Is Palestine a lost cause?
Not only to bring about the dissolution of the PA but to have it replaced as soon as possible by a re-structured and re-invigorated PNC (Palestine National Council). Once upon a time this now side-lined parliament-in-exile represented Palestinians nearly everywhere in the world and was the supreme decision-making body on the Palestinian side. Even Arafat was accountable to it. (It did, in fact, take him six long years to persuade a majority of PNC delegates to endorse his policy of politics and compromise with Israel. That happened towards the end of 1979. The PNC vote in favour of Arafat’s policy – the two-state solution – was 296 for it and only four against. From then on the Palestinian door was open to peace on terms which any rational government and people in Israel would have accepted with relief. Arafat’s problem then was that he didn’t have a partner for peace on the Israeli side. He did eventually get one in the shape of Prime Minister Rabin, but he was assassinated by a Zionist zealot. The assassin knew exactly what he was doing – killing the Oslo peace process Arafat started and to which a reluctant Rabin pushed by Peres responded positively. It is fashionable today for pro-Palestinian activists to rubbish the Oslo peace process, but I still think Arafat’s take on the matter was correct. When it was obviously doomed to failure by Israel’s complete rejection of it after Rabin’s death, I asked Arafat if he thought that history would say he had made the mistake of his life in thinking that he could trust Israeli leaders to keep their word and honour agreements. He replied to the effect that if the US had backed the Oslo process it could have worked – could have achieved “something concrete” for the Palestinians on which they could, hopefully, build).
For the PNC to be brought back to life re-structured and re-invigorated there would have to be elections to it in communities throughout the Palestinian diaspora.
The composition of the Palestinian diaspora by countries and numbers of Palestinians resident in them is roughly the following. Jordan – 2,900,000; Israel – 1,600,000; Syria – 800,000 Chile – 500,000; Lebanon – 490,000; Saudi Arabia – 280,245; Egypt – 270,245; United States – 270,000; Honduras -250,000; Venezuela – 245,120; United Arab Emirates – 170,000; Germany -159,000; Mexico – 158,000; Qatar – 100,000; Kuwait – 70,000; El Salvador – 70,000 Brazil – 59,000; Iraq – 57,000; Yemen – 55,000; Canada – 50,975; Australia – 45,000; Libya – 44,000; Denmark – 32,152; United Kingdom – 30,000; Sweden – 25,500; Peru – 20,000; Columbia – 20,000; Spain – 12,000; Pakistan – 10,500; Netherlands – 9,000; Greece – 7,500; Norway – 7,000; France – 5,000; Guatemala – 3,500; Austria – 3,000; Switzerland – 2,000; Turkey – 1,000; and India – 300.
The prime task of a re-structured and re-invigorated PNC would be to debate and determine Palestinian policy and then represent it by speaking to power with one credible voice. That could only assist the task of empowering the citizens of nations with the truth of history.
There is also a joint initiative a universal lobby for Palestinian rights and a re-structured and re-invigorated PNC could that would of itself be a game changer. Just imagine what would happen if a million or more diaspora Palestinians, other Arabs and peoples of all faiths and none marched peacefully on Greater Israel from Egypt, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon.
I can see only two ways in which any Israeli government could react. It could order the IDF to shoot to kill in unthinkable numbers – a reaction that would so horrify the world that governments, including the one in Washington D.C., would have no choice but to take whatever steps were necessary to bring Zionism’s colonial enterprise to an end; or it, the Israeli government, pushed perhaps by a majority of its own people, could say something like: “We are now ready to be serious about real peace even if the outcome of negotiations is One State for all, provided only that the wellbeing and security of all its citizens. Arabs and Jews, is guaranteed.”
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