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TechnoratiBroken Peace Process
There's little reason to hope for a breakthrough at the Middle East peace summit in Annapolis, unless there is a fundamental shift in U.S. policy in addressing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. And there's little evidence to suggest such a change is forthcoming.
Indeed, Yossi Beilin, the Israeli Knesset member and former cabinet official who served as one of the major architects of the Oslo Accords, called for the conference to be canceled, fearing that it will only be "an empty summit that will only attract Arab ambassadors and not decision-makers alongside an Israeli leadership that prefers [appeasing Israeli hardliners] over a breakthrough to peace." As a result, he argues that the meeting is doomed to fail and, as a result, would "weaken the Palestinian camp, strengthen Hamas and cause violence."
The reason for such pessimism is that ever since direct Israeli-Palestinian peace talks began in the early 1990s, U.S. policy has been based on the assumption that both sides need to work out a solution among themselves and both sides need to accept territorial compromise. As reasonable as that may seem on the surface, it ignores the fact that, even if one assumes that both Israelis and Palestinians have equal rights to peace, freedom and security, there is a grossly unequal balance of power between the occupied Palestinians and the occupying Israelis. It also avoids acknowledging the fact that the Palestinians, through the Oslo agreement, have recognized the state of Israel on a full 78% of Palestine and what Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is asking for is simply the remaining 22% of Palestine that was seized by Israel in the 1967 war and is recognized by the international community as being under belligerent occupation.
International Law
However one may respect Israel for its democratic institutions (at least for its Jewish citizens), its progressive social institutions (like the kibbutzim), and its important role as a homeland for a historically oppressed people, the fact remains that the Palestinians have international law on their side in demanding, in return for security guarantees, an Israeli withdrawal from all of the West Bank, including East Jerusalem. The U.S. position, however, is that 22% is too much and that the Palestinians must settle for less.
According to Israeli journalist Uri Avnery, the only way the conference could pave the way to peace would be if President George W. Bush decided "to exert intense pressure on Israel, to compel it to take the necessary steps: agree to the establishment of a real Palestinian state, give up East Jerusalem, restore the Green Line border (with some small swaps of territory), find an agreed-upon compromise formula for the refugee issue." The United States, which provides Israel with over $4 billion in military and economic aid annually and has repeatedly used its veto power at the UN Security Council to protect the Israeli government from being compelled to live up to its international legal obligations, has the power to do so.
According to Shlomo Brom of Tel Aviv's Institute for National Security Studies, "Judging from previous experience, US pressure can be very effective." There's no evidence that the United States plans to use that kind of clout, however, to move the peace process forward.
Illegal Settlements
The Palestinians, Saudis and other Arab participants have been pushing for a comprehensive package of Israeli actions that would include a freeze on the growth of illegal settlements in the occupied territories, the release of Palestinian political prisoners, the relaxation of travel restrictions and checkpoints in the occupied territories and an end of construction of parts of the separation barrier inside the West Bank as called for by the International Court of Justice. Failure for Israel to agree to such conditions and the failure of the United States to push Israel to agree to such conditions has led to concerns that it would be simply a propaganda coup by the Bush administration and Israeli government to give the appearance of an ongoing peace process when, in fact, they are unwilling to make the necessary comprises for a sustainable peace.
Israel has recently announced the release of approximate 400 Palestinian prisoners, though thousands - most of whom have never engaged in terrorism - remain incarcerated. Some of the roadblocks that have crippled travel and commerce in the occupied West Bank have been lifted, but scores of others still impede Palestinians from traveling from one town to another.
There are some indications that Israel will announce at the conference a freeze on the construction of additional settlements in the West Bank. However, they have agreed to such a freeze on several previous occasions, including in an annex to the 1978 Camp David agreement, the 1992 loan guarantee agreement, the 1993 Oslo Accords, their response to the 2001 Mitchell Report, and other times, only to continue construction anyway without the United States insisting they live up to their promises. And Israel has ruled out withdrawing from these illegal settlements, every one of which violates the Fourth Geneva Convention, which deem it illegal for any country to transfer any part of its civilian population onto territories seized by military force.
