so on) in Israel’s domination of the region to allow anyone else to play the decisive role. If they won’t back out of Afganistan after nine years in an increasingly unpopular war then they are not going to change course here given all the pressure they face from the relevant lobbies and donors.
I find this article is also revealing:
The Palestine Papers and the Dead-End of Nationalism
link to wsws.org