The Canadian media has mostly ignored recent Palestinian efforts to non-violently disrupt a half-century old occupation. They’ve barely reported on a prisoners’ hunger strike and associated solidarity protests, let alone Canada’s effort to suppress “popular protests” in the West Bank.
Donald Trump has met with Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas at the White House. Trump promised to act as a ‘facilitator’, ‘mediator’ or ‘arbitrator’ in future peace talks between Israel and Palestine.
However, no concrete plans were proposed beyond the long standing commitment of the US and the Palestinian leadership to work for a so-called two state solution whereby a Palestinian state would be formed on the basis of the 1967 borders of the region. Such a plan would see a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza with East Jerusalem as its capital.
Gaza is the world’s largest open air prison. The West Bank is a prison, too, segmented into various wards, known as areas A, B and C. In fact, all Palestinians are subjected to varied degrees of military restrictions. At some level, they are all prisoners.
The Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas is due to meet Donald Trump in the White House on Wednesday to discuss reviving the long-cold corpse of the peace process.
Back home, things are heating up. There is anger in the West Bank, both on the streets and within the ranks of Abbas’s Fatah movement. The trigger is a two-week-old hunger strike by Palestinian prisoners.
Last Thursday, Palestinians shuttered their businesses in a show of solidarity, and the next day youths clashed with the Israeli army in a “day of rage”.
Once more, the Arab Peace Initiative of 2002 is taking center stage. Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas insisted during his speech before the recently-concluded Arab League Summit, in Jordan that the Initiative is the only solution on the table; asserting that it will not be changed or even tweaked.
CIA Chief Mike Pompeo met secretly with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in the West Bank. (AP/Manuel Balce Ceneta)
RAMALLAH, West Bank (RPEORT) — Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas met secretly with the CIA chief in the West Bank, Palestinian officials said Wednesday, as they expressed concern over the Trump administration’s suggestion that a two-state solution to the conflict with Israel is optional.
The Middle East peace conference in Paris was the usual farce with Israel and Palestine, the subjects under discussion, both staying away. Netanyahu called the talks “useless” and Abbas was off opening an embassy in Vatican City and meeting the Pope while 70 nations gathered to take part in another peace pantomime. It ended with a pathetic declaration urging both sides to “officially restate their commitment to the two-state solution”.
Is this what the much-trumpeted 2-state solution looks like?
In July 2003, the then Palestinian Authority Chairman, Yasser Arafat, described Mahmoud Abbas as a ‘traitor’ who “betrayed the interests of the Palestinian People.”
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has revived long-standing suspicions that his predecessor, Yasser Arafat, was murdered. Abbas announced last week that he knew the killer’s identity, adding that the world would be “amazed when you know who did it”.
Abbas made the unexpected announcement during a commemoration, marking the 12th anniversary of Arafat’s death, in the West Bank city of Ramallah, where the former Palestinian leader is buried.
The Fatah movement is involved in a massive tug-of-war that will ultimately define its future. Though the conflict is between current Palestinian Authority President, Mahmoud Abbas, and once Gaza strongman, Mohammed Dahlan, is in no way motivated by ending the Israeli Occupation, their war will likely determine the future political landscape of Palestine.
