PALESTINIANS, prior and before the death of Yasser Arafat, had indeed been fighting among themselves. They just cannot unite.
The famous saying implanted by the powerful apartheid Zionist lobby in Washington D.C. or anywhere is that "Palestinians will never lose the chance to lose the chance of peace".
It is a very powerful and over-bearing propaganda, one that has worked in the West for over seven decades since the end of the World War 2 in 1945: the Palestinians are inept sore losers, incompetent peace negotiators, and poor visionaries.
Their abject state of human development is due to nothing else but the fault of their Palestinian leaders. Thus, no more how many concessions the Palestinians were willing to make, either since 1948, when Israel was created through one sided Balfour Treaty, or, after the Six-Day War in 1967, all Tel Aviv had to do was to raise the bar of negotiations.
If Palestinians asked for "right of return", where several million Palestinians' diaspora were dispossessed of their lands, which forms the first layer of their true identity and political economy, rather than a wandering tribe, the Likud and Labour government would say "no".
The moment the Israelis were to put their foot down, everything that they negotiate will always go downhill. Why? To begin with, even if there is a two-state solution,thebest andthe brightest of the Palestinians would find it difficult to return. In a two-state solution, the Palestinians would have a shell, rather than a structure that can process the returns of those who had been chased out of their lands occupied by various rounds of conventional wars against the Israelis.
But the late Arafat was not wrong to have always told the international press, "a hand (of mere five fingers) cannot permanently cover the (sight/sunlight of the) sun".
Something is bound to give in a war of attrition against Israel. He and his colleagues, formed of various parties in the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO), signed the Peace Accord with the government of former prime minister Yitzhak Rabin in 1994 to inch slowly towards a real "two-state" solution, with the caveat that the right of the return of the first wave of the Palestinian refugees would never be struck off.
Since the demise of Arafat, PLO did break into several groups. With Hamas winning most of the election(s) in Gaza, which neighbours Egypt, and President Mahmoud Abbas taking hold of what remains of ramparts of West Bank, the Palestinians are clearly split by Israel into various factions, not withstanding the Palestinians themselves who have grown increasingly frustrated of their fractious leadership.
Give the circumstances at work, where Palestinians are being manipulated by Israel, their apartheid Zionist movement and an American President who is panicking about being re-elected by Nov 3, 2020, Malaysia should not do what Bahrain do, which is to establish diplomatic relationship with Israel.
There are 57 predominantly Muslim countries in the world, of which UAE and Bahrain, not excluding Egypt, Morroco and Turkey, have had some form of relationship with Israel.
Of these countries, Turkey is perhaps betrayed by Israel the most as Israel continues to conduct a stealthy campaign to back the Kurds or PKK, more precisely against Ankara. Unless Israel wants genuine and comprehensive peace beyond an authentic two-state solution with Palestinians, Malaysia should not join the bandwagon to recognise Israel that continues to practise apartheid to the extreme.
Perhaps it is time for a new alliance — Alliance of Muslim Nations — led by a more progressive Muslim nations like Turkey, Malaysia, Indonesia, Qatar, Pakistan and Iran, to recalibrate the thought process as to how the many issues faced by the 2.2 billion Muslims globally are tackled credibly.
The writer is president and chief executive officer of Emir Research, an independent think-tank focused on strategic policy recommendations