Indeed, UN Security Council resolutions 446, 452, 465, and 471 explicitly call on Israel to remove its colonists from the occupied territories. However, both the Bush administration and an overwhelming bipartisan majority in Congress have gone on record that Israel should not be required to withdraw from the majority of these settlements.
It's these settlements, along with the separation barrier snaking its way deep into the West Bank to separate them and surrounding areas from Palestinian population centers, which has made a peace settlement impossible, since the apparent goal of formally annexing them into Israel would divide up a future Palestinian mini-state into a series of non-contiguous cantons consisting of as little as half of the West Bank. These Jewish-only settlements connected by Jewish-only highways effectively have created an apartheid-like situation on the West Bank. Any Palestinian state remaining would effectively be comparable to the notorious Bantustans of South Africa prior to majority rule. Despite this, this partial Israeli disengagement from most Palestinian-populated areas while controlling much of the land surrounding them - known as the Convergence Plan - has received the support of the Bush administration and an overwhelming bipartisan majority of Congress.
Photo Op
Unless the Israel and the United States are willing to address the core issues - boundaries that would insure a viable contiguous Palestinian state, withdrawal of troops and settlers from the West Bank (except perhaps for some along the border in exchange for an equal amount of Israeli land), and a just resolution of the refugee problem - the conference will amount to little more than a photo op.
Indeed, the current unilateral Israeli initiative is not much worse than the so-called "generous offer" put forward by former Prime Minister Ehud Barak at the Camp David summit in 2000. Arafat's understandable refusal to accept such a limited proposal was then used by the United States and Israel as supposed proof of the Palestinians' lack of desire for peace.
The Annapolis meeting is ostensibly designed to re-start the process along the so-called "Roadmap" for Israeli-Palestinian peace, originally announced in 2002, which was to be based on the principle of Israeli support for the establishment of a viable Palestinian state alongside Israel following democratic reforms by the Palestinian Authority and the end of terrorist attacks. Provisions called for in Phase I, which was originally hoped to have been completed by 2003, included an end to Palestinian violence, Palestinian political reform (including free elections), Israeli withdrawal from Palestinian Authority areas re-conquered since 2001, and a freeze on the expansion of Israeli settlements in the occupied territories.
However, Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi and a sizable majority of House members sent a letter to Bush insisting that the peace process be based "above all" on an end of Palestinian violence and the establishment of a new Palestinian leadership. There was no mention of any reciprocal actions by the Israeli government, reiterating the longstanding U.S. position that it is not the occupation, but resistance to the occupation, that is the root of the conflict. President Bush agreed and, not surprisingly, the Roadmap stalled.
Recognizing Israel as a Jewish State
The prospects of progress growing out of the Annapolis meeting is made all the less likely due to Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's insistence, backed by the U.S. Congress, that the Palestinians, despite having formally recognized Israel, also recognize Israel as a "Jewish state" before substantive issues can be negotiated. Given the sizable Palestinian minority in Israel and concerns that it would legitimate past and future Israeli efforts at ethnic cleansing, this demand is something that the Palestinian government could never agree to and appears to be designed to prevent the peace process from moving forward.
Indeed, the Soviets never demanded as a precondition of any agreements with the United States that the USSR be formally recognized as a "Communist state," nor has Pakistan ever demanded that India recognize it as an "Islamic state."
Though the United States has indicated its desire to emphasize an end to Palestinian violence - particularly acts of terrorism - and addressing Israel's security concerns, there is no indication that the United States also plans to address issues concerning human rights or international law outside of providing increased humanitarian relief for the Palestinians.
If progress seems so unlikely, why is the United States pushing for this summit to go forward? One motivation may simply be for the United States to improve its standing among pro-Western Arab regimes by appearing to be interested in the plight of the Palestinians in order to gain support for the ongoing war in Iraq and increasing threats against Iran. Whatever the reason, unless and until the United States recognizes that Israeli security and Palestinian rights are not mutually exclusive, but mutually dependent upon the other, there is little hope for peace.
