EDITOR: Obama rides again, full speed to Nowhere!
Again, like after the Ciro declaration in 2009, Obama the speechmaker is speaking, while Obama the President is silent. All those words mean less than nothing, of course. The record is clear – the one person who has recived a Bobel Prize for Peace before he did anything, proves to also be one who will never earn the prize…
His talk about Israel is empty repetition – he is NOT about to do anything to make Israel do anything – and he is the only person in the position to so do! It is clear that Obama has achieved the impossible: He has done less than George (Dubya) Bush towards just peace in the Middle East!
Many of the pieces below deal with this show of oratory.
Obama to Israel: Take whatever you want: Al Jazeera English
In his latest speech, Obama’s thinly veiled rhetoric proves he will do anything to satisfy his pro-Israel voter base.
Lamis Andoni Last Modified: 23 May 2011 16:02
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In 2008, Barack Obama, the Democratic presidential candidate, pandered to pro-Israeli voters and Israel by promising in a speech addressed to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), that Jerusalem would forever remain “the undivided capital of Israel”.
Three years later, Obama is on another pre-campaign trail in order to improve his chances for re-election in 2012. As part of this campaign, he has made a new round of half-hearted attempts to revive the stalled “peace process” completely under Israel’s terms.
In his latest speech addressed to AIPAC, Obama promised Israel everything short of allegiance by reaffirming America’s commitment to Israel’s political and security goals. His speech denied the right of Palestinians to declare a nation and he even vowed to block any peaceful Palestinian efforts to claim their legal rights at international organisations.
Obama’s lip service to Palestinian “self-determination” is nothing more than vacuous rhetoric – as he clearly implied that Israeli interests, especially its security, remain the top priority for American foreign policy in the region.
He mechanically repeated his commitment to the vision of a two-state solution – establishing a Palestinian state alongside Israel. However, as expected, he left the borders and terms of the creation of such state subject to Israel’s “security interests”.
His reference to resuming peace negotiations on the basis of the 1967 borders (also known as the Green Line) means neither a complete Israeli withdrawal from the occupied territories nor the establishment of a sovereign Palestinian state on all of the land within the Green Line, including East Jerusalem.
There is a significant difference in negotiations “lingo” and even legal language between saying that the establishment of a Palestinian state “will be based on” 1967 borders as opposed to saying it “will be established on” the 1967 borders.
The first leaves ample room for Israel to continue occupying and even annexing vast settlement blocs (and perhaps even all of the illegal, Israeli settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem) for “security reasons”.
Take whatever you can
Just in case his pro-Israel support base misunderstood the thinly veiled statements from his Middle East speech last Friday, Obama made sure to clarify to his definitively pro-Israeli view that there is no going back to the true 1967 borders:
“[The statement] means that the parties themselves – Israelis and Palestinians – will negotiate a border that is different than the one that existed on June 4, 196… It allows the parties themselves to account for the changes that have taken place over the last forty-four years, including the new demographic reality.”
In clearer words, the president is effectively, although not explicitly, equating the presence of Palestinians on their own land with the illegal presence of Israeli settlers living on land confiscated forty-four years ago from the Palestinians.
Basically, despite the fact that settlers live on that land illegally under international law, because they are physically there, the land becomes theirs.
This confirms the belief of many in the region that the construction of Israeli settlements and of the Separation Wall inside the 1967 borders is Israel’s way of slowly completing a de facto annexation of Palestinian land.
This latest of Obama’s statements may be the closest the president has come to legitimising illegal Israeli settlements.
Obama’s message to Israel appeared to confirm that he is ready to keep former president George Bush’s 2005 promise that Israel would be able to keep their largest settlements blocs as a result of any negotiated solution for the conflict.
In other words, Obama’s idea of Palestinian self-determination is for Palestinians to accept whatever Israel decides.
In his AIPAC speech, and the previous speech addressed to the Middle East, Obama seemed to have either been out of touch with, or to have simply ignored, the changes brought about by the Arab Spring. For while he argued that Israel should understand that the Arab Spring has altered the political balance in the region, and that Israel should understand it now has to make peace not with corruptible Arab leaders, but with the Arab people themselves.
So much for hope and change
In fact, when it comes to the Palestinian cause, Obama is speaking and acting as if the Arab Spring has not taken place. He has to remember that even America’s most loyal Arab allies in the region could not openly support the American-Israeli formula for peace with the Palestinians. So, why then would it be acceptable to millions of pro-Palestinian Arabs?
