Israel’s worst nightmare: a Palestinian democracy
Published in The Canberra Times, 7 October 2011
http://bit.ly/snyr42
How ironic that the bastion of freedom is accused of bullying within the United Nations Security Council while the Palestinian statehood bid is deliberated. The United States can use its status as the world’s sole superpower to yield democracy, peace and justice. Or it can abuse its super power to sustain the suffering of Palestinians, and relegate itself to the last pro-Israel bastion. Even former US president Bill Clinton recently conceded that ”the US Congress is the most pro-Israel parliamentary body in the world”.
In order to pass, the Security Council resolution for full Palestinian membership requires at least nine votes in favour and no vetoes from the five permanent members. With eight members pledging an affirmative vote, pressure is mounting on three undecided members, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Colombia and Portugal.
To protect the US from accusations of (ab)using its veto power, it is expected that the three undecided members would be asked to abstain via carrots and sticks. Thus the US can deflect any blame for a failed bid and simply point to the numbers game. However, how does the Palestinian moral power compare with the US monetary and military power? Already, the US Congress has frozen nearly $US200million in aid for Palestinians that was meant to be released by the end of their (September) financial year ”until the Palestinian statehood issue is sorted out”.
This is one-third of the annual commitment that was earmarked by the Obama Administration for food aid, water administration and health care. Chief spokesman of the Palestinian Authority, Ghassan Khatib, accused the US of ”collective punishment … for going to the United Nations”.
With the US turning the taps off, these ”bullying tactics” have been condemned as shameful. The pro-Israel sponsors such as the American Israel Public Affairs Committee invest exorbitant amounts into US politicians and election campaigns, then expect a return on that investment. But they call it lobbying, not bullying.
Surely it must be an abuse of power to witness the standing ovation after the plea by Palestinian President Mahoud Abbas at the UN General Assembly, then dare to deny this rising tide, and deny the Palestinian people their inalienable right to statehood.
The pro-Israel propaganda and Barack Obama’s orations have become inseparable. Israel’s UN ambassador Ron Prosor insisted ”A Palestinian state … will not be achieved [by] imposing things from the outside but only in direct negotiations … There are no short cuts.” This is virtually Obama’s speech verbatim. How ironic that the US – the antithesis of dictatorships – is being dictated to and even bullied.
How can you tell Palestinians who have waited since the dishonoured 1947 Partition Plan that there are no short cuts? How can you corner a strangled leadership with no army and no state to deal directly with their bully? Why did Israel not need the blessing of Palestine when it sort statehood? How can you pretend that this is a civil dispute between two equal neighbours, rather than a criminal catastrophe that requires the intervention of the international criminal court?
If the US applies the handbrake to this historic bid, it may inadvertently fuel a new anti-bully revolution – against the US whose non-neutrality as peace broker has been exposed, or against Israel as the occupation force seeking a Jewish state through ethnic cleansing and terrorist tactics, but also against the
Palestinian Authority itself as unrepresentative and reflecting the business elite of an oppressed people.
Abbas has couched his statehood bid within the Arab Spring narrative by claiming that ”the time has come also for the Palestinian Spring”. But voices of Palestinian dissent are demanding democracy and consultation within both the Palestine Liberation Organisation and the Palestinian Authority.
He should be careful what he wishes for, as the Palestinian youth may be inspired by neighbouring Arab countries to topple his leadership. Like their Arab peers, these educated and alienated youth can deploy social media and mobilise a popular mass movement. They may appeal directly to the ”court of global public opinion” rather than the UN. The youth may transcend the Fatah-Hamas schism and chant ”one person, one vote”, using non-violent resistance and civil disobedience. Globally, the BDS campaign may gain greater momentum. They may see that the truth ”on the ground” since 1967 has been a ”one state solution” with its occupied annexes. They may see the most viable future solution is one secular state that becomes a true democracy with equal citizens.
Even the grandson of a Zionist signatory to the 1948 Israeli Declaration of Independence, Miko Peled, advocated this secular democracy vision during his recent speaking tour in Australia: ”The people of Egypt remind us that nothing is impossible.”
If the Palestinian statehood bid fails, the third and non-violent intifada may leap forward and a secular democracy where Palestinians are the majority may be Israel’s worst nightmare.