Stephen Zunes is Middle East editor for Foreign Policy In Focus. He is a professor of Politics at the University of San Francisco and the author of Tinderbox: U.S. Middle East Policy and the Roots of Terrorism (Common Courage Press, 2003.)
© 2007 Foreign Policy In Focus
19 Comments so far
Show AllThere seems to be a lot of support for the idea that everything east of the green line is exclusively Palestinian land by right and any Israeli encroachment is the equivalent of theft.
So who here can explain to me exactly why, let's say... East Jerusalem should be considered strictly Palestinian property?
thank you Eileen Fleming for your comprehensive post.
The zionist dream is a nightmare of bloodlust and greed and needs to be dismembered.
The settlers & colonists should go back to where they came from, as there is no rampant antisemitism at present there is no need for a jewish safehaven -- if anything with the blatant antimuslim sentiments spewed daily from msm it is the Muslims who need a safe haven + reparations for all the crimes the zionists have perpetrated from bombing the King David to present day.
You may say I am antisemitic or spouting stereotypes - but stereotypes come from the experiences people have, from usurious lending practices ala Fagin to dual loyalties ala Jonathon Pollard.
As for antisemitism, if desiring justice for Palestinians makes me an antisemite then my conscience requires it of me.
Israel, in no way/shape/form, will ever tolerate even .22% of it's current-land as being sovereign for so-called 'Palestinians' -- a foregone-conclusion and insured by Inertia, Need, and Mythic/historic-imperatives (and, of-course, never intended any long-term/'two-state' Solution since at-least the late 1800's).
[Israel, in-fact, will never rest/surcease until yet-larger borders/resources are under their complete-control and 'secure' as Ersatz-Israel-- to imagine otherwise is tantamount to believing there was any chance that the 13/original-States would ever live-content not to 'expand into the West', and instead become peaceful/good-neighbors to their respected-friends -- the Native-Americans...]
Help/aid/peace (for these non-Jewish Israeli's) needs to take the form of their relocation-elsewhere (and, hopefully, with some reparations and aid in their resettlements -- best provided by the US, but perhaps with Gulf-State participation as a 'humanitarian-gesture' -- now, long-overdue). This should include the stateless/desperate Palestinian-refugees currently outside of Israel.
Working-towards or arguing for ANY other point-of-view will only further-harm these Palestinians -- thinking otherwise may open-doors for fine political/legalistic/philosophical-Debate, but only betrays one's utter-lack of any understanding or comprehension of the History and forces leading up to this re-emergence of the state of Israel, or a childish/petulant need for 'fairness' (as if fairness/Justice ever governed human/national/empiric-affairs).
"Render unto Caesar", while in-meantime exercising your proper-sympathies for these Downtrodden by actually saving-them (rather than letting them serve as those-Sacrificed to 'illustrate your Humanity or feed your hatred'...). Unchallenged and made-secure, I believe you'll find the world's-Jewry would be at the forefront in helping/allowing Palestinians succeed/prosper [elsewhere].
A very-high price, indeed, has already been paid by the 'world, at-large' for this Zionist-dream to come to 'fruition' -- this Toll paid since the early-1800's. I would hate to see more "good thrown after bad" over the next 2-centuries, or have to pay such a price yet-again -- much-less risk what cost/price may be demanded/incurred for it's failure-now [the "Samson-Option"].
Seems to me that if Israelis, Palestinians and the whole world all acknowledge the importance/validity of U.N. Resolutions 242 and 338, the solution is fairly simple: An impartial, international panel of arbitration. With the US committed to witholding any and all aid to whichever party(s) refuse to participate or refuse to abide by the findings.
I think that because the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is popularly believed to be the cause of militant Islam, the U.S. government wants to be seen as addressing the problem of terrorism at its distal causal end i.e. eliminating the incentive for young Muslims to become terrorists, and not just dealing with its proximal end by waging war i.e. killing the preexisting terrorists. They want to be seen as "waging peace". Bush, especially, seemed to be reveling in this PR opportunity, although as usual his speaking style was trivial and affected.
