Events taking place this week in the United States have yet again focused the attention of the whole world on the indispensable need for a genuine, sincere and decisive peace between Palestine and Israel, a peace that will usher in a sovereign and independent Palestine state to take its place beside the state of Israel. The role of the US in the process is integral and necessary for many strategic and national security reasons. There is nothing new about this subject, in fact it threatens sometimes to bore people into a coma. Such peace and such an outcome have always been a must, they are to be urgently pursued NOW if there is any chance for true and sustainable stability and development throughout the Middle East.
I will start and end this brief analysis by quoting A.E. Van Vogt in his novel Slan "When the stakes are great, risks must match them." Without taking risks on both sides, without compromise also on both sides, a disaster in the Middle East is in the offing, maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but some day at the first opportunity for the Palestinians, and all of their allies and supporters, to say enough is enough - followed by the unavoidable Israeli response. In my opinion, and considering the starting positions of both sides, Israel's responsibility is far greater than that of Palestine. Israel must take the initiative on many fronts, mainly the political and economic fronts, to secure a fair and lasting peace. My opinion in this regard is thoroughly documented in earlier entries in my blog.
Below for your consideration is as accurate as possible a mosaic of the situation in the Middle East today, the various positions as outlined in various media by knowledgeable people.
US / Israel relationship
Michael Oren, Israeli Ambassador to the US, writes in Foreign Policy, May/June, 2011:
"What is the definition of an American ally? On an ideological level, an ally is a country that shares America's values, reflects its founding spirit, and resonates with its people's beliefs. Tactically, an ally stands with the United States through multiple conflicts and promotes its global vision. From its location at one strategic crossroads, an ally enhances American intelligence and defense capabilities, and provides ports and training for U.S. forces. Its army is formidable and unequivocally loyal to its democratic government. An ally helps secure America's borders and assists in saving American lives on and off the battlefield. And an ally stimulates the U.S. economy through trade, technological innovation, and job creation.
"Few countries fit this description, but Israel is certainly one of them. As U.S. President Barack Obama told a White House gathering, 'The United States has no better friend in the world than Israel,' a statement reflecting the positions of Democrats and Republicans alike. The importance of the U.S.-Israel alliance has been upheld by successive American administrations and consistently endorsed by lawmakers and military leaders. It should be unimpeachable. But for some it is not.
"Rather than viewing Israel as a vital American asset, an increasingly vocal group of foreign-policy analysts insists that support for the Jewish state, including more than $3 billion in annual military aid, is a liability. Advocates of this 'realist' school claim that the United States derives little strategic benefit from its association with Israel. The alliance, they assert, arises mainly from lobbyists who place Israel's interests before America's, rather than from a clearheaded assessment of national needs. Realists regard the relationship one-dimensionally -- America gives Israel aid and arms -- and view it as the primary source of Muslim anger at the United States. American and Israeli policies toward the peace process, the realists say, are irreconcilable and incompatible with relations between true allies.
"By definition, realists seek a foreign policy immune to public sentiment and special interest groups. In this rarefied view, the preferences of the majority of the American people are immaterial or, worse, self-defeating. This would certainly be the case with the U.S.-Israel alliance, which remains outstandingly popular among Americans. Indeed, a Gallup survey this February showed that two out of three Americans sympathize with Israel. Overall, since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan -- and in spite of Israel's responses to the second intifada and rocket attacks from Lebanon in 2006 and Gaza in 2008 -- support for Israel in the United States has risen, not declined.
"The surveys prove that most Americans do not accept the argument that U.S. support for Israel provokes Islamic radicals or do not especially care even if it does. In a Senate hearing last year, Gen. David Petraeus, then head of U.S. Central Command, testified that the Arab-Israeli conflict "challenges … our ability to advance our interests." Critics of the U.S.-Israel relationship seized on the remark as evidence of the alliance's prohibitive costs -- an interpretation Petraeus strenuously rejected -- but the incident wrought no change in popular opinion. In fact, a CNN survey taken later that week showed that eight out of 10 Americans still regarded Israel as an allied or friendly state.
"That kind of popular foundation for the Israeli-American alliance is all the more important at a time of great upheaval in the Middle East. As Iran's malign influence spreads and Turkey turns away from the West, Israel's strategic value in the region, both to the United States and to pro-Western Arab governments, will surely increase. Following Hezbollah's recent takeover of Lebanon and the political turmoil in Egypt, Jordan, and the Persian Gulf, Israel is the only Middle Eastern country that is certain to remain stable and unequivocally pro-American. In Israel alone, the United States will not have to choose between upholding its democratic principles and pursuing its vital interests.
