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Welcome, Mr President, to the Misery You've Created
In eight years Palestinians have seen the bald eagle of enlightened US power degenerate into a phoney, biased, cynical lame duck
It is a well-deserved irony for George Bush that his first presidential visit to Israel coincided this week with the storm of excitement produced by the unexpected outcome of the two New Hampshire primaries. Nothing could better highlight the irrelevance of the final year of the Bush presidency.
The moment at which an incumbent becomes a lame duck fluctuates in every US administration, depending on circumstances. The day on which the first votes are cast is traditionally the symbolic date, even though the race has been under way in the media for months. This year's riveting contests in New Hampshire certainly proved that true, overshadowing whatever interest there was in Bush's plans for influencing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Even before the president left Washington, expectations for his visit were low. His much-trumpeted meeting of Middle Eastern leaders in Annapolis in November produced a predictably tinny follow-up. Little happened in the subsequent six weeks, and it was only courtesy to Bush that impelled Ehud Olmert and Mahmoud Abbas to meet again in advance of the president's touchdown in Tel Aviv on Wednesday and produce the blandest pretence of progress. According to Olmert's spokesman, they agreed to "authorise their negotiating teams to conduct direct and ongoing negotiations on all the core issues". Isn't this tautological statement merely a repeat of what they had already launched in Annapolis?
Bush's engagement in the world's most intractable dispute is late, piecemeal and phoney. Above all, it is one-sided. As Ghassan Khatib, a former Palestinian minister, remarked this week: "Palestinians agree that in the history of the United States, Bush is more biased toward Israel than any other American president." In any conflict, responsibility for making the largest concessions always rests on the stronger party, especially when most of the wrong is on its side. But, despite his rhetoric yesterday, Bush has not used Washington's enormous leverage over Israel to end the occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
He has not even applied pressure for an end to the expansion of Israeli settlements or the dismantling of the spider's web of roadblocks that make normal life for Palestinians impossible. A US plan for benchmarks by which to judge Israeli progress was quickly abandoned last spring at the first whiff of concern by Olmert's government. Occasional state department pronouncements disapproving of settlement expansion are not followed by measures to reflect US anger when - as happened in Jerusalem again on Wednesday - Olmert makes it clear he will continue the illegal construction of Israeli homes.
Any talk of dealing with "core issues" is meaningless without measures to reduce the daily hardships of Palestinians and end the kidnapping of hundreds of Palestinian leaders. About 40 Palestinian MPs who were seized after Hamas's election victory two years ago remain in Israeli prisons, uncharged and seemingly forgotten by Bush and other western governments. US and European policies towards Hamas remain hopelessly unjust and counterproductive.
In the first phase of the so-called roadmap that Bush boasts of having revived, Palestinians are supposed to build the institutions of a responsible state. Yet Israel and the US continue to do all they can to undermine this laudable goal by blatantly taking sides in the rivalry between Fatah and Hamas. Bush's comment yesterday in Ramallah about the situation in Gaza was one of history's most extraordinary examples of tunnel vision. "Hamas has delivered nothing but misery for Palestinians," he declared. Had he said, "My reaction and that of my Israeli and European Union colleagues to the mandate given Hamas by Palestinian voters has delivered nothing but misery for Palestinians", he would have been closer to the truth.
The human catastrophe deliberately inflicted on Gaza by western policies over the past two years is one of the great crimes of this century so far. It is especially unjustified since Hamas had been observing a truce in its attacks on Israelis for several months prior to winning the "free, fair and open elections" that the roadmap asked for. Hamas was, and continues to be, punished not for its occasional use of violence but simply for being popular. And, as often happens with sanctions, it is not the leaders who suffer, but the whole civilian population of the territory - deprived of medicine, adequate food, public services and jobs. Rather than pursuing the chimera of a final settlement that would mean nothing without Hamas's endorsement, western policy should focus on more manageable humanitarian and political goals: lifting the boycott of Hamas, promoting Palestinian unity, and forcing Israel to end its brutal siege of Gaza.
Bush is not the first US president to take an interest in the Middle East in the last year of an eight-year period of office. Bill Clinton also applied his mind to it in the dying months of his second term. Yet his performance was very different: Clinton had endorsed the Oslo process early in his first term, and showed considerable energy in pushing it forward and supporting the new Palestinian Authority.
Later, in spite of being a lame duck by the year 2000, he tried hard to get agreement between Arafat and Barak at Camp David, on a final settlement that was not loaded overwhelmingly in Israel's favour. It was a model of how American presidents can act more firmly when released from the pressures of seeking election. It only needs an effort of will for a lame duck to become the bald eagle of enlightened US power.