Good God Eileen Fleming -are you writing a book!
Is a viable Palestinian state even possible?
There can be no peace or security for Israel without justice for Palestine.
Justice requires equal human rights and honoring international law.
American Israeli peace activist and Nobel Peace Prize Nominee, Jeff Halper, Founder and Coordinator of ICAHD/Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions predicts:
"In the end, the Palestinians may get 80-90% of the West Bank, but they do not get a viable state. They will have sterile swatches of territory whereas Israel retains control of the borders, movement of people and goods both within the Palestinian state and between it and the countries around, much of the country's arable land, almost all its water, the Palestinians' airspace and even control of their communications. The Palestinian state is deprived of a viable economy. Given that 60% of Palestinians are under the age of 18 and that mini-state must absorb hundreds of thousands of refugees, its prospects for being a viable, stable and truly independent state are nil given the unspoken parameters outlined in the Bush letter. [1]
"There will be a Palestinian state. Israel has an urgent demographic need to get the almost four million Palestinians of the occupied territories off its hands. It might even attempt to "swap" a couple hundred thousand Israeli Arab citizens of the Galilee Triangle under the pretense of giving the Palestinians more land. The crucial question is: will it be a viable state? If it's true that Olmert intends that Israel permanently retain the settlement blocs, an Israeli "greater" Jerusalem and effective control of the entire country to the Jordan River, then we will merely be substituting a sophisticated form of apartheid for occupation. The devil is in the details.' [IBID]
On page 2 of Issue 46 of Naim Ateek's, CORNERSTONE, a quarterly publication of Sabeel Ecumenical liberation Theology Center, Ateek wrote:
"Israel has effectively made Gaza a big prison [one and a half million people in] a Bantustan, in which it is systematically assassinating its leaders and reducing its people to abject misery and poverty. The firing of qassam rockets provides Israel with an excuse to keep oppressing the Palestinians in Gaza.
"In the West Bank, Israel still has two major objectives: The first is the confiscation of more Palestinian land and the completion of its Separation [Hebrew: Hafrada, in Afrikaan: Apartheid] Wall. Israel seeks not only separation but the dispossession [Hebrew: nishool] of Palestinians. These two Hebrew words are essential in describing Israel's goal of apartheid."
"The truth which is known to all; through its army, the government of Israel practices a brutal form of Apartheid in the territory it occupies. Its army has turned every Palestinian village and town into a fenced-in, or blocked-in, detention camp."- Israeli Minister of Education, Shulamit Aloni quoted in the popular Israeli newspaper, Yediot Acharonot on December 20, 2006,
"An apartheid society is much more than just a 'settler colony'. It involves specific forms of oppression that actively strip the original inhabitants of any rights at all, whereas civilian members of the invader caste are given all kinds of sumptuous privileges." [2]
Apartheid can also be summed up as a structured process of gross human rights violations perpetrated against a conquered ethnic majority by a state and society mainly controlled by an invading ethnic minority and its descendants, mainly immigrants that have been deemed part of the ethnic elite.
The following nine categories make up the necessary, sufficient, and defining characteristics of apartheid regimes:
1. Violence: Apartheid is a state of war initiated by a de facto invading ethnic minority, which at least in the short term originates from a non-neighboring locality. In all main instances of apartheid most if not all members of the invading group originate from a different continent. The invading ethnic minority and its self-defined descendants then continue to dominate the indigenous majority by means of their military superiority and by their continuous threats and uses of violence.
2. Repopulation: Apartheid is also a continuation of depopulation and population transfer. One example is seen in the obliteration of the indigenous Bedouins that Israel denies free movement to graze their herds and are silently transferring the Bedouins to new locales, such as atop of garbage dumps.
3. Citizenship: The indigenous people are often denied citizenship in their own country by the apartheid state authorities, which are ironically and irrationally, run and staffed by the recent arrivals to the country.
4. Land: Apartheid entails land confiscation, land redistribution and forced removals, almost without exception to the benefit of the invading ethnic minority. Usually, members of the ethnic majority are forced on to barren and unfertile soils, where they must also try to survive under impoverished and overcrowded conditions.
