Archive for the ‘Palestine’ Category

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Barack Obama and the Failure of the Peace Process

November 15, 2009

Stella Dallas, Dissident Voice, Nov. 14, 2009

Among the most prominent of President Obama’s hope-based initiatives was his promise to re-frame America’s approach to the conflict in Palestine, epitomized in his June 2007 speech in Cairo, where Obama called for a “new beginning between the United States and Muslims”, a new dawn based on equality and mutual respect rather than the vestiges of a “colonialism that denied rights and opportunities” to Muslim majorities held prisoner to proxy regimes without regard to the legitimate aspirations of their people. The speech was welcomed by tens of millions of people all over the world willing to believe, despite mountains of historical evidence to the contrary, that America had finally resolved to remake itself as a facilitator rather than an obstacle to justice for the occupied and abused people of Palestine, and by implication, for the poor and dispossessed throughout the Muslim world.

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Posted in Commentary, Gaza, Human rights, Palestine, Peace Movement, President Barack Obama, Uncategorized, US policy, USA | 1 Comment »

Palestinian vote put off, Abbas remains in office

November 14, 2009

(AP)

Khaleej Times Online, 13 November 2009

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who last week said he didn’t want to run for re-election, may get to stay in office without a single ballot being cast.

The Palestinian Election Commission ruled Thursday that January’s scheduled vote should be put off because of opposition from the Islamic militant group Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip and is a rival of Abbas’ Fatah faction.

Abbas raised international concern last week when he declined to run for another term, suggesting he was frustrated over a 10-month stalemate in Israel-Palestinian peacemaking. His departure would have thrown peace efforts into turmoil.

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From the River to the Sea

November 13, 2009

By Gilad Atzmon, Information Clearing House, Nov. 12, 2009

Let’s once and for all stop getting excited about America mounting pressure on Israel to  freeze West Bank settlements. The entire fascination with the topic is a product of  Zionist spin. It is there to divert attention from the root cause of the conflict: The robbery of Palestine and Palestinians in the name of a ‘Jewish home coming’. The call to stop Israeli construction in the West Bank is there to leave us with the false impression that the robbery of Palestine started in 1967. The facts are known to many of us, but not to all. The vast majority of Palestinians were expelled from their towns, villages, fields and orchards in 1948.

What seems as an American peace initiative putting pressure on Israel to halt its expansion into the West Bank is in fact an agenda that is promoted by Zionists within the US Administration who realise like the late Sharon, that the only chance for the Jewish state to survive the next decade, is to shrink into a little Jewish shtetle (ghetto). The Two state solution is indeed the last effort to keep Zionism alive.

Netanyahu is far from being stupid. He understands it all. He knows that his Zionist Revisionist father’s dream of ‘greater Eretz Yisrael’ is unattainable.

Haaretz reported today that the Israeli PM admitted in Washington that he was committed to ‘two states living side by side’. However, he stressed that the “the right of Palestinian refugees to return to the homes from which they were expelled, would not be on the table.” Seemingly, an Israeli hawkish PM is voluntarily confronting the Israeli original sin namely the expulsion of the vast majority of the Palestinians people. However, the fact that he insists that it won’t be ‘on the table’ can only mean that it is on the  table already.  “They”, continues Netanyahu, “must abandon the fantasy of flooding Israel with refugees, give up irredentist * claims to the Negev and Galilee, and declare unequivocally that the conflict is finally over”.

Clearly, Netanyahu expresses here a wish that is shared by most if not all Israelis. They all dream to open their eyes in the morning just to find out that all Goyim, Palestinians, Arabs and Muslims just left the region.

I am here to advise Netanyahu and every Israeli who is willing to listen that this is not going to happen. As much as being flooded by ‘refugee’ Palestinians is a deep Israeli nightmare, it is far from being a Palestinian fantasy. It is actually a reality waiting to happen. Israel has lost its opportunity to reconcile with its neighbours. It failed to settle its conflict with the indigenous people of the land. The fate of Israel will be determined by ‘facts on the ground’ namely demography. In terms of reconciliation, Israel has past the no return Zone. Its fate is doomed. One Palestine from the river to the sea is not any more a matter of ‘if’ but rather a question of ‘when’.

Unlike most Israelis who dismiss the Palestinian cause, Netanyahu admitted today that Palestinians were indeed expelled. For the first time Palestinians’ “irredentist claims” are being addressed by an Israeli PM. And yet, Netanyahu should stop deluding himself and his people. It is not just the Negev and Galilee. It is actually every piece of land between the river and the sea: Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Haifa, Be’er Sheva and every village, orchard, field, river and tree in between. The only question that is left open is how long will it take for the Shekel to drop? How long will it take before Israelis grasp that they dwell on stolen land? How long will it take before the Israelis realise that the battle is lost? How long will it take for the Israelis to internalise the obvious fact that they have once again managed to get on the wrong side of their Neighbours?

*Irredentist: One who advocates the recovery of territory culturally or historically.


