EDITOR: Israel prepares violence again
As the Israeli leadership prepares to act violently, not for the first time, it also prepares the media campaign. As usual, Israel blames the Palestinians for the violence is is about to mete out to them. In order to get the focus away from the UN and ‘peace talks’ (sic) they will now find a reason to start large scale violence so as to derail this last limp attempt to restart the talks. You have been told, so do not be surprised… Ron Prosor’s speech in the UN is part of the ground preparation so as to be able to blame Palestine. How many times did this happen before? This cynicism is sickening.
Israel to UN Security Council: Support for Palestinian statehood will only lead to Mideast violence: Haaretz
Speaking before the UNSC, Israeli envoy Ron Prosor calls PA bid for recognition ‘march of folly,’ adding that peace must be achieved through direct negotiations.
Support for the Palestinian bid for statehood in the United Nations spells instability and violence for the Middle East, Israel’s UN envoy said in an address before the UN Security Council, adding that the only path to peace between Israel and the Palestinians is through direct negotiations.
Calling the move a “unilateral initiative,” Israeli ambassador Ron Prosor said the initiative would only raise unrealistic expectations that would eventually lead to “instability and potentially, violence.”
“Members of the international community should be clear about their responsibilities: You vote for it, you own it. All those who vote for unilateral recognition will be responsible for its consequences,” Prosor added.
The Israeli envoy also rejected the notion that Israel’s settlement activities were the main obstacle to Mideast peace, saying that “our conflict was raging for nearly a half century before a single settlement sprung up in the West Bank.”
“From 1948 until 1967, the West Bank was part of Jordan, and Gaza was part of Egypt. The Arab World did not lift a finger to create a Palestinian state. And it sought Israel’s annihilation when not a single settlement stood anywhere in the West Bank or Gaza,” he added, saying that “issue of settlements will be worked out over the course of negotiations, but the primary obstacle to peace is not settlements.”
Instead, Prosor suggested the main obstacle for Mideast peace was the “Arab world’s refusal to acknowledge the Jewish People’s ancient connection to the Land of Israel — and the Palestinian’s insistence on the so-called right of return.”
“Today the Palestinian leadership is calling for an independent Palestinian state, but insists that its people return to the Jewish state,” Prosor said, adding that such a “proposition that no one who believes in the right of Israel to exist could accept because the only equation in political science with mathematical certainty is that the so-called right of return equals the destruction of the State of Israel.”
“The idea that Israel will be flooded with millions of Palestinians is a non-starter. The international community knows it. The Palestinian leadership knows it. But the Palestinian people aren’t hearing it. This gap between perception and reality is the major obstacle to peace. The so-called right of return is the major hurdle to achieving peace,” he added.
Consequently, the Israeli UN envoy urged the international community to reject the Palestinian bid for statehood, saying that the only true path to peace had to be direct negotiations, instead of an imposed solution.
“Israel’s peace with Egypt was negotiated, not imposed. Our peace with Jordan was negotiated, not imposed. Israeli-Palestinian peace must be negotiated. It cannot be imposed,” he said, adding that the “Palestinian’s unilateral action at the United Nations is no path to real statehood. It is a march of folly.”
Abdullah’s comments came just as Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman severely criticized Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, calling him the “greatest obstacle” to Mideast peace.
“If there is one obstacle that should be removed immediately, it is [Abbas],” he said. “If he were to return the keys and resign, it would not be a threat, but a blessing.”
Israeli officer loses command, a month after death of protester: Guardian
Action against officer in charge of army unit that killed Palestinian in Qusra was taken due to ‘a number of incidents’
Harriet Sherwood in Jerusalem
The commander of an Israeli army unit whose soldiers shot dead a Palestinian protester just hours before president Mahmoud Abbas called on the United Nations to recognise a Palestinian state has been relieved of his post.
The lieutenant in the Haruv battalion, who has not been named, had a history of disciplinary transgressions. The death of 34-year-old Essam Oudah in the West Bank village of Qusra was not thought to be the main factor in the action against him. “The officer was dismissed from his command due to a number of operational and disciplinary incidents,” an Israel Defence Forces (IDF) statement said.
Oudeh was killed after Palestinian men rallied to protect the village from a feared incursion by nearby settlers. The village had formed a defence committee following the vandalising of one of Qusra’s mosques by settlers last month – an attack condemned by the US and European Union.
