Israel is long overdue to undergo the same racial reckoning and transformation that the United States underwent in the 1960s and South Africa passed through in the 1990s. The dual system of law that prevails in the occupied West Bank and favors Jewish settlers to the detriment of Palestinians is unacceptable in the 21st century. Israel's settlers must decide if they will abide by international law and leave the occupied territories or stay on -- as offered by Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad -- provided they live under Palestinian law.
Two states with security and rights for Israelis and Palestinians is within our grasp today. We must be dogged in our determination to achieve this outcome with the utmost speed. Delay plays into the hands of rejectionists and those who would use time not to advance peace but
to further settle the West Bank and East Jerusalem, rendering impossible a contiguous and viable Palestinian state.
If a Palestinian state becomes impossible and Palestinians appear consigned to a permanent apartheid-like reality then many of us who overcame daunting odds in South Africa will feel obliged to throw our support to one state based on equality for all. Let us, then, determine to make two states for two peoples work during the Obama administration.
I have no doubt I will be castigated for my plain speaking on behalf of Palestinian rights, Israeli security, and an end to the Israeli occupation. The rhetoric surrounding this conflict is ferocious. Mary Robinson, who on August 12 was awarded with the Medal of Freedom, is currently being vilified by organizations such as AIPAC, the Anti-Defamation League, and the Zionist Organization of America for vigorously speaking out on behalf of Palestinian human rights. She deserves better and the White House is right to defend her from proponents of a fantasized Israel that reputedly can do no wrong.
She is not alone. White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and Senior Adviser David Axelrod are also under attack. Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu derided them as "self-hating Jews." Israeli settlers regularly refer to President Obama as a "kushi," a vicious and derogatory term for a black man. Archbishop Desmond Tutu, one of the great moral leaders of our time, has been accused of "anti-Jewish and anti-Israel slurs" by the Zionist Organization of America and last week the ADL's Abraham Foxman referred to him as an "Israel basher." This language is the tip of the iceberg. The anti-Semitism label is so overused it is in jeopardy of losing power as a meaningful term.
The willingness of the White House to award Robinson and Tutu with the Medal of Freedom leaves me to wonder if the Obama administration is sending such organizations a message that Obama will not be intimidated and will stand firm in advancing America's national interest in a settlements freeze and, more broadly, in a just Middle East peace.
This week's overheated pro-Israel rhetoric exposes the zealotry of the speaker or organization, but the routine invocation of such labels also serves to intimidate many good people from involving themselves in Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking. Far too many people who were outspoken advocates on behalf of ending apartheid in South Africa have taken to the sidelines in this dispute lest they be accused of being anti-Jewish, anti-Semitic, or self-hating Jews. The terminology is cruel and painful to those on the receiving end even though most know the term is employed only as a political weapon to silence. I believe the silencing tactic has worked to delay Palestinian freedom.
President Obama was right when he declared in his Cairo speech, "Palestinians must abandon violence. Resistance through violence and killing is wrong and it does not succeed. For centuries black people in America suffered the lash of the whip as slaves and the humiliation of segregation. But it was not violence that won full and equal rights." As he suggested, it was nonviolence that carried the day and advanced rights and justice in South Africa and other struggles.
I would only add that the seeds of a mighty and transformative nonviolent struggle are indeed already visible from the West Bank to the Gaza coast. I have met with Palestinians and Israelis who regularly put their lives on the line to assert nonviolently the injustice of Israeli expansionism and home demolitions. Must we wait for a humanitarian boat of the Free Gaza Movement to be fatally rammed or a Sharpeville massacre in the Palestinian village of Bil'in before we highlight the nonviolent courage of Palestinians and Israelis protesting Israel's siege of Gaza and the land-grabbing barrier that illegally seizes Palestinian agricultural land in the West Bank? Too many young people, most of them Palestinian, have been killed and maimed in Bil'in already.
Israel's ill-advised attempt to establish demographic facts in East Jerusalem by throwing Palestinian families out of their homes does not advance long-term Israeli interests, but leads more and more people around the world to question whether Israel is honestly interested in
making peace with its Palestinians neighbors.
Israel must make the choice in the weeks ahead whether it intends to continue ruling over the Palestinians indefinitely or will step back from the dual system of law and apartheid it appears poised to embrace under the leadership of Prime Minister Netanyahu.
John Dugard is a professor of law, a former UN special rapporteur on human rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, and the chairman of the Independent Fact Finding Committee on Gaza.
"At least 13 people were killed and more than 100 wounded in gunfights between Hamas forces and Islamist extremists from a Palestinia
The fighting began when Hamas forces surrounded a mosque in the southern Gaza town of Rafah where about 100 members of Jund Ansar Allah were holed up, including some armed with suicide belts and rifles, according to residents of the area
Hamas deals with a hostile terrorist group allied with al Qaeda -- ostensibly
Are you rooting for the terrorists
When Palestinia
When Palestinia
It's awfully convenient
LOL. As usual Palestinia
"Never missing an opportunit
And only a few months after Netanyahu issued his.