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‘Declare Independence of Palestine Now’

November 11, 2009

 

Nasir Khan’s  Note:  The betrayal and isolation of the Palestinian people has run its full course. The imbecile Arab regimes  (in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan,  etc.,)  more in the nature of prehistoric shapeless oddities, have failed to support meaningfully the cause of the  occupied, oppressed and brutalized fellow Arabs of  Palestine. Instead,  they have furthered the U.S. imperialism’s  geopolitical interests in the Middle East so that the United States  controls the Middle East and it  remains the prime  guarantor of the continued support to their corrupt and decadent dynastic rule and their antidemocratic system.

The present leadership of the Palestinian people is divided; the myopic PA President Abbas has been dancing to the tunes of Tel Aviv and Washington for long. A growing number of the  suffering people of Palestine regard him a traitor and puppet of the U.S. and the Israeli Zionists.

The talk of peace and peace negotiations under  various U.S. administrations served only Zionist expansion and further colonization of the occupied Palestine. If President  Obama had any intention to stop Israel’s ever-increasing expropriation of the Palestinian land then he has failed miserably. Obviously,  Secretary of State  Clinton, Prime Minister Netanyahu and the Israeli lobby struck at his intentions and nullified him. It leaves no doubt about who control American  foreign policy.

Where can the Palestinians go from here? The question of establishing a viable independent state is in the doldrums. The occupied land has been eaten up by Israel. That leaves the possibility of one-state solution the only alternative for the Israelis and the Palestinians.

But if Israel turns its back on its previous history of colonization and expropriation, accepts the UN resolutions and reverts to the pre-1967 borders by vacating all its illegal settlements then the two-state solution has a chance to materialize. But this is more of a long shot in the  dark.

Mr Yesh Prabhu’s advocacy of declaring an independent state by Palestinians can be instrumental in breaking the present impasse. At least, the Palestinians will not lose anything. On the contrary, it can take the matters out of the hands of Washington and Tel Aviv and this  may create a new momentum. But one major  hurdle remains: the divided Palestinian leadership of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. If Abbas disappears then even worse traitors like Mohammad Dahlan  may be waiting for a complete sell-out to Washington and Tel Aviv.

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Declare Independence of Palestine Now

Yesh Prabhu, A Sane Voice For Peace Blog, Nov. 10, 2009

It is now abundantly clear that the stalled negotiation for peace in the Middle East is now dead.

During Secretary of State Clinton’s recent short sojourn through the region, in her joint press conference with Mr. Netanyahu in Jerusalem, she effusively praised Netanyahu’s intransigence regarding Israel’s illegal settlements in the West Bank. The peace process died when she bizarrely described as “unprecedented” Mr. Netanyahu’s paltry concession to slow down the feverish tempo of building illegal housing units in the occupied territories. Even though she hastily tried to back-track, the damage to the peace process had been done. It was as if she had given the peace process a death blow. The Palestinian negotiators were deeply shocked. Did not President Obama, and even Mrs. Clinton herself, say only a month ago that the Israeli settlements in the occupied land were illegitimate? It dawned on Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas that the peace process was dead, and so he announced that he will be resigning from his position soon. He had threatened to resign a couple of times on previous occasions, of course, but this time it seems that he means to carry out his threat.

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Posted in Commentary, imperialism, Palestine, Peace Movement, President Barack Obama, Uncategorized, US policy, USA, Zionist Israel | 1 Comment »

Israeli Jews and the one-state solution

November 11, 2009

By Ali Abunimah, Electronic Intifada, November 11, 2009

“Anyone who rejects the two-state solution, won’t bring a one-state solution. They will instead bring one war, not one state. A bloody war with no end.” — Israeli President Shimon Peres, 7 November 2009.

One of the most commonly voiced objections to a one-state solution for Palestine/Israel stems from the accurate observation that the vast majority of Israeli Jews reject it, and fear being “swamped” by a Palestinian majority. Across the political spectrum, Israeli Jews insist on maintaining a separate Jewish-majority state.

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Pilger: Breaking The Great Australian Silence

November 8, 2009

By Pilger, John | ZNet, Nov. 7, 2009
John Pilger’s ZSpace Page


Thank you all for coming tonight, and my thanks to the City of Sydney and especially to the Sydney Peace Foundation for awarding me the Peace Prize. It’s an honour I cherish, because it comes from where I come from.

I am a seventh generation Australian. My great-great grandfather landed not far from here, on November 8th, 1821. He wore leg irons, each weighing four pounds. His name was Francis McCarty. He was an Irishman, convicted of the crime of insurrection and “uttering unlawful oaths”. In October of the same year, an 18 year old girl called Mary Palmer stood in the dock at Middlesex Gaol and was sentenced to be transported to New South Wales for the term of her natural life. Her crime was stealing in order to live. Only the fact that she was pregnant saved her from the gallows. She was my great-great grandmother. She was sent from the ship to the Female Factory at Parramatta, a notorious prison where every third Monday, male convicts were brought for a “courting day” – a rather desperate measure of social engineering. Mary and Francis met that way and were married on October 21st, 1823.

