Editorial: Palestine after Arafat
Palestine after Arafat
The right of return, the right to housing and property
restitution and the right to compensation will not disappear as
long as refugees themselves continue to demand their basic human
rights. When the late Palestinian leader Yaser Arafat spoke about
the right of return he was not only speaking about human rights, he
was representing what refugees themselves have demanded for more
than five decades.
The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) was established
in the refugee camps in exile with a program based on return and
the unity of the land and its people. It should not be surprising
then to find Mahmoud Abbas, the newly elected Chairman of the PLO,
and the various candidates running to replace Arafat as President
of the Palestinian Authority (PA) all talking about the right of
return. This is their democratic responsibility – to represent
those who vote them into office.
A new era of democracy?
The Palestinian people have been practicing democracy for
decades, through political parties, student, teacher and women's
associations, professional and trade unions and through the
structures of the PLO. While many political pundits pondered over
who might ‘succeed’ Arafat after his death in November,
Palestinians looked to the Constitution of the PLO and the Basic
Law for the PA. Elections for President of the PA are scheduled for
January 2005, while the Executive Committee of the PLO elected
Mahmoud Abbas as Chairman of the PLO. The political vision of a
two-state solution being promoted by the newly re-elected Bush
administration as set forth in his June 2002 speech and the April
2004 letter of assurance to Ariel Sharon, however, raises serious
questions about the administration's support for democracy. The
litmus test being applied to Palestinians is not about democratic
representation, especially when it comes to so-called final status
issues; but rather the ability of the Palestinian leadership to
neutralize popular demands for a Palestinian state with Jerusalem
as its capital, full Israeli withdrawal to the 1967 borders and the
right of return.
There is no litmus test for Israel. For a long time the
international community has taken Israel's democratic credentials
for granted as “the only democracy in the Middle East.” According
to the Israel Democracy Institute, however, “protection of human
rights [in Israel] ... is poor; there is serious political and
economic discrimination against the Arab minority; there is much
less freedom of religion than in other democracies; and the
socioeconomic inequality indicator is among the highest.” There are
is no demand for Israel to normalize with the region even though
Israeli officials readily admit Israel is not a 'normal state'.
The wider international community continues to ignore the fact that due to restrictive conditions in many host countries in the Middle East more than half of all the Palestinian people still cannot participate in democratic elections by direct ballot for the Palestine National Council (PNC), the Palestinian parliament in exile, which is mandated to set PLO programs and policies. It is the PLO and not the Palestinian Authority that represents the entire Palestinian people and has the mandate to negotiate a future peace agreement with Israel.
“In nearly all other transition-related
elections in the world in recent years – in South Africa, Bosnia,
Kosovo, Afghanistan, and Iraq – provision has been made to include
in the vote those made refugees by the preceding years of strife
and conflict. Palestine’s refugees, inside and outside the occupied
territories, deserve no different. Enfranchisement would give the
refugees a solid sense of political inclusion, and involve them
constructively in the search for a workable solution. Excluding
them – as happened throughout the Oslo process – would probably
once again be a recipe for failure.” Helena Cobban, Christian Science Monitor, 22 November 2004 |
A time for testing
While the death of Yaser Arafat may not be a watershed for
democracy, it will nevertheless be a time of testing. Since the
collapse of final status talks in 2000 Israel has repeatedly stated
that there is no Palestinian partner. Many interpreted this mantra
as an attempt to marginalize the role of Arafat who was physically
confined to the PA compound in Ramallah. The Sharon government has
said that it can do business with Mahmoud Abbas.
Israeli actions on the ground should reveal how serious it is about
moving forward with the political process after the January 2005
elections for PA President. Palestinians have been ready for a
two-state solution since 1988 when they officially accepted a
compromise based on partition with a Palestinian state in 22
percent of historic Palestine. Israel, however, has continued to
take steps – e.g. settlement construction, land confiscation, and
now the Wall – that threaten the viability of a Palestinian state.
dumps shop realy has many
distinctive features
The other question that needs to be asked is whether the
international community has the political will to push for a
political solution. It has yet to demonstrate that it can extract
itself from the situation it has fallen into during the second
intifada where foreign donors are now largely paying for the the
social and economic impact of Israel's ongoing military occupation.
If donors are unable to summon sufficient political will to force
Israel to assume its obligation as an Occupying Power for the
civilian population in the OPTs, how will they ever muster enough
political will to facilitate a solution to the conflict?
And finally, the coming period will be a time of testing for
Palestinian, Israel and international civil society. Can civil
society actors build an effective, coordinated and inclusive
grassroots effort, from education and awareness-raising through
divestment, boycott and sanction campaigns, that can generate
enough pressure to force political actors to take the tough
decisions that need to be taken in order to reach a comprehensive
and durable peace that is consistent with international law and
practice? As UN Special Rapporteur for Human Rights in the OPTs,
John Dugard, observed in his December 2004 report, “This is no time
for appeasement on the part of the international community.”