On 23 September, the day Abbas submitted the Palestinians’ formal request to be admitted as a full state to the UN, warnings were broadcast from Qusra mosques that settlers were approaching.
Hundreds of men and youths streamed to the edge of the village. The Guardian, which was present for the standoff between villagers and settlers, saw no stone throwing or physical confrontation from either side before the Israeli army began firing teargas at the Palestinians.
Later that day, an IDF statement said a “mutual rock hurling incident … incited a violent riot, during which Palestinians hurled rocks at security personnel”. The army opened fire with live bullets, injuring three Palestinians, including Oudeh who subsequently died. The army launched an investigation.
According to a report on the Israeli Ynet news website, the army inquiry concluded the incident was an “operational failure” and that the commander had made an error of judgment in ordering troops to open fire. The officer told investigators his team felt threatened and outnumbered, according to Ynet. The IDF declined to comment beyond a brief statement. The commander is to remain in the IDF, but not in a combat role.
An Israeli settler and his infant son were killed on the same day after Palestinians threw rocks at their car near Hebron, causing it to overturn.
EDITOR: The Fascist speaks out…
Lieberman is an angry man, for many reasons. He was against the deal with Hamas, and would like to start the second Nakba now, as well as nuke Iran, and maybe few other countries. He is a busy man. He has time for bombing everyone, expelling everyone. If he ever gets to the top job in Israel, you will have to go into your nuclear bunker…
Lieberman urges Abbas to resign, calls him ‘greatest obstacle’ to peace process: Haaretz
FM voices vehement opposition to proposal to free Fatah prisoners as gesture to Palestinian President, adding that anyone who succeeds Abbas would be better for Israel.
Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman on Monday called Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas the “greatest obstacle” to regional order, telling reporters in Jerusalem it would be a “blessing” if the Palestinian leader were to resign.
“If there is one obstacle that should be removed immediately, it is [Abbas],” he said. “If he were to return the keys and resign, it would not be a threat, but a blessing.”
“The only thing that interests Abbas is to inscribe himself in the history books as he who brought about the Palestinian state and the reconciliation with Hamas,” Lieberman added. “Anyone who succeeds him would be better for Israel. If Abu Mazen goes, there would be a chance to reignite the peace process.”
Referring to the report in Haaretz earlier Monday regarding the defense establishment’s recommendation that Israel release Fatah prisoners as a gesture to Abbas, Lieberman said he had never heard of such a proposal and would oppose the move vehemently.
“I don’t know of any such recommendation, and I completely oppose every gesture,” he said. “I would not agree in any way if recommendations such as these were brought to cabinet.”
Lieberman added that there are plenty of Palestinians with whom Israel can hold dialogue, besides Abbas. “There is no lack of Palestinians who studied in the West,” he said, ” educated people with Western values with whom we can talk.”
Haaretz reported earlier Monday that the Israel Defense Forces’ General Staff believes Israel should make a series of gestures to the Palestinian Authority to reduce the damage caused to the PA by last week’s deal for the return of Gilad Shalit.
But Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s advisers vehemently oppose the idea, as do several members of his forum of eight senior ministers, arguing that Abbas “should be punished” for his unilateral bid for UN recognition of a Palestinian state.
“We don’t want the Palestinian Authority to collapse,” one adviser said, “but if it happens, it won’t be the end of the world.”
Next month, the IDF will give the government a list of the gestures it recommends, including releasing additional Palestinian prisoners and perhaps transferring additional parts of the West Bank to Palestinian security control. The army considers it necessary to help Abbas regain the upper hand in his ongoing battle with Hamas for control of the territories.
Israel’s intelligence agencies all concur that the Shalit deal, in which Hamas obtained the release of 1,027 Palestinian prisoners in exchange for one kidnapped soldier, bolstered the Islamic organization at the PA’s expense.
One senior Israeli official told Haaretz that Abbas thinks the deal was deliberately intended to strengthen Hamas and weaken him, in order to punish him for his UN bid.
One of the IDF’s proposals relates to the second stage of the Shalit deal, in which Israel will free another 550 prisoners of its own choosing. While the list has not yet been drawn up, it seems that most will be low-level terrorists belonging to Abbas’ Fatah party, and the army deems the Fatah affiliation critical.
