Thread by @MouinRabbani

THREAD: History Never Forgets: On 14 October I was invited to provide a short presentation to a committee of the Finnish Parliament

I would like to begin by expressing my thanks for this invitation to speak with you.

As you know, an agreement was recently concluded between Israel and the Palestinians, under international auspices, that may well end the Gaza Genocide.

In the interests of time, I will refrain from discussing the genocide itself. A growing number of authoritative reports on various aspects of this horror of horrors are available and can be consulted. If Finland, together with other states, use its influence to compel Israel to finally provide free media access to the Gaza Strip, you will learn even more about the crimes and atrocities Israel remains determined to conceal.

The Trump proposal of 29 September, itself a revision of an earlier agreement negotiated between the US president and a number of Arab and Muslim leaders, deals with three sets of issues.

The first concerns immediate priorities: a cessation of hostilities, an exchange of captives, the extent of Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, and the resumption of urgently-required humanitarian aid. The agreement reached in Sharm al-Shaikh on 8 October deals only, and exclusively, with these matters.

The second set of issues deals with what is often described as post-war arrangements: governance and administration, weapons, and deradicalization. Deradicalization not of the genocide’s perpetrators, but of its victims.

Israel was intimately involved in their formulation. Palestinians were not consulted. The establishment of a foreign body to govern the Gaza Strip, led by Tony Blair in the role of colonial viceroy, has been rejected by most Palestinian factions, on the grounds that Palestinian governance is a matter for Palestinians. It has been reluctantly accepted by the Palestinian Authority, which would nevertheless also like it to fail because it is excluded from what it has endorsed.

Hamas has made clear it will only relinquish its weapons to the security forces of an independent Palestinian state. In other words, until the underlying motive for its weapons is removed, it will refuse to disarm.

The demand for disarmament is also a land mine, because proof that the Gaza Strip has been fully disarmed can always be found wanting, and is certain to be used by Israel as a trap similar to Iraq’s non-existent arsenal of WMD.

The obscene demand for deradicalization was, quite appropriately, not considered worthy of a response.

The final elements of the proposal deal with political issues, but only in a most tangential manner. They go no further than noting for the record that the Palestinian people have aspirations – not rights – to self-determination and statehood.

Overall, the proposal is extremely vague, and Washington has accepted that each of its elements needs to be negotiated.

This however does not make it a peace plan. It may end the Gaza Genocide, and it does specify that Israel will engage in neither ethnic cleansing nor annexation. But it does not set out clear political objectives, nor a mechanism or timetable for achieving these.

There is a very real possibility that, as was the case with the January ceasefire agreement, this agreement too will be deliberately derailed and unilaterally abrogated by Israel, with US consent. This could happen either very quickly after Trump leaves the region, or in response to the engineered collapse of further negotiations.

Given the regional, international, and apparent US investment in this process, and Trump’s personal role, this latest agreement may well persist for a prolonged period. Israel will seek to impose a ceasefire similar to that in Lebanon. Which is to say the Palestinians cease, while Israel keeps firing. Israel will do everything within its power to obstruct reconstruction, and to make life for Palestinians as miserable as possible in the hope they will leave. The familiar Israeli playbook.

If this scenario does indeed transpire, we can expect a repeat of the Oslo process. Endless negotiations about nothing that achieve nothing, while reality on the ground continues to be transformed. But this time with an even lower political ceiling, which is to say none at all. A process that treats Israeli subjugation of the Palestinian people as a sacred right, and inalienable Palestinian rights as negotiable preferences and contested points of view.

There is however another, alternative dynamic that has gained enormous and growing strength during the past two years. It recognizes that the Middle East will continue to lurch from crisis to crisis, and will destabilize the entire international system, until the root causes of this conflict are addressed and resolved in accordance with international law, international norms, and universal values. Anything less, and the countdown to the next catastrophic eruption will continue uninterrupted.

This alternative paradigm demands that Israel’s impunity finally be replaced by accountability and consequences for its actions. That Israel be treated like every other state on earth and is no longer the beneficiary of a separate standard all its own.

This alternative insists that a peace that is not built on a foundation of equal rights for Palestinians, by definition subverts the prospects for peaceful co-existence.

This is the view not only of most of humanity, but today also of most Europeans and presumably also a majority of the voting citizens of Finland as well. It is a view which insists that continuing with business as usual makes a mockery of your government’s official position, and reduces it to empty and meaningless slogans.

That is why the global majority is demanding an arms embargo, a trade embargo and economic sanctions, the prosecution of war criminals, and, at the very least, respect for Finland’s international obligations. These include, for example, United Nations Security Council Resolution 2334, of 2016 which requires all states, including Finland, “to distinguish, in their relevant dealings, between the territory of the State of Israel and the territories occupied since 1967”. It is high time to cease honouring international obligations in the breach.

To do otherwise than join the global majority is to be complicit. Complicit with illegal occupation. Complicit with apartheid. And now also complicit with a genocidal apartheid regime.

As debate in Helsinki continues about whether or not Finland should recognize the State of Palestine, discussion should focus instead on the concrete policies required by your government to meet Finland’s international obligations. These include ending the occupation, promoting the inalienable Palestinian right to national self-determination, and ensuring war criminals are held accountable for their conduct.

The time left for Finland to get on the right side of history is rapidly diminishing. And History never forgets.

Thank You.

END. Also available as a single text on my Substack ()mouinrabbani.substack.com