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http://www.palestinemonitor.org “The biggest obstacle to completing reconciliation is external interference,” Dr. Mustafa Barghouthi urges internal unity
EDITORIAL — Dr. Mustafa Barghouthi, who played a central role in bringing Fatah and Hamas to the negotiating tables in Cairo earlier this year, believes that Palestinians must now focus on fighting Israeli occupation. Barghouthi puts the blame on external interference and manipulation of the Palestine’s five-year internecine conflict as the chief obstacle to true reconciliation. Co-founder and Secretary General of the Palestinian National Initiative, or Al Mubadara, Barghouthi believes that only through the universal adoption of non-violent popular struggle will Palestinians be able to establish an independent state along the 1949 armistice line with Jerusalem as its capital, and repatriate Palestinian refugees. “Now, the biggest obstacle to completing reconciliation is external interference,” Barghouthi said this week. According to Barghouthi, many political forces are devoting the majority of their energy on the internal conflict while occupation and colonization continue unabated. “Reconciliation must be a tool in the service of our national liberation, not a replacement,” he said. Continuing, Barghouthi said, “We should not worry about power-sharing, but how to obtain national liberation.” Barghouthi cited several factors that have played an integral role in restoring congenial relations between the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. The first of which was the reinvigorated youth movement that mobilized the public to demand an end to the division. “This was very important and positive, because it showed that political forces must answer to the public,” Barghouthi said. The second factor that led to the reconciliation agreement was the fall of Mubarak’s rule in Egypt, which had upheld nearly all requests from Israel to isolate and block the Gaza Strip. “The Egyptians were honest with us. They told us they had been subjected to international and Israeli pressure.” After the revolution, Egypt was able to serve as a protectorate of negotiations and reconciliation. Finally, Barghouthi asserted that the last factor leading to reconciliation was the realization amongst Palestinians that their struggle for national liberation would not be achieved through negotiations but through a united struggle. Barghouthi emphasized that only through the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and the National Council will a unified government be able to lead the Palestinian struggle to independence and liberation. Understanding that the public is frustrated by the lack of visible progress the Reconciliation Agreement has achieved, Barghouthi stressed that there will be no end to the occupation until there is a shift in the balance of power between Israel and Palestine. Barghouthi believes that the mobilization and strengthening of a popular resistance movement in Palestine in addition to the escalation of the international Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions are the most effective ways of correcting the power imbalance that has led to Israel’s intransigence for the past 44 years. “Our peaceful and popular struggle will be accessible to all Palestinians: men, women and children,” Barghouthi said. “We must restore the spirit of resistance and defiance in the face of the occupation’s rampant and odious settlement expansion and racism.” Barghouthi said that the Zionist project, specifically Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu’s government, has entered a “bone-breaking” battle with the Palestinians. “Let me be frank: we now face a battle to break the bone with Israel, which is still implementing the Zionist project. Israel has Judaized the territory in ‘48, and an important part of the territory within the 1967. Israel is now in the process of liquidating the Palestinian cause–the borders, Jerusalem and the right of return. Israel seeks to turn Palestine into a country of ghettos and Bantustans on less than 40 percent of the West Bank. They want to make us slaves within a system of racial discrimination.” Barghouthi does not equivocate on this note: the Palestinian national project will succeed and break the occupation. “There is no longer any prospect in the negotiations, and the Oslo Project has failed. We must formulate a new, unified strategy.”
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