The army also proposes that Israel release additional prisoners beyond these 550 as a gesture to Abbas in honor of Id al-Adha, the Muslim holiday that falls in another two weeks.
Another proposal is to transfer part of what is known as Area B – areas of the West Bank that, according to the Oslo Accords, are under Palestinian civilian control but Israeli security control – to Area A, which is under full Palestinian control. Most of the territory the army favors transferring is in the northern West Bank, between Jenin, Nablus and Tul Karm, as this area has few Israeli settlements.
A fourth idea is returning the bodies of slain terrorists to the PA. That was supposed to have happened a few months ago, but was canceled at the last minute on orders from Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak.
Senior PA officials have said in recent days that the principal gesture they want from Israel is the release of Fatah terrorists who have been imprisoned since before the 1993 Oslo Accords. They also said they have had several discussions with Israel recently about transferring additional territory to Area A, but all have gone nowhere.
In the past, Barak has voiced support for far-reaching gestures toward Abbas. But Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman has consistently opposed the idea and Netanyahu is unenthusiastic. Thus, when the army proposed gestures to the PA in the run-up to last month’s UN bid, with the goal of calming the atmosphere and preventing an explosion, the government rejected the proposal.
With the Shalit deal concluded, the IDF is hoping the government will be more amenable. But given Jerusalem’s anger at Abbas’ statehood bid, that seems doubtful.
The issue is further complicated by uncertainty over Abbas’ intentions – a question on which both government officials and intelligence professionals are split. Some believe that Abbas has no interest in resuming negotiations with Israel, preferring to pursue his case at the UN and among the international community in the hope of forcing concessions on Israel. Members of this camp see no point in making any gestures to him.
The IDF, in contrast, thinks Israel must make substantial gestures to bolster Abbas. Minor steps – like dismantling unmanned roadblocks or releasing Palestinian prisoners convicted of crimes other than terrorism – won’t suffice, it argues.
The senior Israeli official said the army’s concerns were on full display at a briefing for Barak last week given by Maj. Gen. Eitan Dangot, the coordinator of government activities in the territories. Dangot, he said, expressed great concern over the messages he has been getting from senior PA officials recently – namely, that Abbas is depressed and threatening to resign in light of the impasse in negotiations, the boost the Shalit deal gave Hamas and the fear that his UN bid will fail even without an American veto, given his difficulties in recruiting the necessary nine votes in the Security Council.
Over the last two weeks, the Israeli official said, several of Abbas’ advisers, including his chief negotiator, Saeb Erekat, have urged him to disband the PA and hand responsibility for the territories back to Israel. This has strengthened the army’s view that gestures to bolster Abbas are needed.
Netanyahu’s advisers, however, don’t take Abbas’ resignation threats seriously, noting that such threats tend to recur frequently. “There’s nothing new in this,” said one. “He threatens all the time.”
John Bunzl: Reading Bibi: Israeli Occupation Archive
24 OCTOBER 2011
By John Bunzl
The following examines major themes of Benjamin Netanyahu’s UN speech (September 23, 2011). I consider this matter important as the speech includes assumptions and perceptions which in themselves constitute serious obstacles for rational conflict-analysis, not to speak of solutions. Even in the West almost irrespective of political positions our understanding of the conflict is deeply affected by some internalised notions we often are not really aware of.
(The text of the speech is taken from: Jerusalem Post, September 25, 2011)
Settlements
The speech includes a strange statement: “The settlements are a result of the conflict”. The blurring of cause and effect is a constant feature of dominant Israeli rhetoric, not only Netanyahu’s. And when he says, correctly, that the conflict began before a single settlement was established in the West Bank, he implicitly refers to the fact that, all along, the conflict’ core was the clash between a settler movement (Zionism) and the original inhabitants. The founding father of Netanyahu’s own movement Binjamin Zeev Jabotinsky understood already in 1923 (!): ”It is utterly impossible to obtain the voluntary consent of the Palestine Arabs for converting ‘Palestine’ from an Arab country into a country with a Jewish majority … there is no solitary evidence of any colonization being carried on with the consent of the native population.”
