Posing For A Peace Snap:
The Photo Ops in Maryland Will Be Easy. Developing a Fix For Mideast Woes, a Little More Difficult
About the only things on which Palestinians and Israelis agree as they head into this week’s U.S.-orchestrated peace talks is their mutual love of falafel and belief the conclave at Annapolis, Md., will be little more than a photo op.
After creating disasters in Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, and Palestine, and fanning worldwide anger against America, President George Bush desperately needs a foreign policy success in the final year of his ill-starred term.
So the same White House fib factory that produced such hit science fiction epics as Saddam’s Death Rays, Iran’s Nukes Menace the Globe and Muslim Terrorists Under Our Beds has been ordered to churn out the pre-Xmas fantasy Bush Brings Peace to the Holy Land.
A bunch of U.S. clients has been dragooned into reluctantly appearing as spear carriers. The cast includes Israeli PM Ehud Olmert, Palestinian semi-leader Mahmoud Abbas, and delegations from U.S. Arab allies. Syria, which fears a joint U.S.-Israeli invasion, debated whether it was more dangerous to come or stay away. Great Satan Iran was not invited to Bush’s Maryland clambake.
Israel’s strategy has long been to talk about talks about peace while steadily continuing to expand by building settlements on the West Bank and the former Syrian Golan Heights. Israeli settlements and military bases now occupy over half the entire West Bank and its best farmland and water resources.
Squalid Towns
Arid land and squalid towns occupied by Palestinians form a giant outdoor gulag, reminiscent of the film Escape from New York, filled with misery, crime, 50% unemployment and malnutrition, surrounded by Israeli “security walls,” checkpoints and hilltop settlements.
Abbas can’t even control his own extreme factions that launch attacks on Israelis, never mind militant Hamas Islamists who lob rockets at Israel from that other open air prison, Gaza. Washington and Israel are trying to starve Hamas and Gaza into submission while building up the ineffectual, but obedient, Abbas, whom they engineered into power after PLO leader Yasser Arafat’s mysterious death.
America’s other Arab clients proclaim their support of Palestinian rights while secretly collaborating with Israel to thwart emergence of an independent Palestinian state on the West Bank. Hamas’ victory in free democratic elections in Gaza sent tremors of fear through the region’s U.S.-backed monarchies and dictatorships.
Palestinian Mini-State
The Bush administration’s goal is to get Olmert to agree to a feeble Palestinian mini-state made up of tiny cantons isolated by Israeli-only roads, led by U.S. and Israeli appointed yes-men who will keep their more volatile compatriots in line.
But even this political Potemkin Village faces fierce opposition. Olmert, still reeling from his fiasco in Lebanon last year, is already under heavy fire from Israel’s powerful right wingers and their U.S. neocon supporters not to cede an inch of Biblical Israel.
Equally important, as election year nears, U.S. Republicans and Democrats are vying to support the hardline positions of Israel’s expansionist right, ignoring the 50% of Israeli voters who support a real land for peace deal.
As one of Israel’s finest thinkers, Uri Avnery, notes, “the Jewish and Evangelistic lobbies, together with the neo-cons, will not allow one critical word about Israel to be uttered unpunished.” Failure to fully support Israel is the fifth rail of American politics.
This means Bush will be most unlikely to put any pressure on Israel to create a viable Palestinian state.
Solution Ignored
The only peace plan that would work is being ignored: Return to Israel’s pre-1967 borders with some rectifications; sharing Jerusalem; dealing with millions of homeless Palestinian refugees; and, eventually, regional nuclear disarmament.
Nothing will happen without U.S. pressure. But Bush won’t seize the last chance to do some good for the world though, as a lame duck president, he could at least try. Israel is happy with the status quo.
The Palestinians are too weak and divided to alter it, the other Arabs too frightened and selfish to press for a solution to the world’s biggest international headache.
Eric Margolis is a regular columnist for the Toronto Sun.
© 2007 The Toronto Sun
President Bush should take his hands off of this situation. We really cannot afford his “help”. Perhaps he should see if dad (GHWB) and Bill Clinton might work on this for him. Heck, throw in Jimmy Carter. He should ask his state department to support an effort by knowledgeable others.