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Obama Fails in Middle East

November 7, 2009

Robert Dreyfuss, The Nation, November 6, 2009

The announcement by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas that he will not run for reelection is the exclamation point on the utter collapse of the Obama adminstration’s Middle East policy. Launched to great expectations — the appointment of George Mitchell, Obama’s Cairo declaration that the plight of the Palestinians is intolerable — it is now in complete disarray. It is, without doubt, the first major defeat for Obama’s hope-and-change foreign policy.

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No Partner for Peace: Our American Problem

November 7, 2009

By Jeff Halper, ZNet, November 7, 2009
Source: MRZine

Jeff Halper’s ZSpace Page

It was as if some official, perhaps one of President Obama’s “czars,” like the Czar for Demolishing American Credibility, had orchestrated a systematic campaign to isolate the US from the rest of the world, make it a political laughingstock and, finally, render it a second-rate power capable of throwing around tremendous military weight but absolutely incapable of leading us to a better future.  The Israel-Palestine conflict, while not the world’s bloodiest, constitutes, for many people of the world, a unique gauge of American interests and intentions.  So consider the messages this string of actions sent out to the world:

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Israel rejects endorsement by UN of Gaza report

November 7, 2009

CHRIS STEPHEN in New York, The Irish Times, November 7, 2009

ISRAEL YESTERDAY rejected a UN General Assembly resolution calling for investigations into a report alleging that war crimes were committed in Gaza.

Saying the resolution was “completely detached from realities on the ground”, an Israeli foreign ministry statement said Israel would “continue to act to protect the lives of its citizens from the threat of international terrorism”.

Ireland was one of five EU nations to support the resolution, which calls on both Palestinian and Israeli authorities to investigate allegations of war crimes contained in a report commissioned by the UN Human Rights Council.

The Department of Foreign Affairs said in a statement that it had supported the UN resolution because Dublin backs the Goldstone report into possible breaches of war crimes law.

“We do fully support the recommendations which call, in the first instance, on the parties to the conflict in Gaza to respond seriously and comprehensively to the findings of the report, by launching appropriate investigations into all the allegations of possible breaches of international law.”

The resolution is non-binding, but calls on UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon to monitor inquiries on both sides and report back in three months, when the assembly will consider further action.

“We started the journey today,” said Palestinian UN observer Riyad Mansour. “We will continue this process until we make sure that the Israeli criminals who have committed war crimes against the Palestinian civilians face justice.” The vote, backed by 118 of the 192 member states, is the latest stage of a controversial process which began last January when the UN’s Human Rights Council condemned Israel’s Gaza offensive, in which 13 Israelis and nearly 1,400 Palestinians died.

In September, Richard Goldstone, a former UN war crimes prosecutor, produced a report on the Gaza offensive which said there was evidence that both Israel and the Palestinians had committed violations of war crimes law, possibly amounting to crimes against humanity.

The most controversial part of the report was Justice Goldstone’s recommendation that if both sides failed to launch their own investigations into the killings, the UN should consider ordering the International Criminal Court to do so.

This UN resolution leaves open that possibility, by saying that if both sides have not carried out credible investigations within three months, the matter could be passed to the UN Security Council, which has the power to order war crimes trials.

Despite much talk of the EU moving towards a common foreign and security policy, member states were split over the resolution, with 14 states abstaining and Ireland joining Cyprus, Malta, Portugal and Slovenia in backing it.

Sweden’s UN ambassador Anders Liden led negotiations on behalf of EU states trying to persuade the Palestinians to accept a watered-down version of the resolution, which did not include endorsement of recommendations that the Security Council should be asked to consider war crimes trials. “We did not bring them together,” said Mr Liden. But he insisted EU states were together in condemning war crimes committed in Gaza, and urging both sides to hold investigations.

What happens next is unclear. If the secretary general reports back in February that either side has not carried out credible investigations, diplomats say there is strong support for the matter to be passed to the Security Council.

The council has previously initiated international war crimes trials for states including Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Sudan and former Yugoslavia, but it is unlikely to add Israel to the list.

Only China among the permanent five veto-wielding members backed the General Assembly resolution, with Britain, France, Russia and the US likely to resist approving war crimes trials, saying they could upset chances of furthering the peace process.

Both sides insist they have begun investigations; Israel says probes into any illegal acts are ongoing, and Mr Mansour promised inquiries into Goldstone’s report that missiles were fired into Israel from Gaza. “We will see after three months who will comply and who will not comply.”

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Palestinian president: A dream turned sour

November 6, 2009
Editorial
The Guardian/UK, November 6, 2009

Whether he makes good on the pledge he made last night not to stand in next year’s elections, or whether he is eventually persuaded to stay, the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, has had enough already. And it is clear why. He was elected nearly five years ago to negotiate a Palestinian state and has got nowhere, even with two Israeli governments who understand that the alternatives to his leadership are worse. But even the best Palestinian president that Israel is going to get could not stop settlement construction, an obligation Israel signed up to in 2003. Even he could not stop the US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, saying in Cairo at the weekend that Binyamin Netanyahu‘s offer of a partial freeze (the continued construction of 3,000 settler homes, continued building in East Jerusalem and all public projects in settlements) was “unprecedented”. Mr Abbas has threatened to quit before. This time he means it.

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