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Al-Ahram Weekly 29 Apr. - 5 May 1999 Issue No. 427 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 29 Apr. - 5 May 1999 Issue No. 427
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Profile Focus Special Travel Sports People Features Living Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters Toward the broader horizon
By Mustafa Al-Barghout *There is a high degree of consensus in the world today over the right of the Palestinian people to establish an independent state. Even within Israel, the majority recognises the inevitability of the establishment of the Palestinian state, however much public opinion might prefer to expel the Palestinian people from Israel, if that solution were possible.
There is a long way, however, between consensus over the principle and that principle's realisation. Much more is involved than a mere official declaration. The controversy over the principle of statehood per se may indeed have been resolved, largely because of the steadfastness and heroic sacrifices of the Palestinian people, whose Intifada transformed their demands into political realities. On the other hand, the conflict over the actual nature of that state, its physical borders and the degree of its sovereignty is more acute than ever.
If Israeli politicians feel they must yield to the inevitable, they will nevertheless make every attempt to contort the inevitable into a caricature of statehood by imposing a formula of limited self-rule upon a patchwork of cantonments cut off from one another by ring roads and Israeli settlements and subject to Israeli economic domination and complete control over border areas and security.
In this regard, the differences between the Likud and Labour parties are minor. The Israeli Labour Party seeks to maintain control over no less than 45 per cent of the West Bank, and to defer negotiations over the status of Jerusalem for 10 years, buying more time to expand Jewish settlements and to Judaise the holy city. The Labour Party also wants to maintain control over Al-Ghor and the Green Line zones, to annex broad areas of settlement territories and to transform the Palestinian refugees' right of return into a mere question of possible compensation claims.
A Likud Party victory in the forthcoming Israeli elections will, in effect, issue the official death certificate of the current peace process. Should the Labour Party win, the Palestinians will encounter a formidable challenge, manifested primarily in Israeli attempts to void the concept of Palestinian statehood of any real substance through a repackaging of systematic discrimination, occupation and economic domination under the gloss of statehood.
Moreover, as Israel, under Labour Party rule, emerges from the relative isolation of the current Likud government, the Palestinians will find themselves prey to intensive US and international pressure to submit the concept of statehood to negotiations with Israel and, once again, to wrangle over details and partial solutions. The outcome of such negotiations can be predicted beforehand; they will be determined by the skew in the balance of power in Israel's favour. The five years since the signing of the Oslo Accords are sufficient proof of the futility of piecemeal negotiations.
In short, 4 May offers a golden opportunity to elude the negotiating conditions that had always prevailed. Rather than risk awaiting the results of Israeli elections before resuming the negotiating game, the Palestinians should take advantage of the current international climate by precipitating a calculated crisis that would improve their negotiating power and translate the achievements of the Palestinian people into tangible realities.
The right of the Palestinian people to self-determination is subject only to the will of the Palestinians. To fulfil this right, the Palestinian Central Council and other Palestinian agencies should take the necessary formal procedures for the establishment of statehood. These involve:
1) Declaring the end of the current transitional phase and all the legal conditions entailed in that phase on 4 May, and ratifying and implementing the relevant legislation on statehood passed by the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC).
2) Declaring the official, non-negotiable borders of the Palestinian state, which are the pre-June 1967 borders and comprise the entire West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem.
3) Imposing immediate sovereignty over national territory in accordance with UN General Assembly Resolution 181 of 1947, and the declaration of Palestinian independence of 1988, towards which end the Palestinian authorities should call upon the international community to support the Palestinian people in their demand for the withdrawal of Israeli occupation forces from their national territory.
4) Declaring Jerusalem the capital of the independent Palestinian state, toward which end all necessary measures should be taken to transfer the official institutions of state to that city.
The exercise of democratic rights is one of the most important manifestations of national sovereignty. In this regard, the Palestinians should implement a number of measures to ensure the broadest possible popular participation in the establishment of the institutions of government.
This would accomplish two ends. It would ensure the solid entrenchment of democratic processes while posing a serious challenge to the Israeli drive to impose new realities on the ground. The political committee of the PLC has proposed many of these steps, which include conducting the long-awaited municipal and village elections in the cities and villages of the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem in accordance with Palestinian electoral law and, secondly, drafting a new law for elections to the parliament and the Palestinian National Council (PNC).
With regard to the latter step, the system of parliamentary and council appointments should be abandoned forever. Under Palestinian law, MPs can serve simultaneously as the representatives of Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza in the National Council. I see little problem with this, as long as the PNC also includes representatives of Palestinian refugees and Palestinian communities abroad where circumstances permit the holding of elections.
As a third step toward implementing democratic processes, the Palestinians should establish a founding committee to draw up the Palestinian constitution. The committee should consist of representatives of the various PLO bodies, representatives of all national forces and institutions of civil society, and legal specialists.
Finally, to consolidating statehood, efforts should take two directions. First, it is essential to enhance national solidarity so that the Palestinian people can be better equipped to meet the challenges they will face. To this end, all Palestinian political detainees should be released and arrest without trial should be prohibited. Second, security courts should be abolished, a supreme court of justice should be established and the autonomy of the courts should be ensured. Third, the current government should be dissolved and a new transitional national unity government should be established.
The primary function of this temporary government should be to establish the sovereignty of the state, promote national independence on all political, economic and social levels, and remedy the shortcomings of previous governments.
Fourth, a Palestinian ministry of foreign affairs should be established in order to manage the new state's relations with the international community.
The second course towards consolidating sovereign statehood involves entering into immediate negotiations with Arab, European and other nations in order to liberate the Palestinian economy from Israeli domination. An important first step is to declare the nullification of the Paris economic agreement which imposes many restrictions on Palestinian economic activity.
What the Palestinian people must do, in short, is to declare statehood, establish immediate sovereignty over their territory and cling to that sovereignty steadfastly. Above all, they must stand firm against all attempts to void statehood of its fullest meaning. The temporal distance between 4 May and 17 May is very short. The political distance between the two dates is immense. It is a period that offers a promising gateway to a sovereign, independent state; but it is also a period that can bring increasingly narrower windows of opportunity and certain frustration. One can only hope that the Palestinians move towards the broader horizon.
*The writer is a leading member of the Palestinian People's Party.