I frankly have no faith in Shrub’s ability to even mildly improve this situation, but someone who does understand something about de-escaltion should take it on. The world desperately needs it.
Israel has no intention of giving up lands or defining their border. Their goal in Annapolis is to tell Abbas that he better do what they say and accept he fact that israel is going to rid the area of any Palestinians whatsoever.
Saudi, Jordan, Egypt, et al…have their nuts in a vice. They better do what the US/CIA/Israel says or their future will be that of Saddam Hussein.
There will be no peace in that area with this blatant one-sided support for the racist, apartheid rogues state known as Israel. All the politicians in the US are bought and sold by AIPAC. And now they got a french poodle Sarkozy to also do their bidding.
What a farce of a meeting…
No peace plan will work. The Palestinian Arabs will never accept the existence of Israel and the Israelis will never accept a sovereign Arab Palestinian state because they rightly see it as a safe haven for the ongoing jihad. Of course Israeli Jews have no plan to oblige their enemies by moving back to Europe and Arab countries so they can be persecuted and slaughtered again.
On the other hand, I’ve never heard a convincing argument for committing further taxpayer dollars or Euros to this mess. Why should either side get any money from us? I expect Israel to go under in the rising tide of Arab population growth within 50-75 years. Then once the Arabs, with or without the aid of neighboring Arab states, obliterate all traces of the hated Jewish state they will…what? Join the Caliphate? Send out pirate ships to prey on infidel shipping? Sweep the beaches clear of human bones and bring in the tourists?
The plan for peace has been laid out countless times over these last forty years and the Palestinian people have repeatedly called for a full recognition and peaceful coexistance with Israel if they would withdraw to the pre 1967 borders and allow the repatriation of those who were forced to leave their homes. Studies have shown that fewer than 10% of Palestinian refugees would want to live as second class Israelis, so the right of return is a matter of saving face and pride for the Palestinian leadership and their citizens. The plan for peace is contained in countless UN resolutions, all ignored by the state of Israel and its enabler the USA. Peace could be tomorrow, if the USA forced Israel to accept what the UN has mandated over the past sixty years. Of course we all know that Condi and W will call this “summit” a great success because they will agree to nothing more than to meet again to discuss a framework fo peace without ever achieving peace. And of course all options are on the table and that is exactly where they will stay.
I believe an agreement to halt construction of the wall should be the first order of business. They’re just going to have to tear it down soon anyway. Might as well start stopping building the f***ing thing now, eh?
If the Zionist wanted peace then they would have complied with U.N. Resolution 242 decades ago. What G.W. (Global War) Bush says or does is no longer of any importance.
“The only peace plan that would work is being ignored: Return to Israel’s pre-1967 borders with some rectifications; sharing Jerusalem; dealing with millions of homeless Palestinian refugees; and, eventually, regional nuclear disarmament.”
1) What does return to Israel’s pre-1967 borders WITH SOME RECTIFICATIONS mean? Why is there always some qualification that allows Israel to gain at least some of what it stole?
2) Why EVENTUALLY REGIONAL NUCLEAR DISARMAMENT? Israel is the single nuclear power in the region. Why not IMMEDIATELY BEGIN THE NUCLEAR DISARMAMENT OF ISRAEL, the region’s sole nuclear power?
The clouded minds of Zionists and liberals simply cannot comprehend the notions of justice and fairness, when applied to the “Other.” Especially, if the other is not among the Chosen.
On to the nuking of Iran. All hail US/Israeli hegemony over a region that will consist of nothing but radioactive dust. This seems to be “the only peace plan that will work.”
Peace at last. Peace at last…
“Nothing will happen without U.S. pressure.”
Wrong Erik, at least in the sense that it is not going to happen with an unbelievably powerful Zionist lobby’s chokehold on Washington politics and the American voter’s mind through heavily Zionist influenced/controlled media.