Recognition
Frequently “Bibi” refers to the lacking Palestinian recognition of Zionist Israel as the “core” of the problem: “The refusal of the Palestinians to recognize a Jewish state in any border”, ” “Palestinians should first make peace with Israel and then get their state”, “Recognize the Jewish state and make peace with us”. The underlying assumption here: Palestinian behavior is responsible for the conflict and therefore could be overcome by a change of that behavior. But Zionist-Israeli aims and goals were always independent of the needs, wishes or aspirations of the Palestinian Arabs. Of course they constituted part of the circumstances that had to be taken into consideration and dealt with.
The demand for recognition is a recent phenomenon and resulted from diplomatic tactics. It is not surprising that an eventual Israeli counter-recognition of Palestinian rights was never spelled out in detail because such a recognition could put the essential historical gains of Zionism/Israel achieved by unilateral force into question. The relationship of forces was the crucial factor here. It is no coincidence that neither Palestinian recognition of Israel (from the 70′s readiness to limit territorial aspirations and prefer diplomacy over armed struggle, to the specific recognition in 1988, from the Oslo accords 1993 to the present day) nor the changes in PLO tactics or ideology (renounce violence, abrogate the “charter”, accepting UN Resolutions 242 and 338 et. al.) have resulted in relevant policy changes of the Israeli state.
The Palestinians tried (also because of their relative weakness) to fulfill these demands only to be confronted by new ones. At the UN Netanyahu asked to recognize Israel as “The Jewish State”, which also could be interpreted as a state with a Jewish majority. But in Israeli-Zionist parlance the meaning of the concept is clear. To quote Bibi himself (MFA, April 20,2009): “Recognition of Israel as the national state of the Jewish people is a matter of substance and principle … without which it will not be possible to advance the diplomatic process and reach a peace settlement”. According to the “Palestine Papers” the same demand was raised in off the record meetings. Tzipi Livni (Minister of FA) told Ahmad Qurei (Abu Ala, Palestinian negotiator): ”Israel is the state of the Jewish people … Israel was established to become a national home for Jews from all over the world” (Al Jazeera, Guardian starting January 24, 2011).
Such demands are raised in the imlipicit hope that they would be rejected by the Palestinians and thus the stalled “Peace Process” could be blamed on them. Even if Mahmoud Abbas himself would become a Zionist, sing the Hatikva (Israeli national anthem) or wear a kippa – this would not lead to granting of Palestinian national rights.
After his Bar-Ilan speech (2011) where Netanyahu mentioned the words “Palestinian State”, his father Benzion, told Israeli TV Channel 2 News about a private conversation with his son: ”He does not support it (Palestinian state, JB). He supports it under conditions that they (“the Arabs”, JB) will never accept”. (S. Masalha, Haaretz, Sept. 19, 2011)
Negotiations
Bibi Netanyahu advocates “Direct negotiations without preconditions”. At the same time he and his predecessors insist on several “no’s”: No return to the 1967 borders, no “partition” of Jerusalem, no right of return for Palestinian refugees. Although the PA/PLO have been (out of weakness) flexible on these issues, in endless direct negotiations (officially since 1991), they could not achieve any substantial move on the Israeli side. Nevertheless, Netanyahu advocates “only … direct negotiations” and claims: “so far the Palestinians have refused to negotiate”(!) Although these words were spoken on the occasion of the Palestinian bid for recognition of statehood at the UN, they represent a long-term strategy. Ever since the Mandatory period, negotiations were not rejected but also not seen as an instrument for the solution of the conflict between the two communities in Palestine. Priority rested with gaining time for the promotion of the Zionist project. Negotiations were therefore conducted either to improve conditions for this project or as a result of outside pressure. Nethertheless, failures were attributed to the intransigence of the other side. Netanyahu himself gives as an example the 2000 Camp David summit. He claims that a “generous offer” by then Prime Minister Ehud Barak (which he opposed) was totally rejected by Arafat who subsequently started the Second Intifada. Although this narrative was questioned by participants and refuted by scholars, it became a rationalisation for the refusal to continue negotiations “because we have no partner on the other side”.
Twisting History
Since the Palestinians have, according to official Israeli discourse, no legitimate political/national claims and since they are considered guilty of sabotaging peace efforts the question remains: Why do “they” behave that way, what are “their” motives?