The Arab Spring may have affected the semantics of American discourse on Palestinian rights but it has not created anything close to a real shift in American policies.
Once again, Obama has succumbed to political blackmail by Netanyahu – whose main goal of raising objections to the peace process is to make sure that Israel continues undisturbed with its expansionist polices, and not because of any real fear from the president’s weak demands.
Yes, there is no doubt that Netanyahu wants to see any reference to 1967 borders dropped from the discourse, because Israel is currently busy drawing its own militarily imposed future borders, he could not have misunderstood Obama’s clearly pro-Israeli statements.
As the American president pointed out in his speech, he has made good on his declaration of “full commitment” to Israeli interests and security needs: “That’s why we’ve increased cooperation between our militaries to unprecedented levels. It’s why we’re making our most advanced technologies available to our Israeli allies.”
“And it’s why, despite tough fiscal times, we’ve increased foreign military financing to record levels.”
Obama has not only been consistent in maintaining full US support for Israel but has also articulated a new, more decisive stance which explicitly confirms the long-standing American policy of blocking any peaceful Palestinian efforts through international law and the United Nations.
“…The United States will stand up against efforts to single Israel out at the UN or in any international forum. Because Israel’s legitimacy is not a matter for debate”, he promised the gathering of the staunchest and most influential supporters of Israel.
By siding with Israel against the Palestinian Authority’s plan to seek United Nations recognition of a Palestinian state on the 1967 borders, the US has in effect declared war on all Palestinians, the Palestinian Authority and activists alike.
He will unabashedly thwart any efforts to pursue legal and peaceful means of challenging the continued Israeli colonisation of their land.
But by labeling such campaigns aimed at recognition of a Palestinian state as an attempt “to delegitimise” Israel, the president is inadvertently recognising that those Israeli policies themselves lack legitimacy.
A rights based discourse?
Furthermore, while Obama’s assertion that UN recognition alone cannot create a Palestinian state is technically true, it will restore the topic within a legal rights discourse – which would not be defined by Israel’s security concerns as it has in the past.
Such UN recognition, of course, would work towards the establishment a Palestinian state defined by the 1967 borders – meaning that all Israeli settlements within that border would have to be evacuated. Without this, it would only legitimise and perpetuate the American-Israeli negotiations formula.
But Obama has not taken any risks in order to promote peace.
He fears foiling decades of American policies that have aimed to veto any UN resolution pertaining to Israeli crimes and, starting a new discourse about the conflict that would be rights-based.
It was no surprise either when Obama declared the reconciliation agreement between Fateh and Hamas, signed earlier this month, to be an “obstacle” to peace in the region. After all, in his purely pro-Israeli mindset, any attempt at Palestinian unity – regardless of how feeble – does not serve Israeli interest and its tried and true “divide and conquer” method has prevented any real progress for years.
Obama’s repeated refrain about Hamas being an unacceptable peace partner, sounds not only like a broken record, but also like a lame excuse for Israeli extremism and intransigence.
If he wants to know who the true unacceptable partners for peace are, all he has to do is get an English transcript of discussions from the Israeli Knesset (parliament) and read how members from the political right call Arabs “animals” and make all manner of racist slurs against Palestinians.
But if Obama is willing to encourage Israeli policies such as ‘land transfers’, which aim to displace whole Palestinian communities and refers to them as mere “demographic changes”, then why would he care about racist rhetoric and threats by right-wing Israelis?
In his latest speeches, Obama did not refer once to the events that took place on the May 15 ‘Nakba Day’ protests. During these peaceful demonstrations, the Israeli military responded in a predictable way, in the only way they know – by firing indiscriminately on unarmed protesters. By the end of the shooting spree, more than 20 people were killed at the Syrian and Lebanese borders.
Perhaps the most disturbing part of Obama’s speech is his exaggerated attempt to adopt the Israeli narrative and by default, his complete denial of Palestinian national rights.
In the end of his speech, Obama’s claim that Israel’s history could be characterised by a struggle for freedom (a repeat from his 2008 AIPAC speech) says it all:
The American president refuses to see Israeli oppression and repression. He refuses to recognise the legitimacy of the Palestinian struggle for freedom – because if he did, he just might hurt his chances at winning a second term as US president.