In contrast, Bush's current visit to the region is nothing more than a display of partisan cynicism, coupled with the hope that if some sort of interim deal is signed this year between Olmert and Abbas, it would erase Washington's failures in Iraq.
Where does that leave Palestinians as the gathering wave of US primaries prepares to reveal the last two candidates for the Bush succession? Will they have to wait as long as 2016 before President Clinton or President Obama is free enough to confront Israeli intransigence and to insist on concessions? Neither candidate has yet given any sign of breaking away from traditional pro-Israeli views of the problem, so once again Palestinians may have to wait for the eighth-year miracle. Windows of opportunity open so rarely, yet the need for early action has never been more urgent.
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian News and Media Limited 2008
39 Comments so far
Show AllEveryone seems to forget that Israel attempted to live in peace with it's neighbours. The 1967 war was about atttaining some sort of security for it's citizens. If you lived next door to a neighbour who refused your right to exist what would you do? Let's not forget that the Palestinians have been used as pawns by their Arab brethern for decades.
It must be hard for war criminals.
It may be that this country deserves another 8 years of Israeli dictated foreign policy, but the Palestinians do not.
At this point, no matter what the commander in chief does, his legacy won't be repaired. He'll go down in history as one of the worst mandataries in the world.
Too bad, because he could still save his butt if he stopped following the neocon agenda, then he would be looked upon as a hero. But it seems he is not willing to disobey his masters, not even for his own benefit.
Looks like Israel slapped his big ass around so we know who runs the foreign policy show in Washington. We have counties bigger than Israel which leads to the big question: Why are our own congress critters afraid to challenge the King and Israel?
After all this I won't vote for any Democrat while any member of the Bush administration still lives and I won't vote for any Republican while I still live.
Hey EZYFLYER, were you so pissed you couldn't speak? Cool down and come back. Your posts are very important to us.
Don't do that WHATFOOLS, John Edwards has a platform for change and change is what we want and desperatly need if we ever wish to have any chance of having a Democracy.
Bush has to visit Israel before he leaves office. If he doesn't, he might not be able to revisit the place after his presidency ends.
I know many organizations and individuals are going to initiate court procedings, in the EEU, against Bush and Cheney.
Who knows. Maybe the World Court might also start war crimes trials against the mighty duo.
Groups and individuals might use their courts, including those in the US, to bring the Bush/Cheney duo to trial.
Let's start a movement that both promotes and constructs a worldwide series of trials against both guys.
Of course, such a course of events would not restrict Bush's post-Presidential movements. He didn't seem interested in visiting much of the world outside of Crawford.
However, these national and international trials might embarrass and hassle him and advertise the extent of his regime's criminality, corruption, and abuses of power.
In many nations, ex-presidents and ex-dictators have been executed for less.
Things aren't as bleak for the Palestinians as this article suggests. Some of the panic you are seeing in Israel and US leadership is down to the demographics on the ground. As fast as American money can build illegal housing for Jews fleeing the imaginary holocausts of Liverpool and New Jersey, Palestinians are having babies.
If at a certain point, even with codified discrimination of the likes of American slavery, South African apartheid or Israeli race laws, the group discriminated against becomes populous enough, the contradictions of the injustice collapse under their own immorality.
Israel, Like South Africa before it, tries to maintain the sovereign control over all the territory while maintaining the fiction that the inhabitants are citizens of some other state. The Palestinians will opt for a two state solution if by that we mean two viable, contiguous and sovereign states. If the US continues to push for the South African apartheid model where the majority of citizens had no real citizenship then the Palestinians will decline. Then demographics will see to it that there is one state, a secular state hopefully for everyone living in what is now Israel/Palestine.
so the "war president" is spouting off that he expects to see peace by the end of his presidency. will he lengthen his term indefinitely to achieve that goal?
"...bush is more biased toward israel than any other american president." as is our entire government. chuckleberry was pretty adamant about it last night, as is any other elected official these days.
let's see, finance, media, entertainment, real estate, law...where would anyone like me to stop regarding israeli influence/control in this country, the united states of israel?
Balakirev, you are so right. These two will be hounded till the end of their natural days. I am waiting for the first shallow apologies from Bush and the mass accumulation of his ego based future meaningless apologies. I yearn to hear his twisted logic. Perhaps he will have a Hillary like tearful moment. More than likely though he will be tried in absentia and convicted of crimes against humanity in International courts. His response will likely be, I misunderestimated the resolve of my subjects (citizens) to think beyond consumeristics.
Israel is TOAST. The US is TOAST. The Global economic slave system of oppression is TOAST. they are all walking corpses.
