After two days of meetings here, the organisers of the PalestiniansAbroad Conference have established a new political entity to represent Palestiniandiaspora communities and strive for greater Palestinian rights.

    Conference leaders said on Sunday that theyaspired to play a bigger role in the struggleagainst Israel’s occupation of Palestinianterritories, alongside the PalestinianLiberation Organisation (PLO).

    They insisted that their new organisationdoes not aim to replace the PLO  – theorganisation that has been representing thePalestinian people since 1964.

   “We are trying here to create a supporting structure to be an asset to the PLO, not againstit,” said Ribhi Halloum, a former PLO ambassador.

    Though still without a formal name, the new organisation called for the end of the Osloagreement signed between Israel and the PLO in 1993, the restructuring of the PLO on amore representative basis for all Palestinians, and the formation of a democraticallyelected Palestinian National Council, which is the PLO’s legislative body in exile.

    The conference leaders said that the Oslo agreement has destroyed the PLO and created anew class of Palestinian leaders in the occupied territories beholden only to Israelimilitary will.

    The final statement read by Anis al-Qasem, alegal scholar,  blamed PLO leaders forsquandering Palestinian historic rights inagreements with Israel that it said prolongedIsraeli occupation and worsened Palestiniansuffering.

   They also asserted the right of Palestiniansto resist Israeli occupation, called for thereturn of refugees to their homes and townsin historic Palestine and said they would strive for Palestinian statehood.

   Mounir Shafiq, a Palestinian scholar, said that while Palestinians have the right to all ofhistoric Palestine as a matter of principle, it is not obligatory for individual diasporacommunities to adhere to this vision.

   “Palestinian diaspora communities are free to work within the norms of their adoptedcountries,” said Shafiq, who will head the newly established General Secretariat of theConference.

   Khalid Turaani, a spokesman for the conference, said that while Palestinians insisted ontheir right to return to their lands, it was up to Israelis to decide their future, not thePalestinians.

   Fatah, the main Palestinian faction, issued a statement Sunday attacking the conferenceaccusing it of being an “attempt to divide the Palestinian people.” Other small factionsbased in Ramallah also criticised the conference calling it “an attack on the PLO.”
“This kind of criticism is unfounded. We as Palestinian diaspora have the right toorganise and tell the traditional Palestinian leaders what we think is the best wayforward,” Said Ziyad al Aloul, the conference spokesman.

   The conference established a General Commission headed by Palestinian historianSalman abu Sitta and Majed al-Zeer, a Britain-based activist, Naela al-Waari, a  scholarand women’s rights activist, and Saif Abu Kishah, a  youth activist, as his three deputies.

   Leaders of the conference said that this was not “yet another Palestinian faction” rather,an independent organisation open to all Palestinians.