Lamis Andoni is an analyst and commentator on Middle Eastern and Palestinian affairs.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial policy.
Hamas: Obama will not force Israel recognition: Ma’an News
Published Sunday 22/05/2011 (updated) 23/05/2011
GAZA CITY (Ma’an) — Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri on Sunday slammed Barack Obama’s speech to the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee, saying the US president’s call on the party to recognize Israel would go unanswered.
In Washington, Obama addressed the powerful pro-Israel lobby group and elaborated on statements made Thursday in his Mideast policy speech, urging calls to democracy and reform across the region.
He re-stated his position that the 1967 armistice lines should be the basis of negotiations between Israel and Palestine, saying Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejection of the call Friday was due to a misunderstanding.
Obama called on Hamas to recognize Israel and renounce violence and also reaffirmed his support for Israel and Washington’s commitment to go “beyond” regular military assistance to Tel Aviv in order to help “maintain Israel’s qualitative military edge.”
The Hamas spokesman said the speech showed the US administration was “not a friend to the people of the region.”
Abu Zuhri said Obama’s continued support of Israel showed the US was biased, and would “support the occupation at the expense of the freedom of the Palestinian people.”
The spokesman called Obama’s statements on the inevitability of the failure of a Palestinian move seeking statehood at the UN an effective denial of the right for Palestinians to have an independent and sovereign state.
Abu Zuhri also spoke out on the widely accepted stance of starting negotiations based on a Palestinian state on the pre-1967 borders, saying it revealed the mistake that was the “gamble on the American role” in negotiations.
While Hamas has said it would recognize Israel once it withdraws to the 1967 borders, the party holds that negotiations should be based on the borders of historic Palestine, resulting in far fewer concessions for Palestinians who would start out with a much stronger bargaining position.
“The US administration will fail, just as all others have in the past, in forcing Hamas to recognize the occupation,” Abi Zuhri said of the request to recognize Israel ahead of talks.
Netanyahu to Congress: Ready to make painful compromises, but Jerusalem will not be divided: Haaretz
The prime minister was welcomed to the U.S. Congress by a long standing ovation, after which he praised the U.S. for their strong ties and shared values with Israel.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu opened his speech at the United States Congress on Tuesday by reiterating Israel’s strong ties with the U.S., saying “Israel has no better friend than the U.S. and the U.S. has no better friend than Israel.”
The prime minister’s speech was briefly disrupted by a heckler, who was quickly escorted out by security. Netanyahu said about the heckler, “I appreciate that protesting is aloud” adding “this is the real democracy.”
Netanyahu rejected those that call Israel a “foreign occupier”, saying that no one could deny the “4,000 year old bond between the Jewish people and the Jewish land.”
“Why has peace eluded us?” the prime minister posed as he began to discuss the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. “Because so far, the Palestinians have been unwilling to accept a Palestinian state if it meant accepting a Jewish state alongside it.”
Reiterating a point he has made several times throughout his official trip to Washington, Netanyahu said that Israel “will not return to the indefensible borders of 1967.”
“Israel will be generous on the size of a Palestinian state, but will be very firm on where we put the border with it,” Netanyahu said.
At the start of his speech, the prime minister congratulated the U.S. on getting Osama Bid Laden, adding “good riddance”.
“I am dearly moved by this warm welcome,” Netanyahu said, after being received in Congress by a long standing ovation. He received another standing ovation after mentioning that he saw many friends in the audience “both Democrats and Republicans.”
As part of his visit to Washington the prime minister had earlier met with U.S. President Barak Obama, after which he reiterated his stance that Israel cannot go back to the “indefensible” borders of 1967.
The two leaders’ meeting came a day after the U.S. president’s Mideast policy speech called for negotiations for a two-state solution based on 1967 lines.
On Monday, Netanyahu spoke at the AIPAC policy conference where he spoke about Obama’s “ironclad commitment” to Israel’s security.
He also reiterated his rejection of Obama’s call for an Israeli-Palestinian peace based on 1967 lines.
Israel has historically enjoyed broad support from the U.S. Congress, a sign of which was seen at the AIPAC dinner when Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid challenged Obama’s on the border issue, saying “No one should set premature parameters about borders, about building or about anything else.”
U.S. sponsored peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians have been at a standstill since an Israeli freeze on West Bank settlement building expired in September. Palestinians insist that a building freeze be reinstated before they return to the negotiating table, while Israel has said that they must return to negotiations with no preconditions.