5. Work: Apartheid displays systematic exploitation of the indigenous class in the production process and different pay or taxation for the same work.
6. Access: There is ethnically differentiated access to employment, food, water, health care, emergency services, clean air, and other needs, including the need for leisure activities, in each case ensuring superior access for the favored ethnic community.
7. Education: There are also different kinds of education offered and forced upon the different ethnic groups.
8. Language: A basic apartheid characteristic is the fact that only very few of the invaders and their descendants ever learn the language(s) of the indigenous victims.
9. Thought: Finally, apartheid contains ideologies or 'necessary illusions' in order to convince the privileged minorities that they are inherently superior and the indigenous majorities that they are inherently inferior. Much of apartheid thought is shaped by typical war propaganda. The enemy is dehumanized by both sides' ideologies, words and other symbols are used to incite or provoke people to violence, but mostly so by the invaders and their descendants. [IBID]
Americans for Middle East Understanding, Inc. constructed an extensive historical timeline of events that occurred simultaneously in South Africa and Israel, from which I excerpt:
On July 5, 1950, Israel enacted the Law of Return by which Jews anywhere in the world, have a "right" to immigrate to Israel on the grounds that they are returning to their own state, even if they have never been there before. On July 14, 1952: The enactment of the Citizenship/Jewish Nationality Law, results in Israel becoming the only state in the world to grant a particular national-religious group—the Jews—the right to settle in it and gain automatic citizenship. [3]
In 1953, South Africa's Prime Minister Daniel Malan becomes the first foreign head of government to visit Israel and returns home with the message that Israel can be a source of inspiration for white South Africans. [IBID]
In 1962, South African Prime Minister Verwoerd declares that Jews "took Israel from the Arabs after the Arabs had lived there for a thousand years. In that I agree with them, Israel, like South Africa, is an apartheid state." [IBID]
On August 1, 1967, Israel enacted the Agricultural Settlement Law, which bans Israeli citizens of non-Jewish nationality- Palestinian Arabs- from working on Jewish National Fund lands, well over 80% of the land in Israel. Knesset member Uri Avnery stated: "This law is going to expel Arab cultivators from the land that was formerly theirs and was handed over to the Jews." [IBID]
On April 4, 1969, General Moshe Dayan is quoted in the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz telling students at Israel's Technion Institute that "Jewish villages were built in the place of Arab villages. You don't even know the names of these Arab villages, and I don't blame you, because these geography books no longer exist. Not only do the books not exist, the Arab villages are not there either… There is not one single place built in this country that did not have a former Arab population."[IBID]
On April 28, 1971: C. L. Sulzberger, writing in The New York Times, quoted South African Prime Minister John Vorster as saying that Israel is faced with an apartheid problem, namely how to handle its Arab inhabitants. Sulzberger wrote: "Both South Africa and Israel are in a sense intruder states. They were built by pioneers originating abroad and settling in partially inhabited areas." [IBID]
On September 13, 1978, in Washington, D.C. The Camp David Accords are signed by Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin and witnessed by President Jimmy Carter. The Accords reaffirm U.N. Resolutions 242 and 338, which prohibit acquisition of land by force, call for Israel's withdrawal of military and civilian forces from the West Bank and Gaza, and prescribe "full autonomy" for the inhabitants of the territories. Begin orally promises Carter to freeze all settlement activity during the subsequent peace talks. Once back in Israel, however, the Israeli prime minister continues to confiscate, settle, and fortify the occupied territories. [IBID]
On September 13, 1985, Rep. George Crockett (D-MI), after visiting the Israeli-occupied West Bank, compares the living conditions there with those of South African blacks and concludes that the West Bank is an instance of apartheid that no one in the U.S. is talking about. [IBID]
In July 2000, President Bill Clinton convenes the Camp David II Peace Summit between Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat. Clinton—not Barak—offers Arafat the withdrawal of some 40,000 Jewish settlers, leaving more than 180,000 in 209 settlements, all of which are interconnected by roads that cover approximately 10% of the occupied land. Effectively, this divides the West Bank into at least two non-contiguous areas and multiple fragments. Palestinians would have no control over the borders around them, the air space above them, or the water reserves under them. Barak calls it a generous offer. Arafat refuses to sign. [IBID]