The answer has a long history and many variations which amount to the contention that Palestinians were driven not by real grievances but rather by factors like ancient hatreds, culture, Islam, racism, fanaticism and – anti-Semitism. Ancient enmities against Jews are presented as the source Arab hostility. Netanyahu gives a shocking example by insinuating that the Palestinians wanted to make the country “judenrein” (a Nazi-terminology meaning “clean of Jews”). Palestinians (and Israelis) in fact talked since decades about a political separation between the two peoples. They don’t say Jews should not be allowed to live in Palestine (something Bibi calls “Apartheid”), they challenge their status as settlers , as instruments of another power to prevent independence and statehood in (actually 22% of Mandatory) Palestine. According to frequent statements of Palestinian officials, and even some settlers, Jews could live in Palestine as long as they take Palestinian citizenship and accept Palestinian sovereignty. Israeli discourse seems to be driven by something Freud called “projection”: your own experiences, intentions and actions being attributed to the Other. Continuing on his usage of the term “judenrein”, Bibi gives another meaning to this expression: “ethnic cleansing”. This is a strange insinuation coming from the head of a state that came about through massive ethnic cleansing (Nakba) which is in fact continuing (on a lower scale) until today; similar things could be said about the term “Apartheid” which is usually associated with the separation wall in the West Bank and the status of the settlements. Hardly an adherence to Netanyahu’s call in his speech: “Let’s listen to one another”!
Our Mythology
A basic justification of Zionism is the claim that Jews were exiled by the Romans (in 70 CE ) and are now “returning” to their ancient homeland. Historical research does not substantiate this narrative. There was no violent expulsion by the Romans, two thirds of the Jewish people lived outside Palestine at the time and Judaism spread mostly through conversions. The idea of “exile” as a fateful condition was originally not Jewish. It was rather a Christian interpretation of exile as punishment for the rejection of Jesus. Here is not the place to dwell on this important subject. But Netanyahu tries to give a personal confirmation of the Zionist story. He talks about an ancient seal from Biblical times where the inscription of the name Netanyahu was found. This is understood as historical proof for the ” exile and and return” narrative. To uphold the myth his family’s name Miliekovski had to be changed and re-invented.
John Bunzl heads the Middle East desk of the Austrian Institute for International Affairs and is professor for Political Science at the University of Vienna. He has worked and published on the Middle East since the late 1960s.
Zionist ‘negotiating strategy’ sham: cpgb Weekly Worker
What does Mahmoud Abbas expect to achieve at the UN? Moshe Machover analyses the Palestinian bid for statehood
On September 23, Mahmoud (Abu Mazen) Abbas, ‘president’ of the Palestinian ‘Authority’, appeared before the United Nations general assembly and, to the great acclaim of the majority of delegates, made a bid for the admission of the ‘state’ of Palestine as a member of that organisation.
I have put three words above in quote marks, for good reason. First, although Abu Mazen is often addressed politely as ‘president Abbas’, his official title is ‘chairman of the Palestinian National Authority’ (in Arabic there is some ambiguity, as the word ra’is can mean both ‘chairman’ and ‘president’). In any case, even his entitlement to this title is dubious: he was elected as chairman in January 2005 for a term of four years, which expired in January 2009; but he has remained super-glued to his seat.
Second, the so-called Palestinian Authority (PA), of which he is (or was) chairman, is devoid of any real authority. Its main role is to keep the Palestinian people under control on behalf of Israel, and to engage with the latter in desultory negotiations in an endless ‘peace process’ (of which more anon).
Third, the so-called state for which he was demanding UN membership is non-existent: much less than a state, it is not even a Bantustan, but more like a series of disconnected Indian reservations, and likely to remain so for the foreseeable future.
In response to Abbas, Israel’s prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, made a speech in his prime poisonous style, vehemently opposing Palestinian UN membership and inviting the PA instead to negotiate. This was seconded by US president Barack Obama, who, in an utterly one-sided speech, denounced the Palestinian bid as ‘one-sided’ and, as expected, promised to veto it in the security council. The invitation to negotiate was echoed by Catherine Ashton on behalf of the European Union.
In this article I propose to explain the background to this international charade and the motives of the various actors in it.
‘Peace process’
First, Israel. For the Israeli leadership, the ‘peace process’ – or, as many Israelis (who have trouble distinguishing between long and short vowels) pronounce it, piss process – is a perpetual ratchet mechanism for buying time, while colonisation of Palestinian lands is extended and expanded.
