16 October 2015

By Khalid Amayreh

As widely predicted, the "Bombshell speech" Palestinian Authority (PA) Chairman Mahmoud Abbas delivered at the UN General Assembly on Wednesday was pointless.

In general, the speech was a mere repetition of known platitudes about the decades-old Israeli occupation of the Palestinian homeland.

As we all know, these platitudes have been voiced ad nauseam but without leading to any significant improvement on the ground, as Israel continued to kill and maim Palestinians and further narrow their horizon.

Indeed, it is manifestly clear that the overall Palestinian situation is getting worse rather than getting better.

International recognition won't take us anywhere

In addition to describing Israeli crimes before UN delegates, Abbas said Palestine was a state under occupation.

He appealed the international community to recognize Palestine as a state under occupation.

A majority of UN member-states seem to have accepted Abbas's plea, allowing for the hoisting of the Palestinian flag at the UN garden to the chagrin of Israel, its guardian ally, the United States, as well as Canada and Australia.

A number of European countries, including Britain and Germany, abstained, reflecting deep Zionist influence on their governments.

The symbolic victory is important but its practical significance should not be overestimated. After all, the Palestinian people have been quite fed up with symbolic "victories" that utterly failed to lift up our people or rein in Israeli insolence let alone stop, or even mitigate, the nearly daily atrocities committed by government-backed Jewish terrorists as well as Israeli security forces against innocent Palestinians.

To conclude, Abbas's speech may have achieved some short-lived media repercussions but will utterly make freedom from the Israeli occupation any closer.

On the contrary, it might even increase frustration among our people.

What should Abbas have said?

I am in no opposition to put words into Abbas's mouth. However, in light of the absence of any modicum of good will to achieve peace on Israel's part, Abbas should have announced the dismantlement of the PA itself since the PA, which was supposed to be the first step toward Palestinian statehood and independence, has become one of the biggest obstacles impeding true statehood and independence.

Abbas did admit that his Ramallah regime had no real authority.

Abbas should also have declared the termination of the Oslo Accords if only because Israel has never carried out its commitments as stipulated in the Oslo Accords.

In the final analysis, there is no logic and there is no dignity in continuing to honor agreements and accords that the other side, the occupier of our land and tormentor of our people, refuses to honor.

The urge to dislodge from these agreements becomes even more urgent considering the utter injustice and harm incurred by the Palestinians and their enduring just cause as a result of these hapless agreements.

Indeed, Abbas should have been more honest, first with his own people and second with the international community, by pointing out that the Oslo Accords won't lead to peace.

Finally, the PA leader should have made it abundantly clear to the world body that a just peace of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict was no longer possible since Israel has killed any remaining prospect for a genuine just peace.

Ignorant rhetoric

A casual observer of Abbas's fans and supporters reactions to his New York speech would get the impression that the PA Chairman had just delivered a victory speech marking the end of the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian homeland.

But Abbas's speech was a no- victory speech. It was rather a boring repetition of the same old tired statements long repeated by a defeated leadership that refuses to be honest with its own people and prefers to appease the enemy even at the expense of the Palestinian people and their just cause.

More to the point, it is difficult to imagine the mental sanity level of those celebrating Abbas's speech at the very time when messianic Jewish gangs are defiling and desecrating al-Aqsa Mosque and when Jewish settlers burn Palestinian children alive.

I don't know if Abbas will repeat the same speech at the UN at this time next year.

However, It is highly certain that the overall Palestinian situation will continue to exacerbate as long as Abbas and the hangers-on around him continue to mistake the desert mirage for water and fiction for reality.

Khalid Amayreh is a Palestinian journalist and political commentator living in Occupied Palestine. 

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