Abbas Rebuffs Call by Rice to Return to Talks

Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, is refusing to return to talks with Israel and Condoleezza Rice has the gall to say that he is giving a tactical victory to Hamas by allowing them to hijack Arab-Israeli peace negotiations.

I would have thought she might wish to address the worldwide condemnation of Israel's disproportionate attacks - which have killed as many innocent Palestinians as they have killed militants- but no, Condi is running with the "you are aiding Hamas" line.

“I understand the difficulty of the current situation, Mr. President,” Ms. Rice said, turning to Mr. Abbas. But, she added, “we must keep our eye on what we’re trying to achieve.”

It's simply ludicrous that Condi thinks Abbas can ignore the fact that the Israelis have killed as many innocents have they have killed Palestinian militants. I mean, seriously, what President could hope to have any credibility with his own people if he ignored a matter that has incensed the international community and even brought condemnation from the Pope? Especially as Olmert has given every indication that, as soon as Condi leaves the region, he has every intention of starting from where he left off.

This highlights the insanity of the Israeli, US, EU position. They are attempting to negotiate with a man who leads the party that the Palestinian people rejected in the most recent elections. His position is undermined before he even begins. But to expect him to negotiate whilst the Israelis are killing innocents on such a scale is simply untenable.

It would have been far wiser for the US, Israel and the EU to have accepted the results of the election and to have started negotiations with the organ grinder rather than the monkey.

“This is a process that, you know, always has two steps forward and one step back,” Mr. Bush said. “We’ve just got to make sure that it’s only one step back.”

Bush has never been prepared to deal with the Middle East outside of his own predefined parameters. I touched yesterday on the astonishingly incompetent path that he has driven to arrive at his current impasse. At all points on the way here Bush has ignored reality and attempted to impose his own will on a situation that he seems not to fully understand.

Condi's attempt to write Abbas's genuine concerns off as "a victory for Hamas", shows that the US is continuing to sing from the same tired songsheet. They continue to insist on dealing with the Middle East as they would like it to be rather than how it actually is.

They have dug this grave for themselves. It's impossible to have even the slightest degree of sympathy for the hole they now find themselves in.

My sympathy remains with the Palestinian people whose democratic wishes Bush and Rice appear to be at such pains to ignore.

UPDATE:

To apply a little perspective here, there is a wonderful article by Seumas Milne in today's Guardian Comments section which highlights the totally Alice in Wonderland way in which this conflict is now being reported. The notion that Israel is acting here merely to prevent rocket attacks - or that her response is in any way proportionate - simply doesn't hold up to any rational examination of the facts:

After the election of Hamas two years ago, Israel - backed by the US and the European Union - imposed a punitive economic blockade, which has hardened over the past months into a full-scale siege of the Gaza Strip, including fuel, electricity and essential supplies. Since January's mass breakout across the Egyptian border signalled that collective punishment wouldn't work, Israel has opted for military escalation. What that means on the ground can be seen from the fact that at the height of the intifada, from 2000 to 2005, four Palestinians were killed for every Israeli; in 2006 it was 30; last year the ratio was 40 to one. In the three months since the US-sponsored Middle East peace conference at Annapolis, 323 Palestinians have been killed compared with seven Israelis, two of whom were civilians.

But the US and Europe's response is to blame the principal victims for a crisis it has underwritten at every stage. In interviews with Palestinian leaders over the past few days, BBC presenters have insisted that Palestinian rockets have been the "starting point" of the violence, as if the occupation itself did not exist. In the West Bank, from which no rockets are currently fired and where the US-backed administration of Mahmoud Abbas maintains a ceasefire, there have been 480 Israeli military attacks over the past three months and 26 Palestinians killed. By contrast, the rockets from Gaza which are supposed to be the justification for the latest Israeli onslaught have killed a total of 14 people over seven years.

The figures are simply shocking and they do undermine the narrative that Israel and her supporters are trying to impose on this. He also makes the valid point that many of us often forget. An occupied people have a right to resist their occupation.

As repeatedly recognized by the United Nations General Assembly, peoples who are fighting against colonial domination and alien occupation and against racist regimes in the exercise of their right of self-determination have the right to use force to accomplish their objectives within the framework of international humanitarian law. Such lawful uses of force must not be confused with acts of international terrorism. Thus, it would be legally impermissible to treat members of national liberation movements in the Caribbean Basin, Central America, Namibia, Northern Ireland, the Pacific Islands, Palestine, and South Africa, among others, as if they were common criminals.

Too often we are asked to buy into the US/Israeli farce that the Palestinians must simply accept the illegal occupation. It is the occupation that is wrong. And all attempts to resolve the conflict should start by acknowledging that fact rather than concentrating on the reaction of the occupied people to the occupation.

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Tags: Abbas, Olmert, Rice, Bush, Israel, Palestine, peace talks, Annapolis