The way to a 'just and fair deal for the Palestinians'

 Musa Keilani

In fact, the acceptance of the truce has thrown the gauntlet to Sharon, because he had counted on continued rejection of any soft approach by Hamas and Islamic Jihad, provoked by his pointed campaign to eliminate leading Palestinian resistance leaders.

The intense consultations that were held between leaders of the two groups in the occupied territories and outside indicate how serious they took the issue of accepting a truce, when before they had shown no indication of any commitment to eventually respect and recognise the Palestinians' legitimate rights as the basis for a peace accord.

If anything, Sharon's arrogant stand that he feels free to pursue any avenue he finds fit to deal with the Palestinian struggle for independence and life in dignity sets the perfect background for inciting Palestinians into resuming armed attacks. As such, we have to watch carefully how — and indeed whether — Sharon intends to carry out the promised withdrawal of troops this week or whether he will create incidents on the ground that will enflame the situation and spare him from fulfilling the accord.

It is not a wild accusation; we know that Sharon has only paid lip-service when he announced he was ready to accept an independent Palestinian state alongside Israel. He knows well that he would not be put in a position to deliver on that pledge since he would preempt events and create new hurdles along the road to that situation.

Even at that, he has reserved options for himself to freeze the Palestinians on their tracks by insisting on the fulfilment of his conditions to the implementation of the US-supported “roadmap” for peace.

I may sound sceptical, but that is the way things have always been, and trust and confidence placed in Sharon would be misplaced, as his record and approach have shown us.

His public commitments and pledges do not impress us since we know that he does not consider the Palestinians and, indeed, the Arabs as human beings with legitimate rights. He wants to squirm out of his country's obligations and responsibilities — if it claims to be a legitimate member of the international community and part of the regional order — and get away with giving far less than the minimum requirements for dignified, just, fair and comprehensive peace in the Middle East. Obviously, he hopes he could achieve this by using more of military might than legitimate diplomacy and good-faith agreements.

On the Palestinian side, Hamas and Islamic Jihad have shown pragmatism and realism by accepting the three-month truce. No doubt, the intense pressure they were subjected to after the fall of Iraq to American invasion did play a prominent part in nudging them towards considering a suspension of armed attacks in the face of continued Israeli assaults and attempts at killing their leaders.

Another catch in the truce is the Israeli insistence that the next step in the process is disarming Hamas, Islamic Jihad and other Palestinian groups. Given Israel's deception and clear signs that it is trying to deal with the Palestinians with a view only to preempt immediate security threats to Israelis, there is little that would prompt the Palestinians to disarm themselves and live at Israel's mercy altogether, without any recourse.

Sharon is engaged in deception. He is taking the Palestinians, as well as the international community, for a ride by feigning to remove settlers. We know better than to attach any significance to his moves against the so-called illegal Jewish outposts in the West Bank without as much as a mention about the concrete building complexes where more than 200,000 armed Jewish settlers live as if the land belonged to them. Sharon has no intention of ever touching those settlements and he expects to push the Palestinians into a corner and make them feel happy that they are allowed to stay in the West Bank and not be threatened with summary expulsion. That is the course of events he has in mind and that is what he and his army are seeking.

Notwithstanding the ongoing moves, unless Sharon's arm is twisted and he is taken on a peaceful march all the way, there is no hope of a just and fair deal for the Palestinians.

This conviction might not be ideal when we talk about peace and optimism sparked by the recent diplomatic developments. But the history of the Palestinian struggle since the launch of the Madrid peace process has been one of treachery and deception, with the conviction growing stronger every moment that the Palestinians would not get a fair deal at all at the make-or-break moment.