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While the ceremony took place in front of the White House on September 15, Palestinian militants fired rockets at Israeli cities, to remind them that Israel is in conflict with the Palestinians.
“Have we signed a peace agreement with the right people?” Haaretz commentator Anshel Pfeffer asked the day after the Israeli prime minister smiled and posed with the foreign ministers of the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain.
Saudi Arabia’s plan
Palestinian lawyer Diana Buttu was saddened to see the ceremony.
In 2002, Saudi Arabia put a peace proposal on the table. In exchange for Israel’s withdrawal from the occupied territories, the country would establish diplomatic relations with all Arab countries..
Israel never responded to the invitation, but with this fall’s agreement, the 2002 plan may seem dead.
– I thought how different this could have been. In fact, we could have seen a true peace agreement with all the countries of the Arab world. All that was needed was for Israel to end its military occupation and colonization, Diana Buttu told NRK.
THE 1994 PEACE PRIZE OFFERED HOPE: When PLO leader Yasir Arafat, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, and Foreign Minister Shimon Peres signed the Oslo Accords in 1993, Diana Buttu decided to move from Canada to the West Bank to work on negotiations. She was hopeful and wanted to help build a new Palestinian society.
Photo: 1994 Nobel Laureate Oslo Agreement / AP
She was an advisor to the PLO negotiating team between 2000 and 2005 and to President Mahmoud Abbas. She now teaches negotiation techniques and international law at Harvard University in the US, and is also a commentator and writer.
– The Palestinian leadership has followed the same recipe for a quarter of a century. They follow the Oslo trail. But remember that the Oslo agreement was not a peace agreement, but the beginning of a long process that has failed. The reason is that we have a one-way occupation of the Palestinian land and not the other way around.
Buttu believes that the Palestinian leadership must now focus on holding Israel accountable for violations of international law. But much more must also fit. The Palestinians need democratic elections and new leadership.
RECOMMENDED: Diana Buttu is a lawyer and was an advisor to the PLO’s negotiating team in the years 2000–2005. She later regretted having participated in the negotiations, which never took place.
When the Oslo agreement turned 25, Diana Buttu wrote that she regretted being involved in the negotiations. Negotiating with its occupant is like asking a hostage to negotiate with his abductor, she believes.
– The UN created the problem, not us
Israel, and not least President Donald Trump in election campaign mode, expects more Arab countries to sign agreements with Israel.
– Should Saudi Arabia’s 2002 peace plan be rediscovered so that the Palestinian cause is also mentioned?
– The core of the problem is not peace or not in the region, but that colonization is taking place. Every year, a state that wants to be a “peacemaker” launches a new plan. But the question is and will be how we end the annexation and development of settler colonies, says Mariam Barghouthi, who writes for The Guardian, New York Times and Al Jazeera.
The Palestinians are struggling with an aging and unpopular leadership. Since 2007, the Palestinians have been divided between the Islamist Hamas, which controls Gaza, and Fatah, which rules the West Bank. That is, the land between Israeli settlements, checkpoints, and settlement roads.
The fact that the Palestinians do not have a unified leadership and have decided to boycott the Trump and Kushner peace plan hurts them, the Baharein foreign minister believes. He called on the Palestinians to be more constructive.
– What cards do the Palestinians have to play now?
– Well, the world should stop asking the Palestinians what U.S can do. Both the British and the UN supported the creation of an Israeli state. They created the problem and must take responsibility for solving it, Barghouthi tells NRK.
She believes that the international community must abide by UN resolutions and respect international law.
RESISTANCE: Israeli soldiers suppress a protest against the agreement between Israel, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates. New polls show that Palestinians feel stabbed in the back, especially by Saudi Arabia and Egypt. But they also blame their own divided leadership and Fatah / PLO that normalized relations with Israel in 1993.
Photo: Issam Rimawi / Anadolu Agency / NTB
Forget Europe
Gaza journalist Mohammed Shehada believes a tired and disillusioned Palestinian leadership has made a mistake by investing in the support of European governments. Rather, they should put pressure on the Arab capitals. Diana Buttu completely agrees.
