Amir Taheri | April 21
As Palestinians wonder about what they could do next, they would do well to remember that their starting point is a double failure shaped over the past decade.
The first of the two failures is that of Al Fatah, which has dominated Palestinian politics since the 1960s and exercised control over the Palestinian Authority in the wake of the Oslo accords.
At some point in its history, Al Fatah may well have devoted its energies to a grand, though so far futile, struggle to create a Palestinian state. Since 1991, however, Al Fatah has been principally interested in one goal: its own survival and the prosperity of the elite that sustains it. With the late Yasser Arafat showing the way, Al Fatah has kicked its former national aspirations into tall grass. Each time its narrow interests clashed with the broader interest of the national struggle, Al Fatah clung firmly to the former and jettisoned the latter.
Al Fatah, and beyond it the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), which it controls, have danced to every tune of the day in the same way western teen-agers go for pop "tubes" of the season.
The Oslo accords were designed to drown the fish, that is to say bury the national aspirations of the Palestinians under tons of paper. The PLO adopted them with excessive zeal.
Then we had the so-called Road Map, presented by President George W Bush, a kind of political bikini, revealing everything except the essential. Again, the PLO, and Al Fatah, bought into it without a flutter.
Finally, we had the "two states" formula, also presented by Bush. The PLO adopted this as a slogan but did all it could to prevent any step towards achieving it.
Arafat's departure from the scene did not change the essentials.
Amir Taheri's new book, "The Persian Night", is published by Encounter Books, New York and London. More....
Source: Hudson New York
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