The points of United States Secretary of State’s speech included a bold response to some of Palestinian rights as in calling for stopping settlement, ending occupation and establishing a viable Palestinian state. This is one of the fruits the great Intifadah and the courageous resistance that proved there would be no security or stability in the region without securing the national rights of the Palestinian people.
But Colin Powell’s speech was crippled from crystallizing a tangible plan to exit out of this crisis. In dealing with issues that form the essence of the conflict and the crux of Palestinian rights, such as the issues of Jerusalem, refugees and borders, he referred to the traditional ambiguity. For the mechanism suggested by Powell’s speech, which stems from the principle of “occupation could end only through negotiations,” is an unproductive mechanism that proved its incapability and discrepancy through ten years of the ill-fortuned negotiation process since the Madrid Conference.
On the other hand, Colin Powell amplifies in marking unfeasible dictations demanded from the Palestinian side under the title of “ending violence, terrorism and incitement” to a degree of demanding that Palestinians refrain from their feeling of hatred against their whip-lashers and those who stole their land and rights.
Our people realizes that what the American position included a partial response to some of their rights is a produce of their resistance that reached its peak during the blessed Intifadah, and that the sole path to transform this response into a serious act on the ground and into an abiding mechanism for implementation is for America to exercise actual pressure on Sharon’s government to end their aggression, end their siege of our people and by continuing the Intifadah and resistance in order for Israel, America and the rest of the world to be faced with the truth that there will not be peace nor stability in the region except with the end of occupation, dismantling of settlement, return of refugees and the establishment of a sovereign independent State of Palestine with Jerusalem as its capital.
National and Islamic Powers in Palestine
20 November 2001
