As the dust settles after last week’s “showdown” at the United Nations over the Palestinian application for membership, several initial conclusions can be drawn.
First, the United States now is thoroughly out of touch with most of the international community when it comes to Palestine and Israel. It has positioned itself to the right of the most right-wing, pro-settler government in Israeli history. This was reflected in the joyful reception of President Obama’s speech by Israeli prime minister Netanyahu and his right-wing foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman, as well as in the Israel lobby’s satisfied response to Obama’s caving in to Israeli demands all along the line.
In an almost surreal display of pandering, Republican presidential candidates—notably Texas governor Rick Perry—disparaged the president for “appeasing” the Palestinians and thereby betraying Israel. This rhetoric came despite the fact that Obama single-handedly sabotaged the Palestinians’ UN bid while publicly lecturing them and the entire General Assembly on the suffering of Israelis without so much as a word acknowledging Israeli occupation, violence and settlements—not to mention the Palestinian suffering caused by these American-supported policies. Obama's domestic electioneering in the face of a historic demand by the long-suffering Palestinians was not lost on the world. Taken in the context of the Arab Spring and its wave of popular demands for human and political rights, it means that the United States has lost all credibility as an honest broker in this conflict.
The second conclusion to be drawn is that after two decades of the U.S. behaving as “Israel’s lawyer,” the two-state solution is now dead. It has been buried by forty-four years of unceasing Israeli colonization of the West Bank and East Jerusalem under the benevolent gaze of nine successive U.S. administrations. The most recent in a long line of boastful Israeli announcements of further settlement construction in occupied Arab East Jerusalem last week is a perfect illustration of this truth. Despite the usual expression of “disappointment” from the White House and the State Department, the United States has, in fact, again acquiesced to the illegal colonization of more occupied Palestinian territory. This served as a ceremonial last nail in the coffin of the disastrous American-led process that since the beginning of peace negotiations in Madrid in 1991 oversaw and facilitated the near tripling of the illegal Israeli settler population to well over half a million and the imposition of severe restrictions on the movement of over 4 million Palestinians.
For those of us who have watched this “peace” process unfold since then, the status quo should perhaps be seen not so much as signifying the failure of the process but rather as underlining its sole purpose. As Mouin Rabbani put it in the London Review of Books, “the so-called peace process is working precisely as designed, to give political cover to Israeli colonization and maintain America’s diplomatic monopoly.” Though the time of the two-state solution has passed, it is undoubtedly time for the U.S. government to be pushed aside as sole mediator.
The final conclusion to be drawn is that the Palestinian leadership is at a crossroads: It has taken a long-overdue first step to re-internationalize Palestine’s struggle for liberty and self-determination and to take matters out of the hands of American diplomats who for decades have systematically advanced Israel’s interests at the expense of the Palestinians. The attempt to produce more objective stewardship of negotiations by taking the Palestinian case to the UN will clearly fail in the short term due to U.S. opposition. Nevertheless, it was relatively successful in galvanizing international support for the Palestinians almost everywhere outside of the fact-free bubble that is the DC beltway and much of the mainstream media.
The question now is what will the Palestinians' next step be? It is clear where the United States stands and will continue to stand, certainly until November 2012 if not long afterwards. For all the significant changes in perceptions of the conflict at the grassroots level in the United States, the continued power of the Israel lobby in Congress shows that on the political level nothing has changed. As far as Israel is concerned, even a leftward shift is unlikely to bring about meaningful change to decades of Labor, Likud and Kadima-supported occupation and settlement policies, at least not in the near term.
Comments
One wonders as to why Dr. Khalidi doesn't promote the simple step that could bring about a break through in the drive for an accommodation of peaceful coexistence between Arab and Jew, between the Muslim-Arab world, local and regional, and the nation-state of the Jewish people, Israel: Demand that the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) simply make the verbal commitment and accept Israel's RIGHT to be - not only the FACT that it is - to exist as the independent nation-state of the Jewish people. Such a public announcement would usher a new day of reconciliation; it will consitute a breakthorugh towards peace because it will address the essence of the Arab Israeli conflict directly.Sadly, instead of doing so, the head of the PLO, Mr. Abbas, in his speech at the UN not only negated totally the Jewish people's historic connection to its homeland, he also referred to the hated "occupaton" as that which has existed for the past 63 years; in essence calling for Israel's demise. Of course, Mr. Abbas is true to the PLO's Charter, etched deeply in his heart and mind as well as in those of the other PLO's leaders and followers, not to mention the followers of the Islamist Hamas and IslamicJihad which are not part of the PLO, who are eager to see a UN memebr state erased off the face of earth and with it all traces of Jewish existence in the Jewish people's homeland. One wonders, is the fact that Dr. Khalidi subscribes to the same thrust of the PLO the reason why he wouldn't suggest that the right thing to do is indeed to state the acceptance of Israel's right to be, to exist as the nation-state of the Jewish people, grounded in historic, ethical and legal rights...??!!
Jehudah, it's the simplest logic in the world in that by calling for two states, with borders, the Palestinians are recognosing Israel's right to exist, and that unless Israel is actually seeking permission from the Palestinians to define their state, which I highly doubt, then the Israeli people will be free to define themselves any way they wish. This is something a simpleton could understand, but remains lost on many Israelis. In all truth, this has nothing to do with seeking acceptance of the Palestinians, and everything to do with maintaining the status quo and stealing more of the Palestinians' land until a two state solution becomes impossible, and in fact it may already be too late. Rather than have to deal with a neighbour that doesn't accept Israel's right to turn Arab land into Jewish land, insteal Israel may to deal with a new influx of Palestinian citizens, perhaps even a majority of them, that think that way! Good luck! As the Hebrew saying goes, those who are greedy end up with nothing. And so it should be, if there is any justice left in the world.
