Just as well that Obama had no details about Middle East peace

Nadia Hijab, director of Al-Shabaka, the Palestinian Policy Network, makes reference to the growing strength of the BDS movement in her powerful analysis for The Hill.

Hijab argues:

[D]iplomacy no longer holds much attraction for Palestinians. Many now favor non-violent direct action. With young people playing a major part, Palestinians around the world held marches this past Sunday to demand the right to return from enforced exile to their homes and lands. Many of the unarmed demonstrators paid with their lives when Israel met them with bullets in the occupied Golan Heights, on the Lebanon border, and in Gaza and the West Bank, and many more were injured.

This public demand for a right that is recognized under international law and by U.N. resolutions but has not been implemented for 63 years will make it harder for Palestinian leaders to cut an unjust deal on refugees along the lines of those reportedly considered during the Oslo negotiations; namely, a symbolic return for a small number to the part of Palestine that became Israel in 1948, and accommodation in the territories occupied in 1967 and host countries for the rest.

In fact, the longer Israel refuses to recognize Palestinian rights, the stronger the hand of the Palestinians will get. The boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement, launched in 2005, is now such a powerful force that Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak has said that he fears “it will start coming at us like a glacier, from all corners” after Palestine becomes a member state of the U.N.

Read the full article here.