August 31, 2001: Durban, South Africa. Up to 50,000 South Africans march in support of the Palestinian people. In their "Declaration by South Africans on Apartheid and the Struggle for Palestine" they proclaim: "We, South Africans who lived for decades under rulers with a colonial mentality, see Israeli occupation as a strange survival of colonialism in the 21st century. Only in Israel do we hear of 'settlements' and 'settlers.' Only in Israel do soldiers and armed civilian groups take over hilltops, demolish homes, uproot trees and destroy crops, shell schools, churches and mosques, plunder water reserves, and block access to an indigenous population's freedom of movement and right to earn a living. These human rights violations were unacceptable in apartheid South Africa and are an affront to us in apartheid Israel." [IBID]
October 23, 2001: Ronnie Kasrils, a Jew and a minister in the South African government, co-authors a petition "Not in My Name," signed by some 200 members of South Africa's Jewish community, reads: "It becomes difficult, from a South African perspective, not to draw parallels with the oppression expressed by Palestinians under the hand of Israel and the oppression experienced in South Africa under apartheid rule." [IBID]
Three years later, Kasrils will go to the Occupied Territories and conclude: "This is much worse than apartheid. Israeli measures, the brutality, make apartheid look like a picnic. We never had jets attacking our townships. We never had sieges that lasted month after month. We never had tanks destroying houses. We had armored vehicles and police using small arms to shoot people but not on this scale." [IBID]
April 29, 2002: Boston, MA. South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu says he is "very deeply distressed" by what he observed in his recent visit to the Holy Land, adding, "It reminded me so much of what happened in South Africa." The Nobel peace laureate said he saw "the humiliation of the Palestinians at checkpoints and roadblocks, suffering like us when young white police officers prevented us from moving about. Referring to Americans, he adds, "People are scared in this country to say wrong is wrong because the Jewish lobby is powerful—very powerful. Well, so what? The apartheid government was very powerful, but today it no longer exists." [IBID]
On October 27, 2007, in Boston, sponsored by FOSNA/Friends of Sabeel North America, Jeff Halper, Naim Ateek, Archbishop Desmond Tutu and scores of other justice and peace seeking citizens addressed the Apartheid Paradigm in Israel Palestine to a SRO crowd.
In his Keynote address Tutu remarked, "Between the root of human solidarity and the fruit of human wholeness, there is the hard work of telling the truth. From my experience in South Africa I know that truth-telling is hard. It has grave consequences for one's life and reputation. It stretches one's faith, tests one's capacity to love, and pushes hope to the limit. No one takes up this work on a do-gooder's whim. It is not a choice. One feels compelled into it… An acute awareness of fallibility is a constant companion in this task, but because nothing is more important in the current situation than to speak as truthfully as one can, there can be no shrinking from testifying to what one sees and hears.
"What do I see and hear in the Holy Land? ...I have to tell the truth: I am reminded of the yoke of oppression that was once our burden in South Africa…I have to tell the truth: I am reminded of the bitter days of uprooting and despoiling in my own country…I have to tell the truth: I am reminded of the explosive anger that inflamed South Africa, too.
"Some people are enraged by comparisons between the Israeli/Palestinian conflict and what happened in South Africa. There are differences between the two situations, but a comparison need not be exact in every feature to yield clarity about what is going on. Moreover, for those of us who lived through the dehumanizing horrors of the apartheid era, the comparison seems not only apt, it is also necessary. It is necessary if we are to persevere in our hope that things can change...I have seen it and heard it, and so to this truth, too, I am compelled to testify - if it can happen in South Africa, it can happen with the Israelis and Palestinians. There is not much reason to be optimistic, but there is every reason to hope." [4]
"HOPE has two children. The first is ANGER at the way things are. The second is COURAGE to DO SOMETHING about it."-St. Augustine
[1] http://www.icahd.org/eng/articles.asp?menu=6&submenu=2&article=413
[2] Apartheid Ancient, Past, and Present Systematic and Gross Human Rights Violations in Graeco-Roman Egypt, South Africa, and Israel/Palestine, By Anthony Löwstedt. Page 77.
