How Palestinians Can Reunite to Oppose Israel's Annexation | Time
by Salam Fayyad (former PM of the Palestinian Authority)
***Instead, the PLO must propose an alternative way forward that could garner broad-based Palestinian support. What the Palestinian people desperately need is a clear statement — a definition upon which we can legitimately pursue our national aspirations. I believe a broad Palestinian national consensus can be built upon a platform committing to either of two options.
The first is anchored on the model of a single state, whose constitution provides for full equality for all of its citizens, and without any discrimination on any basis whatsoever. The second is an agreed two-state solution — but only with an independent and fully sovereign Palestinian state on the entire territory occupied by Israel in 1967, including East Jerusalem, and with any engagement in a peace process that is to lead to that outcome preceded by international recognition, including by Israel, of the Palestinians’ right to such state, as well as our other rights provided for under international law—namely, the right of return in accordance with UN resolution 194 and the right to self-determination.
Obviously these two options are mutually exclusive. But, they have to both be included in the new platform to ensure that the PLO—as it begins to take concrete steps to include non-PLO factions and forces opposed to the Oslo framework or the 1988 compromise—is instantaneously empowered to convey, on behalf of all Palestinians, what we are prepared to accept. At some point, Palestinians will have to choose between the two possible options outlined above. That, however, will not happen unless Israel recognizes our national rights.
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