Article from the FATEH newsletter printed in Al-Hayat Al-Jadidah newspaper on September 16, 1998

Wind-mill

President Clinton promised lately that he will continue to abide by and support his pledge to the Middle East peace process, and there is nothing that will divert his or the US Administration’s efforts from doing anything to advance the peace process. He and his Administration will remain a part of this process. If we believe President Clinton and his intentions we would look to actions in connection with his real abidance with this pledge, and so it doesn't get lost or like other things included in the Star Report about the Monica incident, the first thing that President Clinton must do, is entirely remove Dennis Ross from the entire Middle East issue. For President Clinton understands that the source of the Palestinian concern from the double-standard and lack of impartiality in the Envoy describes the actions of Dennis Ross and his ideas aimed towards the policies of Netanyahu. Ross himself uthat he is not liked by the Palestinian side, and represents a part of the discriminatory Zionist force armed with the greatest imperialistic Authority against a people that are under siege, under occupation, who is trying to push off his chest the nightmare of oppression. Dennis Ross is fooling around in his trips like Shylock who was fooling around with try to remove 3% of his victims body without shedding a drop of blood. Abu Ammar [Arafat] understands the waste of time that Ross’ trips will cause, for the Palestine experience with the “wind-mill”, for the noise without flour is like a process without peace, therefore the call on President Clinton to send Mrs. Albright a message of his seriousness from one side, in addition to the fact that she is more trustworthy in expressing policy that Clinton wants and not what the Zionist-Likud Lobby in the Clinton Administration and in the Congress wants as is the case with Ross.

Waiting for Clinton to fulfill his pledge and exercise the required pressure on the devious party that doesn't respect its pledges embodied flamboyantly at present by Netanyahu, for the Palestinian positions must continue to endure and insist on the reject any back-tracking, because it would open the way wide to allow the discriminatory expansionist Zionist plan to tightly choke the neck of the Palestinian dream that tolls the just, lasting, and comprehensive peace that embodies an independent Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital, considering that it is an essential pillar of the pillars of peace and stability, not in the Middle East alone but in the entire world.

Speeches, statements and pictures displayed on television screens have become noticeably repetitive. Negotiations before the television screens that have taken nearly completely two years in the live of the peace process indicated that the wind-mill dominates the peace process in an attempt to steal the life of the peace process that is embodied in the reference of international legitimacy, they are the implementation of the two Security Council resolutions #242 and #338 and the Principle of Land-for-Peace. The attempts to obliterate the reference of the legitimate peace process penned by Dennis Ross in the Hebron Accord called “Notes for the Record”, is an attempt to force the Palestinian legitimacy to cancel the Oslo Accords and the legal basis it was built on, and canceling the basic philosophy of the agreement based on the definition of stages and exchanges in the framework of respect for the timetable.

In this field the timetable that was scrambled that is unreasonable with political work. The statement of Rabin, and the actions of Peres an inheritance adopted by Netanyahu while his conscience is clear .. without a care to the deadlines .. what about the deadline in the original agreement that may not be exceeded. It is the 4th of May 1999 when the Interim Period will end? The Interim Period is not a period of time it is a period of implementation and handing over of obligation. For the absence of the sacredness of the deadlines by the Israeli side is not related to time, but to the obligations that must be fulfilled. Therefore we have reached lost time and obligations that are being chased by the Palestinian negotiator and finds that he will run into the finish line of the process without achieving any result that sovereignty or independent can be built on. Does this mean that the Palestinians must surrender themselves to reality .. and submit to the suggestions of their counterparts in the Labor party and extend the deadline two years in home that the air will rain its flour?

The Central Committee of the Fateh Movement discussed this complex situation, and understood after broad and comprehensive discussion of the unity of the Palestinian position, and this situation must not be ignored for one moment. For any disagreement in the positions will shake our trustworthiness and will weaken our defenses. It must be understood that the declaration of statehood while we are on land, either free, under siege, or under occupation, differs from the announcement of independent while we are in the Diaspora.. we are announcing the redefining of our organizations established under the title of National Authority. For the ministries, institutions, and the Executive, Legislative and Judicial Authorities have been established. The declaration of statehood transforms us from self-rule to sovereign.

