Palestinian American Community Rejects Futile Negotiations in Washington Renewed negotiations do not represent the will, or the rights, of the Palestinian people; Palestine is not for sale Published on Sep 2, 2010 - 8:23:44 AM
Sept. 2, 2010 - On Thursday, September 2, as Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met in Washington, DC for a new round of direct negotiations, the Palestinian American community, including representatives from Chicago, San Francisco, New York and Ohio, as well as local Washington, DC community leaders, convened at the State Department to express their support for Palestinian collective rights and their rejection of the negotiations that marginalize and undermine those rights, carrying banners saying that “Palestine is not for sale.”
Monadel Herzallah, a member of the coordinating committee of the US Palestinian Community Network (USPCN), the Palestinian American group who organized the press conference, said “The Palestinian Authority has failed to establish national unity, has failed to steadfastly demand the end of the Gaza blockade, has failed to dismantle the Annexation Wall. Rather than enter into direct negotiations with Israel--in the aftermath of Operation Cast Lead, the flotilla massacre, and increasing aggression against Palestinian resistance, the Palestinian Authority should hold Israel to account by suing them in third party jurisdictions, raising their violations before UN treaty-making bodies, and supporting a grassroots international movement to boycott, divest from, and sanction Israel. Refusing to do so and entering negotiations under duress affords Israel the veneer of diplomatic engagement as it continues to inflict structural violence and racism against all Palestinians the world over.”
In a statement, the USPCN said that “the Palestinian Authority leadership has not represented the Palestinian people, especially the seven million Palestinians living in exile and throughout the diaspora. Well before the expiration of its electoral mandate last year, the Palestinian Authority has not defended the rights of Palestinians to self-determination, equality, and return but instead has negotiated for little more than the ownership of disconnected Bantustans in the West Bank.”
The USPCN, a Palestinian community-based organization with affiliates and chapters in over 20 U.S. states, also addressed petitions and statements signed by hundreds of Palestinians living in the United States to the Palestinian Authority leadership, saying that the negotiations present a threat to Palestinian rights, and demanding they end their participation in them.