Not so, by calling for two states divided by a bordeer is a form of the FACT that Israel exists, already done by the Arab world after decades of even denying this. But, this is not a form of accepting Israel's RIGHT to be, to exist as the nation-state of the Jewish people, a right grounded in historic, ethical and legal basis. The very refusal to state Israel's right to be, to exist as the nation-state of the Jewish people says it all...!! Adding to it, especially when hearing it in Arabic, the lack of Jewish roots in the country - despite 4,000 years of such roots - and referring to the "occupation" as someting that commenced 63 years ago - Israel's proclamation of independence - only illustrate the true view regarding Israel and intent of its future..., its demise!! This is not a prescription for peace!!
Jehuda Ben-Israel wrote saying that a break-through might come via the Palestinians making:"the verbal commitment and accept Israel's RIGHT to be - not only the FACT that it is - to exist as the independent nation-state of the Jewish people."Well with all the other roadblocks (for instance the continuation of settlement building and the adamancy of Israel's saying it will never go back to seeing Jerusalem divided) I don't see how this would be a big break-through, Jehuda, but the first thing most people observe is that this kind of recognition that Israel is now demanding is rather new, isn't it? First it was ... "recognize Israel the way the rest of the world has always accorded legitimacy." And then when the Palestinians did so, suddenly Mr. Netanyahu comes up with this "recognition on steroids" demand. But, even putting that aside, doesn't Mr. Abbas have a point in noting that he can't say that such a recognition wouldn't prejudice the rights of the arabs still in Israel after any peace deal? Or, to put it another way, that he can't agree to something he doesn't know the full meaning of? (And indeed who the hell would?) After all what is there about such recognition that would prevent Israel, after a peace deal and still facing what it *itself* calls the "demographic threat" from the arabs who are still its own citizens (and stop here and imagine any country talking about a subset of its own citizens forming such a "threat" to it) from expelling those citizens saying that "aha, the Palestinians have recognized our right to be eternally jewish dominated!" Or perhaps just stripping them of their right to vote (no matter their numbers)? I know this can *sound* extreme now, but again it is Israel *itself* that has talked about this demographic threat. And it *is* insisting on this very vague "recognition" language—that no other country in the world has accepted or has successfully insisted for itself. Fault the Palestinians for not going along with any or all demands whose meaning can be understood; that's more than fair. But you can hardly fault *anyone* for not going along with a demand whose meaning *nobody* can say for certain that they understand even right now—much less what meaning might be given to it in the future. Right?
Jehudah, the Israeli demand that the Palestinians recognize Israel as a Jewish state, rather than as a state of all its people, is to demand that the Palestinians accept the legitimacy of Zionism, the ideology that made them an alien minority in their land. That demand is just not imprudent or impractical or unwise -- it is immoral. To require that concession of the Palestinians as the price for exercising their rights is about the same as requiring Jews to admit the divinity of Christ in order to become citizens of Christian states -- which was proposed by some in the nineteenth century in Europe. The demand is also pathological, like a rapist requiring the rape victim not only to begrudgingly accept his existence, but to affirm it. I can understand the rapist's motive -- after all, he wants to say to himself that there was no rape, but only consensual sex. The Zionists came to Palestine from European countries and wrested the land from the natives. They pledged to uphold the rights of the non-Jewish inhabitants, but they refused the vast majority's request to return to their land, and they put those who remained under a military government, as they appropriated their lands -- all a clear violation of the spirit and the letter of the Balfour Declaration. All right, that's history. But to expect the Palestinians to affirm the legitimacy of Zionism after that history -- well, that is classic hutzpah.
Let us face it: the Muslim-Arabs - not the Christian-Arabs, not the Druze-Arabs, mind you!! - local and regional alike, simply and categorically object to the right of an independent Jewish political entity, i.e. state, to be, to exist on ANY, note again, ANY parcel of soil between the River and the Sea. This is now and this has always been the essence of the Arab Israeli conflict: not "Jerusalem", "settlements", "occupation", "wall", "Gaza", and similar such slogans that are being heralded by those refusing to face reality.Thus, it is high time people of good will who are not racists, from around the world, should address themselves critically to the Muslim-Arabs, local and regional alike, instead of bowing down to their unrealistic and anti-Jewish racist demands, and insist: Accept Israel's RIGHT to be - not only the FACT that it is - to exist as the independent nation-state of the Jewish people.Upon this happening a new era of reconciliation will follow, no doubt, one that will usher a sustainable accommodation of peaceful coexistence between Arab and Jew, between the Muslim-Arab world and the independent nation-state of the Jewish people, Israel.It is in our hands to bring it about, in the hands of each one of us to help ensure that this happens...!!
I think that even the most ardent Zionists can now finally agree that Zionism has failed. I wonder how long it will take for the Arabs to relinquish the idea of Arab Nationalism as well? So long as both sides cling to self destructive and imperialist philosophies, we are doomed to a future without peace. The best that either side can hope for is a benevolant police state, until the US decides to adopt a non-interventionalist approach, and simply divest all financial and political inupt to the region. This is why I conclude that those who truly care for peace, a natural, lasting and just peace, should vote in the US for a candidate who supports a hands-off approach.