[3] The Link, "About That Word Apartheid", April-May 2007, Published by Americans for Middle East Understanding, Inc.
[4] © Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company
Published first WAWA Blog November 25, 2007: Apartheid in Israel Palestine! Viability in Annapolis?
http://www.wearewideawake.org/
There is no peace process and there never has been.
it's all a holding operation until lebensraum has been achieved by the Zionazis.
Just contemplate the disastrous ongoing global consequences because these fuckers want to keep the best of the remaining 22% of this god-forsaken land.
Frankly, this hastily formed conference put together to create the appearance of a legacy for Mr. Bush has some potential for an outcome similar to the disaster in Iraq. Instead of throwing flowers at us as we march in, the participants could quickly allow the bitter depths of their decades old dispute to surface resulting in a shouting match rather than an accord. The peace process could be seriously damaged for some time to come. And, since Hamas, the elected authority in Gaza, was intentionally left out...who speaks for Gaza? If a shouting match does evolve, won't the Palestinians be blamed by the Israeli/American coalition?
Looks like the Decider, who for some reason, as POTUS, still insists on going with "nucular" is determined now to show the world how to "negoshate".
RicZow, I am surprised by your vitriol. I did take a quick look at your referred sources and I have to admit they all look highly readable and interesting. But why the nastiness toward Zunes?
Stephen Zunes, writing in the _National Catholic Reporter_ was a significant force in helping me to appreciate dimensions of the Israel-Palestine conflict, where formerly I just saw two peoples who seemed to like to disagree with each other.
I think Zunes is an excellent person to read to help give you background on the issues. Zunes does have a slightly different point of view but I feel he dovetailed nicely with Jimmy Carter's Peace not Apartheid.
Rather than the Zunes bash, I'd like to hear what it is you think those other authors bring to the discussion that Zunes fails to.
Long Long AGO...when democrats still had spines...I once heard that trying to get Democrats to come together on an idea was like herding cats. Ditto Progressives.
But I think Progressives need to find ways to articulate that we are neither pro or against Israel and certainly want to take nothing away from the sufferings of the Jewish people in the holocaust but the dynamic in Israel is not sustainable and can only lead to more bloodshed. Palestinians are living under conditions that none of us would tolerate and they need the world to point to that truth with as much unison as possible.
But, seriously, what do those authors bring to this discussion that you think would supplement Zunes?
This isn't really about finally creating a peaceful coexistence between Israelis and Palestinians. It's about resuscitating the careers of three out of touch, unpopular old politicians: Bush, Barak and Abbas. It's about deflecting attention from the miserable failures in Afghanistan and Iraq, in the US economy, in the environment, in education, healthcare and infrastructure--that is, in everything Bush promised to fix.
Vinlander, while I agree with you that human nature necessitates an enemy (hence Republicans' nonstop talk about terrorism), I don't fully agree that victory would win over peace. The main issue is distrust. I've traveled to Israel and spent weeks with Israelis and their #1 desire was peace. However, Israelis feel that they can never give enough and the Palestinians will want more and more until the Israelis are pushed off of the land. I am going to guess that Palestinians feel the same way.
That being said, I'm not trying to defend Israel in this comment as they obviously deserve a fair share of criticism for the violence in their land. However, what worries me when reading this message board every time an article is posted about Israel/Palestine is the sheer hatred for Israel that permeates the progressive community. The situation in Israel has created a progressive community that would like to see Israel removed from the face of the earth. The sad part is that it is the Israeli government that deserves the hatred of the left wing and not the Israeli population. How many people in the world would like to see the United States humiliated in a war due to the policies of our government? Do you, the American poster to CommonDreams, deserve to be removed from your home or forced off your land due to the Imperial, self-centered, greedy, and violent policies of the United States? Israel is run by the rich, greedy, and corrupt. The everyday citizen is as powerless to change the course of the country as 75% of America has been to get our troops out of Iraq.
