Palestinian local councils boycott American officials, journalists; Fayyad says he would give up any aid that is dependent on political conditions.
The Palestinians on Wednesday stepped up their protest against Washington following last Friday’s veto against an anti-settlement resolution at the UN Security Council, calling for a boycott of the US.
At the request of Fatah, several Palestinian local councils in the Jerusalem area announced that they would boycott the US in protest against the veto.
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The boycott includes US government officials and American journalists.
Palestinian Authority and Fatah officials have also called for a “day of rage” against the US and President Barack Obama on Friday.
On Tuesday, Fatah supporters staged a demonstration in east Jerusalem in protest against the Security Council veto. Similar demonstrations have taken place in a number of Palestinian cities, where Fatah supporters chanted slogans denouncing Obama as a “despicable” man.
The local councils said that they would boycott American aid groups and the US Consulate-General in Jerusalem.
Hatem Abdel Kader, a senior Fatah official and former PA minister for Jerusalem affairs, told The Jerusalem Post that he has called on Hamas and other Palestinian factions to join the anti-US boycott.
Abdel Kader said that the protests would continue until the US administration changes its position regarding the Palestinians. He also demanded that Obama publicly apologize to the Palestinians for voting against the anti-settlement resolution.
PA Prime Minister Salam Fayyad announced that he would be prepared to give up US aid that was dependent on political conditions.
He said that in 2010, the US gave the PA $223 million in financial aid to cover its deficit of $1.145 billion.
This did not include US aid to UNRWA, he said.
Fayyad said that his government has succeeded in reducing by one-third dependence on outside aid for its annual budget. He expressed hope that by 2013 the PA would be in a position that would allow it to completely give up financial aid.
Fayyad said he was ready to go to the Gaza Strip to talk with Hamas about the formationof a Palestinian unity government. Last week, PA President Mahmoud Abbas entrusted Fayyad with establishing a government that would include representatives of as many Palestinian groups as possible.
Meanwhile, the Palestinian National Council, the PLO’s parliament-in-exile, called on Palestinians to stop viewing the US as the only broker in the peace talks with Israel.
The call came in a statement issued by the council, which also strongly condemned the US veto.
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The US should be commended its vote last week. But the negatives far outweigh the positives here.
Last week, after the US exercised its veto as a permanent member of the UN Security Council and blocked an Arab-sponsored resolution that would have condemned Israel yet again, a collective sigh of relief was heard in Jerusalem.
Unfortunately, this sentiment was premature.
In her statement in the Security Council, US Ambassador Susan Rice made it clear that she was vetoing the resolution on technical grounds alone, not because of its problematic content. This does not bode well for our relationship with America in the months and years ahead.
Let me be clear – President Barack Obama should be commended for the veto itself. This vote upholds an important US tradition of defending Israel in the all-too-often biased UN, and we thank our American allies for this.
However, the negatives far outweigh the positives here, and the precedents set by Rice’s statement have set preconditions for the next round of talks that greatly damage our negotiating position.
In her speech, Rice strongly rejected “the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlementactivity.”
She didn’t stop there. She went on to say that the building of Israeli communities corrodes “hopes for peace and stability in the region... violates Israel’s international commitments, devastates trust between the parties and threatens the prospects for peace.”
There are two main problems with her statement. The first is that her harsh language ignores signed international agreements between us and the Palestinians and, more importantly, years of understandings with various American administrations.
The Oslo Accords clearly state that settlements should be left for the final-status talks. Furthermore, president George W. Bush’s 2005 letter to prime minister Ariel Sharon had put in writing what had been implicit US policy, supporting defensible borders for Israel and recognizing that the main population centers in Judea and Samaria will remain under its sovereignty.
Secondly, it has been proven time and again that there is no correlation betweensettlement construction and advances in the peace process. Some of the biggest socalled successes took place while Israel continued to build in its historic homeland.
Both Oslo agreements were signed, Wye was negotiated, Camp David took place and Annapolis was convened – all without settlements acting as a roadblock.
In fact, the only time there was a construction freeze was last year, during which time the Palestinians refused to come to the negotiating table.
There is obviously either a deliberate change under way in US policy toward the conflict, or a very deep misunderstanding of these complex issues within the Obama administration. If the latter is the case, I call upon President Obama to immediately visit our region so he can better learn about the situation that we are facing.
SO WHERE does this leave us? At some point in the not-too-distant future, the US administration is going to decide it is once again time to make a major push aimed at resolving this conflict. When that day comes, we will find that the starting point is more similar to the Palestinians’ than it is to ours. It will be the duty of any responsible government, and especially one led by the Likud, to tell our American friends that this stance is simply not acceptable. It is not in Israel’s or America’s best interest.
The events of the past few weeks should serve as a wake-up call to our American friends. It is now abundantly clear to all that Israel is the only stable and democratic US ally in the Middle East. It is imperative that this realization lead to a serious review of US policy, and a reversal of the worrying trends we have witnessed over the past two years.
Our relationship with the American people has always transcended administrations and political parties. We can only hope that this strong connection, coupled with an astute analysis of the constantly shifting events in our region, will lead to a speedy reevaluation of US policy that will restrengthen our relationship.
The writer is deputy speaker of the Knesset and chairman of World Likud.