Palestinians have said that they will meet in Ramallah on Wednesday to determine what their next step will be, following Netanyahu’s visit to Washington.
Dialogue 28 english: Dialogue
By Haim Bresheeth
An important plank of the Israeli anti-Arab propaganda was the pretence that Israel, despite insisting on calling itself a “Jewish State”, and speaking of ‘Jewish democracy’, was somehow also the only secular democracy in the Middle East, while all other regimes were either fundamentalist Islamic states, such as Saudi Arabia, or confessional states, such as Lebanon. The pronounced illiberal nature of some of the Arab regimes, and their attitudes towards other religions and cultures, especially in the case of the Wahabis, was a persuasive argument in supporting Israel’s westernised value-system. This was so despite the growing and swift Judaisation of the state, and its intensely unequal and racist policies towards the non-Jews under its control. It was a question of comparability – relative to the worst Arab states, Israel looked like an identifiable western democracy, especially to the uncritical eye of the western news media machine, with its orientalist, pro-Israeli bias.
It is of course too early to evaluate either the success, exact nature, or the longevity of the Arab Spring of 2011. The shockwaves of this political earthquake are still spreading as these lines are written, and will continue for some time, as the long-term patterns of change clarify and establish themselves. Some patterns are already evident, however, and could be discussed as surprisingly prevalent, and crucially important for any future developments.
The first is the fact that in all the protest movements in the Arab world, and also extending to Iran’s Green Revolution of 2009, the Islamic parties and sentiments were all but missing from the process, and played either no roll, or a small and insignificant one in the movement for change. This was not only in contrast to Israeli predictions, but also of those of the western intelligence community, strongly influenced by Israeli analysis and outlook. Their warnings of the Moslem Brotherhood being behind the Egyptian uprising were so clearly unsupported by events, that the Brotherhood’s leadership has come under pressure from its members to play a larger role in the developments…
A related misapprehension, also strongly supported by Israeli propaganda, was the claim that the protest was mainly fuelled by anti-Israeli (and according to some deluded commentators, even anti-Semitic) sentiments, and would by its nature bring about anti-Israeli governments into being, and revive the Arab-Israeli wars. While it is clear that the Egyptian revolt was also directed at Mubarak’s servile attitude towards Israel, and his role in enforcing the illegal Gaza blockade, acting as an agent of Israeli policy, the revolt was surely driven by the main complaints – the corrupt, undemocratic and oppressive nature of his regime, which was also what made his reactionary policies towards Palestine possible. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict as such did not play an important role in the Arab wave of protests. It is indeed probable that a democratically-elected Egyptian government is unlikely to continue the Mubarak policies towards Israel, but there was no sign of anti-Israel sentiment as the main driver of the protest. This was crucially an Egyptian protest, concentrating on Egyptian issues – freedom, justice, civil liberties, food and work, and an end to police brutality and the illegalities of the regime and the Mukhabarat.
The reaction of Israelis from across the political spectrum to the Arab Spring was strikingly unified and telling – not a single voice from the political arena welcomed the incredible wave of democratic energy and action across the Arab world, and the speakers and writers have all voiced deep consternation and concern about the loss of their favoured interlocutors – the various tyrants they have been dealing with, and especially that of Hosni Mubarak in Egypt.
In a Guardian piece published at the height of the Libyan conflict, the Israeli editor-at-large of the liberal Haaretz daily, Aluf Benn, has clearly described the unified reaction:” Even in its third month, the Arab revolution fails to resonate positively in Israel. The Israeli news media devote a lot of space to dramatic events in the region, but our self-centered political discourse remains the same. It cannot see beyond the recent escalation across the Gaza border, or the approaching possibility of a Palestinian declaration of statehood in September. Israel’s leaders are missing the old order in the Arab world, sensing only trouble in the unfolding and perhaps inevitable change” . As Israel has modeled itself as the servant of western interests in the region, it has set itself up as an opponent of the genuine interest of the Arab world and its citizens, by definition, and it finds it difficult if not impossible to shake this role off, to see the new region as an opportunity rather than a further threat. Benn points this out: “No serious political figure in Israel has reached out to the revolutionaries, celebrating their achievement or suggesting we need to know them better since they might share values and ambitions with secular, liberal Israelis” . Democratic governments in the Arab world will, by definition, less reliable from the Israeli-Zionist point of view – they may, one hopes, be less corrupt and less pliable to pressure from Israel and its western allies, less willing to serve its interests, and less willing to subdue the Palestinians on Israel’s behalf, as was done so dependently by Mubarak for long decades.