So from whence the pressure? From the rest of the world, in particular the so-called first-world beyond the increasingly walled and policed borders of the USA–hello Europe, Canada, NZ, and OZ? Once we jettison the American Quislings in power in countries like France, GB, and Canada, radically increase public awareness on the Zionist not-so-slow-motion-genocide and war crimes occuring in occupied Palestine, boycott the country’s trade world-wide, and support the moderate Israelis in Israel who desperately want this help, we have a chance at least. Forget the US in the near future, it is now deep into its fascist phase in history, and not even at the half-way point in my estimation.
I lived in Egypt for 5 years and have travelled all throught the Middle East, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India. It’s time to speak out against anti-Arab racism, and Islamophobia sweeping the West through the crypto-Zionist media… let’s start beyond the US borders is my contribution to the discussion.
Otherwise a fine article Erik–and no name-dropping for a change.
kidding.
Best,
DR
Montreal
Perhaps we should find new homelands for both parties, Mars for the Israelis and Jupiter for the Palestinians.
tj…
you ask “What does return to Israel’s pre-1967 borders WITH SOME RECTIFICATIONS mean? Why is there always some qualification that allows Israel to gain at least some of what it stole?”
The answer is that Israel has the same legitimate claim to some of that land as a future state of Palestine would. Some of the areas settled by Israel are places that Jews had lived in for thousands of years before being evicted. Also, in East Jerusalem for example, the sites sacred to all three religions have only seen free access for all under Israel’s stewardship.
“The clouded minds of Zionists and liberals simply cannot comprehend the notions of justice and fairness, when applied to the “Other.” Especially, if the other is not among the Chosen.”
Oh, anti-semitism. Nice! (Let me guess, you don’t see what’s anti-semitic about the above statement as you clearly meant it as a criticism of Zionism, right?)
What a monstrous charade! Israel has no intention of giving the Palestinians anything but it does have the intention of creating a Greater Israel where the Children of God will live with the secure backing of their nuclear arsenal.
What a shame the Palestinians can’t realize the truth about Israelis. Haven’t they read The Merchant Of Venice?
Shaktimaan…..stop this 1000 years nonsense…..enough of the lies already. After the jews were kicked out by the Romans 2000 years ago, there were hardly any jews there. Please, stop spreading myths to justify theft. And stop using the anti-semitic card. Its old and overused!
Shaktimaan’s Introduction of the charge of “anti-semitic” is simply to avoid a erious discussion of this issue.
I know what would be “Just and Fair” (so do YOU — hell, a child could identify-such in this Present-Case, much less someone “skilled in Logos/rhetoric/diplomacy, as Arbiter/Lawyer/Judge — if ever ‘impartial’). BUT — ‘will that happen’?
Of course-not — far too “late in the game” and too-many Interests would resist, while too-much has been invested-to-Date [Revolutions/Purges/World-Wars/’secret-societies’/etc./et al — one would simply CHOKE on any recitation of what was required, to-date, in ’securing’ Israel for its Jewish-minority — ‘trust Me’!].
Israel simply ‘IS, that it is’…the tiny-but-influential&wealthy and mostly secular/stateless “Cabal” of Zionists will (if forced-to) move Heaven-or-Hell (yet again…!) to keep-it, and to expand it.
It will NOT “vanish from the pages of time”, nor will it “go softly into that good-night” [and if it ‘did’, unimaginably — would you then really want to pay the price for its 5th-Return…AGAIN?!].
Yes, the people of Palestine were/are the real ‘victims’, here&now — but “so what?” (as someone-said: “There will always be the Poor…”, and, always there are ‘Victims’ [Jews, also, have often been ‘victims’ — even of their-own Zionists and hubris!].
The taxpayers of the US (and its onetime more self-Interested governance) are the second greatest-victim of this ‘land-grab and ethnic-cleansing’ [although this injustice absolutely-pales as ‘payback’ for what we Americans once did to our own Natives, albeit protracted — as our own “land-grab and Cleansing”].
Neither Party here — not these Jews, nor these ‘Palestinians’ — exceed 15-million souls; and that’s World-Wide, people…! Within Israel and the O.T., when combined with ‘Refugee-Camps’, elsewhere — neither ‘Side’ numbers over 7-million (fully-combined, that’s about the population of greater-NYC -or- LESS-than a good-sized Brazilian-city…).
