‘Old Palestinian leadership’ undermining national goals

A paralysed and indecisive Palestinian leadership, confronted with mounting rigidity from the Americans and Israelis, is undermining key national goals, analysts bid.

They bid the choices taken by the Palestinian National Council (PNC) right thru its meeting in Ramallah closing week show veil that Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, lacks the will to answer to American and Israeli efforts to thwart Palestinian statehood.

Whereas in session, the PNC took several choices at the side of the redefinition of family with Israel as one in every of « battle ».

It brushed aside the PLO-Israel intervening time agreements signed in Washington and Cairo in the Nineties as « expired », and rejected the US decision to recognise Jerusalem because the capital of Israel.

Within the past, Abbas, 82, has incessantly insisted that the path to achieving statehood for the Palestinians lies finest thru peace negotiations with Israel, now now not armed battle.

‘Strategic mistake’

On the face of it, the PNC choices show veil a departure from the negotiations course, the analysts bid.

On the opposite hand, in truth, the Palestinian leadership is too outdated and fragmented to either withdraw from reward agreements with Israel or terminate the policy of treating peace negotiations as a strategic alternative.

Mohamad Dalbah, a Washington-basically based Palestinian analyst, says the disaster confronting Palestinians this day is rooted in the « catastrophic » Oslo agreement that Abbas and the late Yasser Arafat signed with Israel.

Oslo was a « strategic mistake » for the Palestinians, he told Al Jazeera, because it by no plan stipulated the institution of a Palestinian bid and left open-ended the core elements of the get dangle of website of Jerusalem and one of the best-looking out Palestinian refugees displaced by Israel in 1948.

In 1993 the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) signed the Oslo agreement with Israel and established an intervening time Palestinian Authority.

The Oslo Accords stipulated that within five years of the signing of the agreement – that is, in 1999 – each parties also can quiet enter into negotiations for the closing-settlement website, at the side of the elements of Jerusalem and Palestinian refugees.

Twenty-five years later, Palestinians and Israelis possess yet to begin any closing settlement negotiations.

‘Legally accurate’

Jamal Zahalka, a Palestinian member of the Israeli Knesset, told Al Jazeera the choices of the PNC are « meaningless » as lengthy because the PA continues security coordination with Israel, which is the major purpose for Israel.

Zahalka said the hottest Palestinian condition, defined by a outdated local authorities, is in the most attention-grabbing hobby of Israel nonetheless now now not the Palestinians because it’s conducive to neither peace nor resistance.

By affirming internal security in Palestinian areas on behalf of Israel, the PA reduces Israel’s militia burden of affirming its militia occupation.

On the opposite hand, Abdallah Abueid, a Palestinian succesful educated, says the international place of the Palestinians in gentle of the PNC choices is « legally accurate ».

Right here is because Israel has incessantly violated the agreements, refuses to withdraw from the occupied territories and is unwilling to love closing-website negotiations with the Palestinians, says Abueid, who teaches International rules at Bethlehem College.

That being said, « Palestinians are in a in truth precarious place this day and are unable to run forward or even run backward in the event that they wished to ».

Zahalka, the Knesset member, says Palestinian leaders also can quiet now bewitch a strategic decision to reinvigorate popular and quiet resistance to the Israeli occupation.

« Completely then would Israel safe itself compelled to terminate its illegal occupation, » he told Al Jazeera.

Quandary of successor

For the period of its session in Ramallah, the PNC additionally re-elected Abbas president of the Philosophize of Palestine and chairman of the PLO.

It further elected 15 individuals of the government committee out of 18 representing various Palestinian factions most of whom are Abbas loyalists.

Neither the PNC nor any governing physique formally discussed the problem of a successor for the octogenarian Abbas, who is reportedly suffering from extra than one diseases.

Per sources acquainted with internal deliberations on the succession bid, Abbas supports the separation of the powers of the PLO, the chairman of the Palestinian Authority, and the chairman of Fatah.

Abbas is in favour of having a obvious individual to lead every physique, the sources told Al Jazeera.

Apply Ali Younes on Twitter: @Ali_reports