New York-The concept of building the state or destroying it remains obscure for many in the Arab region – this not out of a lack of awareness but rather purposely. This is why many ignore the importance of what the Palestinian Authority is doing in terms of strengthening the building of the Palestinian state’s institutions, in parallel with political negotiations, as a strategy to end the Israeli occupation. The international community, at the level of the Quartet on the Middle East – which includes the United States, Russia, the United Nations and the European Union – as well as the World Bank, has this week crossed a milestone of tremendous significance. This happened when the Quartet’s statement included a link between preparing to end the occupation by building state institutions on the one hand, and political negotiations to end the occupation on the other. This important development nearly went by unnoticed for the majority of politicians and journalists, who were focused on emphasizing the importance of what seemed to be preparations for destroying the Lebanese state through violations against its institutions – this when Hezbollah’s security services stormed Rafic Hariri International Airport, opening the VIP lounge for a man who had insulted and offended state institutions, including the judicial apparatus. What happened can be summed up as an attempt to destroy two essential state institutions: the security institution, which alone has the right to take action in Beirut International Airport, and the judicial institution. Anticipating such violations, having the resolve to maintain appeasement, and working together to prevent these violations from turning into a sectarian or confessional battle, have “bought” the country temporary stability. However, such stability will certainly be temporary unless all measures are taken to protect state institutions from political battles and prevent the destruction of the state by smashing or dwarfing state institutions that bear regional responsibility, and particularly Arab responsibility, in both the issue of building the Palestinian state and that of preventing the destruction of the Lebanese state. And that is a tremendous responsibility that must not be neglected, not just because the moral conscience of the Arabs must awaken to both issues, but also because misinterpreting the consequences of such neglect poses a threat to Lebanon, Palestine and the Arab region as a whole.
At the Palestinian level, the time has come to put a stop to the culture of complaining and discrimination at the expense of the Palestinians under occupation. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has told Arab leaders that armed resistance to end the occupation requires an Arab decision to engage in group resistance, not selective resistance. If the strategic decision of the Arabs is war or armed resistance on all fronts bordering Israel, including the Syrian front, then let such a change be announced, as it contradicts the stance stating that negotiations are the strategic choice. If, on the other hand, what is required is to prolong the Israeli occupation so as for the resistance to remain a slogan serving ends other than that of saving the Palestinians from occupation, then that is intolerable injustice for which a people that has repeatedly been the victim of outbidding is paying the price.
What the Palestinian Authority is doing today is a political process coupled with an institutional process aimed at bringing the decision to end the occupation out of Israel’s hands. Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad specified two years as the timeframe for completing the setting up of Palestinian state institutions. It has been a year since he announced this timeframe, and a year remains for him to fulfill his pledge. About a month ago, Salam Fayyad launched a widened program over the priorities of what remains of the program to complete building state institutions which he dubbed “Homestretch to Freedom”.
The term used by Fayyad in English suggests the image of the final leaps of a horserace, this in order to emphasize the importance of the momentum necessary for the second year until the “Homestretch to Freedom” for the Palestinians. Such momentum necessarily requires serious Arab contributions to complete the infrastructure of the Palestinian state, as embodied in its institutions.
The World Bank gave a rare testimony for Arab institutional work when its report on strengthening the building of the Palestinian state stated that “if the Palestinian Authority maintains its current performance in institution-building and delivery of public services, it is well-positioned for the establishment of a state at any point in the near future”.
The statement of the Quartet on the Middle East, issued following its meeting at the level of ministers and Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in New York this week, took note of this testimony and purposely “called upon Arab states” to immediately provide the Palestinian Authority with tangible support.
Norway’s Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Støre moved towards Arab Foreign Ministers at the bilateral level as well as at the group level, in a meeting that included Arab ministers and US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, to urge them to “fulfill the pledges” they made in the past to offer support, pledges that have remained mere words on lips or on paper. Donor countries for the Palestinian Authority which are in effect and in practice participating in building independent Palestinian state institutions are mostly European countries, alongside the United States, this in the absence of equivalent Arab contributions.
The statement of the Quartet on the Middle East urged Israel to extend the settlement “freeze” which expires next week. It also asserted its full commitment to its previous statements, which state that “negotiations should lead to an agreement that ends the occupation that began in 1967 and results in the emergence of an independent, democratic, contiguous, and viable Palestinian state living side-by-side in peace and security with Israel and its other neighbors”.
For the first time, the Quartet on the Middle East has made the link in its statement between political negotiations and preparing to end the occupation. The direct Palestinian-Israeli negotiations that were recently resumed with the participation of the US were in turn placed within a timeframe of one year.
With this, there is now a common denominator, the time factor, linking the two tracks of completing preparations and performance for the establishment of the state of Palestine, at the level of institutions and negotiations, within a year.
The novelty is that ending the occupation is no longer being left to Israel – as stated in the Oslo Accords – which has proven that it was not in a rush to put an end to it. The novelty is for the Palestinians to take the initiative by putting forward recommendations, timeframes and state-building measures without those being contingent on prior Israeli approval of them. The novelty is that it is the international community which will be responsible for ending the Israeli occupation, not Israel.
Salam Fayyad says that “performance and preparation are a twofold responsibility”, and that “Palestine’s fundamental responsibility is to complete preparations for the establishment of the State of Palestine by completing building its institutions” – that is, “rising to exceptional performance until the State of Palestine can no longer be ignored. That is the Palestinian responsibility”: in other words, “the necessity of exceptional performance in the face of the occupation, until the occupation is the only problem remaining”. This is what the World Bank recognized when it praised Salam Fayyad’s achievements and asserted that the readiness of the State of Palestine had become an imminent matter.
Those who complain do not look at those achievements and prefer the culture of constant dejection and of expecting the failure of political negotiations led by President Mahmoud Abbas. They are burying the state which Mahmoud Abbas and Salam Fayyad are working together to build. Yet what the Palestinian Authority is doing through those two men is allowing the Palestinian people under occupation to feel self-confident, and to feel that it is this people’s performance that will lead to ending the occupation, by a Palestinian decision and within a Palestinian timeframe, not at the mercy of Israel’s whim.
What is happening in Lebanon contradicts what is happening in Palestine, from the perspective of who seeks to build a state and who seeks after the destruction of a state. Just as building the Palestinian state requires active and effective Arab contribution, preventing the destruction of the Lebanese state requires the Arabs to play roles that reflect their awareness of the consequences of such destruction.
Some Arab states believe that their contribution to Lebanon’s stability requires reviving and reinforcing Syria’s role in Lebanon’s internal affairs, in order to ward off and weaken the role Iran plays directly or through Hezbollah. This formula holds a frightening flaw, as it obstructs Lebanon’s progress towards emerging from tutelage on the one hand, and portends internal strife of sectarian character on the other. What those friend-states should do is support the Lebanese State’s capabilities to strengthen its institutions. Any other choice makes them seem party to using Lebanon as an arena for proxy wars, and that is not in the interest of these states, especially as Iran seems insistent on making a significant and frightening breach in some Gulf countries.
Other Arab states seem ready to reduce Lebanon the state to a single person or a single individual, and that is a pity. It is a pity because, had any Arab state taken a similar stance towards another Arab state, it would have been considered an act of subversion against that state.
It is very important for Arab states to pay heed to the responsibility of contributing to building the state and preventing its destruction. Indeed, no one should wish for Lebanon to turn into another Somalia, or for Yemen to turn into a forsaken state lacking institutions like Somalia. And no one should ignore the importance of completing the preparation of Palestinian state institutions, in parallel with negotiations, in order to end the occupation in spite of Israel.
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