The day after the UN vote on recognizing
Palestine as a nonmember observer state, the leadership of the PLO/Palestinian
Authority will discover that it's easier to convince a few more European states
to vote "yes" than it is to meet the high expectations it has created
around this move and convince its own public that it's capable of changing its
modus operandi.
To keep the "yes" vote from being
a merely symbolic gesture, a temporary boost for outmoded political
organizations and the hedonist elites that comprise them, will require vast
internal changes that are hard to envision. The PLO claims it is preparing
plans for the day after, both to exploit the opportunities created by its new
UN status and to cope with possible sanctions by Israel and its allies. But
this too, will have to be seen to be believed.
Until very recently, it seemed many
Palestinians didn't believe their leadership would stand up to the threats and
pressure of those whom Hanan Ashrawi terms Israel's "proxies":
America, Canada and Britain. For almost 20 years, this leadership has explained
repeated concessions and capitulations to Israel as stemming from such
pressure.
But as the day of the vote neared, it
seemed that the excitement of those behind the move was finally beginning to
percolate downward. For a moment, it seemed as if the PLO had stopped thinking
like a ruling organization bent on preserving the status quo and was once again
thinking like a national liberation organization capable of imagining change
and effecting it through the balance of international forces. The conclusion
that the leadership was standing up to the heavy American pressure above all
aroused cautious admiration for it. For years, PA President Mahmoud Abbas put
his trust in the American government, but even he has finally been compelled to
admit that he bet on the wrong horse.
The PLO and Fatah, its principal component,
are promising that the day after the vote, they will embark on reconciliation
talks to form a national unity government with Hamas. The ground has already
been prepared. During a discussion at Bir Zeit University on Tuesday, Dr. Sabri
Saidam, a member of Fatah's Revolutionary Council, said that after New York,
Abbas would go to Gaza. In Gaza, the ruling Hamas party allowed Fatah members
to demonstrate, and expressions of mutual hostility have vanished from the
media.
Still, the PLO and Fatah are exaggerating
when they say Hamas supports the UN vote. Listening to Hamas' various spokesmen
leads to the conclusion that this is more non-opposition than support, and that
it is purely tactical.It remains to be seen what will happen when the move
fails to produce immediate positive results, and how that will affect relations
within the unity government, if it is ever established.
To the countries whose votes they sought,
the PLO and Fatah presented the UN bid as part of their overall ethos of
nonviolent struggle, which emphasizes diplomacy and international law. But as
the Bir Zeit discussion made clear, most of the public doesn't draw the same
distinction between armed and unarmed struggle. Saidam didn't join the other
speakers who said that every form of struggle is legitimate. But he also didn't
say what one of his Fatah colleagues told Haaretz: that the public must be
convinced that military victories are reversible, and the next round could end
in defeat, whereas a diplomatic-political victory at the UN is irreversible and
will open up new options.
So what will happen if and when the
diplomatic achievement isn't accompanied by surprising new moves on the part of
other countries, who won't protect the Palestinians against the continued
Israeli occupation? The popular struggles in various West Bank villages, which
have been presented as the proper alternative to armed struggle, haven't taken
off into a mass movement. Consumerism and the false sense of normalcy created
by the PA's policy of "building state institutions," along with the
emerging middle class' desire for comfort, stability and the status quo, have
gained more traction. Will a united leadership be capable of leading this
public into a frontal, popular confrontation with whatever Israel is preparing?
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