We understand that if we do not reach an agreement before 4/5/1999 there will not be an exercise of sovereignty. Rather a repressed sovereignty because of the occupation .. and the level of sovereignty and the possibility of achieving it and embodying it is based on the recognition of the world in it, and this is what requires effort to attract the difficult positions from Europe and others, for the 114 members of the non-aligned nations have congratulated this in its last conference in South Africa.

Real recognition the nations of the world in an independent Palestinian state in the guidelines of the peace process, Security Council resolutions #242 and #338, and the Principle of Land-for-Peace, ends the definition of disputed land and entrenches the definition of occupied land of an independent state. It is a real crisis that must be raised realizing the policies of Netanyahu that has mastered the administration of crisis at all times in the province of the Zionist right that began with the staof Shamir, that he could negotiate for ten years without giving the Palestinians one foot of “Judea and Samaria”.

The interjection of the Palestinian people of their persistence in this conclusive battle requires that the basic role of the administration of the battle be in the hand of the Palestine Liberation Organization, so that the Palestinian National Authority will command the battle in the internal arena, for the PLO will activate its organizations in the Diaspora. The enhancement of Palestinian national unity from all sides, either in the framework of the PLO or outside, like Hamas and Islamic Jihad. For the PLO is necessary to redeploy the unifying umbrella in protection over the will of the Palestinian people in the state or in the Diaspora. The PLO and its Executive Committee and the Chairman of its Executive Committee form the basic administration that must employ all resources and at the forefront the Fateh movement, that depends a great deal on its trustworthiness and its historic role in the miraculous transformation of the dream into a reality embodied on the ground.

Discussions of the declaration of a state on the 4th of May 1999 must not be a topic to discuss yes or no, but how to embody the peace .. and must not be a bargaining point for small tactical issues, and especially since the Israeli harassment on this Palestinian determination pushes for the formal inclusion of an item in an agreement about any interim issue a binding pledge by the PA not to declare statehood before a Final Agreement without a deadline.

There are issues that are non-negotiable if there is real US intervention to reach an agreement about the implementation of the Interim Period, aside from the Israeli abidance by the US Initiative as agreed to by the Palestinian side with the issues related to land and security.

The first issue is the presence of a clear point on the halting of settlements.

The second issue is the absence of any point preventing the Palestinian side of declaring an independence on 4-5-1999.

The third issue is separation of the third phase and the Final Status and the implementation of these independent of the Final Status negotiations.

President Clinton expressed directly in discussions with Abu Ammar [Arafat] about the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination and declaration of their independent state. This position was embodied in the statement of Mrs. Hillary Clinton about the right of the Palestinian people to a state, and is a statement that did not come from nothing but came as an expression of the President himself with slightly less awkwardness in the circle of Zionists around the President to absorb and lessen the limits of hpressure on Israel.

The declaration of a Palestinian state is a completion of the declaration of independence and an embodiment of it, for the text of the declaration of independence will remain the same for its will be a state for Palestinians wherever they are .. a state of freedom and legal sovereignty.

And if we could bypass all of the obstacles and declared independence in the middle of a brave Intifada, rather in fulfillment of its agenda, the declaration of a state when we are in our nation while the Intifada is concealed in the souls of the people capable of protecting this massive achievement represented in the establishment of the first indicator of the state, the National Authority. The current situation is stronger by one step than what it was in the Diaspora and in Exile, and the current situation forces us to look at every possibility seriously.

Is the declaration of an independent state a declaration of war? .. we say in all honesty no .. from our side the announcement of out continuation of the attack of peace whose aim is to complete the liberation of our land by peaceful means, and at the same time aims to protect the liberated areas, and the Palestinian people and their free will must, by all means and all scenarios that the Israeli army can put in place under the name “Right Thorn”, “Hot Summer”, “Scorching Metal”, and “Grapes of Wrath”. All are scenarios that stand on the threshold of the liberated cities to hear the will of the people and their willingness to defend this land with all their resources and capabilities whatever the difficulties and whatever the sacrifice.

Our appointment with the dawn of independence and freedom on the 4th of May requires of all of us to overcome the present. To hold fast to the Palestinian peace is mostly sharp. The weapon of national unity.

For it is Revolution until Victory.