So, one result of the Arab Spring, a seemingly unintended consequence of this complex process of socio-political change, is the fact that unless Israel changes its priorities and behaviour radically, it will find its current modus opearndi impossible to continue with, even with the level of support it currently enjoys from the USA, EU, and western allies elsewhere. It is no longer a question of presentation – Israel would indeed be unable use the old slogan of the ‘only democracy in the Middle East’, (which was a lie even in the past) but will also have to start behaving more democratically, or it will stand out from its neighbours in a most unwelcome manner. Its brutal and racist nature were indeed increasingly noted over the decades of the occupation post 1967, but were always ameliorated by the undemocratic nature of the region in which it was situated; this may no longer be a likely outcome – the comparison will be made with democratic states, rather than with tyrannies whose citizens are devoid of human and political rights. If Israel chooses, as seems most likely, to continue its illegal occupation and oppression of the Palestinian people, it is more likely to meet with international censure of its policies and actions, probably leading to a global campaign, resembling that of the Anti-Apartheid movement, with boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) being increasingly enacted against it, and forcing it to abandon those policies in the long run, under global pressure.
This putative result of the current conflagration is not only probable because of Israeli action or inaction, but will be mainly forced as a result of the likely changes in power balance over the next few decades. With the decline of western, American and European power and the rising of the BRIC countries – Brazil, Russia India and China, one is also likely to see a marked rise in the political fortunes of Middle Eastern countries, which under future democratic leadership will find their just place in the pecking order. Egypt under Mubarak was a pawn of the west; Egypt under a democratic government will climb up from its insignificance and servility, to mention just one example. Such likely changes will also bring about changes in the way western powers relate to the Arab world, and are also likely to bring about long-overdue changes to the UN and its Security Council, where the out-of-date, undemocratic veto of the old imperial powers still pertains. A world where the US cannot easily and automatically veto any resolution relating to Israel, will be a very different proposition, and hence Israel’s continued angst about the changes in the region and the world are to be understood in the context of the long-term trends, not just the short-term power changes in individual countries. In the long run, the Israeli mission of ridding Palestine of its indigenous population cannot prevail, when we take into account the direction of change.
Now, it would be interesting to examine the likelihood and potential for change in Israel, as the trends of global change must also be evident to Israeli politicians. Could Israel, voluntarily and willingly, offer a major change in its priorities, when faced with the new realities? This question was broached recently by Gideon Levy, writing on the day after Mubarak fell:” The news from Egypt is good news, not only for that country and the Arab world, but for the entire world, including Israel. Now is the time to be happy for the Egyptian people, to hope that this amazing revolution will not go wrong. Let us lay aside all our fears – of anarchy, of the Muslim Brotherhood or a military regime – and let this great gamble have its say. Let us not wallow in the dangers; now is the time to bask in the light that shines from the Nile, after 18 days of popular, democratic struggle.” One is left genuinely wondering if Levy has indeed believed in the possibility of such adulation as his own, being shared across society in Israel, or has written the piece ironically, knowing well the impossibility of such a change of heart. The almost palpable feeling of relief which was evident across the globe with Mubarak’s departure, was evident by its total absence in Israel – a sentiment that Israel must have shared only with the rulers of Saudi Arabia and Yemen… Indeed what was evident is the opposite – a feeling of despair for the deposed tyrant.
This striking difference between the sentiments in Israel and the rest of the world can only be explained by the many decades of instrumental colonialism, where colonial reality forms consciousness, and where being dictates thought. One is what one does, after all, and it is impossible to continue to uphold liberal and progressive values if one is daily involved with brutalities and injustice. Many Israeli intellectuals try to fool themselves (and the rest of us), cliaming that even after four and half decades of iniquitous occupation, they are still holding up human rights and liberal values. This is plainly untenable, and the total lack of fraternity towards the Tahrir Square victory over tyranny, is the clearest evidence of such emotional and intellectual salto mortale by Israeli ‘liberals’ being sheer nonsense. By its very nature, Israeli society has excepted itself from the great mass of humanity which has expressed its elation with the fall of a brutal regime in Egypt, achieved by unarmed massed with the slogan ‘Salmieh’ (‘peaceably’ or ‘peacefully’) being the most common one. It seems certain that, like the South African Apartheid state before it, Israel will only relent under the most intense political, financial and cultural pressure from the world community. That pressure is now developing swiftly, and is now more likely than ever to lead to the collapse of the apartheid state in the Middle East.