Are these tiny/small numbers of DIP’s (Directly Involved Parties), and their ‘Issues’ [no-matter how onerous or painful or long-lasting] really-worth a Nuclear-Holocaust (moreover, were they ‘worth’ all the pain/expense and Wars/History — just ‘to-date’ — how many millions have died, directly or no — for this ‘Cause’, already)???
It’s sublimely ridiculous!
And all-this, these past 200-years, for one worn-out City (that all-involved would agree to ‘Share’, anyway), and a few square-miles of some of the crappiest real-estate on Earth?
Had the UN and the Anglo/US-Interests dragged-into this mess (or trying to profit from-it) seen ‘what was to be’ following the incomprehensibly dedicated [and thus-Ruthless] absolute-COMMITMENT to secure ‘Israel, for-the-Jews’ back in the 1800’s — how many could have been spared by now, how much ‘Treasure’, kept — to have just directly-facilitated this World-shattering ‘Prime-Obsession’?
Well, it’s not-too-late — yet… It would STILL be far-cheaper, and less-costly in lives, to just _give_ the Palestinians (and the Descendants of those original-700,000) some Reparation and Settlement and Justice for their legitimate losses-and-harm. Move them all to Michigan (or ‘State of Choice’), with enough Award/help/adjustment-each to give them real-Lives — on a scale that most other ME-Arabs would try to ‘lay-claim’ to a supposed ‘Palestinian-heritage’.
Even the-above would be cheaper, better, and more in America’s ‘best-Interests’ than the obscene and current paying-for and killing-for ‘Israeli-Security’ [which has been costing the US the equivalent of 10+-billion, annually, since the 60’s-or-so].
Do so…and Israel would actually become-’secure’ — all Muslims now know the ‘real-costs/Risks’ of standing in Israel’s ‘way’. We and Israel could simply ‘de-Regime’ all of our current-Puppets from governments there, and let the Muslim/Arab/Persian-peoples actually Share in the value of their remaining-Resources — while enjoying some Peace, themselves. [That, alone, would transform the ME in ways unheard-of in History].
Do just these-simple-things, then return to CD in three-years and sing the praises of Common-Sense, in company with All Parties Concerned…
[Obviously, in stating “10+-billion, annually” as one price-paid by the US for “Israeli-Security” (as-if all done has actually made ‘Israel-secure’!), I spoke only to the earmarked-largess of ‘Foreign/military-aid’ (whether line-itemed or ‘hidden’). That figure does NOT include the 2.1-Trillion-dollar ‘related-gifts’ involved in our so-called ‘GWoT’, to-date, nor the direct and ‘out-of-pocket’ losses (exceeding a Trillion, also) for all the ‘hidden-costs related to our Support’ — nor the Canard leading to the increased&’unearned’-profits for those in our ‘favored’ ‘energy/defense’-Industries/sectors, who have ‘enabled’/Lobbied in the name of a ‘Secure-Israel’ — for their-own illicit-Gains…]
So there were three comments criticizing my accusation of anti-semitism! I find it amazing that one comment since then even included a reference to The Merchant of Venice, yet no one thought that my charge of anti-semitism had any validity at all. Wow. Just… wow.
Listen guys, I’ve studied this conflict for years, have had both palestinian and israeli friends and have spent time there. I am in no way trying to deflect legit criticism from Israel or divert the topic. I take this conflict very, very seriously. I have family and friends whose lives are at stake. And there is no way I would ever dream of leveling a charge like racism or anti-semitism against anyone unless it was actually legitimate.
Regardless of your feeling on Israel or the conflict, you people have to learn that comments like tj’s, daniel smythe’s, or anything comparing Israelis to Nazis, the OPT to a concentration camp, suggesting that Israelis oppress others because they think they are the “chosen,” or saying that Zionism is fascism are ALL anti-semitic comments. I should not have to tell any of you people this, the only thing worse than hateful racism is accidental racism. It’s disgusting.
You’d all be better able to carry on a credible debate on this complex (yes, sorry, it is actually real fuckin complex) subject if you’d cut out the casual anti-semitic references. (And also took the time to learn an accurate and complete history of the conflict too, too many posters here seem to have an embarrassingly loose grasp of the facts of the matter.)