munaeem | 26 July, 2007 14:54
via Dawn :
MORE of meaningless rhetoric poured forth from Mr Tony Blair’s lips as he arrived in the Middle East on Tuesday on his first visit after being named the Quartet’s envoy. As is typical of all western diplomats when they speak about the Arab-Israeli conflict, the former British prime minister merely beat about the bush when he discovered a “moment of opportunity” and a “sense of possibility” for … for nothing. Here is what the longest serving Labour prime minister had to say: “whether that sense of possibility can be translated into something, that is something that needs to be worked at and thought about over time”… Brilliant diplomatese! What he simply could not utter was the truth — that Israel should withdraw from the occupied territories so that a Palestinian state could come into being. If he were to say that, Israel’s doors would be closed on him forever. More of the rhetoric: “I am just trying to have a sense of what’s happening here…” This is from a leader who was actively involved in Middle Eastern affairs for his long 10 years in office and who in January 2003 called a conference in London to find a solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict. Now, in his post-prime ministerial days, he is “trying to have a sense of what’s happening here…”
In his heart of hearts, Mr Blair must be a happy man, for the brief given to him by the Quartet does not entrust him with the task of doing anything concrete. The brief itself is a vegetable. It asks Mr Blair to concentrate his efforts on the occupied territories’ economic development, governance and institution building — but mention of the real issue is at stake. As chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat wondered, how can one speak of economic development and institution building while “the settlements, the wall, the denial of movement, the obstacles, and the road blocks are eating up the whole idea of a Palestinian state? Let’s be realistic.” That is where Mr Erakat is wrong. Mr Blair’s brief does not authorise him to be realistic.
Mr Blair is not alone: besides Israel and the pro-Israeli lobby in America and Europe, the Quartet is behind him. His job is to obfuscate the Palestinian question with non-issues. The process of sidetracking the real issue began in Yasser Arafat’s time. For instance, one of the tricks for bypassing the real issue was to ask Arafat to have a prime minister and reform the Palestinian Authority. He did both, but there was no progress on the question of Israel’s withdrawal. Now again Mr Blair will concentrate on ‘institution building’ at a time when the Palestinians themselves have gladdened their enemy’s heart by fighting a civil war and turning the West Bank and Gaza into two warring cantons. Israel could not be happier. Clearly, it is futile to expect Mr Blair or the Quartet to do anything substantive, when between them Hamas and Fatah have scuttled the Palestinian cause. Irrespective of how the US, the European Union and Israel view Hamas, both President Mahmoud Abbas and Mr Ismail Haniye have acted very irrationally. President Abbas has received fulsome praise from America and the EU, and aid has started flowing in, but that is not going to take him and the Palestinian people any closer to the goal of liberation of the Israeli-occupied territories and living in freedom and dignity in their own areas.
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