Kerry's Plan: A Liquidation Of The Palestinian Cause
14 February 2014
By Khalid
Amayreh
It is manifestly clear by now that the so-called
"framework agreement" proposed by U.S. Secretary of
State John Kerry would liquidate and decapitate rather
than resolve the enduring Palestinian cause.
The scandalously one-sided plan should be treated by
Palestinians and all honest people as dead-on-arrival
and inherently and absolutely unacceptable.
Among other things, Kerry is demanding that the
Palestinians declare that Israel is a Jewish state.
What happens to the 22% of Israeli citizens who are
Palestinian Arabs in a "Jewish state"?
Needless to say, recognizing Israel by the
Palestinians as a Jewish state could be viewed and
construed as a euphemism for giving Israel the right,
to be exercised not necessarily now but definitely in
the future, to expel its Palestinian citizens on the
ground that Israel is a Jewish state and Palestinians
are not Jewish.
The least negative interpretation of this strange
recognition would at the very least imply a solemn
Palestinian acknowledgement that Israel's Palestinian
community would have to content itself with the
perpetual status of a wretched and discriminated-
against minority on no other ground than the fact that
these people are not Jewish and don't belong to "holy
tribe."
Their continued existence in their ancestral homeland
would be precarious at best.
The shabby plan is also demanding that the
Palestinians agree to give up the paramount Right of
Return. This would be a thunderous and earth-shaking
defeat to Palestinian national aspirations.
In a certain sense, the right of return is the
essence, soul and heart of the Palestinian cause. The
PLO itself was created in 1965 to affect that right.
It is widely believed that the late Palestinian leader
Yasser Arafat was liquidated by Israel because he
wouldn't cede that sacred right.
Arafat told then President Bill Clinton that American
demands that that the Palestinian leader should cede
the right of return was tantamount to inciting
Palestinians to assassinate Arafat.
The current Palestinian leader is no Yasser Arafat.
However, the very least Mahmoud Abbas must do is to
consult with the people of Palestine, especially the
refugees, the very people whose lives and future would
be mostly affected by this one-sided plan.
I have no doubt that the vast majority of
Palestinians, especially the refugees, will reject
this unethical plan, not because they don't want
peace, but precisely because they insist on real
peace.
Needless to say, a peace that perpetuates oppression
and justice will be neither durable nor maintainable
in the long run. It would be a protracted truce at the
very best.
More to the point, many, probably most, Jewish
colonies built illegally and in violation of
international law ever since 1967 would remain intact.
This apparently would also include Jewish colonies in
East Jerusalem, the contemplated capital of the
would-be Palestinian entity.
Interestingly, Kerry's plan doesn't really define East
Jerusalem and whether it denotes the Eastern part of
the city of Jerusalem which Israel seized from Jordan
in 1967 or the neighboring suburbs such as Abu Dis and
Eizariya.
In any case, the continued existence of Jewish
colonies in East Jerusalem would effectively scuttle
any prospect of the city becoming a real capital of a
real viable Palestinian state with demographic and
territorial contiguity.
Kerry's plan is more than a lousy plan that
perpetuates injustice. It actually allows ethnic
cleansing and genocidal Israeli racism to triumph.
This would be analogous to the unjust conditions
imposed on Germany following the First World War. We
all know the rest of the story.
In light, it is highly likely that the vast majority
of Palestinians will reject this plan out of hand. The
Palestinians didn't wait all these years in order to
give up the right of return for a "state" bereft of
the means of viability.
We can wait. Time and truth are on our side. History
will not come to an abrupt end tomorrow.
Khalid Amayreh is an
American-educated journalist living in the Hebron
region of the West Bank.
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