As a result, we get a front row seat to watch the collapse of the Last Genocidal Aryan Slave Empire - the US. And the Masters are going to do it to each other as it seems they lack the gene for self-restraint. Your participation in any form means nothing and will have no impact on any of the outcomes. The tyranny of the minority cloaked in the mask of the majority. How old is that?
Enjoy the show.
jlocke says, "Things aren't as bleak for Palestinians as this article suggests," because they are producing lots of babies and will eventually have a large enough population to challenge the Israeli occupation, as the residents of black townships in South Africa challenged apartheid.
What if, Mr/Ms Locke, conditions for Palestinians (most especially in Gaza) are more like those in a 19th century Native American town like Wounded Knee, South Dakota, scene of the famous U.S Army massacre of innocents? Or like our reservations of today, where unemployment, hopelessness and depression are endemic?
Israel is as cruel an occupier as the whites in South Africa were. And the current Zionist government of Bush, Cheney, Rice et al, is NOT going to insist that Israel change its ways.
See www.ifamericansonlyknew.org for one source of info on how life REALLY is for Palestinians.
Must build big Honkin Mosque and Center for the Poor outside TurdRanch in Crawford
Bernice January 11th, 2008 2:12 pm:
"What if, Mr/Ms Locke, conditions for Palestinians (most especially in Gaza) are more like those in a 19th century Native American town like Wounded Knee, South Dakota, scene of the famous U.S Army massacre of innocents? Or like our reservations of today, where unemployment, hopelessness and depression are endemic?"
Thanks Bernice, I wasn't trying to diminish the hardships of the current situation in Gaza. You are right to point out that conditions are rather miserable there.
I was trying to offer the view that, in the longer term, Palestinians will either have a state alongside present day Israel or a new state will be formed out of Israel and the occupied territories.
One critical thing that has changed from the days of "Wounded Knee" (actually I'm sorry, I haven't heard of it, but I take your analogy) is the advent of nationalism; the liberation movements, people all over the world have adopted the European notion of nationhood, notably the PLO. People all over the world now know about human rights and civil liberties. These are tools that American Natives didn't have. Even in Gaza, people believe that they were endowed by their creator with inalienable rights.
I'm not underestimating the cruelty of white settlers or Zionists either. It's just that they have to deal with nationalism as well. Americans had an easier time of it when they massacred natives. Now they must frame such outrages much more carefully, and they are on unsure footing in the Middle East. To give an absurd example, say there were ten Arab Israelis for every Jewish one, could things stay as they are? Or, Ten Palestinians for every Israeli? Not the Israeli nor the American governments could maintain the Palestinian/Israeli Arab/Israeli Jew legal colour scheme they have under such conditions. As population growth shoves Palestinians face to face with Israelis, both sides will perceive that they all deserve to live as human beings.
Excellent posts from all. If you really want to make an impact, email the Israeli Embassy in Washington, DC.
ifno@israelemb.org
Be nice, remember that our Homeland Security Secretary, Michael Chertoff, is a duel Isreali-US citizen and may invade you home or put you on his no fly list. Or build a wall around your town.
ZeroPointField, thanks for this great mental image and laugh.
"Must build big Honkin Mosque and Center for the Poor outside TurdRanch in Crawford"
I think Shehan's got some land she'd be willing to sell or donate
Lame Duck: The actual defination of this term is that time between the election and the time the president elect is sworn in. During that time the incumbent is known as a 'Lame Duck'. Funny how the media can mis-use a term and eventually have it mean something entirely different.
Veteran '66-68
Of all candidates for the nominations of either party, only Mike Gravel and Ron Paul have criticized the way Israel controls U.S. foreign policy. And it is no surprise that they poll single digits, and get no press.
How many people almost threw up and laughed at the same time when Bush stood there amid the ruins of his carelessness and said, "WE CAN'T TELL YOU HOW TO MAKE PEACE"?
That's called the No Shit Sherlock Award...
Solution:
Reject the two party corporate 500 system. Don't vote republicrat OR democan. If you do, you're playing right into the hand of predatory capitalism.
Vote Green party, maybe we can force a ban on carbon before it's too late .....
(and I'm a Chinese brain surgeon.....)
pacplyer, check out this article over at TruthOut -
US Corporate Elite Fear Candidate Edwards
By Kevin Drawbaugh
Reuters
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/011108T.shtml
Edwards '08
And while W is weeping over the atrocities in Auschwitz at the Holocaust Museum, he's blind to the atrocities in Gaza-WBank.
edwards 08
all the way
SO, on January 19, 2001, Palestine was a peaceful paradise???