Are the moderators really unaware that "Never missing an opportunit
The answer would be, "Yes."
The best suggestion to solve this problem was made in 1922 when Transjorda
The Pharisees are alive and well here.
The Arabs living in Israel are an occupied population
Actually, Israel is occupied territory, all of it.
"According to these folks Israel must give up any claims to the territory and all Jews must leave. Yet if someone made the same suggestion concerning Arabs inside Israel there uproar would be incredible
The Pharisees are alive and well here. The Arabs living in Israel are an occupied population
This is beyond laughable.
Mr. Dugard, If Palestinia
If you are all so tired of the Palestinia
The Palestinai
Zionism isn't going anywhere, you're deluding yourself. There is a Jewish state now and it's here to stay. Now it's time for the Palestinia
The idea that anyone who is called an antisemite by a person or group is consequent
If you know what racism - or antisemeti
Why does the Anti-Defam
"The anti-Semit
For whom? It has not lost its meaning or power for Jews, who continue to suffer from the effects of centuries upon centuries of what that word refers to. Are you really trying to say that press releases from the ADL are rendering antisemeti
When human rights organizati
In Israel all citizens Arab and Jewish alike have freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and freedom of thought---
That is ethnic cleansing. Allowing settlers to retain all rights and protection
It is EXACTLY like south Africa, and yet, as Desmond Tutu points out, worse in many ways.
The Zionists were responsibl
And in many cases, Jewish "refugees" were /paid/ to come to Israel after 1948, both in cash and in property seized from indigenous Palestinia
The US needs to hear more from you and from others who are actually knowledgea
The settlement
In Iran, for example, Iranian Jews are given explicit constituti
Is that your idea of "apartheid discrimina
People like Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu would tend to disagree.
the settlement
Egypt and Jordan must play greater role in P affairs. They realize it now. In summer 2008 Egypt offered to send troops to Gaza as part of Arab security force. Hamas refused.
Reviving the idea of Jordian-W. Bank federation has considerab
Why do you hate the Palestinia
A homeland for Palestinia
You are lying. Anyone can talk to a Palestinia
The document that in effect created Israel, the Balfour Declaratio
There has been a Palestine for centuries and all your illogic does not negate any of it.
Dear Lord Rothschild
I have much pleasure in conveying to you, on behalf of His Majesty's Government
"His Majesty's Government view with favour the establishm
I should be grateful if you would bring this declaratio
Yours sincerely,
Arthur James Balfour
They wanted it all.
"...Never missing an opportunit
http://en.
The Arabs rejected the 1947 Partition Plan because it was recommenda
Yes, this is the lie that the Arab countries told their population
Revisionis
http://upl
This was the extent of Jewish settlement
http://upl
Padded the claim just a little
http://www
I really do not know of any sensible and rational human being that would have accepted the partition plan. If they did they would not be adequately representi
But the facts remain.
There are two options available to Palestin Arabs:
1. Some sort of autonomy connected to Jordan.
2. Independen
There is NOTHING else available.
And that especially excludes old fantasies periodical
When you actually figure out how to recognize facts and take note of the reality that the whole rest of the world perceives, let us know. In the meantime, we'll be over here with the other 100+ nations that already recognize Palestine.
First, according to your article Israel does not "appear poised to embrace... apartheid"
More importantl
I've plugged it here before, but I'll do it again - Walter Russell Mead's take on a workable solution to the conflict:
http://www
Proof: Zero talk of Palestinia
this can work again.
Just because Israel wasn't in a position to need to stereotype the Palestinia
Query:
Have you bothered actually /talking/ to Palestinia
Property title search:
Ottoman Empire
British Empire
Kingdom of Jordan
Israel
Under internatio
East Jerusalem is part of the West Bank.
Adopted in 1964 by the 1st Palestinia
Article 24: This Organizati
Article 26: The Liberation Organizati
Palestinia
Mu post acknowlede
Israeli Arabs are not moved into East Jerusalem because they haven't the political clout or the single-min
For the simple reason that it never belong to them.
Fact:The ONLY time they were given a chance to own it was in 1948. Unfortunat
Fact: As late as the 1960s Palestinia
Certainly, Palestinai
Everything else is fairy tales and agitprop..
Israel was created against the will of the area's inhabitant
There will come a point where America will not be able to defend this little Prussia on the Jordan.
We've already wasted billions and billions and alienated billions of people defending this outrageous apartheid state.
Time to pull the plug on aid and tell the israelis to either do what we say or defend themselves with their own resources.
And since the Jews owned only 6% of the land of Palestine at the time of partition, and since there is no legal means under internatli
Fact: Jews ARE area's inhabitant
Fact: Israel came into existence and defended itself for decades with a single dollar from U.S. Remember 1948 and 1967?
Fact: Israel is strong and highly successful state while most Middle Eastern states are stuck in 17th Century economy and political systems.
Therefore, Israelis can now yawn at people who harbor these revanchist fantasies.
Deal with it.