"And yet, for all their urgency, the close ties between the United States and Israel are hardly new. Their roots extend further than Israel's creation 63 years ago -- rather, they took hold with the Pilgrims' arrival in North America."
The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, Foreign Policy.com, April 25, 2011, "The Long View: The Middle East Needs More Israels", Robert Satloff writes:
"Timing is to politics what location is to real estate -- it's just about everything. For years, advocates of the idea that Israel is an albatross around America's neck, not an asset to U.S. strategic interests, were mainly has-been politicians (like Paul Findley) or disgruntled ex-diplomats (like the late George W. Ball). They wrote books with titles like 'They Dare to Speak Out: People and Institutions Confront Israel's Lobby' and 'The Passionate Attachment: America's Involvement with Israel, 1947 to the Present,' but they were so 'yesterday's news' that they found little traction among America's policy-media-cultural-university elite, which may have sympathized with some of their arguments, let alone among the broader American public, which rejected their reasoning out of hand.
"The seismic events the world has witnessed since the Tunisian revolution have not only changed the political map of the Middle East, but they have done much to silence those attached passionately to the idea that nothing so enrages Arabs as America's friendship with Israel, like the two credentialed political scientists, John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, who in 2006 struck gold with an essay, followed soon by a book, laying the faults and failures of U.S. Middle East policy at the doorstep of a nefarious 'Israel Lobby' -- with a capital L. In fact, as we now know, it is the corruption, venality, torture, and inequality of Arab governments, not Israel or U.S.-Israel relations, that enrages Arabs so much that they are willing to fight and die to change their reality. America will indeed have to adjust accordingly, but not because a core theme of U.S. foreign policy -- ties with Israel -- was judged to have been either a reason for or a cause of the Arab uprisings of 2011.
"In this context, Michael Oren's brief, powerful, and trenchant essay comes -- as did 'The Israel Lobby' essay five years ago -- at precisely the right time. With history shaking governments throughout the Middle East, a political earthquake having virtually nothing to do with the still-important task of resolving the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians, now is the moment to drive a nail deep in the heart of the misdiagnosis of the ills of America's Middle East policy presented by the line of thinking from Ball to Mearsheimer. And, accomplished historian that he is, Oren does this with thoroughness, wit, and attention to detail.
"If anything, Oren understates the case for Israel's value as a strategic asset to America. For example, his diplomatic mantle prevents him from discussing at length the unique contribution Israel has made to counter-proliferation, i.e., its raids on nuclear facilities in Iraq (1981) and Syria (2007). There has been much armchair-quarterbacking about the wisdom of these attacks, but it does not really take a Metternich to realize that the Middle East -- and U.S. interests -- are better off without either Saddam Hussein's clan or Bashar al-Assad's wielding nuclear weapons. And Oren's diplomatic politesse prevents him from banging his fist on the table to remind Barack Obama's administration that now is precisely the time to bolster America's remaining allies in the Middle East, especially the limited number that are democratic allies (still, ahem, one).
"Last July, in a debate with another realist making the case for Israel-as-a-liability (Chas W. Freeman), I argued that "what we really need in the Middle East are more 'Israels' -- not more Jewish states, of course, but more strong, reliable, democratic, pro-American allies.... The absence of those sorts of allies is precisely what has gotten us into such deep trouble over the past 30 years." I hope that the Arab Spring produces a few more Middle Eastern states that are "strong, reliable, democratic, pro-American allies" -- and I believe there is a chance that this may eventually come to pass. In the meantime, as Oren persuasively argues, Washington should be wise to do everything it can to strengthen and protect the only one it has."
Above are pro-Israel views, answering critics within the US, on the essence and merits of the relationship. Counter views from the Arab world include:
- Israel inherently believes that offering "difficult compromises" is tantamount to showing weakness, therefore it is unlikely to yield to any pressure from the US.
- Benjamin Netanyahu may protest that he cannot negotiate with a Palestinian side that includes Hamas. But the truth is that he was never serious about negotiating anyway, and neither are other Israeli leaders who are likely to follow him, such as Tzipi Livni.
