Fate of Palestinians

What next in Mideast “peace” efforts? (Part-2)

DR. ABDUL RUFF

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Mavi Marmara, the ill-fated aidship from Turkey in May 2010, attacked by Zionist criminal regime, is the symbol of freedom of Palestinians. The Palestinians will achieve their full freedom along with sovereignty from the occupying  Zionist criminal regime, whether  Jewish terrorist state, promoted by the western terrocracies,  likes it or not. 

By  placing the Palestine issue on the world agenda  more forcefully than ever before, Mavi Marmara has shed enough light on the pathetic plight of besieged Palestinians and forced the  Israelis to concede certain "concessions" to  Palestinians while maintaining the terror hold over them. Palestinians are ever grateful to Turkey. Ismail Haniya, the elected prime minister of  Palestine in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip has made a tour of Turkey and the visit to an aid ship that was stormed by Israeli troops in 2010. Haniya paid tribute to the nine activists who were killed by Israeli state terrorists during the raid on the Gaza-bound Mavi Marmara. This is Haniya's first trip abroad since Hamas came to power in Gaza in 2007. He met Turkish PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan on  01 Jan.  He said many issues relating to the Palestinian situation were discussed during his meeting with Erdogan and looks for  their continued support for Palestine statehood. 

While the USA and its terror partner Israel  want to keep the ruling Hamas party from peace negotiations, Turkey has always insisted that any peace deal must include Hamas, but has also called for the armed group to renounce violence.Haniya said  that he had made the trip to Turkey to thank the Turkish people for their support for the Palestinian cause. He said Turkey had played a "great role" during the recent prisoner-swap deal and said they owed a "duty of loyalty" to the nine "martyrs of freedom" who died during the raid on the Mavi Marmara. "On behalf of the martyrs of our Palestinian people and on behalf of the families of the martyrs, I salute the martyrs and the families of the liberty ship, the Marmara. And we would like to tell you that your blood is our blood, and your martyrs are our martyrs.," he said, speaking beside the docked ship. 

Playing the big boss of  the Mideast and operating a middle nation to  collect the western arms and other terror goods for resale to the third world,  Israel has manage dot control the entire region with USA-UK-Quartet  shield. Post- Mavi Marmara era, the relations between Turkey and Israel, with historic arms ties,  soured after the raid on the flotilla as Israel was taken by shock. Ankara sought an unconditional apology but Israel refused to apologize, bluffing that its troops acted in "self-defendant" because any ship entering the Gaza strip without Israeli approval is illegal. .

Turkey, former Ottoman  Empire,  has pledged to escort future Gaza-bound aid ships, and take steps to prevent what it fears are attempts by Israel to unilaterally exploit natural resources in the eastern Mediterranean.

Palestinians have been striving for self-determination but their continuous struggle that  has cost them very dearly in terms of  loss of lives has achieved only limited control over their affairs. Relations with the fascist Israeli authorities have been marked by violent conflict with recurring air strikes on Palestinians on fictitious pretexts just like the NATO terror  syndicate invade Muslim nations. 

The Palestinian population of 10-11 million people is divided between historic Palestine and a Diaspora mainly in neighboring Arab countries. Efforts to create a Palestinian state on the West Bank of the River Jordan and Gaza on the Mediterranean coast are frustrated by the continuing conflict with Israel and disputes over the status of Diaspora Palestinians. The war that followed Israel's declaration of independence in 1948 left the former British mandate of Palestine partitioned between Israel, Trans-Jordan and Egypt. The Palestinian national movement gradually regrouped in the West Bank and Gaza, run respectively by Jordan and Egypt, and in refugee camps in neighboring Arab states.

The Palestinians divided and their economy is fragmented and subject to Israeli restrictions through terror blockades. Much of the population is dependent on food aid. Plenty of Palestinians work at Israeli illegal construction sites to earn their meager livelihood as they cannot go outside their lands. 

Israel uses the taxes it collects in Palestine as a bully and suspended the monthly transfer of about $100 million in tax revenues it collects on behalf of Palestinian Fatah PM Salam Fayyad's Palestinian Authority. The transfers are in retaliation for Palestinian attempts to win international recognition for a state of Palestine. Israel decided last month to suspend The transfers, along with foreign aid, are crucial for keeping Fayyad's government afloat. Nearly one-third of the close to 4 million Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza depend on public sector salaries.  Fayyad says he will be unable to pay the the salaries of tens of thousands of civil servants, as Israeli economic sanctions start to bite. Fayyad told reporters  that the sanctions have a "devastating impact" on the Palestinian economy.

The undisputed Palestine leader Yasser Arafat had begun the Palestine liberation struggle in a big way trying to enlist international support, but ended a disappointed man chiefly because of the US double-talks and triclomacy. The PLO under Yasser Arafat gradually won international recognition as the representative of the Palestinian people, culminating in the Oslo Accords with Israel in 1993. These accords established a Palestinian National Authority as an interim body to run parts of the West Bank and Gaza (but not allowed in eastern Jerusalem) pending an agreed solution to the conflict.

USA indirectly controls the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) by directly controlling the pro-west Fatah leaders like M. Abbas. The Palestinian National Authority functions as an agency of the PLO, which represents Palestinians at international bodies. It is led by a directly-elected president, who appoints a prime minister and government which must have the support of the elected Legislative Council. Its civilian and security writ runs in urban areas (Area A) under the Oslo Accords, with civilian but not security control over rural areas (Area B). The ruling Hamas movement, which seized control of Gaza in 2007, explicitly rejects Oslo. 

USA and Israel - the terror twins - have crippled the PLO by using Fatah as well as their agents in Gaza strip creating almost a permanent rift among the rank and file of PLO. The Fatah faction of the PLO ran the Authority until 2006, when Hamas won a majority in Legislative Council elections. Uneasy co-existence between Mahmoud Abbas and a Hamas-led government degenerated amid violence between Fatah and Hamas armed wings, culminating in Hamas seizing power in Gaza in June 2007 and President Abbas dismissing the government. The two Palestinian Authority areas - west bank and Gaza - have since been run by the separate factions - the West Bank by Fatah, and Gaza by Hamas. Half backed Egyptian-mediated efforts to bring the two factions together continue, but with little success so far mainly because of the US interference to block peace moves. 

US-Israeli twins, engaged in murdering the besieged Palestinians, shamelessly call the Hamas the “terrorists” and make them oppose the Oslo accords and present them as “enemy” of peace but they have failed. Talks between the Fatah-led Palestinian National Authority and Israel about a solution to the conflict continue with international encouragement, but disagreements on the status of Jerusalem, which both sides claim as the site of their capital, and the status of the Palestinian Diaspora and Israeli settlements frustrate progress. 

So much so, an arrogant Israel retains full control over bypass roads of Palestine, illegal Israeli settlements and the Jordan Valley, and makes incursions into urban areas against armed groups defending Palestine. .

Continuing Zionist crimes and Israeli illegal settlement proliferation have slowed progress towards a final agreement and led many on both sides to dispute the worth of the Accords. The refusal of Israel and ruling Hamas to deal one with the other, and the regular exchanges of violence between them, especially the Zionist  terror attacks on defenseless Palestinians for their lands leave prospects for peace dim, unless the international community  takes a break from  its sound sleep and end Zionist crimes and  illegal proliferation of  colonies in Palestine. . .