This is part of Marc H. Ellis’s “Exile and the Prophetic” feature for Mondoweiss. To read the entire series visit the archive page.
The Christian messages keep coming. First Edward Snowden, then the Pope, now Mahmoud Abbas. Shall the last become first?
Perhaps. But if the news is accurate, it seems that America’s Secretary of State, John Kerry, is determined to dampen Abbas’s Christian cheer.
Reports are that the US plan to be presented to Israel and the Palestinians will include an Apartheid Wall in the Jordan Valley. The Palestinians in the West Bank would be walled in on both the Israeli and Jordanian side.
If such a proposal doesn’t prompt a real and final walk out by the Palestinian Authority, they are beyond the pale. Even Jesus can’t save them.
Of course, every day, Kerry adds new amendments to his plan. Expect more shifts in the coming days.
It seems that details of Kerry’s plan depend on which way the Israeli or Palestinian wind is blowing. Kerry’s lack of direction – and substance – is no doubt why he is a failed Secretary of State rather a former President of the United States.
Walls are physical enclosures. They are symbolic markers as well. No matter what the Palestinians do, their destiny is to be surrounded by foreign powers. How much leeway Palestine has to interact with these powers is crucial.
To think of any governing authority signing onto any variation of Kerry’s proposal boggles the mind. It’s a Vichy-like set-up. Palestinian leadership would be seen by many as collaborators in their own ghettoization.
To say that more Palestinian suffering would ensue if the PA refused to govern, that, for example, people’s salaries would be unpaid, that the economy would collapse, anarchy would ensue or that corruption and gangland violence would rule – all of this may be true. However, it is also possible that a concentrated effort by Palestinians to survive through mutual solidarity would win the day.
Would the international community wake-up if Abbas simply quit, shut the government down and went on the lam? Refusal to accept tyranny can be contagious.
When the Pope visits in March, perhaps, once arrived, he, too, might go on the lam. It would certainly draw the attention of the world if the Pope disappeared into a Palestinian refugee camp and refused to leave.
What do Abbas and the Pope have to lose?
As the noose is tightened, Abbas didn’t say much in his Christmas message and, strangely enough, the news lead in many newspapers was that Abbas had referred to Jesus, not as a Jew but as a “Palestinian messenger.” Abbas put it this way: “In Bethlehem, more than 2000 years ago, Jesus Christ was born; a Palestinian messenger who would become a guiding light for millions around the world. As we Palestinians strive for our freedom two millennia later, we do our best to follow his example. We work with hope, seeking justice, in order to achieve a lasting peace.”
A Palestinian messenger, indeed, and we have to add, a Jewish one at that. This makes Jesus a Palestinian Jew.
A Jewish Palestinian Jesus joining Abbas and the Pope in Palestine would certainly get the world’s attention.
Is John Kerry listening? Perhaps he should join them too.
“If such a proposal doesn’t prompt a real and final walk out by the Palestinian Authority, they are beyond the pale. Even Jesus can’t save them.”
I’ll wait for his reaction to the proposal before I make up my mind about him. So far, I’ve been guessing about him but there’s still a chance Abbas may become a hero if he walks out and goes straight to the UN.
Yes. That’s what Oslo was an agreement to a Vichy-like set-up. That’s the idea. The Palestinians get a self governing colony so they can develop in peace, the Israelis get a security buffer of the Palestinians. The war ends. The Israelis have even less faith in the Palestinians than they did two decades ago in Palestinians intentions so the terms and conditions keep getting worse but that’s always been what Oslo was about. That’s why Arafat said “no” at Camp David.
Failed at what? The Obama administration is one of the most successful foreign policy diplomacy administrations I can think of. Syria is a huge win. Iran is turning into a huge win. North Korea is looking good. There was a flare up in India that he played well.
Who is a good Secretary of State? What’s the criteria? Clinton did mostly the same stuff. Condoleezza Rice? Colin Powell? Albright? Warren Christopher?
Wake up to what? Most of the world’s leadership understands the plan. It isn’t a big secret. The quartet the ones imposing this are the USA, UN, Europe, Russia. The Arab league is kinda questionable but ultimately if this fails does the Arab league start negotiating directly on behalf of the Palestinians? That would mean “normalization”. That would probably work in getting the Palestinians a somewhat better deal but it is hard to see how it is in their interests.
Why didn’t more or less the same strategy win the day in Gaza?
Gaza’s sole power plant shuts down again due to a lack of fuel.
‘May you live in the hell you created.’
RE: “Why didn’t more or less the same strategy win the day in Gaza?”
Because Obama ignored OP Cast Lead when it happened, and he threw the Goldstone Report in the garbage bin when the UN tried to call Israel to account. And Goldstone himself dissed his own co-authored report when he was shunned by the Jewish Establishment.
It can seem almost hackneyed, but the idea of Jesus being Palestinian can pack quite a punch when you first hear it. In the mid 90’s, at a mainstream Protestant church on Madison Avenue, I heard the minister describe Mary as a poor Palestinian woman, or something like that. It might have been the first time ever I had heard Palestinians spoken of in a favorable context. (And I was a media professional, already middle aged.) In a way it’s a a kind of rhetorical trick, though of course the idea that one can be Jewish and Palestinian is quite genuine, pointing to the promise of a genuine non ethnic state for all its citizens. I once made reference to this moment in passing, and was slammed for giving credence to a liberation theology rendering, or something. Though I guess I was, though not cognizant of it at the time.