The following first appeared as a thread on Tareq Baconi’s Twitter timeline:
Broad thoughts on Trump’s plan, while awaiting the details:
1. Palestinian absence from negotiations that shape their fate is nothing new. With the expulsion of the PLO mission from DC, this is a contemporary manifestation of pre-Oslo American-Israeli dealings to design Palestinian autonomy. (Also of past colonial practices).
2. This is not a peace deal, it’s an Israeli domestic political ploy and a battle within Israel’s right. Should sovereignty be asserted in the West Bank? How many Palestinians should be made citizens? The incompatibility between Israel’s proclaimed democracy and Jewishness is at its starkest.
3. But the plan is also more than that. It’s the post-Oslo blueprint that hopes to distract international/local stakeholders in interminable legal/political battles as they pursue the specter of peace, while colonization of Palestinian lands continues apace.
4. Nothing changes on the ground as the one-state reality gets entrenched. Palestinians have been living in de facto annexation for years. A collective shrug (many responses I’m getting) is understandable. This is the expected outcome of a process rooted in offering a façade of peace.
5. That façade is being revamped. “Facts on the ground” used to be settlements. In the Trump/Bibi version, it’s how much of the West Bank can be annexed – all of the Jordan valley, parts of Area C, all of Area C? The discrepancy between these positions will spin much analysis.
6. Instead of a collective shrug, protests, already planned, are also understandable. Palestinians are again witnessing nothing short of the reconfiguration of international plans to sustain their dispossession. Some have described it to me as a nakba, others as our time’s Balfour.
7. Where is Palestinian anger directed? Americans for moving even more explicitly in support of Israeli expansionism. Europeans for not effectively safeguarding the two-state-solution and for subsidizing the occupation. Arab countries for being too preoccupied with their domestic agendas.
8. Equally, at a leadership that continues to put its faith in false hopes. Trump’s plan, whatever it contains, raises serious questions about the PLO/PA role, their ability to resist such manipulations, and their disconnect from the people who long ago lost trust in their elite.
9. Would things have turned out differently if the Palestinian leadership did not play along all these years? This plan is an opportunity to answer this question and return to basics. Many Palestinians are not calling for piecemeal negotiations around parcels of land, but for fundamental rights.
10. Is this the moment when stakeholders move away from trying to define political formations, and focus instead on the values that must accompany any future in Israel/Palestine? How might people in Israel/Palestine and their global alliances lead that shift?
Baconi writes, “Palestinian absence from negotiations that shape their fate is nothing new.”
Did not Palestinians rebuff Trump by refusing to meet with his emissary Vice President Pence? Ignore Trump saying he would be expecting concessions from Israel toward Palestinians, that good things would be coming their way. Ignore his attempts to speak by phone?
Baconi , “Many Palestinians are not calling for piecemeal negotiations around parcels of land, but for fundamental rights.”
Seems Palestinians are without a consensus on what they are calling for, or even if they should negotiate to get there.
Baconi, “How might people in Israel/Palestine and their global alliances lead that shift (to values)?”
Will not Palestinians themselves have to lead the way?
@eljay, “Serious question: What, exactly, can the Palestinians do to “outsmart him” and cause him to turn away from all that and become a staunch advocate of justice, accountability and equality in I-P?”
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I base my take with the proposition the key to change is to influence the politics in this system of competing interests. To empower the support system’s ability to influence the public and therefore Congress. Some say it is “blaming the Palestinians” to suggest rocks, rockets, kites have not been effective. They feed the major problem, the public perception that Israelis are the victims and “have the right to defend themselves”, something all politicians have regurgitated over and over. Violence is Israel’s game and counterviolence permits it to do what it wants when it wants without paying a political price.
Also, we see Abbas not understanding how politics works. One disagrees agreeably while holding position. You avoid cheap shots. as all heads of states do, especially when you are dealing with an egomaniac who has shown he will react negatively to disrespect.
The most effective way to outsmart any politician is to influence his public’s perceptions. (a book in itself) With Trump, recognizing him for who he is, a person who overvalues his sense of worth, who has an ego problem, who punishes all who publicly criticize him and wanting to prove they were all wrong by becoming the greatest of all. Public respect is of the utmost importance,as are recognition and praise. Restate things he has said, for example, ” I’ll be good with one state or two so long as both agree”. Asking for clarifications for example what he was conveying when he said, “I’m not deciding sovereignty or borders of Jerusalem”. Most important you don’t say “No” to him, you state where you agree and where you don’t.
Trump will never become a staunch advocate for anything than his aggrandizement You want him to be great by making a deal of the century, one that all can agree on, a win-win. A win-lose will not be successful. So, in the end, Trump needs Palestinians to sign on. NEGOTIATE with him, not Netanyahu. This deal he’s laid down likely reflects the way he perceives the way he was treated personally. Abbas’ rebukes were costly. I reason where we are today has also been influenced by Arafat’s disdain for the concept of PR/politics.
Donald slightly misreads what I wrote as “pleasing westerners”. My angle is more violence has worked against Palestine, the ability of their supporters to make headway has reinforced Israel’s greatest advantage, victimization, all while denying/undermining the majority’s non-violent approach. Are Palestinians going with non-violence or violence? Both together will not be effective.
A friend holds a mirror, provides feedback. I believe placards are far away more powerful than rocks, ESPECIALLY in this conflict (media corruption), so I write at the expense of being seen as siding with the Israelis, or Trump, as blaming the victims.
Had there been a serious campaign by Israeli citizens for equality under the law, placards, marches, Trump’s plan today would have been “outsmarted”. It would have changed the politics significantly. If Palestinian citizens do not take the lead, that won’t happen.
I don’t know whether supporters around the world would get off their rear ends and build upon their campaign. That is another question. However, Palestine unresolved can have side costs way into the future. Perhaps the destruction of Iran.
Something good may come of Trumps plan, the RECOGNIZED death the 2SS. It has opened the door to the PLO’s secular state. Erekat is now talking one person, one vote for Palestinians under occupation. Palestinians will have to take the lead. Respect, even when not reciprocated, is key.