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Perspectives

The citizens of nowhere: Their agony and anxiety

M Abdul hafiz
WATCHING the
preparations for the Palestinian presidential election from their squalid homes in refugee camps spread all over the Middle East where live the majority of the Palestinians in diaspora since their expulsion from their ancestral homes with the creation of Israel, those citizens of nowhere worry that a new Palestinian leadership could leave them exiles forever. The diaspora consisting of almost five million are already excluded from voting next month and they genuinely fear that the election result could dash their hopes of ever retuminghome.
While many refugees were critical of Arafat for abandoning them by signing the 1993 Oslo accord without a refugee return clause, but he was still seen as an icon by Palestinian exiles. They nowsee his possible successor as the man who may sell them out for good. By till indications, the favourite to take over as next Palestinian leader is Mahmoud Abbas - the present Fatah chief and seen by many - thanks to his acceptance by tlte US •• as the candidate capable of reviving the peace pro-
cess, now all but written off following the past four years of Israeli-Palestinian bloodshed. Most refugees would however prefer a less pliant candidate. They are afraid that Mahmoud Abbas is likely to trade off their rights, including that of their return. Although /\bbas has not said anything to this effect, lite Palestinians, aware of his mettle, are indeed anxious.
It they were permitted to participate in the election, the refugees
would have chosen Marwan Barghouti, now in Israeli prison. Barghouti, the jailed leader of Palestinian uprisings once declared his candidature, but his later withdrawal from the arena saddened his advisers who saw a certain spark in him. It nevertheless illustrates where the people's preference lies, as well as their political mood. Obviously Barghouti is trusted more by the Palestinians to uphold their cause.
So far as the disillusioned lot of Palestinians are concerned, they know that everything is settled up and in a stage managed election (even if from behind the certain) the winner also is already known:
Mahmoud Abbas. The great people of Palestine just need a true leader who could appreciate the sacrifices made by their compatriots during their long struggle to regain their homeland.
Few understand the Palestinian refugees' plight. In exile, the country concerned is a reluctant host which constantly looks upon them with suspicion, sees the Muslim refugees as a threat to its frail religious and sectarian peace, and
consequently denies them citizenship, property rights, and even work. For the refugees, the biggest nightmare would be to find themselves excluded from a Palestinian state created though negotiation by the biased peace brokers. Though bitter experience, they know to view the peace process as an instrument to sideline their rights and are as such scared of being forgotten or left behind.
" Excluding us from the election to be run in January next years will cause a drop in the whole profile of refugees," said Osama Hamdan, the Lebanon representative of militant group Hamas which has decided to boycott the vote. "This is
what is the real danger, it is not just an illusion."
"Yasser Arafat was a great leader for the people, but Abbas was never a leader for the people. He is only interested in winning the presidency," he furthersaid.
The Palestinian diaspora, particularly its military wings like the Hamas and Islamic Jihad, is sore about an inconclusive Oslo process which they think denied the refugees their role in the forthcoming
election, and those embittered people arc of the view that no road map or further agreements could guarantee their rights with Mahmoud Abbas at the helm of the Fatah movement and a fledging Palestinian Authority (PA).
According to them, Arafat did commit mistakes, but not the one that could seal their fate. They also feel that the forthcoming election as set up by the US and Israel is stage one, and aimed at imposing their will not only on them, but on entire Arab world. Both the US and Israel are bent upon preventing the diaspora from the vote, putting in place their game-plan similar to the one the US adopted by install-
ing the puppet Hamid Karzai in Afghanistan and the equally servile Iyad Allawi in Iraq. Next is the turn of Mahmoud Abbas in Palestine. The millions of Palestinians spread all over the Middle East fear that their exclusion from the vote will jeopardise their chance of seeing leadership in the PA that reflects their wishes, not those of Washington.
Although the fire of the Iraq crises is yet to be doused, interna-
tional attention has again shifted to other, older, and most imperishable of Middle East crises -- the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Britain's Tony Blair who recently arrived in Ramallah to talk to Palestinian leaders has, for example, urged President Bush to revitalise the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, calling it "the most pressing political challenge in our world today."
Yet, for the Arabs and Muslims, the remarkable thing is the way the West has repeated ignored the centrality of Palestine, with Iraq now dominating their psyche. But the more strategically and economi-
cally self serving this US-led "liberation" has turned out to be, the more it is seen as another quasi-colonial Western aggression in the region: another Palestine, in fact Blair perhaps realised that it would have been a very good idea to persuade the Palestinians that some redress was at hand. There are problems, however, with the Bush administra-tion's neo-conservatives who insisted tiiat the path to peace in the holy lands wont through Baghdad.
Moreover, if the Palestinians were to secure redress as the other colonised people have, there would either be no Israel or it would lose its exclusively Jewish character. It is not tiiat the US presidents ever underestimated the importance of an Israeli-Palestinian settlement The trouble is tiiat thanks to partisanship rooted in the Pentagon, they can never acknowledged the real nature of the problem, which is essentiallythatofdecolonisation.
To make the decolonisation less painful for the colonialists, the Palestinians did not demand either the end of Israel or its exclusive Jewish character. They have com-mined themselves via Oslo to the loss of 78 per cent of their original homeland and it was done under the auspices of a lion hearted Arafat only to make the "peace of the brave" a reality. Yet die US called Arafat an obstacle to peace who had to be replaced by some "moderate" lender like Abbas who would persuade his people to yield even more. Is the election an exercise to prepare the ground for that fateful transaction - may be at the cost of the citizens of nowhere?
Brig (raid) Hafiz is former DG of BUSS
***To make the decolonisation less painful for the colonialists, the Palestinians did not demand either the end of Israel or its exclusive Jewish character. They have committed themselves via Oslo to the loss of 78 per cent of their original homeland and it was done under the auspices of a lion hearted Arafat only to make the "peace of the brave" a reality. Yet the US called Arafat an obstacle to peace who had to be replaced by some "moderate" leader like Abbas who would persuade his people to yield even more. Is the election an exercise to prepare the ground for that fateful transaction — may be at the cost of the citizens of nowhere?***