Scurrilous name-calling campaigns disrupt the rational debate on strategic measures and possible alternatives for dealing with a complex historical problem such as the Palestinian question.
As long as the winning parties are convinced that the current situation is to their advantage, and no effort is made to think outside the box about other possible options that have not yet been tried, demagoguery will reign supreme in current and future dialogues on the question.
Everybody can agree that the Palestinian cause has experienced all forms of conflict in history. Its journey is fraught with the blood and sacrifices endured by the people. It has also seen many steps to pursue peaceful paths that have sought formulas for coexistence, security and stability.
However, these paths have always faced cries of betrayal and disloyalty from the hijackers of the cause in the regional and international political arenas.
The current generation of Palestinian leaders, especially the Palestinian Authority leadership, is on board with the Oslo agreement. President Mahmoud Abbas is one of the main architects of this accord. In spite of this, their reaction to the peace agreements signed by the Arab states with Israel is hardly flattering.
They have not given themselves a few hours for an objective and quiet reflection. On the contrary, they went directly to look in a long dictionary for accusations that are quite recurrent in the history of the issue.
I think the problem is that many Palestinian leaders are no longer able to continue to play their role. Palestinian negotiators, both major and secondary, are short of resources. They have no more ideas to put on the table.
Negotiating issues as pointed as the Palestinian question is a Marthénian match between minds capable of generating ideas, alternatives and solutions, with courage, maneuvering and approaching solutions from different angles and approaches.
But now, everyone has become trapped in the impasse in which the current negotiation process has become bogged down, or has fallen into the trap of organizations and states sponsors of terrorism and extremism, with all that this implies, namely the promotion of violence and false slogans of resistance, the consequences of which will only be borne by innocent Palestinians, Lebanese and others.
Palestinian leaders simply no longer have the courage to pursue innovative ways to find a just settlement for a just cause. This explains the Palestinian Authority’s decision to renounce its right to preside over the current session of the Arab League Council.
At a press conference held at the ministry’s headquarters in Ramallah, Palestinian Foreign Minister Riad Al Maliki revealed that this decision came “after the League’s General Secretariat adopted a position in support of the UAE and Bahrain, which have normalized their ties with Israel in violation of the Arab peace initiative.”
“Some influential Arab countries have refused to condemn the twisting of the Arab peace initiative. So the League will not take a decision in the foreseeable future in favor of condemning the breach of its decisions.”
The foregoing simply means that the Palestinian side would have exercised its right to the presidency of the Arab League Council if a resolution had been adopted in accordance with its vision of the sovereign decisions taken by the UAE and the Kingdom of Bahrain to establish peaceful ties with Israel.
To do otherwise would have meant giving up the exercise of a right that consists essentially of expressing a voice and defending the interests of the Palestinian people, not a privilege granted to its representatives in the League. This is not politics as we know it.
Diplomacy has many working definitions, but they do not include promoting withdrawal from confrontation in arenas of political debate and dialogue when it comes to the interests and destiny of the people.
Withdrawal can be an expression of anger and protest in a particular situation. But even the choice of means remains dependent and even constrained by the conditions and context of the decision.
I do not consider at all that the Palestinians have the luxury of withdrawing from the top of the Arab political scene. The Arab League, despite all the observations and reservations that the articles devote to it, remains a vital platform for expressing the Arab and Palestinian position in particular.
It remains a springboard for maintaining the unity of the Arab group and its alignment behind the first central issue of all Arab peoples and countries without exception.
What is needed now is to make reason speak. The Palestinian leadership can realize that “a change in leadership does not necessarily mean a change in objectives, but a different approach,” as His Excellency Anwar Gargash, Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, put it.
What our region and our cause are going through is the product of means, strategies and options that have not proven to be effective.
Everyone, including Israel, has no choice but to create new starting points that can offer new opportunities to bring security, stability, peace and prosperity to millions of young Arabs who dream of a better future.
