Security coordination with Israel and normalisation are two sides of the same coin

 Dr Amira Abo el-Fetouh

Protesters hold banners during a protest against the normalisation deal between UAE and Israel in Gaza on 12 September 2020 [Ashraf Amra/Anadolu Agency]

The statements made by Palestinian Authority officials are laughable rather than provocative. They are immoral and fraudulent, and falsify the facts. Foreign Minister Riyad Al-Maliki, for example, has announced that the state of Palestine has quit its revolving chairmanship of the Arab League in protest at its position on Arab normalisation with Israel. What state is he talking about? The Palestinian territories are occupied by Israel, and the PA itself is involved in “sacred” security coordination with the enemy.

Why the protest when the PA is the one which coordinated with the Arab League Secretary-General before the meeting and agreed to issue a statement in this shameful manner. As usual, the PA held the stick in the middle.

The Oslo-created PA is delusional and tries to convince us that it has a sovereign state so that we can share in this sick illusion and respect this false and misleading “authority”. Its officials have been deceived by fake positions and titles; its “President”, Mahmoud Abbas, thought that being received by heads of state, walking on red carpets and travelling in motorcades meant that he was a real president. He forgets that he cannot leave his home in Ramallah without permission from the Israeli occupation authorities, something that he has admitted openly.

This corrupt authority born from the Oslo Accords is nothing more than a pillar of the Israeli occupation system, created to protect Israel and keep a lid on the resistance. So who other than themselves can they blame for the collapse of the Arab position, and only speaking publicly about it after it was the elephant in the corner for so long about which nobody dared speak out? The security coordination authority protects illegal settlers and settlements, suppresses the resistance and hands over heroic resistance fighters to the Israelis, and acts as an informer for its Zionist masters so that Israel can assassinate them. It is this reality which has pushed some Arab countries towards normalisation. They will never be more royal than the king.

The normalisation crimes were a result of your security coordination, Mr Al-Maliki, as well as your futile negotiations and concessions of all Palestinian rights and constants, in exchange for imaginary authority. You are the people who have cracked down on the Palestinians and humiliated them. Their land was seized and sanctities were desecrated before their eyes, and yours, but they could do nothing because of your brutality and oppression. They were bleeding as they watched the Israeli soldiers raid their villages and cities and demolish their homes in front of them, while your security forces melted into the background and did nothing. Do you have no shame that you have been exposed and the mask has fallen off the PA’s ugly façade?

The PLO signed the Oslo Accords on 13 September, 1993, according to which Israel would be recognised and the clause about armed struggle to liberate Palestine from the sea to the river was removed from the organisation’s national charter in exchange for imaginary authority that has been no more than security coordination with Israel. There was also a promise to establish a state that still hasn’t seen the light of day; instead, the PA and PLO have overseen the theft of even more Palestinian land and watched as more settlements have been built, so that the “State of Palestine” will, if it ever comes into existence, have much less than 20 per cent of historic Palestine. In fact, Benjamin Netanyahu wants to strip the Palestinians of this land as well and annex it to Israel.

“I will not miss the opportunity to annex the West Bank”- Cartoon [Sabaaneh/MiddleEastMonitor]

Nobody can deny that the Oslo Accords laid the foundation for Israel’s Wadi Araba Treaty with Jordan and now the “Abraham Accord” with the UAE and Bahrain. Oslo shattered the principle of hostility towards Israel and established the concept of land for peace. It established the idea of peace as a strategic option for the Arabs, which even the Camp David Accords between Egypt and Israel failed to do. Now Netanyahu is proposing a new principle, “peace for peace”, but is selling it as “‘peace through strength”.

The date of the normalisation deals with the UAE and Bahrain was chosen carefully by Netanyahu to coincide with the signing of the Oslo Agreement between the PLO and Israel in the same place 27 years ago. The symbolism was important for the Israelis, as they are keen to tie the dates together, with Netanyahu seeking to evoke Oslo in order to compare it with the latest deals. The message to the Israeli people was clear: we don’t need to give land away to get peace.

If Netanyahu feels free to ignore and even annul the principles upon which the Oslo Accords were built, and has basically abandoned the agreement itself, shouldn’t the PA also abandon its security coordination with the occupation authorities and return to a resistance strategy? It is the least it can do, not least because resistance to a military occupation is entirely legitimate according to international laws and conventions.

Given that security coordination with Israel and normalisation are two sides of the same coin, if the Palestinian “Oslo” Authority is truly sincere in its anger at Arab normalisation with Israel, then it should go back to the PLO’s first role as a liberation movement seeking to free all of Palestine, from the river to the sea, as stipulated in its first charter. This was before it became delusional enough to seek peace with the occupation state that knows nothing about peace, cares nothing about peace, and does nothing to achieve peace.