- The US should stop all aid to Israel, as well as to Egypt.
- The US should close tax loopholes that allow American citizens to finance the construction of settlements in Israel.
- Israel should be urged by the international community to disclose its nuclear activities and deal with the world in regards this domain in a legal fashion.
A Jewish American friend of mine recently made this perceptive and witty comment: "Netanyahu’s reaction to Obama's May 19 speech is almost that of a small child stomping his foot on the ground and saying I want everything my way or I will hold my breath until I turn blue. Here was an opportunity, perhaps, to begin again some kind of approach toward resolving the conflict. Netanyahu reminds me of what used to be said of the Palestinians, they will never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity. Too bad."
Obama - pro-Palestine
Many Americans, particularly American Jews, believe that:
- Bush was the most pro-Israel President of our time, Obama is the most pro-Muslim US President of all time.
- Obama does not care about Israel, he is pro-Arab, he is a Muslim; Israel is doomed.
- Obama is taking a stand against the "Israeli Lobby" and the Jewish vote, and we should make him pay.
- Obama is certainly playing to the left wing of his party that is anti-Israel and pro-Palestine.
- Obama thinks that being pro-Palestine will bring down the price of oil.
- Hollywood and New York Jews should stop sending him money.
- Obama's Middle East speech on May 19 should be a wake up call for those Jews who have continued to support him, they should now oppose his foreign policy and they should make it an issue in the 2012 presidential election.
Obama - pro-Israel
- The vast majority of Americans believe that Obama is not going to "sell out" Israel.
- Richard Falk writes in Citizen Pilgrimage, May 21, "Obama’s Flawed Approach to the Israel/Palestine Conflict", paraphrasing:
- Obama's pro-Israeli partisanship is reflected in his approach to the Israel/Palestine conflict, which remains one-sided, deeply flawed, and a barrier rather than a gateway to a just and sustainable peace. The underlying pressures that produce the distortion is the one-sided allegiance to Israel. This leads to the totally unwarranted assessment that failure to achieve peace in recent years is equally attributable to Israelis and the Palestinians, thereby equating what is certainly not equivalent.
- How many times is it necessary to point out that Israeli settlement activity is unlawful, and used to be viewed as such even by the United States Government, and that the Palestinian refusal to negotiate while their promised homeland is being despoiled not only by settlement expansion and settler violence, but by the continued construction of an unlawful barrier wall well beyond the 1967 borders.
- Obama never finds it appropriate to mention Israel’s reliance on excessive and lethal force, most recently in its response to the Nakba demonstrations along its borders, or its blatant disregard of international law, whether by continuing to blockade the entrapped 1.5 million Palestinians locked inside Gaza or by violently attacking the Freedom Flotilla a year ago on international waters while it was carrying much needed humanitarian aid to the Gazans or the ethnic cleansing of Palestinian neighborhoods in East Jerusalem.
- At least in Obama’s Cairo speech of June 2009 there was a strong recognition of Palestinian suffering through dispossession, occupation, and refugee status: “
- Throughout the speech in Cairo there was never a sense that the Palestinians have rights under international law that must be taken into account in any legitimate peace process, taking precedence over ‘facts on the ground.’
- In Cairo Obama was clear on the Israeli settlements, or reasonably so: “The United States does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements. This construction violates previous agreements and undermines efforts to achieve peace. It is time for the settlements to stop.”
- In his speech, Obama confines his comments to reiterating Israeli complaints about the refusal of Hamas to recognize Israel’s right to exist. What was left unsaid by Obama is that progress toward peace might be made by at last treating Hamas as a political actor, appreciating its efforts to establish ceasefires and suppress rocket attacks from Gaza, acknowledging its repeated acceptance of a Palestinian state within 1967 borders buttressed by a long-term proposal for peaceful co-existence with Israel, and lifting a punitive and unlawful blockade on Gaza that has lasted for almost four years. It is possible that such an approach might fail, but if the terminology of taking risks for peace is to have any meaning it must include an altered orientation toward the participation of Hamas in any future peace process.
- A Disturbing Innovation: Perhaps, the most serious flaw in the Obama conception of resumed negotiations, is the separation of the territorial issues from the wider agenda of fundamental questions.