1. Benn, A “Israel is blind to the Arab revolution”, in Haaretz, March 24th, 2011, p. 31, and on http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/mar/23/israel-blind-to-arab-revolution?INTCMP=SRCH, accessed on March 25th, 2011.
2. ibid
3. Levy, G “Israel Must Congratulate Egypt”, Haaretz, February 13th, 2011, and also on http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/opinion/israel-must-congratulate-egypt-1.343039, accessed on March 25th, 2011
Palestinians: Netanyahu speech to U.S. Congress is obstacle to peace: Haaretz
Spokesman for Palestinian President Abbas said that the things stated in Prime minister Netanyahu’s speech ‘will not lead to peace.’
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s vision for ending conflict with Palestinians put “more obstacles” in front of the Middle East peace process, the spokesman for the Palestinian president said.
“What came in Netanyahu’s speech will not lead to peace,” Nabil Abu Rdainah, the spokesman for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, told Reuters following Netanyahu’s address to the U.S. Congress on Wednesday.
The prime minister addressed the U.S. Congress on Tuesday, where he called on the Palestinians to destroy the recent reconciliation deal they made with Hamas.
“I say to Abbas, tear up your pact with Hamas, make peace with a Jewish State,” Netanyahu said.
The prime minister spent a significant part of his speech speaking about the conflict with the Palestinians, claiming that it was not about the creation of a Palestinian state but about “the existence of the Jewish state.”
“If the benefits of peace with the Palestinians are so clear why has peace eluded us?” Netanyahu asked. “Because so far the Palestinians have been unwilling to accept a Palestinian state if it meant accepting a Jewish state beside it.”
Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat slammed the prime minister’s speech, saying it was “full of lies” and “distorted history and geography.”
MK Ahmed Tibi said that Netanyahu “misled” the Congress members by describing Israel as a place where Arabs are equal citizens.
“There is not one are where there is equality between Jews and Arabs,” Tibi said.
Palestinians have said that they will meet in Ramallah on Wednesday to determine what their next step will be, following Netanyahu’s visit to Washington.
Throw a shoe at Obama’s betrayal: The Electronic Intifada
Ilan Pappe, 23 May 2011
At 4:17pm GMT on Sunday, I threw a shoe at my television screen, aimed at US President Barack Obama, precisely at the moment he began to explain that the reference in his Thursday speech at the State Department to the 1967 borders was in accordance with the Israeli interpretation of these borders.
Not that I was thrilled with that speech either but it was at least as meaningless as his previous speeches on the topic. But at 4:17 he said there will be “no return to the borders of June 4, 1967” and the thousands who attended the AIPAC convention cheered wildly. Annexation of Israeli settlement blocs built illegally in the occupied West Bank and the creation of a small Palestinian bantustan in the spaces in between was the essence of Obama’s real vision for peace.
It was a soft shoe and all it did was to bounce off the screen. Being such a harmless weapon it was also directed at my Palestinian friends who since Friday explained, publicly, how unusual and important was Obama’s speech at the State Department.
It is tough enough to know that in the White House sits someone who betrayed not only the Palestinians, but all the oppressed people in the world and in the US he promised to engage and represent.
But I have turned on my TV set and moved to Puerta del Sol in Madrid — there where thousands of young people were reformulating the powerful message that came from Tahrir Square in Cairo and which was also heard on the borders of Palestine on Nakba Day and in London’s Trafalgar Square during recent student demonstrations.
It was a call of defiance against such political discourse and its poisonous effects. Yes, they say in Madrid as they did on Palestine’s borders, our lives are ruled and affected by smug, cynical and indifferent Western politicians who hold immense power to maintain the unjust world for years to come, but we have had enough of this and will resist it.
Wherever one is affected by this political and economic Western elite, one faces two options. Either to accept fatalistically that the only thing one can do is retire to small, personal gardens of Eden and try to ignore them as much as one can and sustain oneself without them, within the limits of what is possible. Or if one does not possess this inclination or luxury, one can instead join all those who are unwilling to succumb and are telling this elite that its world and agenda is not theirs.
