The problem with a ‘stable’ W. Bank

Israel’s deputy foreign minister, Ze’ev Elkin, is a member of Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud Party and his predominantly rightwing Cabinet. In a recent interview with The Economist, Elkin showed the familiar conceit and ignorance of such notions as international or human rights, reaffirming his rejection of a Palestinian state. 

Instead, Elkin wants Israel to annex a chunk of the West Bank.

There is nothing new here, as such language is now official Israeli discourse. But one statement stood out, one that many Palestinians would find bewildering and exasperating.

These days, said Elkin, the West Bank is “the most stable part of the Middle East”.

The bewilderment would stem from the fact that the West Bank is occupied Palestinian territory. Its population is held at gunpoint; they have no freedom and enjoy no rights. Their land is seized by force to make room for more settlements and illegal Jewish settlers, now well over the half million mark. 

Needless to say, the West Bank should not be stable. Instead, Palestinians should be leading their own revolution until they achieve their full rights and freedom.

This is not a call for violence, but a natural human course. However, Palestinians are not rebelling. Many factors are holding them back, one of which is the very Palestinian Authority in Ramallah.

Its troops are in constant “security coordination” with Israel. Its “elite forces” are trained by US generals and Arab armies. 

The PA mission is not to liberate Palestine, but to ensure the subservience of the Palestinians while Israel carries out its colonial project that has extended for decades.

Elkin knows this. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, along with every Israeli official, understands that the PA, despite Mahmoud Abbas’ occasional attempts at appearing defiant and rebellious, is no threat to Israel. Nor will it ever be.

This will be so even if the US-imposed April 29 deadline for a framework agreement between the Israeli government and the PA passes and even if Abbas took the seemingly daring step of signing the applications to join 15 international organisations.

Abbas and his men understand that there are red lines which they cannot cross under any circumstances. 

Abbas may be weak, but he is clever. He knew that US Secretary of State John Kerry’s peace making efforts would not go anywhere and that Netanyahu would find a way to thwart the process.

Kerry even blamed Israel for derailing the peace process.

Then, Abbas does what many find reasonable: seek further international recognition for the state of Palestine. This might frustrate the Americans a little, anger the Israelis a lot, but it would give his supporters reason to promote the 79-year-old leader as another Yasser Arafat, heroic and defiant to the very end. 

The Israelis still need Abbas. He is important in maintaining stability in the West Bank. 

This means the continuation of the security coordination that ensures the safety of the armed settlers,  providing an extra layer of protection to Israeli soldiers as they kill at will, seize more land, demolish houses and fell trees, erect walls, dig trenches and level mountains.

So what if some imaginary state existed on papers in the files of some international body in Geneva or Brussels? For Israel, the law is that of its military, and reality is what is taking place in Area C, not in some European capital. 

This is why Elkin is chuckling. He is at ease, in the same way the Israeli political establishment is.

Since the signing of the Oslo accords in 1993, a deal was struck between Israel and what became a pervasive, controlling and corrupt Palestinian political class.

Israel maintained its military occupation, carried on with its colonial project and continued to disfigure the occupied territories to suit its “security” needs. 

Palestinian elites were granted economic privileges and access that is denied to the vast majority of the Palestinians.

The PA’s constant challenge is to maintain a level of legitimacy. It uses its monopoly on force, which is readily sanctioned by Israel, in order to arrest, torture and kill resisting Palestinians when necessary. It uses trickledown economics to hold the bulk of Palestinians hostage to winning their daily bread. But that is not enough.

It needs a brand to market itself as the exclusive fighter for the freedom for Palestinians. It uses slogans, flags and kuffiyas to promote that brand through its control of the media. 

Many PA supporters say that Abbas, and Abbas alone, is capable of exacting the coveted liberation of Palestine from the obstinate hands of the Israeli prime minister. 

Palestinian officials are efficiently inflating Abbas’ image to ensure that Palestinians do not question the wisdom of their ageing leader, after the latest and predictable failure of the peace process, which was never truly meant to succeed anyway.

A Palestinian official spoke of Abbas’ refusal to heed a call by Kerry to halt applications to join international treaties. 

He claimed that Kerry warned Abbas of a “strong” (Israeli) response to Palestinian action.

Abbas replied: “Israel’s threats scare no one. They can do what they like.”

The words were repeated in Palestinian media. The Abbas image is being overstated once more. 

There is no space for those who question the man’s credibility, legitimacy or failed methods.

More posters of the old man are now erected in the occupied Palestinian towns. His latest antics will help perpetuate the myth that the PA is a platform for resistance, not capitulation. 

As long as the West Bank is “stable”, and as long as Abbas and those that follow him continue to sell Palestinians old illusions of revolutions that never took place, and heroes that only exist on coloured posters hung around the streets of Ramallah, Elkin will continue to chuckle.

And as long as the West Bank is “stable”, Palestinians will never achieve their freedom, for submission achieves no rights; only resistance does. 

The writer is an internationally syndicated columnist, a media consultant, an author and the editor of PalestineChronicle.com. His latest book is “My Father Was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza’s Untold Story” (Pluto Press, London). He contributed this article to The Jordan Times.