Ramallah's Anti-PA/ Pro-Justice Demo

international | rights, freedoms and repression | news report Monday October 05, 2009 19:46 by publo

At midday today, Monday 5th October, a demonstration to protest the Palestinian Authority’s action in scuttling the Goldstone Report of the UN Human Rights Council’s Fact Finding Mission to Gaza was held in Ramallah. It had been called over the weekend by a collective of Palestinian civil society including political parties, development organisations, human rights NGOs, and concerned individuals. The demonstration was to give a voice on the streets to the increasing frustration and despair with the unrepresentative and deeply unpopular policies and practices of the Palestinian Authority. (http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=229802 )

I'm unable to compress the photos to size now but will have a set up tomorrow.

The background to the present situation can be traced back at least to the early days of negotiations between the PLO and Israel which were to lead to the Oslo process. Edward Said’s commentaries on the fallacy at the heart of that process from its inception are set out in his book of essays, The End of the Peace Process. What makes it perhaps more galling today is that in light of the sacrifices made by the Palestinians during the al Aqsa intifada, and the bombardment of the people of Gaza earlier this year, their representatives continue to prize above all self interest in the form of personal prestige, power, and commercial interests.

Today’s demo was called specifically to protest the PA’s action last Thursday in asking the UN Human Rights Council to defer consideration of affirming the findings and recommendations of the Goldstone Report. Essentially, on Thursday evening, the acting PM of the PA placed a call to the PLO rep in Geneva directing him to inform the member states of the Human Rights Council, that the recognised representatives of the Palestinian people did not wish the Council to discuss the Report the following morning, wishing instead that it be deferred until the Council’s next meeting in March 2010. No action critical of Israel was ever going to go ahead if even the Palestinians were against it. (http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/133671 )The rationale here is that by deferring, the PA is burying: that by next year it will not be necessary to consider or adopt the Report as there will be a peace process underway.

Also, it gives the PA the opportunity to prevent severe financial loss. Israel has made it a pre-condition that advocacy at the UN based on international law must cease if the Israelis are to grant the PA a second mobile phone licence. This has been long promised but delayed on the grounds that the necessary radio waves for its operation might overlap or restrict those waves used by the Israeli military. Ads for the new mobile network have been in place throughout the West Bank for months now. (http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1117296.html) (http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article10807.shtml)

Over the past few weeks there have been several killings of unarmed Palestinians by the Israeli army (http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=229659 / http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1117884.html ) . There have been incursions into the Harm –al – Sharif complex in occupied East Jerusalem by jewish groups which have provoked protests by Palestinians, resulting in numerous arrests and injuries (http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1118913.html ). Settlement construction continues unabated (http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5jynF...5X39A ). Peaceful protests against the Wall continue to be met by violence (http://www.awalls.org/ ). The economic situation is dire (http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=229779 ).

The demo today commenced with some speeches at the Orthodox Club in Ramallah given by civil society activists. The half hour or so of speeches began with a minutes silence to the dead and injured of Gaza. Others had given the speeches a miss and taken to the streets, marching to the centre of town where there was a chance for more speeches. PA security forces were all over town in the manifold uniforms of the various different forces, as well as an unknown number of plainclothes officers.

It wasn’t the biggest demo Ramallah has ever seen with perhaps a couple of hundred people. There were chants, speeches, and a fair bit of standing around in al Manara, with a good number of press in attendance. As things began to seem to be ending the crowd from the Orthodox Club arrived bearing black flags and again there were chants, speeches and so on. Representatives of many Palestinian human rights organisations, furious with the betrayal of their ethics and principles by the PA were in attendance. After an hour or maybe less some upstart police officer tried to disperse the crowd on the road by driving through and getting traffic back to normal, thereby ending the demo. His way was blocked by the crowd and his car surrounded. After much arguing and efforts by other plainclothes & uniformed PA forces to get the crowd to disperse he was forced to reverse, a symbolic victory, after which the demo was over.

There’s a sense of loss of tangible comprehension here, of a shapeshifting political and social space. The PA and its Fatah leadership are now beyond the Pale. The grassroots members of Fatah, whatever about those allied to Hamas, the PFLP or any of the other political parties, from the scraps of discussions I’ve had these past few days are as bewildered and disgusted as they can be. The PA’s sabotage of a Report which had behind it so much expertise, good will, and a clear agenda towards replacing backroom and underhand political deals with accountability and justice based on the rule of law and fundamental rights must be the final nail in the coffin of an already discredited PA.

There is no way that today the PLO in its present form can be considered the representatives of the Palestinian people. This is the case both in the OPTs and in the consulates and embassies internationally. Those who support the Palestinians and the quest for justice in Israel and in the OPT must make a determined decision as to who and what they are dealing with in their relations with the PA representatives in Dublin, London, Geneva or wherever. It’s not unlike the days when socialist and communists acknowledged the USSR as incompatible with the principles of socialism. Today the PA is incompatible with the fundamental rights and principles upon which the struggle against the occupation has been, and must continue to be based, that is on equality and justice.

The accounts of torture of political rivals in PA jails continue (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/oct/05/fatah-hamas...trial ), the Israeli line that international law hampers peace is ever louder and more insistent (http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1118001.html ), and the stifling of popular struggle continues. All of which is in the context of an ever more pervasive military occupation.

Since Gaza and the suppression of protests against Israel and in solidarity with the Palestinians of Gaza the PA has restricted public meetings demonstrations throughout the West Bank. Today’s action was probably the first that was permitted to go ahead without interference, a fact possibly indicative of the growing popular regard for the many Palestinian civil society organisations, whose activities and credentials are increasingly being respected and acknowledged by a population weary of politricks and looking to find a way out of the morass. Suppression of today’s march was politically impossible for the PA. This needs to be built upon but there is no guarantee that the repression of political opponents which has characterised the Palestinian politics of recent years will not be repeated against civil society.

The team on the Goldstone Report hoped that their recommendations could be used to change the dynamic of the conflict by ensuring that the fundamental rights of the Palestinian people be basis for negotiations rather than the commercial and power interests of an elite in tow to the might of Israel, the US, and howsomany other states and institutions. The crowds in Ramallah today were advocating for justice and equal rights and accountability for the victims of the occupation (http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=229223 ). Given their abandonment anew by the international community, the UN (http://www.alhaq.org/etemplate.php?id=479 ), and the PA, the necessity of the international solidarity movement to support these principles and the Palestinians was never more critical.