Maybe the Palestinians should open a "Nakba" museum to document the horrors of their forced evacuations from their homes and the slaughter carried out by the Irgun and Stern Gang to cleanse Palestine of its Arab inhabitants. Would Bush tear up like Hillary in a coffee shop?
The Palestinians would be wise to accept compensation and move on. Accedance to their demands means the end of Israel, and, right or wrong, Israel is not going to go for that.
But, this is not really about the Palestinians. It is about a military industrial complex in the US that makes billions selling weapons to Israel, and corrupt Muslim governments that use the Palestinian issue to divert attention at home away from their failed policies.
Okay — Here goes. I am going to 'burn the bridge' with you all, so to speak.I have not been a frequent commenter at all, maybe 5 or 6 times in all anyhow, so it sure won't hurt this community of RIGHT folks . . .
Right. Yep. I agree with almost every single comment I read posted at the end of these here articles. You all are pretty right for the most part. I read the articles religiously. Common Dreams is my homepage and the first thing I read over coffee in the morning.
Yep.
Right.
Right, as in YOU GUYS KNOW EVERYTHING THERE IS TO KNOW.
You are all, to a person, damn smart.
Damn negative.
Damn angry.
(So am I, believe me)
I read the stories, then scroll down to see who is saying what (Kem, you are one of the only people here that has any real wisdom and prudence, imho) and all.
I have slowly over the last few months become more and more disgusted with this 'commenting'.
It is just gross.
Ugly.
You are all 'preaching to the choir' and it makes very little if any difference at all.
I know it feels good to vent.
It feels good to be real smart and have great convictions and insight, but WTF do any of you plan to accomplish by raging back and forth endlessly???
"Gee, maybe if I say the absolutely smartest and wittiest thing, someone will get inspired and do something . . ."
Yeah, you all are so smooth, so slick, so RIGHT and so Full Of Shit too!
I am done reading the comments.
I get too depressed seeing all of you well-meaning folks talking to each other inside of this little bubble and just going around and around in circle — and wasting time and energy.
Get a life people.
Organize.
Write passionate responses on conservative websites.
Go head to head with the real deal, the people that need to hear all these insightful and angry retorts and opinions.
Or would you all rather just be cool and right amongst each other?
I'm done here.
This sucks.
Later.
So long 'hey now'. I rarely post, preferring to read the comments and move on; I agree to some extent that there is a normal amount of venting in response to the articles that are provocative, which anything that comments on almost any aspect of this decaying nation, rotten from the top down, will be. I think that there is a shared sense of powerlessness, which is very real, and as a result like minded people present their views, their arguments, their hopes and their disillusionments. I think that is why they put a "comment" section here. Your post was almost classic "approach-avoidance", in that as you praised you condemned. It is much easier to criticize others than to think and write constructively yourself, voicing your own opinions on the topic under discussion, as opposed to ranting about your perception of this intellectual community as though there was something negative going on. As you said, you don't post often. Now I can see why.
When was that crazy canuck before or after they "peacefully" expelled 750,000 Palestinians from what was then called Palestine?
Spare us the Zionist spin ok this isn't DailyKos!
SonOfPowerslave January 12th, 2008 4:40 pm
"But, this is not really about the Palestinians. It is about a military industrial complex in the US that makes billions selling weapons to Israel..."
Is that right? It is my understanding the US gives them massive amounts of money but stipulates that it must be spent buying US weapons. They don't actually pay for it. As Chomski has said they function as the our cop to keep the Arabs in check and help protect our oil interests. Please correct me if I'm wrong.
The palestinians should of built a wall first around the shitzraels then to let the izzies victimize them first the same way they claim they were victimized in germany
Bush is fake. He is the front man and the face of Israeli interests before he's the president of the US. Even in the most unlikely event if we assume that he really wants a fair settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, he very well knows that the influential Israeli lobby groups and their friends within Congress and without would shackle him. He may pose as the president of a superpower, but against Israel he's feeble and powerless. As Ariel Sharon has been quoted to have said," Americans will do what we tell them to do." I suspect that statement made him a target for an early heart attack.
In reality, however, the only purpose of Bush's trip was to see his dictator friends in the area and to shore up support for the US policy vis-Ã -vis Iran. However, he's not smart enough to know what practically everyone else in the world knows today: So long as he has a huge liability called Israel, he'll be brushed aside and ignored. In the eyes of the people in that region, he is completely irrelevant.
Geo the inferior shrub_in_thief is the definitive banner holder for
deMOCKERYazation of America
Namaste … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … Mahatma Gandhi … … … … … … … … … …
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Bush is such a lightweight that he actually believes his own rhetoric. Go back to Crawford and wait for your war crimes trial George.