" 'P E A C E
P R O C E S S' I S D E A D "
"THE PALESTINIAN PEOPLE CANNOT
ACCEPT
A PEACE OR A PROCESS WHICH SERVES
AS A
FRONT FOR CONTINUED OCCUPATION
AND
SETTLEMENT OF PALESTINIAN TERRITORIES...
THE PEACE PROCESS IS DEAD."
Ahmed Abdel Rahman
Secretary-General, Palestinian
Authority - 6/15/98
MER - Washington - 1 July:
The politicians are today scampering
to deny responsibility; using rhetorical smokescreens to distort and deceive
what they have done; desperately attempting to camouflage the realities
of what they have wrought.
Tragic as the situation is, what Ahmed
Abdel Rahman says the Palestinians "cannot accept" is precisely a description
of not only what the "peace process" is today but of what it has always
been. Anyone who doubts these overall realities need simply watch the half-hour
MER-TV program "PEACE PROCESS - REAL OR PHONY" (Email to INFOMERTV@MIDDLEEAST.ORG
for detailed information about this and other MER-TV programs).
With this misnomered "Peace Process"
everything has gotten much worse for the Palestinians. Settlers are UP,
not down, by 50% since the Madrid Conference; while what is down is the
Palestinian standard of living (and by about the same percentage!). Furthermore,
the Israelis continue to occupy even 38% of Gaza and much of Hebron; while
the Israeli army surrounds and controls entry to all Palestinian "autonomous"
areas -- thus making even travel between Palestinian cities far more difficult
than was the case just a few years ago.
The lie to Mr. Abdel Rahman's statement
is basically two-fold. First of all the "Peace Process" was fatally flawed
from the beginning. It was always an Israeli/American plot foisted on the
gullible Arabs; and that is why even the head of the Palestinian negotiating
team, Dr. Haider Abdul Shafi, refused to attend the White House ceremony
in 1993. True, the Netanyahu-led government exploits and publicly underscores
the flaws more than its predecessor, but the underlying realities remain
much the same.
Second, just as they have repeatedly
done for some years now, the narrow and corrupted group of Palestinians
centered around the personality of Yasser Arafat are desperately working
toward signing another agreement which will only add to the previous disasters.
The agreement currently being negotiated further restricts basic Palestinian
rights, legitimizes and provides American money for the Apartheid-style
"by-pass" road network that connects the 150+ Israeli settlements, and
commits the U.S. not to recognize Palestinian independence.
And amazingly, the "PA" of Yasser Arafat
has allowed itself to be maneuvered into a position where it is begging
the Israelis to sign and complimenting the Americans for being such an
"honest broker"!
