Palestinians Say Good Riddance to Trump, Hello Biden
Former top diplomat: We had ample reasons to hope the current administration would leave office
A former top Palestinian diplomat said he believes there are possibilities for working with the incoming administration of US President-elect Joe Biden. This is a relief after four years of the Trump Administration.
Dr. Nasser Qudwa is the head of the Yasser Arafat Foundation and member of the Fatah Central Committee. He is also a former Palestinian Authority foreign minister and ambassador to the United Nations.
The veteran diplomat told a small gathering of journalists in Ramallah over the weekend that President Donald Trump “caused lots of problems and lots of trouble for American influence around the world. For us Palestinians, the most important aspect of the [US] election was who is leaving office, not who is entering it.”
The administration that is leaving has played the most destructive role against the Palestinian cause and Palestinian national rights
The Media Line asked Qudwa if the Palestinian Authority has high and realistic expectations of the incoming administration.
“There is a huge difference between Trump and Biden,” Qudwa said. “Why? For obvious reasons. Because the administration that is leaving has played the most destructive role against the Palestinian cause and Palestinian national rights.”
The PA cut off all communication with the US administration soon after Trump recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital at the end of 2017. Palestinians were furious with the decision since they view east Jerusalem as the future capital of a Palestinian state.
“While successive American administrations were biased in favor of Israel, the Trump Administration took the whole thing to a new level by adopting the extreme ideological position of Israeli settlers and of Christian Zionists in America,” Qudwa said.
The outgoing administration retreated from the traditional American policy on the conflict, he notes. “The administration started by giving up on the two-state solution,” he said.
In a major policy shift last year, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo declared that the US does not consider Israeli settlements in the West Bank a violation of international law, reversing four decades of American policy and removing what has been an important barrier to Israeli annexation of West Bank land it captured in the 1967 war.
Qudwa says Trump’s effort to “liquidate” the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) by ending US aid to it and cutting off millions of dollars in assistance to the Palestinian people including the PA, as well as closing down the PLO office in the US capital, all made the Palestinians hope for a change in Washington.
“As Palestinians we did have ample reasons to very seriously hope that this administration would go,” he said.
Qudwa is not on the same page as the Palestinian leadership on the issue of Palestinian representation in Washington, which was ordered shuttered in 2018. “I’ll risk angering my colleagues by saying frankly, I don’t give a damn about this,” he said.
The conditions under which the PLO office in Washington had been allowed to operate were “insulting,” he added.
“You have a representation that needs a [presidential] waiver every six months, and now the waiver has become more difficult with more recent legislation by the US Congress regarding the Anti-Terrorism Act and the Foreign Agent [Registration] Act. Come on, who needs this?” he continued.
“We are better off not having this office. We can negotiate the terms of a dignified political presence with some kind of diplomatic immunity,” Qudwa said.
I hope that the new administration will start with what we can call reversing Trump’s policies related to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
In April 2018, Qudwa accused the US ambassador to Israel, David Friedman, of being an accomplice to Israel’s “war crimes.” Friedman was influential in the decision to move the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and was the catalyst behind Trump’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. In addition, he has been a vocal supporter of Jewish settlements and of their annexation.
Qudwa acknowledges that the Trump Administration has set back the Palestinian cause.
“Most important in my view was closing down the US consulate [in east Jerusalem] after 138 years of independent legal existence,” he said.
So what can the next administration be expected to do to navigate the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
“I can’t be sure, but I can tell you what I hope to see,” Qudwa said. “I hope that the new administration will start with what we can call reversing Trump’s policies related to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.”
“Hopefully, we will see things like the refunding of UNRWA, resuming American assistance to the Palestinian people, reopening the consulate in [east] Jerusalem,” he said.
Without the reversal of these moves, Qudwa said, “Jerusalem will remain off the table, and with it off the table I can tell you there’s no table. We need to restore the table [negotiations] by at least having the consulate reopen.”
Biden supports the two-state solution, but the former vice president was part of the Obama Administration that failed to move forward negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians.
Qudwa acknowledges that the Biden Administration will have a lot of issues on its plate, most of them domestic, starting with dealing with the novel coronavirus and the US economy, but he insists that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict requires close attention from the incoming White House.
“In spite of the fact that this conflict is not a burning conflict at this stage, I think all reasonable people agree it’s the origin of all conflicts in the region,” he said. “If the Trump experience showed us anything, it showed that if you don’t solve this conflict, it can deteriorate dangerously out of control in a minute.”
The Biden Administration will have the ability to kick-start negotiations, and the starting point for negotiations with the Israelis rests on a declaration made toward the end of the Obama Administration, Qudwa says, referring to the “Kerry principles” on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
These five principles, which then-US Secretary of State John Kerry outlined in late 2016, weeks before leaving office, were “fully endorsed” by then-President Barak Obama, Qudwa says.
He argues they can be called “Obama’s principles.”
Kerry’s plan included five principles key to ending the conflict: recognizing international borders, two states for two peoples, a realistic solution for refugees, Jerusalem as the capital of two states, and guaranties to satisfy Israel’s security needs.
“It’s in the interest of the United States and the region to enlarge the scope [of negotiations] and to get the participation of as many players as possible,” Qudwa added.
This means European Union countries should get involved in mediation efforts, in addition to Russia, China and the “main” Arab states, he explained.
“I mean real Arab states: Egypt, Jordan and maybe Saudi Arabia,” he said.
The outspoken Qudwa said that ending the division between the two largest Palestinian factions, Fatah/the PA in the West Bank and Hamas in the Gaza Strip, must be a priority.
The key is “achieving reunification, politically and geographically, undergoing more democratization, and reviewing the [purpose] of the PA,” he said.
If the Trump experience showed us anything, it showed that if you don’t solve this conflict, it can deteriorate dangerously out of control in a minute
Last week, long-time Palestine Liberation Organization Executive Committee member Hanan Ashrawi submitted her resignation, reportedly upset at PA and PLO head Mahmoud Abbas’ decision to re-establish ties with Israel without consulting the PLO. Ashrawi complained of “marginalization and exclusion from decision-making.”
In 2018, she submitted her resignation from the Fatah Central Committee in protest of decisions made at a Palestinian National Council meeting. Back then, she was talked out of it by Abbas.
“Ashrawi is an important political figure and we will all miss her. I think she tried to make a political statement,” with her recent resignation, “a respectable one, but I don’t know what is going to happen next,” Qudwa said.
Qudwa is a fierce critic of Abbas. The 67-year-old former diplomat, a nephew of the late Yasser Arafat, is frequently talked about as a potential successor to the 85-year-old PA president.
Qudwa also criticizes the recent normalization agreements between Arab states and Israel, describing those involved as “followers.”
“They are making their countries followers of the Israelis,” he said. “Frankly, that makes you sad. What are the goals exactly? What are the benefits of this to them?”
Israel’s recent diplomatic successes, as embodied in normalization deals from the United Arab Emirates to Morocco, worry Qudwa greatly, he admits.
“We did have an Arab Peace Initiative, which called for normalization with Israel if they withdrew from occupied Arab lands and allowed for the [creation] of a Palestinian state,” Qudwa says.
He described the Sudan-Israel normalization deal as a case of “blackmail,” because the US promised to take Khartoum off its list of state supporters of terrorism.
But, he says, the normalization deals with the Gulf states are more concerning for the Palestinians.
“What unfortunately happened, specifically with the Emirates and Bahrainis, was not just the reversal of the Arab Peace Initiative, it’s normalization without withdrawal,” Qudwa says.