I'd love to see peace. I just don't see it happening. If Israel gives up "too much" the right wing religious nuts in Israel riot (or assassinate the leader trying to make strides for peace a la Yitzhak Rabin). Even if Israel gives up half of the land that they currently occupy, there will be a sector of the Palestinian population that will continue to attack Israel. I am going to hope that logic can dominate religion in this this instance and lead to a rational solution. Unlikely, but worth the hope...
Headline "MARS TIMES" November 2307
"New Israeli-Palestinian talks to be held on neutral MARS"
If a free, open and fair referendum were held tomorrow across the Middle East offering a choice between peace or victory, I figure peace would lose 10:1. There is no significant constituency for ending hostilities in any of the societies affected. What would happen to everyone's national identity and sense of self if there wasn't an enemy? This isn't unique to the Middle East (it may well be genetic in homo sapiens), but it is certainly powerfully expressed there.
iyamwutiam put it right in focus. A new form of Apartide will be the likely result of this new agreement, if there even is one.
Hoa binh
Am I missing something when I look at the demographics of the Middle East and see no future for an Israel permanently at war with its neighbors? South African leaders saw the writing on the apartheid wall and did what was in the best interests of their people. Is it rational to believe that the power relationship between Israel and its surrounding nations will continue forever? Wouldn't it be prudent to come to a just settlement while one still has some hold on the levers of power? Alternatively Israelis could remain blind to the suffering around them. They could accelerate ethnic cleansing. They could nuke surrounding cities. But what would be left of the "souls" of the perpetrators of these crimes? If the Israeli Jews are part of an historic narrative that roots them in the geography of the Middle East, how will the next "testament" read?
And we continue to ignore one of the main terrorist rallying points that makes life dangerous for you and I - the failure to resolve this Palestinian-Israeli(not Jewish) conflict equitably.
More blather - that apparently fails to sufficiently concentrate on the never ending criminality of the Israeli government.
It has been proven my archeologists and anthropoloists that the so-called historical precedent for a Jewish homeland is farcial and at best misguided -based on a religious text.
In addition- the central point of WHY Palestinians should be the ones to atone for European 'programs' (Spain, Russia, Poland ad of course Germany) and injustice has not and will never be addresse by western mindset which embraces genocide in its bosom like a guilty and pleasurable vice- which it refuses to abandon.
Since the Jews have become de-facto Europeans - the love of inflicting genocide on hapless peoples to secure their resources now falls upon the traditonal non-european inhabitants of the world.
Why; to the millions of millions systemically murdered by Europeans all over the world from the Phillipines, China, Japn, India, Middle East,Vietnam almost all of Africa; is the memory of such carnage so fleeting and so forgivable is probably the greatest pychological mystery in our world.
How can leaders, intellectuals, business and a vast middle class of populances who endured decades and centuries of racism, genocide and humiliation continue to be the lapdogs of an unyeilding and unrepetant oppressor and their 'culture'-- is not only mind boggling but probably the most tellng evidence that the world has apparently been driven to the precipice of insanity. In country after country , heritages, cltures, accrued wisdom of the ages have all been thrown aside for the worthless prattle that disseminates to every corner like an insidious and malodorous scent- invisible , pungent and unfortunatley one which then is not been noticed after the senses have been acclimated.
The Palestinian issue is yet a another lighted beacon in a world aglow with so many -of mans inhumanity to man. This useless prattle, this purposive clouding of morality continues to darken the inner vision and shrivel the collective morality of our world decade after decade till we are all more comfortable with the postfacto falsely earnest discussion of 'solutions' to which we have no intent to implement. What a sad sad world we live in.
This article is a good summary of the phony nature of the current so-called "peace" process. I agree with Zunes that Israeli security and Palestinian rights are interdependent. For the US, the progressive solution is best: abide by UNSC 242 and make aid to Israel and to Palestine contingent upon adherance to its provisions.