The following editoral from the official Fatah website www.fateh.org/e_editor/99/300499.htm has several important statements:

1. The Clinton letter is not a ‘Balfour Declaration’.

2. Rather than 242 and 338, the PLO will base future demands on 181 (the partition line that puts Beersheva and many other areas in a Palestinian state) and 194 (return of the 1948 refugees to within Israel)

Complete unedited text:

Extending the Central Council Session: Preparing for the Declaration of Statehood

President Clintons letter to President Arafat played an important role in lessening Palestinian determination to declare a state on May 4. Although only the parts of the letter which had been published in newspapers were read to members of the Central Council, still the Council members saw in Clintons words a certain significance. As Israeli prime ministerial candidate Ehud Barak commented, the letter amounts to a Palestinian counterpart of the Balfour Declaration, issued on November 2, 1917, under the name of then British foreign secretary, Arthur Balfour, and promising a national home for the Jews in Palestine. Balfours declaration — in essence a promise to deliver land by someone who did not own the land, thereby ousting from it an entire people who had lived there for generations — was followed by material support from the British during the Mandate years.

However, it is a mistake to liken Clintons letter to the Balfour Declaration, for in his letter, Clinton ignores the Palestinians right to self-determination, and refers instead vaguely to the right of Palestinians to live freely on their land. In fact, Clintons letter leaves the future of the Palestinian people right smack in the hands of the Zionists who have been occupying it militarily, who themselves offer no more than an even more amorphous autonomy in the land of Greater Israel. In no respect does the letter add to the words Clinton spoke in Gaza, where, in his eyes, presumably, the Palestinian people are already living freely on their land — locked up day and night, unable to leave even the overcrowded portions of Gaza left to them, packed for more than 50 years, now, into refugee camps, cut off from other parts of Palestine, without work or the means to go find work. If this is what President Clinton means by living freely on their land, then we want no part of his promise to us.

We fear that in calling for a one-year extension of the Oslo negotiations, Clinton is deceiving himself. For certain, he is not deceiving us. It is true that Clinton stood by the Palestinian team during the Wye River negotiations, an enterprise which led to eventual imposition on the Palestinian side of an agreement which, even if it had been implemented, was hardly fair to us. But of course the Wye Memorandum was not implemented: it did not find favor with the fundamentalist Zionist ideology which Netenyahus government represents. The Wye Memorandum included a mechanism for implementing UN Resolutions 242 and 383, both so vital to Palestinian rights and interests; therefore, it was not implemented, even though Clinton was considered the chief guarantor of the agreement. Meanwhile, ironically, Netenyahu tries to insult Clinton by labeling him a supporter of Palestinian rights.

Speculation that the coming Israeli elections may bring down Netenyahus government may be off the mark. Furthermore, the one-year extension Clinton calls for cannot achieve the necessary results. Its possible that Netenyahu has succeeded in convincing the Israeli public that he is the man to vote for, that he is a man who does not cave in under US pressure. Not only this, but the Israeli public may believe Netenyahu when he boasts that the Clinton letter was written in coordination with Israeli staff members, betting on the notion that a year from now, Clinton will be too weak to handle the Palestinian issue, even if he wants to. Justice for the Palestinian people is not expected to figure large on the agenda of the Democratic Party in the next presidential election. Rather, at that time, Democrats will have their hands full simply trying to make sure that Al Gore becomes the next US president. And as is well known, Al Gore is more sympathetic to Israelis than to Palestinians.

In some of his actions, including in coming to Gaza, Clinton has shown some understanding of our cause, it is true. He is besieged, however, by Congress and by his own administration, both of which have proved to be fully committed to the right-wing grab-every-hilltop settler mentality which holds sway in Israel. The US government, sadly, is showing itself to be far closer to the Likud than to any peace-loving Israelis who long for long-term stability, achieved by means of a just peace, in the Middle East.

In the light of all that has been said, the Central Councils decision obviously represents but a temporary way out of a problem what will remain, regardless of who wins the Israeli elections. If Netenyahu wins the elections, the result will be a direct confrontation between Palestinians and the Israeli state. The Central Council will have to set into motion the committees it has established. The committees need to demonstrate that Palestinians are serious when we speak of independence. One of these, the National Unity Committee, is especially important. It is composed of all political affiliations, national and Islamic, and given the attendance of both Hamas and Jihad at the Central Councils meeting in which the decision was taken not to declare a state on May 4, its work takes on a special significance. The state we are building is, after all, a state for all the Palestinian people, where political plurality and the sovereignty of law are enjoyed by all citizens. Our state, which is now in the process of being constructed, requires collective work by all of us, to liberate the rest of our land and to ensure full sovereignty over it.The arrogant policies of Netenyahu, who aims to impose his hegemony on Palestinians, cannot be confronted without solid national unity.

Meanwhile, the Central Council appreciated greatly the Berlin Statement of support issued simultaneously with the Clinton letter by the European Economic Community, because the EEC document unequivocably emphasized the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination. Although the statement urged that actual statehood be postponed for one year to give negotiators the chance to overcome current difficulties, establishment of the state is not conceived as contingent on the settlement of these difficulties. The Berlin Statement, rather, accords to Palestinians the right of statehood within a years time, subject to veto by no other state. The statement, we realize, was the result of consensus among parties which had different positions on statehood. Some countries, for instance, already deal with Palestine as a state; others assure us they are ready to recognize Palestine as a state at any time statehood is declare.

Consensus was also evident in the action of the Central Council when it voted to postpone the declaration of statehood until after the Israeli elections. Unanimity exists among all Palestinians on the goal of statehood. There was, however, some difference of opinion among Central Council members on the wisdom of postponing the declaration. However, all parties emphasized the importance of continuing the internal dialogue and of participating in the committees set up by the Central Council. In its deliberations, the Central Council expresses the thinking of the PLOs National Council and the Executive Committee, which represents the central government of the Palestinian people.

Although the statement of the Central Council reflects Palestinian willingness to continue the process of negotiating for peace, all decisions have been made within revised terms of reference. It is on the basis of these that progress can be made in two directions: first, toward true Palestinian independence and the actualization of full Palestinian sovereignty in the West Bank and Gaza; and second, toward resolution of the remaining interim issues. UN Resolutions 181 and 194, which predate the Oslo Agreements, now form the frame of reference within which all Palestinian parties will make future decisions. Palestinians will now act on the basis of these and all UN resolutions relating to the Palestinian issue. The parties which are able to act on the basis of these resolutions are the PLO Central Council and the PLO Executive Committee, which must be activated full-time to supervise the work of the ministries and other institutions.

The one-year extension which was required of the Central Council by both Europe and the United States has led to a continuation of the Council sessions, as a method of postponing the vote on the declaration of statehood, in line with the Arabic proverb which says that avoiding danger can be sometimes better than reaching for advantage. Any future benefits for Palestinians should be studied well, so that the Palestinian people understand their value and work for them wholeheartedly. For the Central Council to meet the peoples expectations, it must use each hour of this month to ensure that the committees set up by the Council are engaged in taking practical steps toward independence and sovereignty rather than in discussing theoretical considerations.

The legal basis for statehood has been strengthened by these recent developments, but it requires further work in the political, economic, diplomatic realms. It requires also securing the daily needs of our citizens to show the people the benefits of statehood, and to promote a climate of equality, justice and the sovereignty of law, so that every citizen will have for him or herself a glimpse of the reality to come.

Revolution until victory!

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