Peace Is Still Possible
It is difficult now to remember how emotionally overwhelmed I was by a sudden wave of acute optimism when I watched President Obama reach out to the Muslim, Arab and Palestinian peoples in a historic speech at Cairo University in June 2009.
Nevertheless, I am not giving up on Obama or on the direct negotiations between the Palestinians and the Israelis that he has tried to revive.
Obama is above all a consummate politician -- so it would not make sense for him to go to the UN General Assembly as he did about a month ago and devote one quarter of his 40 minute speech to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, if in his mind the talks were dead. Nor would President Obama have tolerated or perhaps even encouraged his Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton to give the keynote speech only a few days ago at the annual gala dinner of the American Task Force on Palestine -- a predominantly Palestinian-American think tank in D.C. devoted to pressing for Palestinian statehood within the two-state formula.
There are several issues that have sidetracked the forward movement of negotiations. The most immediate issue is settlements. Anyone serious about an Arab-Israeli peace deal knows it will be based on the principle of a return of land for peace. This is clearly expressed in the Road Map to Peace, which calls for a freeze on all settlement expansion. With this in mind, President Obama has called upon Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu to extend his own temporary and partial freeze on settlement construction. But I would suggest this quite valiant stand reflects a lack of understanding by Obama of the dynamics of Israeli politics, and the influence of the ultra-nationalists. Netanyahu does not have the political clout to support a settlement freeze at this time, and in order to soften the ground with the nationalists, has had to raise another equally distracting issue -- the Palestinian acknowledgment of Israel as a Jewish state.
President Abbas has quite casually noted that the Palestinian Authority has recognized the state of Israel and how the Israelis chose to define that state is their own business. But some Palestinians are allowing themselves to be provoked when Netanyahu raises a long-settled issue as something new that is quite likely to be an internal Israeli maneuver.
But in any case, the renewal of the settlement freeze will not change the terrible situation on the ground. Only a peace deal that finally establishes Palestinian and Israeli borders can end the expansion of settlements. Even if major settlements are annexed by Israel as part of a negotiated peace, that will only happen if the borders of a Palestinian state incorporate new lands that are at present part of the pre-1967 territory of Israel and transferred in exchange to the Palestinians, a point already conceded by Israel in past negotiations.
Netanyahu will need a concrete deal assuring the Israeli public that peace is at hand before risking the break-up of his present government and establishing a new coalition that would allow him to carry on. Stopping the expansion of settlements will be the result of a peace deal -- not a precondition.
Abdallah Schleifer, Professor Emeritus at the American University in Cairo and United Nations Global Expert
Obama's Middle East policy Is a Failure
Last September, when President Obama invited Israeli Prime Minster Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to the White House to launch a new round of peace talks, he invoked the great historical figures on both sides of the conflict who had come before them. "Each of you are the heirs of peacemakers who dared greatly -- Begin and Sadat, Rabin and King Hussein - statesmen who saw the world as it was but also imagined the world as it should be," the president said. "It is the shoulders of our predecessors upon which we stand. It is their work that we carry on."
What Obama failed to mention is that for all of their effort, none of those brave statesmen managed to bring the Israelis and Palestinians one step closer to peace. Arguably, we are further than ever from achieving a viable two-state solution to this seemingly intractable conflict.
During his two years in office, President Obama has offered no substantive policy shift from previous administrations, no specific proposals for achieving peace between the two sides, no framework for dealing with final status issues, nothing fresh or new whatsoever save for an unbounded sense of confidence that he could achieve in a year what all of his predecessors failed to achieve in their entire tenures in office.
It didn't have to be like this. When Obama visited Cairo last year, he spoke eloquently about the daily struggle of Palestinians living under Israeli "occupation" (the first sitting American president ever to use that word). He followed that historic speech by calling for an immediate and unconditional halt to all Israeli settlement construction in the Occupied Territories -- "not some settlements, not outposts, not "'natural growth' exceptions," as Hillary Clinton famously put it.
When that demand was ignored, the Obama administration immediately backpedaled, accepting a ten-month moratorium on new settlement construction in the West Bank. As that moratorium expired last month, President Obama sent a letter to Netanyahu in which he offered more aid, more weapons, and more attention to Iran's nuclear ambitions in return for a 60-day extension of the settlement freeze. That too was rebuffed, leaving Obama looking weak and ineffectual to both allies and enemies in the region.