In some places the authorities shoot at massive demonstrations carrying such a message; in others they just ignore them. These are early days to judge the failure or success of such endeavours but it is clear that so far the protest is expanding. It defies the hegemonic political dictates of governments and it displays growing impatience with, and resentment toward, the manipulative corporate games and macro-economic ploys.
The people of the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip were a victim of such politics and economics under the guise of the so-called peace process. However, recently, in Palestine, the local politicians have at last heeded the popular demand for unity and assertiveness after years of ignoring it.
As a result, the support for the people’s effort in commencing a new phase in the popular resistance against the Israeli occupation is galvanizing the global Palestine solidarity movement with the similar energy generated before by the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement.
The regaining of the initiative by the common people in the Arab world and Europe should help us to avoid sinking too deeply into paralysis and inaction in the face of such cynicism. So much can still be done, in total disregard of the hegemonic discourse and inaction of western political elites on Palestine. So much has already been done in the continued resistance against the Israeli destruction of the land and its people.
One can continue to boycott Israeli goods and cultural representatives in France, even if there is a new law against it. If Palestinians in Israel can defy Israeli laws against Nakba commemoration, insidious European laws and regulations should be ignored as well. One can curb any academic institutional connection between British universities and Israel despite the embarrassed Foreign Office’s and official academia’s position on it. And finally, one can continue to spread through the alternative media the truthful and expanded picture despite the shameful way in which “liberal” American and European media is portraying the reality on the ground.
The world after Obama’s two speeches is a bizarre place. The gap between Obama, Berlusconi, Netanyahu, Cameron, Merkel and their ilk has disappeared. For a while there was a danger that one could count some Palestinian leaders within this undignified group of western leaders. But hopefully this danger has waned.
Very much as in the case of Israel, so it is in the case of the western political systems, the option of change from within the political systems is doubtful and vesting too much energy in it may be useless. But everything which is not there — churches, mosques, progressive synagogues, ashrams with a worldview, community centers, social networks and the world of nongovernmental organizations — indicate the existence of an alternative.
A relentless struggle against the ethnic cleansing of Palestine will continue outside the realm of the western corridors of power. What we learned from Egypt and Tunisia, even if we are not sure what would be the endgame there, is that struggles outside corridors of power do not wait for leaders, well-oiled organizations and people who speak in other people’s names.
If you are part of that struggle be counted today and do what you can regardless of the unfortunate Obamafication of our world.
Ilan Pappe is Professor of History and Director of the European Centre for Palestine Studies at the University of Exeter. His most recent book is Out of the Frame: The Struggle for Academic Freedom in Israel(Pluto Press, 2010).
Israel PM takes ‘firm stand’ on peace talks: Al Jazeera English
Binyamin Netanyahu tells US congress that Israel will compromise for peace but will not return to 1967 borders.
Netanyahu had vowed to speak the ‘unvarnished truth’ in his speech to Congress [Reuters]
Binyamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, has addressed the US congress, stressing the close ties between his country and the US and outlining his expectations for Middle East peace.
In his speech on Tuesday, the Israeli leader stressed his country’s position as a democratic “friend of America” in the region, but largely ruled out movement on the issues that are important to Palestinians.
“Israel is not what is wrong with the Middle East,” Netanyahu told US lawmakers. “Israel is what is right about the Middle East.”
He characterised the problems with the peace process in the Middle East as a Palestinian refusal to accept Israel.
“The Palestinians have been unwilling to accept the Palestinian state if it meant accepting a Jewish state alongside it,” Netanyahu said.
His speech had been keenly anticipated because in an earlier address to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) he had vowed to use it to speak “the unvarnished truth” about what was necessary for peace between Israel and the Palestinians.
Netanyahu and the US Israeli lobby have been rattled by the explicit support by Barack Obama, the US president, for a Palestinian state alongside Israel on the basis of Israel’s pre-1967 war frontiers.
‘Painful concessions’
Netanyahu told congress that Israel was ready to make “painful concessions” and would be “very generous” about the size of a future Palestinian state, but that future borders were to be agreed in negotiations.
He also said the issue of Palestinian refugees must be resolved outside the borders of Israel and that “Jerusalem must remain the united capital of Israel”.
Palestinians want East Jerusalem as the capital of their future state.
