Between Miscalculation and Narrow Options... From Dialogue with the Americans to the Witkoff Trap

Marwan Emil Toubasi

In the midst of the escalating brutality of the ongoing massacres against our people in Gaza, and with the increasing regional and international pressures, it was natural for the “resistance” to seek to break the political and military siege after it and our people in Gaza have suffered the consequences of the 21st century holocaust that is taking place in the shadow of the complicity of some or the silence of others, apart from the positions of the peoples of the world in solidarity with the cause of our people’s freedom and their liberation from colonial occupation and the positions of a number of friendly countries that have taken the place of sister countries in their supposed positions today of holding the occupying state accountable and isolating it.

However, the biggest mistake was not simply opening channels of communication with the Americans, but rather misjudging the nature of the American role itself. Washington has never been an honest mediator; rather, it has been the political and diplomatic arm of the Zionist project, a direct partner in killing and starvation, and the primary military backer of the Israeli war machine from the beginning of the Nakba crime until today, through the "Oslo Accords trap," its consequences, and Israel's subsequent denial of it, which has brought us to where we are today.

Relying on the Americans, or some of their promises via mediators, without a unified Palestinian national vision and collective pressure, and without a unified and clear Arab position, especially during Trump's visit to the region last week to "make us pay the price," and without a clear understanding of the objectives of this American engagement in the negotiations, has opened the door to fragile, conditional, and tailor-made offers tailored to Netanyahu and his dilemma. Even worse, these offers, attributed to mediator Witkoff, who seeks nothing but to protect Israel's role in the region, have been taken as a reference and marketed as a historic opportunity that must be seized today. In reality, they are merely a political and moral trap that, in essence, does not depart from historical American policies and its current efforts to implement the vision of a new Middle East, including "Greater Israel," after the ongoing domestication and subjugation.

The draft proposed today does not end the war of extermination, which was said to have been tampered with in its formulation, nor does it lift the siege, nor does it guarantee the protection of our people from starvation and displacement, especially after the presence of American companies operating under the guise of distributing aid. Rather, it perpetuates a reality of humiliation and gradual surrender, and grants Israel a tactical truce, nothing more, enabling Netanyahu to catch his breath domestically, buy the silence of the Europeans internationally, and seek attempts to break his isolation, and then continue implementing his vision related to displacement and expanding annexation and settlement in the West Bank and Jerusalem, in accordance with the decisions of the occupation government, in particular yesterday, to impose new facts with which to confront the international conference on the two-state solution scheduled to be held at the United Nations in mid-June. It would be preferable if this conference, despite its importance, were held under the title of “establishing and recognizing an independent Palestinian state,” instead of the title of “the two-state solution,” given the reality of the existence of another state that has been based on violations of international resolutions and international law since 1948, especially Resolution 181 on the principle of the two-state solution at the time.

Here, quite clearly, the "negotiator" found himself between two fires: either accept an "agreement" that would achieve nothing for him except a conditional and partial truce, or reject it and endure the continuation of the massacres, accompanied by organized media campaigns that would accuse the resistance of being responsible for the continuation of the war, transforming the executioner into a peace mediator and the victim into an executioner.

This harsh outcome, which we have reached due to the mismanagement of the relationship with the United States, pursued by Hamas alone or with the support of the international Muslim Brotherhood movement, which seeks a role in the changes taking place in the region, without assessing the correct position, even in terms of managing the battle initially, which should have been committed to the tactic of guerrilla warfare as a popular resistance, and not as an army fighting the combined armies of the colonial West without taking into account the potential of our people to persevere and confront, should not be an entry point for self-flagellation today or for further division. Rather, it is a moment of courageous national awareness in which tools, policies and programs are re-evaluated, and in which the unified Palestinian position is rebuilt on a single foundation. There are no negotiations except from a position of true, broad national unity that embodies the unity of the land, the people and the cause through serious and responsible national dialogue based on the independence of decision-making and the clarity of the strategic vision of the national liberation project, which is absent today. The role and position of the Palestine Liberation Organization, as a representative front, must be elevated in an effective manner, expanding its popular base through democratic mechanisms, with the strength of political and popular resistance struggle, and with a diplomatic discourse that does not favor the position and role of the Palestinian National Authority at the expense of the PLO as a legitimate representative. Alone, it does not rely on what might be called the "strategy of the weak," an approach based on sympathy and eliciting emotions by evoking Palestinian pain in tearful, emotionally charged language, but rather on a resistant discourse that speaks the language of inalienable rights, accountability, punishment, and the isolation of the occupying state and its colonial regime.