Summary
The former U.N. envoy to the Quartet whose confidential internal U.N. report, leaked and published in May 2007, is one of the Coda’s principal documentary sources on the 2006 Palestinian elections, the international isolation of Hamas and the erosion of the two-state solution (Palestine Inside Out: An Everyday Occupation, PDF p.336, p.338, p.341, p.347).
Details
- On why Palestinians voted for Hamas in January 2006: “In contrast with the decay and the corruption and the fecklessness of the Palestinian Authority under Fateh, which has essentially lost touch with the people,” “Hamas was widely seen as attentive to their needs, and largely untainted by corruption. Furthermore, Hamas’ undisguised skepticism, if not outright rejection, of the Oslo accords and framework, resonates among many, even though a majority appears still to adhere to a two-state solution.” (PDF p.336)
- Immediately after the elections he pleaded with his Quartet colleagues to recognize the elections’ legitimacy and work with Hamas, noting its general adherence to a unilateral cease-fire and its democratic path: “Predictably, I was unsuccessful in these endeavors”; the Quartet was transformed “into a body that was all-but-imposing sanctions on the freely elected government of a people under occupation as well as setting unattainable preconditions for a dialogue” (PDF p.338).
- A week before the Mecca agreement he twice heard the U.S. envoy to the Quartet declare “‘how much I like this violence,’” referring to the near civil war erupting in Gaza, because “‘it means that other Palestinians are resisting Hamas.’” (PDF p.341)
- His report, filed shortly before June 2007’s final confrontations, notes that dissolving the Palestinian Authority entirely is “often bandied about as a threat to Israel so that it will face up to its [legal and humanitarian] responsibilities as an occupying power”, that such a development no longer seems entirely absurd, and that PA decline combined with settlement expansion is creating a growing conviction that “the two State solution’s best days are behind it”, leaving one state with equal rights as the long-term way to end the conflict (PDF p.347).
- Makdisi endorses his assessment: “De Soto is right” on the one-state solution gaining ground (PDF p.347-348, p.356).
Related pages
Palestine Inside Out: An Everyday Occupation, Hamas, Palestinian Authority, One-state solution