- Obama’s innovation involves deferring consideration of what he calls “[t]wo wrenching and emotional issues..the future of Jerusalem, and the fate of Palestinian refugees.” Leaving Jerusalem out of the negotiating process is in effect an uncritical acceptance of the Israel’s insistence that the city as a whole belongs exclusively to Israel. What is worse, it allows Israel to continue the gradual process of ethnic cleansing in East Jerusalem: settlement expansion, house demolitions, withdrawal of residency permits and deportations, and overall policies designed to discourage a continued Palestinian presence.
- Similarly, the deferral of the refugee issue is quite unforgivable. As of 2010 4.7 million Palestinians are registered with the UN as refugees, either living within refugee camps under conditions of occupation or in precarious circumstances in neighboring countries within camps or as vulnerable members of the host country. This refugee status has persisted for more that 60 years despite the clear assertion of Palestinian refugee rights contained in General Assembly Resolution 194 adopted in 1948 and annually reaffirmed: “The refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbors should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date.” This persistence of the Palestinian refugee status six decades later is one of the most notorious denials of human rights that exist in the world today. To remove it from the peace process, as Obama purports to do, is to consign the refugees to an outer darkness of despair, and as such, is a telling disclosure of the bad faith embedded in the most recent Obama rendering of his approach to peace. Those who are dedicated to achieving a just peace for the two peoples—Israelis and Palestinians—are doomed to fail unless the refugees are treated as a core issue that can neither be postponed nor evaded without a grave betrayal of justice.
- Legitimacy Confusions: And finally, Obama does his best to dash Palestinian hopes about their one effort to move their struggle a step forward, gaining their acceptance as a state by the United Nations in September of this year. In a perverse formulation of this reasonable, even belated, Palestinian effort to enlist international support for their claims of self-determination and statehood, Obama resorts to deflating and condescending language: “..efforts to delegitimize Israel will end in failure. Symbolic actions to isolate Israel at the United Nations in September won’t create an independent state.” This language is perverse because the Palestinian diplomatic initiative is meant to legitimize itself, not delegitimize Israel.
- Obama has neither the will nor the capacity to exert any material leverage on Israel that might make it more amenable to respecting Palestinian rights under international law or to strike a genuine compromise based on mutuality of claims.
- Obama’s State Department speech should be understood as merely the latest in a long series of disguised confessions of geopolitical impotence, but of one thing we can be sure, it will not be the last.
- James M. Wall writes in Wallwritings, May 21, 2011 "Obama Speech Mired in Zionist Rhetoric":
"It is not easy to please Israel’s many friends in the US while attempting, rather desperately, to balance the suffering and the hopes of Israel and the Palestinians. He did not succeed.
- "Consider his first reference to the suffering of the two “sides”: For Israelis, it has meant living with the fear that their children could get blown up on a bus or by rockets fired at their homes, as well as the pain of knowing that other children in the region are taught to hate them. For Palestinians, it has meant suffering the humiliation of occupation, and never living in a nation of their own.
- "President Obama said he would talk about “security and territory”. He would “put off” the sensitive issues of refugees and Jerusalem, the same sensitive issues negotiators have “put off” for decades.
- "Any involvement by the United Nations is merely symbolic and is harmful to Israel. Here is his specific complaint: For the Palestinians, efforts to delegitimize Israel will end in failure. Symbolic actions to isolate Israel at the United Nations in September won’t create an independent state. Palestinian leaders will not achieve peace or prosperity if Hamas insists on a path of terror and rejection. And Palestinians will never realize their independence by denying the right of Israel to exist. “Delegitimize Israel”? How does recognizing a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders “delegitimize Israel?” And what is “symbolic” about the UN recognizing a Palestinian state? It is not “symbolic”; it is a legitimizing action on behalf of the Palestinians just as much as the UN’s creation of the Israeli state in 1948 was a legitimizing action.
- "In his report on the White House Friday meeting between Netanyahu and Obama, Jewish blogger Richard Silverstein includes an incisive reminder of what “shared values” now mean to American politicians, from the far religious right to the Obama White House: "Obama again, in remarks after the two-hour meeting, noted that Israel was a “Jewish state” making no reference to the fact that it was also composed of a significant minority of non-Jewish citizens. It would be as if a foreign leader congratulated the US. for being a Christian nation. It sure would make John Hagee happy."
