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"The
most honest, most comprehensive, and most mobilizing news
and
analysis on the Middle East always comes from
MER.
It
is
indispensable!" - Robert
Silverman - Salamanca,
Spain
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OPPORTUNITY EVEN IN DISASTER
Palestinian
Leadership Should Finally Rise To The Challenge
Strong
Bold Suggestions For Urgent Disastrous Times
www.MiddleEast.Org
- Mid-East Realities - MER - Washington - 16 April 2004:
The
beleaguered and essentially surrounded and town imprisoned Palestinian
people
are today paying the price for decades of political incompetence and
corruption, an entire era of miserably inept leadership that never
understood the world arena and grossly squandered a huge unprecedented
reservoir of international good will, sympathy, and funds made
available to the PLO
leadership for so long by so many.
We're not late comers to this serious criticism;
indeed we and others have been harping on these realities consistently
for quite some time; even as the corporate mass media not that long ago
was assuring everyone that the 'peace process was
irreversible'. Hard to believe at this point...but
just go check the record.
In view of what Ariel Sharon and the Israelis
have done, and in view of what George Bush and the Americans have done,
the following immediate steps could be taken by the Palestinians:
NO MORE MEETINGS WITH AMERICAN OFFICIALS
1) 'Foreign Minister' Nabil Sha'ath, long known for his close
relations with the Americans and the CIA in addition to considerable
personal corruption, should no longer be visiting Washington whatever
he was supposed to do this month in the American capital.
Sha'ath should be immediately recalled back to occupied
Palestine, the Palestinian leadership declaring that there does not
appear to be any further purpose in holding any further meetings with
the Americans...but if they insist there is Yasser Arafat waiting
for them to come meet with him and all the leadership of all the
Palestinian factions in Ramallah. True, many Palestinians
and supporters understandably
have little faith in Arafat for quite a lengthy list of good reasons,
but
even so he still retains the title and image of Palestinian leader as
no one else.
STRONG CONDEMNATION BY ARAB LEAGUE
2) The Palestinians could quite literally demand -- using all the
public media available to them since behind-the-scenes inter-Arab
diplomacy has also failed miserably -- that the Arab League meet to
have their firm collective say condemning Israeli and U.S. policies, to
insist that under today's circumstances those Arab states with
Ambassadors in Israel withdraw them, and to declare that all further
dealings regarding any peace process be conducted by the United
Nations, no longer by the United States alone. Yes, we
know, the Arab League doesn't amount to much these days; indeed we've
done our share of mocking it. But again that's what there is at
the moment and here's
a chance for it to at least do something within its meager powers to
do, rather than just keep orating and pretending.
U.N. TO TAKE OVER ALL DIPLOMATIC
CONTACTS AND PLANS
3) The Palestinians could then draft a serious and comprehensive
peace plan of their own, urge the General Assembly of the United
Nations to meet in special session on the crisis using the 'Uniting For
Peace' procedure
and precedents, and building on the Arab League endorsement get as many
other countries worldwide to sign on as they can.
A
WORLDWIDE INFORMATION BLITZ CAMPAIGN
4)
Taking a play from the Israeli game plan the Palestinians could
inaugurate a massive worldwide informational and support blitz
campaign. Many teams of capable and independent Palestinian
refugees,
journalists, academics, business people, students, activists should be
sent to countries throughout the world to speak on radio and TV, to
meet with civic and religious groups, to visits campuses far and wide,
and to talk with Jewish and Christian community leaders in the Western
countries. No, not just the same old few cronies that have been
sent out over the years -- those discredited PLO-crony types whom even
many Palestinians, especially the younger generation, have
come to despise and shun to put it bluntly.
Rather a large number of small teams of three
or four persons -- with emphasis on the words 'capable' and
'independent' -- including
seriously utilizing the many available people
who are already living abroad. We know of a number of
extraordinarily
qualified and charismatic Palestinians living abroad who could
immediately in fact devote themselves to such a task. And
there are quite a few sincere and committed Jews and Israelis who would
welcome a chance to participate and help as well
Yasser, Sha'ath,
Abed-Rabbo, Abu Mazen and their little group, have multi-multi-millions
they've siphoned off
(we're being tactful for a change with this word choice).
Now's the time to put those misallocated mega-bucks now mostly in
secret foreign bank accounts to serious use; and to get the Arab
League and others to put up for such 'peaceful' activities if they
really want to see people talking much more rather than just fighting
and killing long into the future.
Will this bring about a real and
comprehensive peace in the
foreseeable future? The honest answer to that is not very
likely not very soon. Indeed the overall situation now in
view of all the mistakes made in the past decades borders on
all but hopeless in the view of many experienced observers as well as
participants. But even so taking such steps will at least be a
serious response and might well bear unknown positive results.
And such steps would at least show that the
Palestinian PLO leadership is no longer allowing itself to be
continually played for the fool -- admittedly a habit that will not be
easy for them to break at this point after so many decades of doing
just that. Furthermore such steps will show the Americans
that there are other options that can be pursued and other prices that
can be exacted. And maybe most of all it will reinvolve the
United Nations again at the center of the struggle for the once Holy
Land,
and rightly so because it was at the U.N. that the great traumas and
sufferings of today
were born, mishandled, neglected, and for all-too-long
tragically
abandoned.
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