He completely rejected the so-called "one-state solution," to which some extreme left-wingers subscribe now out of sheer despair. This would mean in practice a Jewish-dominated apartheid state.
He put an end to all the sham slogans whirling around: the notion that the US could be a mediator, the fiction that there is a "peace process" going on, the idea that the Oslo agreement is still alive and kicking.
The resolutions of the meeting -- the PLO Central Council, which is the Palestinian parliament -- finally reject the notion that the US could possibly act as an impartial mediator.
The Council decided to "suspend recognition of Israel," which is a rather empty gesture. But it also issued a call "to stop security coordination (with Israel) in all its forms," which is a much more serious matter. I doubt whether Abu Mazen can do this.
It specifically mentions the girl Ahed Tamimi, who had slapped an Israeli army officer on camera, and whom I have called the Palestinian Jean d'Arc.
It called for a boycott of the products of the settlements -- a boycott which Gush Shalom, the peace movement to which I belong, initiated in 1998. But it also called for support of the BDS movement, which advocates a boycott of everything Israeli.
For lack of anything better, it calls for more diplomatic action in the UN, the International Criminal Court and other international institutions.
Nothing really very new, but a determination to resist.
ABU MAZEN has no deputy. Like many political leaders everywhere, he detests the idea of an heir.
He is now 82 years old, but still younger than I. It seems that -- like me -- he has decided to live forever.
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