- "In his speech, Obama asserts that “every state has the right to self-defense”. Israel must be able to defend itself – by itself – against any threat. Provisions must also be robust enough to prevent a resurgence of terrorism; to stop the infiltration of weapons; and to provide effective border security. Makes sense. No nation wants to be without the ability to defend its own citizens. But, then Obama adds this remarkable exception: The full and phased withdrawal of Israeli military forces should be coordinated with the assumption of Palestinian security responsibility in a sovereign, non-militarized state. This is a convoluted sentence that could be construed to suggest that when Israel withdraws its military forces from the Occupied Palestinian Territory, it will continue to provide “security” for the new sovereign state of Palestine, which will not have its own military forces. Or, does the sentence say that Palestine will be left with no defenses? Difficult to tell from this sentence in what was reported to be some frantic, last minute speech revisions."
US / Palestine relationship
Palestinians should not look to sovereign states, or even the United Nations, and certainly not the United States, in their long and tormented journey to realize a just and sustainable destiny for themselves.
"With Speech, Obama Moves Closer to Israel's Position", May 20, 2011, Steven L. Spiegel captures the current tense and paralyzed state of the US - Palestine relationship "In agreement with Israel, the President did not offer in detail a list of American positions on all key issues as many in the foreign policy community had urged him to do", the President, paraphrasing:
- rejected the idea of an imposed peace—a favorite rallying cry of Israel’s opponents for years,
- did not call for immediate Israeli concessions on settlements,
- denounced the Palestinian plans for a UN General Assembly vote in favor of their independence in September,
- spoke out against Palestinian efforts to delegitimize Israel,
- advocated a “non-militarized” Palestinian state,
- questioned the Palestinian unity agreement between Fatah and Hamas and put the burden of proof on the Palestinians,
- asked, “How can one negotiate with a party that has shown itself unwilling to recognize your right to exist?”,
- framed the conflict in a classic Zionist perspective, arguing that – “a lasting peace will involve two states for two peoples: Israel as a Jewish state and the homeland for the Jewish people, and the state of Palestine as the homeland for the Palestinian people, each state enjoying self-determination, mutual recognition, and peace”,
- spoke about the close US-Israeli relationship and its need for security. As some Palestinians are already complaining,
- did not celebrate close relations between the U.S. and Palestine. No shared history and values; no “unshakeable” commitment to their security,
- proposed that negotiations should begin by addressing the issues of territory and security and that these should be settled during a transition period before the parties move on to Jerusalem and refugees. This format is precisely what many Israelis and their supporters have argued for years, and
- said nothing about provisional borders, but that was the vision of the roadmap, whose second stage would constitute a “provisional” Palestinian state, and it has been vehemently opposed by the Palestinians.
David Avital, Israel Policy Forum executive, Politico, May 18, 2011, "The Case for Borders First", argues "Rather than view the U.N. General Assembly meeting in September as a threat to derail Middle East peace, Obama could use the opportunity to move both sides forward and promote a return to negotiations on the border before the U.N. vote."
Avital adds "Even as more than 140 nations at the U.N. stand ready to recognize a Palestinian state, Palestinian leaders still indicate the Palestine Liberation Organization’s preference of talking with Israel. But after a prolonged stalemate, each side is reluctant to break away from its deeply entrenched, public position.While the momentum toward recognition is strong, Washington can capitalize on the historic opportunity offered by the Israelis and Palestinians current vulnerabilities by developing a plan for Israel to applaud Palestine’s recognition rather than be threatened by it.The road to peace begins with clearly defined borders.For the Jewish state, this agreement could stem the increasing isolation of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government. It would enable systematic negotiations to begin with settlers living in areas due to become part of Palestine, while construction in areas expected to remain part of Israel could continue. This also allows the Israelis to sustain the status quo on key issues like security.The approach could also establish a context for greater Israeli-Palestinian economic cooperation, consistent with Netanyahu’s vision of an 'economic peace first.' However, the alternative – a U.N. vote in favor of a Palestinian state which the U.S. and Israel oppose – could unleash what Defense Minister Ehud Barak described as a 'diplomatic tsunami,' engulfing Israel in de-legitimizing campaigns and international legal battles against Israel’s “occupation” of a newly sovereign nation."
Peter Beinart in TheDailyBeast.com "The Palestinian have lost faith in American promises, and they no longer fear American threats." Instead, they have learned their lessons of the Arab Spring and taken control of their future, by marching for their rights, demanding that the rival Hamas and Fatah factions end their bickering, and pushing their leaders to request a UN vote on nationhood.
