After Trump’s Declaration, There's Only One Option Left for Palestinians

Rasa - US President Donald Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem Al-Quds as Israel’s new capital city has led to a massive and violent backlash from the Palestinians as well as protests and condemnations from the international community.

News ID: 435250

Date: 10 December 2017 - 19:54

RNA - While President Trump is quite pleased with himself for the recognition, other US officials and Western leaders are predicting that it seriously threatens regional stability and could do lasting harm to efforts for peace talks.

For instance, European Union foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini says the EU will work toward the city being made the capital of an independent Palestine. Mogherini says, “The EU is united on the position that the only realistic solution, given both nations’ claims to the historic city, is for a two-state solution to happen with the city as the capital of both states.” Far from it:

1- This is roughly in line with the United Nation’s own position on the matter back in 1947, when they issued a Partition Plan for Palestine adopted by the General Assembly. That envisioned two states, and Jerusalem Al-Quds as a separate city under international control. The UN position, unlike the EU’s, didn’t necessarily envisage either nation making it their capital, let alone both, but Israel’s subsequent military occupation and annexation of the city and surrounding area has made this a highly controversial plan at any rate, with Israel insisting Jerusalem Al-Quds must remain eternally undivided and under Israeli rule.

2- For the last 25 years, the sham peace process has been hurtling toward this very moment. Decades of playing the lopsided negotiations game has brought the Palestinians face-to-face with the simple truth that they pay a serious price for not negotiating. Their lands are taken by illegal Israeli settlements, many people are jailed and killed, and many are forced to eke out an existence on the margins of the Israeli occupation.

3- The US was never an honest broker between the two parties, and the pipe dream of pursuing statehood under a historic peace deal is over. The peace process was always just a fig leaf foisted upon the Palestine Liberation Organization, which was left with very few other options but to participate as Arab countries expelled it from their capitals throughout the 1970s and 1980s.

4- Without any pretense of neutrality left in a US-led peace process, the Palestinian leadership must finally concede that the charade is over and no outside help is coming - not from the Americans, and not from the Europeans. President Mahmoud Abbas can no longer use the peace process and foreign aid to pacify Palestinians in the face of the daily indignities experienced living under Israeli occupation.

5- The Palestinians are right to interpret Trump’s announcement as dismissing their historical, political, and cultural ties to Al-Quds, and as disputing their right to independence and self-determination. It condones Israel’s occupation of the city in 1967 and implies that the city is solely Israeli.

Under these new circumstances, Palestinians should demand a new plan that veers away from American dictates, including achieving a real reconciliation between the primary political parties Fatah and Hamas, which have been at odds for years.

They should call for a new uprising, discard the two-state solution entirely, and shift to a struggle for one-state with equal rights for everyone living in historic Palestine. This legitimate push under international law toward a one-state model with full civil rights for all living in it will likely garner further momentum now – including support from the international civil society.

The Palestinians are now confident that Trump’s announcement has provided clarity and a unifying objective for them. Last summer, their civil disobedience forced Israel to give up on its unilateral measures regarding the Haram al-Sharif compound, which houses the Al-Aqsa mosque.

This particular victory showed ordinary Palestinians that they had the power to stop the usurper regime and its American financiers, and change what’s happening on the ground. They can once again rally, strategize, and mobilize; this time for a one-state solution; a humane solution that is no longer impeded by a sham peace process or a fraudulent broker.

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