Abbas threatens to resign

Abbas is threatening to resign if settlement construction continues and apparently Palestinian sources believe that this will lead to the dismantling of the PA and transferring authority in the West Bank back to Israel. Well, while we might expect Abbas and the corrupt PA to hang in there, as such a scenario smacks of the statesman that Abbas is not, we can contemplate the repercusions of just such a scenario. The farce of Palestinian self-government would be dispelled and the smoke screen that is conveniently used by the Israeli government lifted. Or, let me draw a parallel.

In 1972, in the wake of "Bloody Sunday", the British Government abolished Stormont and introduced direct rule from London. Now, whatever the new order was to be in Northern Ireland, if nothing else, the nationalist community were sure of one thing. A victory of sorts had been achieved. No longer would this problem created by the British be seen as some sort of internal problem in the province. One thing was now blatantly clear and that was a part of Ireland was still being occupied.

Similarly, although Israel is in fact the real authority in the Occupied Territories, as is indeed witnessed by the continued ethnic cleansing that is going on there, if the PA were to be dismantled and authority fofficially transferred to Israel, only the most myopic would fail to see the real nature of this colonial adventure. Moreover, not only would it make it just a little bit more difficult to pull the wool over the international community's eyes, but it would also mean that this farcical cooperation between some Palestinian groups and the Zionist state would have to end and that there would be a unified resistence against the enemy.  One cannot help but hoping that there is some substance to Abbas's threat and that today we have moved a step closer to the end of the occupation.