Over the past few weeks, Al-Shabaka Policy Advisors Bashir Abu Manneh, Ali Abunimah, Naseer Aruri, Diana Buttu, Mary Nazzal-Batayneh, Mouin Rabbani and Samah Sabawi commented on Nadia Hijab’s policy brief, What if Peace Talks "Succeed?" Their comments are published below. Several key themes emerged, as demonstrated by these brief excerpts from each commentary.
Bashir Abu-Manneh: Participatory, self-organized mobilization is the Palestinian people’s greatest challenge today. It is also the best possible resource for Palestinian liberation.
Mary Nazzal-Batayneh: [This tough issue] needs practical discussion if we are going to turn a recommendation to reunify the body politic into action.
Samah Sabawi: While the BDS National Committee has reached out to international solidarity with great success, it needs to also have a program targeted specifically at engaging Palestinian communities in the Diaspora.
Mouin Rabbani: While [BDS and the Palestinian civil society call] can certainly play a role, Palestinian society remains one in which the political movements call the shots, and in which institutions set the agenda. It is precisely because of the weakness of these movements and institutions that the struggle for Palestinian self-determination is regressing rather than progressing.
Ali Abunimah: Unless we respond to this [state of affairs] forcefully I predict it will not be long before [Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor] Lieberman's vile ideas are adopted into the mainstream as "reasonable compromises." This process of taking extreme anti-Palestinian ideas and then sanitizing them is precisely how we have reached the sorry point we are at.
Naseer Aruri: Whatever analysis is applied, one central question comes up: where is al-Jabha al-Dakhiliyya (the Domestic Front)?
Diana Buttu: Given that the PLO cannot fully assert that it represents all Palestinians, it should be examined whether the PLO can sign an "end of conflict" clause as Israel continues to demand.
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http://al-shabaka.org/node/213?utm_source=Al-Shabaka+announcements&utm_campaign=c300d27bc3-Roundtable+Announcement+11_18_2010_PA&utm_medium=email
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