It is absurd to hear the repeated false accusations by members of Congress, including Sens. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.), and others, directed against President Abbas for his alleged lack of interest in peace process negotiations with Israel. The fact of the matter is, Abbas and the PLO have made repeated sacrifices in order to achieve a political settlement to the conflict, while Prime Minister Netanyahu’s government has time and again done all it could to destroy the prospects for peace with Palestinians.
Starting with the historical compromise of 1988, the PLO made an unprecedented concession by agreeing to establishing a Palestinian state on 22 percent of historical Palestine, and it later recognized the State of Israel to reach a lasting peace. Until today, Israel has to yet recognize the Palestinians’ right to a state within the 1967 borders.
{mosads}Additionally, Abbas and the PLO recently engaged in good faith talks sponsored by Secretary Kerry, in July 2013, that were supposed to last for 9 months. As is well-known, those talks prematurely collapsed when Israel reneged on its promise to release the fourth batch of prisoners on March 29. During these talks, the Palestinian leadership fully committed itself to advancing the Secretary’s efforts despite strong domestic pressure. Meanwhile, Israel used the negotiations as a smokescreen to cover for its illegal settlement expansion and violations of international law: killing 61 Palestinians, announcing 14,000 housing units in these illegal settlements, conducting over 4,500 military raids, and arresting 3,674 Palestinians.
Israel has repeatedly sabotaged negotiations. Abbas’ speech at the UN comes after 21 years of fruitless negotiations, during which Israel’s demands increased and its positions became even more recalcitrant. The PLO remains committed to a two-state solution, but will no longer engage in an open-ended process that only serves to perpetuate Israel’s illegal occupation and provide it with political cover for its persistently grave violations of humanitarian and international law.
The second fallacy which repeatedly echoes through the halls of Congress is that Israel “diligently” sought to protect civilians while Hamas sought to maximize the suffering of Israelis and Palestinians. In order to debunk this lie, one only needs to look at the numbers. During Israel’s assault on Gaza, it killed over 2,100 Palestinians, the majority of whom were innocent civilians. Nearly 600 children were gruesomely slaughtered, and over 90 families were completely decimated. Describing an army that commits actions amounting to war crimes as “diligent” is both delusional and immoral. It is time for members of Congress to wake up, open their eyes, adjust their moral compass, and quit whitewashing Israel’s crimes against the Palestinian people.
Israel’s attack on Gaza, refusal to end the decades-long occupation, and repeated sabotaging of direct peace talks leaves Palestinians with no other choice than to exercise their legitimate right and pursue alternative options as a means to achieve statehood and independence.
Anabtawi is the Media Affairs officer for the General Delegation of the PLO to the United States.