Since then, another 600 settlement units have been authorized for construction, adding to approximately half a million Israelis who currently live over the Green Line, in what is supposedly designated as the future Palestinian state.
Meanwhile, the Palestinian president has walked away from direct negotiations while, according to a Netanyahu aide, the Israeli prime minister is content to wait for a Republican majority in the House of Representatives to assist in "repelling the American president's initiative."
If there is any other way to describe the present state set of affairs other than utter failure, I do not know it.
All is not necessarily lost. The president still has an opportunity, particularly after the midterm elections, to reinvigorate the Middle East peace process. It means breaking from the Bush-era policy of pitting Hamas and Fatah against each other and instead using intermediaries to bring Hamas into the negotiations. It requires spelling out the consequences for both sides if America's demands are not met. There is no reason why the U.S. should not link the billions of dollars in American taxpayer money that is sent to the Israelis and Palestinians every year to their respective obligations in working toward a two-state solution. And finally, it necessitates doing more than merely talk about a Palestinian state. The United States should join with the European Union and the United Nations in stating that its intention to officially recognize the existence of an independent Palestinian state in two years if negotiations toward a two-state solution are not put back on track. Netanyahu cannot ignore that statement.
These may be bold, unprecedented steps. But that is precisely what is needed if Obama wants to avoid the same fate as the "peacemakers" upon whose shoulders he claims to stand.
Reza Aslan, religious scholar, author and United Nations Global Expert
Don Hutson and George H. Lucas: The Massive Price of 'Negotiaphobia'
With equal rights, Jerusalem will not have to be divided with Occupied East Jerusalem going back to the Palestinians, but will be undivided and be the Capital for all.
With equal rights for Palestinians, Israel will have effectively neutralized their most 'existential' threats--Iran, Syria and Hizballah--who have all displayed animus to the oppressive treatment of the Palestinians.
It's time that this region see its first-ever modern democracy, where equality, justice and human rights are the foundation of its existence.
Why is a One-state solution, that guarantees the rights of all of its citizens despised by so many Israeli apologists? What is it about the concept of equality that you fear so much?
the world has grown weary of this farce.
so the us and the un will recognize palestine as an independent , sovereign state.
deal with it.
"Where are the NOs of Khartoum today? Despite the scale of the defeat of 1967, the Arabs came together and cried: No peace with Israel, no recognition of Israel, and no negotiations with Israel.
Today, there are new NOs that reflect the Palestinian situation: No peace (among the Palestinians), no negotiations (half of the Palestinians oppose them), and no resistance (which the other half opposes).
The Palestinians today cannot even agree to meet, let alone meet and put an end to their differences.
A meeting had been held in Damascus last month, between representatives from Fatah and Hamas, i
However, the meeting did not lead to any results.
The negotiations among the Palestinians are almost more difficult than negotiations between them and Israel.
Hamas seems content with its unilateral control of the Gaza Strip. While Iran calls on the Palestinians every day to continue their armed struggle,
Frankly, I see that there is a deadlock of which there is no exit...
The most dangerous aspect of the Palestinian’s failure in achieving reconciliation is that it compounds the difficulties and problems that the next attempt at it would face.
This toxic atmosphere is blinding Fatah and Hamas, which are failing to see that they are losing the Palestinian public opinion, if they haven’t already done so. "
AL-HAYAT on Oct. 21, 2010.
http://www.alarabiya.net/views/2010/10/21/123146.html
Here's one rather honest account for Arabic MSM
Al-Hayat newspaper
written by Jihad El-Khazen,
"There are certain established facts in the ongoing Palestinian debate, before and after the war on Gaza, from which I choose the following:
If they remain divided, the Palestinians themselves, not Israel, the US or any regional or international party, will destroy their own cause.
Negotiating the way President Mahmoud Abbas does will not lead to the establishment of the Palestinian state.
Firing rockets the way Hamas does will not lead to the establishment of the Palestinian state."
Jerusalem belongs to Palestinains who build a state defeated foreign Jordain, Syrian,Lebanese and Iraqi invaders and build a prosperous and advanced state called Israel. And Jerusalem is the capital of that state.