– In any case, the Europeans will not pressure Israel. We must spend time with our natural allies in the Arab world, the Muslim world and the developing countries.
Anyone visiting the West Bank and seeing the vast number of Israeli settlements dividing the country wonders where the Palestinian state should really be. European leaders are still hopeful about a two-state solution.
– We must get rid of the notion of a two-state solution. It is like believing in Santa Claus or the tooth fairy. We need to talk now about the real reality on the ground. We live in apartheid, Buttu says.
The majority of 61 percent of Palestinians no longer believe in a two-state solution, due to the constant expansion of settlements, according to the polling institute Palestinian Center for Policy Research and Polls (PSR). On the other hand, more and more people were talking about a one-state solution. With more than 600,000 settlers in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, the train to a Palestinian state has passed, they believe.
RESIDENTIAL COLONIES: The Euphrates settlement is located between Bethlehem and Hebron. It expands year after year and devours Palestinian agricultural lands. The settlements violate the Geneva Convention, 4/49, which states that the occupying Power will not transfer its own civilian population to the occupied territories.
Photo: NTB
It will become a political party
A common state is soon the only alternative, says Buttu, who is active in the “democratic state movement” that works for a common state for both peoples.
– We are very active. Both Palestinians and Israelis are involved. Our movement will eventually become a political party.
New opinion polls show that more and more people support a one-state solution rather than a two-state solution. Support is growing especially among young people.
But a one-state solution, called the ODS (One Democratic State), in which the Palestinians demand equal rights, citizenship and the right to vote, is a nightmare for most Israeli and Israeli leaders. But the Palestinians are also skeptical, because they don’t want to live with the Israelis.
INSPECTION POSTS: Every day, Palestinians have to stand for hours at the many Israeli checkpoints in the West Bank. In the Maale Adomim settlement, this checkpoint is not far from East Jerusalem.
Photo: AP / NTB
New options?
The world has many recent conflicts to deal with and is tired of the perennial Palestinian problem. Among other things, the Syrian war and ISIS rejected the Palestinian cause. Dealing with a divided and rival leadership has diminished interest in the Palestinians.
Norway, which heads the international group of donor countries for the Palestinians, has experienced donor fatigue for several years.
When the agreement between Israel and the two Gulf countries was signed, the Palestinians were present only as the elephant in the room. It has made Fatah and Hamas think again. Now the two rival factions have agreed to hold elections, for the first time in 14 years.
OLD GUARD: President Mahmoud Abbas with his “revolutionary guard”, the leadership of the PLO. They pray, but it has helped little to wait for the help of higher or earthly powers to have their own state. It’s time for a generational change, the young guard believes.
Photo: Abbas Momani / AFP / NTB
Palestinians must uphold their own decisions to influence their own future, Buttu believes. But she is still pessimistic. He fears that there will be no elections this time either, partly because Palestinian politicians have no vested interest in the elections.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is 84 years old and no one knows who will replace him. Regardless, all candidates are over 70 years old.
– Is it time for a new generation of politicians?
– Yes, we really need new blood. We need new thoughts and ideas. 75 percent of Palestinians are under 35 years old. If you were born after 1989, you have never had the opportunity to vote in a Palestinian election.
NEXT GENERATION: Ahed Tamimi is one of several young Palestinians who are leading the Palestinian cause. Here during the anti-occupation demonstration in London last year.
Photo: Daniel Leal-olivas / AFP / NTB
Violence works …
Ignoring the Palestinians will have the consequences and can strike back like a boomerang, Buttu believes.
In 1987 and 2000, Palestinians took to the streets and began violent uprisings in frustration over Israel’s occupation, most recently with suicide bombers as weapons. Each bloody intifada ended in peace talks.
– So violence works somehow?
– Yes. But I don’t support another violent uprising. But there must be discomfort. We cannot stand still and watch the occupation. When South Africa administered its apartheid system, the world imposed sanctions, stopped buying goods, and restricted travel to South Africans. Israelis should also note that there is a price to occupy another people, says Diana Buttu.
