The fragmentation of Palestinian land and people is at such an advanced stage that the international community is merely letting the last phases of colonialism unfold.
The fragmentation of Palestinian land and people is at such an advanced stage that the international community is merely letting the last phases of colonialism unfold.
US President Donald Trump is taking credit for an alternative means of stripping Palestinians of their rights. Yet the so-called “deal of the century” is merely an accelerated step in normalising Israel’s colonisation of Palestine, built upon precedents that garnered regional and international consensus.
The details will not be revealed until after the upcoming Israeli elections in September. White House Senior Adviser Jared Kushner has given a clear indication of what Palestinians should expect. Speaking to Al Jazeera, Kushner commented that any deal “will be somewhere between the Arab Peace Initiative and somewhere between the Israeli position.”
What Trump is making clear is the elimination of the two-state compromise. This is hardly an innovation, given that the concept of two states has been declared obsolete and remains relevant only to sustain international diplomacy.
Israel has been clear it does not envisage a Palestinian state. The Oslo Accords only stipulated Palestinian autonomy and the Arab Peace Initiative (2002) speaks of normalising relations with Israel in return for the two-state paradigm’s implementation.
Arab states, however, are not waiting to normalise relations with Israel. The Warsaw Summit last February, which was a propaganda exercise for Israel to disseminate, and seek collusion about its security narrative, showed Arab leaders pay mere lip service to Palestinian concerns. The summit was about normalising ties with Israel under the pretext of common concerns about the purported Iranian threat. Behind this veneer, Israel furthered its aim of alienating attention away from Palestinians’ political rights.
Given this collusion, it stands to reason that Kushner views the Arab Peace Initiative as an important foundation upon which the US can develop its agenda to support Israel’s ongoing colonial project. Palestinians’ political isolation has been compounded throughout the decades by initiatives which pretend to prioritise their demands, while looking towards Israel for diplomatic and economic gain. That the Palestinian leadership continues to laud the two-state compromise and the Arab Peace Initiative as acceptable parameters has, of course, strengthened the normalisation of Israel’s colonialism.
Following the Peace to Prosperity conference in Bahrain, which was attended by representatives of Arab states, a poll revealed that 80 per cent of Palestinians believe they have been abandoned. This statistic ties in to Netanyahu’s earlier boastful truth that Arab states no longer require Israel to adhere to their demands regarding Palestine.
Needless to say, the Palestinian Authority’s politics have also normalised Israel’s colonisation. It has repeatedly refused to turn to the people, preferring instead the charade of international diplomacy that paved the way for an overt expression of Israeli bias and political support. The EU, for example, has already stated that it would work with the US if the deal incorporates the two-state compromise.
However, given that there is no possibility of its implementation, what stops the EU from embarking on yet another duplicitous role that allows it to maintain the two-state façade while working to coerce Palestinians into a situation where the choice is between Trump’s deal and a hypothetical scenario? Between Trump’s deal and the Arab Peace initiative, the stage is set for Israel to dictate and act with unprecedented impunity.
Lest it is forgotten, US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman and US Envoy David Greenblatt have stated that international law does not apply to what they term “the Israeli-Palestinian conflict”. Unsurprisingly, international silence prevails. The fragmentation of Palestinian land and people is at such an advanced stage that the international community is merely letting the last phases of colonialism unfold. Perhaps it has no other option, given that the international community itself facilitated and continues to maintain this web of normalised human rights violations.
