Amman negotiations are misleading

Nayef Hawatmeh, the General Secretary of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP), has called Amman negotiations "misleading and evasive." In his interview to 'Arabstoday', Hawatmeh also talked about his ideas to solve the Syrian crisis, and praised the collaboration between Hamas and the Islamic Jihad movement on one side and the PLO on the other. AT: What do you think about the Amman's meetings between Israel and Palestine sponsored by the Jordanian government? NH: In 1991, Shamir announced that the negotiations would go on for twenty years. Now Shamir's gone, and the negotiations continue. Palestine will keep up the fight as long as its people refuse to surrender. Negotiations are a pathetic and destructive choice. The relations with Israel and Washington already taught us that this is going to be a "never-ending negotiation". In the meantime, Israel keeps expanding its boarders in Palestine's territories. Negotiations are the result of conflicts and balance of forces: whoever has more tools on hi side, can easily dictate more conditions. The Palestinian state they are talking about does not exist. It has no independence, no sovereignty, no borders, and no army. All of that is "Israel's right," according to  Netanyahu. About Amman negotiations, I think they are misleading and evasive. The problems of refugees, water, borders, security and Jerusalem are huge and overlapping. When the three parties express their lack of optimism, I have to agree with that, as I consider 2012 a "politically dead" year. Israel is not ready for serious negotiations, as it is only busy with settlement expansion. Netanyahu's government is working on a strategy to reach one million settlers in the Palestinian territories within two or three years, while they are now 720 thousand. Palestinians know very well there are no concrete prospective for these meetings. To overcome the current impasse of negotiations we need first of all a unified political program; second, legislative elections for Palestinian Authority and the PLO based on full proportional representation, inside and outside the country; third, speeding up national unity; fourth, no negotiations without a complete ending of settlement. Finally, and most importantly, we need a new economic and social plan. The absence of Arab spring in Palestine AT: Despite the Arab revolution, things in Palestine keep being confused and complicated. Why has the Arab spring not affected Palestine as well? NH:  We cannot deny the efforts made for reconciliation and  national unity. Hamas and Islamic Jihad movement have joined the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), something that sets the whole Palestinian nation as one. All previous divisions in search of an alternative leadership from the PLO ended in a failure. Young Palestinians aim to put an end to all the divisions, in order to reach a completely independent Palestinian state, with Jerusalem as capital and a full sovereignty over the territories assigned to us on June 4, 1967. Netanyahu's government declared it "will not negotiate with a Palestinian Authority that includes Hamas." This right-wing extremist government has turned negotiations into a vicious circle. Israel is afraid to face a Palestinian spring, which means it is afraid to face a Palestinian unite nation. Palestinian reconciliation's difficulties AT: What makes Palestine's reconciliation process fail? Are the committees formed in the recent Cairo talks enough to solve division? NH: According to the programme signed to abolish division, we should  have new electoral laws with full representation proportional of 100 percent in order to guarantee national partnership. Palestine was not mature enough. That is why over the last few years, agreements were signed and then broken all the time. We had to reach a unified political programme to obtain a full proportional representation both inside and outside the country. We have to go to the UN to have a state with the boarders agreed on June 4, 1967 and get over with Israel government's manoeuvres. Hamas is now convinced that it is no longer possible to continue the search for alternatives parallel to the PLO. Last December 22 in Cairo, 12 factions in addition to independents agreed on the unified programme, except for Hamas. At the end of the meeting, Abu Mazen announced that he and Fatah had a full proportional representation of 10 percent. The problem is that the meeting did not complete its work drafting an electoral law that would end the divisions. The committees have made decisions to solve the issues of reconciliation, both in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and to stop political arrests, until a Fatah delegation went to Gaza, which is normal, because no citizen shall be prevented to travel within the Palestinian territories. It is the freedom of each human to travel wherever they want, and everybody needs to have a Palestinian passport. These complexities caused disagreements. Political Islam AT: Arab spring elections acclaimed Islamists' success. As a left-wing political thinker, does the Islamist control of the new Arab world scare you? NH: Not really, as long as Islamist parties keep a democratic rule. Democracy is the only way to avoid tyranny and it is the only towards the foundation of new Arab states as well. The separation of the three powers, executive, judicial and legislative, is the basis of democracy. Syrian AT: What do you think of the situation in Syria? Can it be solved? NH: We are against foreign intervention in Syria. The solution must be both political and non-political. Syria is a country with 18 ethnic, religious and sectarian different groups. Besides, there is a social and economic problem that has lasted for 20 years now. Therefore, military solution will not work, and the slogans of the masses will not solve the problem either. There is a need for a change under the umbrella of the so-called Arab peace initiative. All forms of violence shall stop immediately, and within one or two days, talks shall be held between the government and all Syrian oppositions to reach solutions for all legislative, constitutional and political matters. All agreements shall be carefully scheduled to specific timeline.