Robert Fisk in The Independent, May 20, "Lots of rhetoric – but very little help." Please check the link below for the article.
Israel's Future
Without securing the peace with Palestine, Israel can look forward indefinitely to:
- The Palestinian minority of more than 1.5 million living as second class citizens within Israel propagating at a rate that in a generation will turn the table and make Jews a minority in Israel.
- Iran's nuclear proliferation, a monumental threat. There should be no doubt that a just and solid peace and economic collaboration between Israel and Palestine would render the Iran threat all but obsolete. The main reason is that Israel's relationship with the Arab world would then steadily gain normalcy, which would make Iran's argument of the evil of Israel a thing of the past, and its nuclear threat as applicable to the Arab world as to Israel. In other words, the Arab world would then be in opposition to having such a threat in its midst, period.
- The statement by Joe McCain, Senator John McCain’s brother, April 19, 2002, "There is a lot of worry popping up in the media just now -- 'Can Israel Survive?' Don't worry about it. It relates to something that Palestinians, the Arabs, and perhaps most Americans don't realize -- the Jews are never going quietly again. Never. And if the world doesn't come to understand that, then millions of Arabs are going to die. It's as simple as that." Tragically, this is like Samson and Delilah, where Samson brought the temple down on himself and the Philistines. Here, Israel will consider itself Samson!
- More attempts of border crossing by Palestinian refugees like the one that took place on the anniversary of Israel's creation this month. The border crossings marked the debut of a new Palestinian strategy, said Karl Vick in Time.com. For Israel, this is "a nightmare scenario," said Matt Steinglass in Economist.com.
- More random massacres of Jewish settlers.
- Hostile Arab nations with missiles surrounding Israel.
- The change of regimes in the Arab world and the dramatic rise in publicly expressed anti-Israel sentiment.
- The emerging situation in Egypt:
- Following the 25 January revolution, the Egyptian public's emphatic insistence that the 1978 Camp David Accords be scrapped and that the Rafah crossing be opened. The latter has just been announced and the former is expected to be achieved before the end of the year.
- The end of the Egyptian subsidy and supply of 40% of Israel's natural gas.
- Egypt withdrawing its recognition of the Jewish state, and insistence that Israel close its embassy.
- The fact that the new regime in Cairo is seeking to upgrade its ties with Gaza's Hamas rulers as well as with Iran.
- Egypt's 25 January revolutionaries, angered that Israel enjoyed great private deals with Mubarak and aware that Israel believes that the region would be better off with strong authoritarian rulers, exporting their non-violent movement framework to Israel, destabilizing the government, and exposing the lack of democracy for and the sorry plight of the more than 1.5 million Palestinians living in Israel.
Palestine's Future
Even though Israel has never recognized Palestine’s right to exist, Hamas must find the courage to take the initiative, soon for the sake of this and future generations of Palestinians, to recognize “Israel’s right to exist”, renounce all acts of violence, and seek peaceful and fruitful coexistence between Israelis and Palestinians.
Failing that, my analysis is that the reality on the ground, facts and issues will come into play with the associated exceedingly negative and potentially devastating consequences. In addition, the following concerns will be there for the foreseeable future:
- As quoted earlier, the statement by Joe McCain, Senator John McCain’s brother, April 19, 2002, "There is a lot of worry popping up in the media just now -- 'Can Israel Survive?' Don't worry about it. It relates to something that Palestinians, the Arabs, and perhaps most Americans don't realize -- the Jews are never going quietly again. Never. And if the world doesn't come to understand that, then millions of Arabs are going to die. It's as simple as that." Tragically, this is like Samson and Delilah, where Samson brought the temple down on himself and the Philistines. Here, and quite ironically, the Arab world will consider itself Samson!
- The Gaza blockade, ethnic cleansing, wall building in defiance of the World Court, settlement expansion and settler violence, excessive violence in the name of security.
- A major concern voiced by many prominent Palestinians is the fear that Israel, on the urging of rabbis in Israel, would pursue a policy of the expulsion of non-Jews, especially Palestinians, from occupied Palestine in order to maintain the "ethnic and religious purity of the peoples of Israel."
- Issandr El Amrani, AlmasryElyoum, May 8, "Palestinians, hopefully more united, must now plan for the alternatives to the dead-end Oslo process and its current 'roadmap' iteration. Egypt is likely to play a role in this too, perhaps by supporting the Palestinian Authority’s endeavor to have Palestine recognized as an independent state by the United Nations.