I also find it ironic that the "right of return" demands are only for Arabs displaced from what is now Israel. No one mentions the nearly million Jews who were evicted from their homes--and had their lives threatened--in the surrounding Arab states after Israel declared statehood. Most of them were welcomed in Israel. The surrounding Arab countries closed their doors to the Palestinians fleeing the hostilities in Israel, keeping them as refugees caught in the middle.
So before joining in the "right of return" chant, at least recognize that the surrounding Arab nations bear the brunt of blame for the plight of the Palestinians and that they are not the only ones who lost their homes in the wars started by their Arab brothers.
We don't need to restrain Sweden from developing and manufacturing competitively as we do Israel. With no aid, there will be no strings attached, no strings, then you can believe those bids from the Indian Airforce for fighter jets for just one of hundreds of examples will soon have another player in the game. I'd bet its the likes of Lockheed and Raytheon who are those lobbying the US government to keep the status quo using Israeli development rather then having to compete with it.
The US would also lose some of its high tech R&D upgrades which is what Israel uses to offset "aid" but without strings, the upgrades will have a price tag.
You would be terribly naive to think the money is simply doled out because America feels benevolent or likes Israel or the Jews have that much influence. That would be silly not to mention tinged with some of the classic Jewish stereotype.
No, there's a give and take and the relationship between Israel and the US is way more complex then most like to assume.
Nonsense.
Israeli government and people rook an enormous risk by allowing Arafat and PLO into W. Bank and Gaza.
The main reason Arafat and PLO were allowed in - a decision by Israeli people to settle the conflict via two-state solution.
Good luck incorporating this indisputable fact into your mythology..
Of course reality says otherwise. In fact Israel, reaching its largest size in 1967 has been readily contracting having left Sinai, Gaza and Lebanon and parts of W. Bank.
But reality never stop anyone from anti-Israeli bigotry before. Why start now.
That surely includes the timing of the assault: shortly before noon, when children were returning from school and crowds were milling in the streets of densely populated Gaza City. It took only a few minutes to kill over 200 people and wound 700, an auspicious opening to the mass slaughter of defenseless civilians trapped in a tiny cage with nowhere to flee.1
The attack specifically targeted the closing ceremony of a police academy, killing dozens of policemen. The international law division of the Israeli army (IDF, Israeli Defense Forces) had criticized the plans for months, but under army pressure, its director, Col. Pnina Sharvit-Baruch, gave the department's approval. "Also under pressure," Ha'aretz reports, "Sharvit-Baruch and the division also legitimized the attack on Hamas government buildings and the relaxing of the rules of engagement, resulting in numerous Palestinian casualties." The international law division adopts "permissive positions" so as "to remain relevant and influential," the article continues.
http://www.chomsky.info/articles/20090119.htm
http://www.internationalist.org/zionistmassmurder0812.html
Most of the West Bank is under rule which amounts to apartheid by paper
"Palestine" is no more. Call it a "peace process" or a "road map"; blame it on Barack Obama's weakness, his pathetic, childish admission – like an optimistic doctor returning a sick child to its parents without hope of recovery – that a Middle East peace was "more difficult" to reach than he imagined.
But the dream of a "two-state" Israeli-Palestinian solution, a security-drenched but noble settlement to decades of warfare between Israelis and Palestinians is as good as dead.
Both the United States and Europe now stand idly by while the Israeli government effectively destroys any hope of a Palestinian state; even as you read these words, Israel's bulldozers and demolition orders are destroying the last chance of peace; not only in the symbolic centre of Jerusalem itself but – strategically, far more important – in 60 per cent of the vast, biblical lands of the occupied West Bank, in that largest sector in which Jews now outnumber Muslims two to one.
This majority of the West Bank – known under the defunct Oslo Agreement's sinister sobriquet as "Area C" – has already fallen under an Israeli rule which amounts to apartheid by paper:
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/fisk/robert-fisk-why-does-the-us-turn-a-blind-eye-to-israeli-bulldozers-1883670.html
What it has done is the exact opposite. The palestinians, seeing an American president who created a de facto precondition, beneficial to them, decided to latch onto that condition as a method of avoidance. Additionally, Obama failed to make any demands of the palestinians. Again, indicating to the palestinians that they could set the terms of the talks.
Had Obama not set that condition and left the "settlements" to those negotiations the palestinians would have been far more amenable to negotiating or at least would not have the excuse they now use to not negotiate.
The settlements should never have been made a precondition to the talks, and only Obama can shoulder the responsibility for that mistake.