In an earlier speech to AIPAC, Netanyahu ruled out a return to the 1967 borders [Al Jazeera]
Saeb Erekat, a member of the Palestine Liberation Organization’s executive committee, told Al Jazeera that Netanyahu’s speech indicated how unwilling the Israeli leader was to make peace.
“We’ve not heard any new words in Netanyahu’s speech in front of Congress tonight. He’s chosen to dictate, not negotiation,” he said.
“He can make peace with Congress, but at the end of the day in terms of everything he said tonight he has proven that we don’t have a partner for peace in Israel.”
In his speech, Netanyahu also called on Fatah, Abbas’s party, to tear up its accord with Hamas, calling the group, which controls the Gaza Strip, the Palestinian version of al-Qaeda.
Erekat criticised Netanyahu’s demand that Fatah abandon reconciliation attempts, saying that reconciliation was a priority for Palestinians.
“Reconciliation with Hamas is our number one priority and those who want a two-state solution, who want peace, must know the way to that must go through reconciliation,” he told Al Jazeera.
Nisreen El-Shamayleh, Al Jazeera’s correspondent in the West Bank city of Ramallah, said that Netanyahu’s demands would be seen by Palestinians as asking far too much.
“Netanyahu says he wants to negotiate, but as far as Palestinian officials are concerned there isn’t much to negotiate about,” she said.
“He doesn’t want to withdraw to 1967 borders, he wants to retain major settlements, he wants to keep Jerusalem as the undivided capital of Israel and he wants the Palestinians to declare that they relinquish the right of return … and recognise Israel as a Jewish state.”
Also in his speech Netanyahu took the opportunity to reiterate Israeli fears that Iran might develop a nuclear weapon and said that Iran’s leaders “should be banned from every respectable forum on the planet”.
Israel enjoys strong bipartisan backing in congress and the Israeli leader was given several standing ovations, although a heckler did interrupt Netanyahu on one occasion.
He countered by saying such a protest was an indication of “real democracy”.
Israel PM defiant over Obama border proposals: BBC
Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu has rejected US President Barack Obama’s call for peace with the Palestinians based on pre-1967 borders.
After tense talks at the White House, a defiant Mr Netanyahu said Israel was prepared to compromise but there could be no peace “based on illusions”.
Mr Obama, who formally adopted the principle on Thursday, admitted there were “differences” between the views.
But he said such differences were possible “between friends”.
In his speech to the state department on Thursday, Mr Obama stated overtly for the first time that the peace talks should be based on a future Palestinian state within the borders in place before the 1967 Middle East War.
“The borders of Israel and Palestine should be based on the 1967 lines with mutually agreed swaps, so that secure and recognised borders are established for both states,” he said.
This proposal has been a key demand of the Palestinians in the negotiations.
But speaking in the Oval Office after their meeting, Mr Netanyahu flatly rejected this proposal, saying Israel wanted “a peace that will be genuine”.
“We both agree that a peace based on illusions will crash eventually on the rocks of Middle Eastern reality, and that the only peace that will endure is one that is based on reality, on unshakeable facts.”
‘Demographic changes’
Israel was “prepared to make generous compromises for peace”, he said, but could not go back to the 1967 borders “because these lines are indefensible”.
He said the old borders did not take into account the “demographic changes that have taken place over the last 44 years”.
An estimated 500,000 Israelis now live in settlements built in the Palestinian West Bank, which lies outside those borders.
The settlements are illegal under international law, although Israel disputes this.
Mr Obama said there were obviously “some differences” in the “precise formulations and language” used by Israel and the US, but that this “happens between friends”.
He did not bring up the matter of the borders in his joint conference with Mr Netanyahu.
But he said Palestinians faced “tough choices” following the recent reconciliation deal between Fatah, which runs the West Bank, and Hamas, which governs Gaza and still denies Israel’s right to exist.
Mr Obama said true peace could only occur if Israel was allowed to defend itself against threats.
The BBC’s Paul Adams in Washington says that while notion of a peace agreement based on 1967 lines is not news, Mr Obama has clearly angered Mr Netanyahu by formally adopting it.
Mr Netanyahu has come under increasing pressure as world figures and organisations, including American’s partners in the Middle East Peace Quartet, EU, UN and Russia – lined up to back Mr Obama’s position.
Arab League chief, Amr Moussa, also called on President Obama to remain committed to the plan.
But in the absence of a viable peace process, it is unclear what will come of US-Israel talks, says our correspondent.