- John Whitbeck, May 19, "if Bibi [Netanyahu] and Barack do succeed in killing off 'the last best hope of raising the two-state solution from the dead and making it a reality' (as I described the 'September Strategy' in my March 30 speech in Montevideo), the Palestinian people can -- and should -- pursue, by strictly nonviolent means, the full rights of citizenship in a single democratic state with equal rights and dignity for all. It is in every one's interests for the Palestinian leadership to make clear before September that this would be the Palestinian people's only alternative course if the United States did follow an Israeli order to veto UN membership for the State of Palestine. By posing the choice before Israel, clearly and unambiguously, in this manner, the Palestinian leadership would render it vastly less likely that this or any other Israeli government, facing the nightmarish prospect of true democracy and the consequent end of the Zionist experiment, would order an American veto -- and simultaneously would ensure the immediate support of the overwhelming majority of the world's people and nations for a democratic one-state solution if the Israeli government were to choose, by definitively blocking a two-state solution, the only decent alternative, which (not entirely incidentally) would comply fully with the democratic national ideology of the United States and the American people."
For as long as mankind roams the earth, doomsday people will always be around, like Elliott Abrams who in the Weekly Standard said "Even the creation of a Palestinian state is unlikely to bring peace to the region...The Palestinians don't want peace....They still want Israel's destruction.....For Israelis and all those who seek peace in the Middle East, this is the real catastrophe."
The truth is that Mahmoud Abbas and Salem Fayyad are Netanyahu, Liberman's and Barak's favorite "peace partners." Now, if together they can bring Hamas on board, we may be looking at the beginning of a beautiful friendship that may bring peace to the whole region.
Wishful thinking on my part, I admit! However, please check below link to see that it is a worthwhile dream, the entertaining four-minute video is a Move Over AIPAC Flashmob (Washington, D.C. Union Station)!!
Egypt / Palestine / Israel / US relationship
Below is a link of a 32 minute video that captures the evolving, tenuous and exceedingly turning-for-the-worse situation as regards how Egypt sees the never-progressing peace talks between Israel and Palestine, the role of the US in the whole affair, the future of the relationship between Egypt and Israel, and between Egypt and the US.
The video is an informative and lively discussion that took place on Charlie Rose's Current Affairs show, a reaction to President Obama's Mideast Speech with David Ignatius of The Washington Post, Mort Zuckerman, Editor-in-Chief of US News and World Report, and NBC News' Middle East correspondent Richard Engel.
Israel's Prime Minister Netanyahu's Address to the US Congress
Today, May 24, Netanyahu addressed the US Congress. In my opinion, it was a repeat of previous positions, statements and rhetoric, nothing new here and no prospects for a restart of the peace talks, no chance of a negotiated settlement. There were no discernable concessions or specifics of a plan to bring Palestinian leaders to the table. Netanyahu's 45 minute address outlined the desired outcome of a peace treaty with Palestine only from the point of view of Israel's strategic interests, particularly with regard to Jerusalem. This, I am certain, will not be accepted by Palestinian leaders. This week clarified nothing about the future of the Palestine/Israel conflict or that of the Middle East as a whole. The roles and responsibilities of Israel, Palestine, the US and the Arab world are as muddied as ever.
To get a better understanding of why the issue of Jerusalem is an explosive one, one that could very well torpedo the peace process and the concept of a two state solution, please check below link. The link is a 14 minute video of CBS News, of Lesley Stahl, CBS 60 Minutes, reporting from under the city of Jerusalem, from a controversial archaeological dig that has become a flash point in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
I simply do not see the way forward. I do not discern a strategy for these governments to trust, respect and work with each other for the sake of their people. An awful lot of conditions and articulation of issues and problems, precious little on new ideas, vision or solutions.
Conclusion
Let us hope that this impasse, this circling the drain with regard to the achievement of a lasting peace between Palestine and Israel shall, like everything else in life, pass.
Let us call one more time upon this trusty human ingenuity and take care of the most intractable issue of our time, get it done.
I close by asking Netanyahu two rhetorical questions:
- Do you really believe that a state of permanent war is in Israel's best interests? and
- Do you not agree with A.E. Van Vogt, author of the novel Slan "When the stakes are great, risks must match them"?
© Dr Hussein A Amin 2011