The Israeli negotiating strategy, successfully applied for the last 20 years, is very simple. At each stage of the process, Israel puts forward new conditions. If the Palestinian side rejects them, the negotiations are broken off, and world public opinion is invited to blame Palestinian intransigence for the deadlock. However, if the Palestinian side capitulates to the new demands, then Israel finds a pretext for stalling. A favourite ploy is to create provocations such as ‘targeted assassination’ of Palestinian militants. These are rarely reported by the international media, and never given any prominence, as they are considered routine moves in the ‘war against terror’. Eventually, some armed Palestinian group retaliates with a bloody bombing inside Israel or an ill-aimed rocket barrage. This is invariably given lurid coverage in the international media.[1] Thereupon Israel breaks off the talks, because obviously one cannot negotiate with such terrorists. Again, the Palestinians are blamed for the failure of the talks. Meantime, Israeli colonization continues to metastasise.
After a while, there is another international initiative for resuming the negotiations. In the new round of talks, the previous Palestinian concessions are taken as a starting point, and Israel’s conditions are ratcheted up. Right now the new Israeli ultimatum includes the following two demands. First, that the Palestinians subscribe to the Zionist doctrine that all Jews around the world are a nation, and Israel is the nation-state of this alleged nation (rather than a state of its own citizens, or even of the Israeli Hebrew nation). Second, that the PA drop its insistence that the eventual settlement be based on the pre-1967 de facto border of Israel (the so-called green line). These two demands taken together amount to open-ended legitimation of Zionist colonisation, past, present and future.
Israeli opposition
The dual aim of this strategy is to buy time for further Israeli colonisation, and prevent the creation of a sovereign Palestinian Arab state of any size, however mutilated. This policy is by no means new, and is common to all the major Zionist parties. Let me quote from a Matzpen discussion paper co-authored some time ago by comrade Emmanuel Farjoun and myself.
“The decisive majority of the Zionist leadership, both in the government and in the … opposition, is resolutely opposed, as a matter of fundamental principle, to the establishment of any kind of independent Palestinian state.
“First, the Zionist legitimation for the existence of the state of Israel as an exclusive Jewish state has always been entirely based not on the right to self-determination of the Jews who live in this country, but on the alleged ‘historical right’ of all Jews around the world over the whole of the ‘Land of Israel.’ From this viewpoint, recognition of the existence in Palestine of another people, the Palestinian Arab people, which has a legitimate claim in it would undermine Zionism’s legitimation and self-justification.
“Second, the Zionist leadership indeed takes into account the eventuality that within the framework of a settlement Israel may be obliged to withdraw also from parts of its conquests west of the Jordan river. But from a Zionist viewpoint any withdrawal from any part whatsoever of ‘the historical Land of Israel’, especially west of the Jordan, is – in principle – temporary and contingent on transient conditions. From this viewpoint, Israel must reserve the ability and right to reconquer these territories, if that becomes politically possible or militarily necessary. But in international politics there is a huge difference between conquering part of another state and conquering the whole of a ‘third state’ [ie, a Palestinian state between Israel and Jordan]. The world would be much more likely to accept, under certain conditions, an Israeli reconquest of part of Jordan (or of Greater Syria), than the total erasure of a sovereign Palestinian state. The establishment of such a state would therefore impose a severe constraint on Israel’s political and military strategy.
“Third, the Zionist leadership is worried that the establishment of an independent Palestinian state, however small, may be the starting point of a historical process whereby that state would expand step by step at Israel’s expense. The Zionists in fact know from their own experience all about a process of this kind: at first they agreed to the establishment of a small Jewish state within the borders recommended [in 1937] by the Peel Commission, and later within the borders of the [UN] partition plan of 1947, but they expanded the borders further and further, step by step.”
In this context, we quoted the words of a famous Israeli leader:
“Fundamentally, a Palestinian state is an antithesis of the state of Israel … The basic and naked truth is that there is no fundamental difference between the relation of the Arabs of Nablus to Nablus and that of the Arabs of Jaffa to Jaffa … And if today we set out on this road and say that the Palestinians are entitled to their own state because they are natives of the same country and have the same rights, then it will not end with the West Bank. The West Bank together with the Gaza Strip do not amount to a state … The establishment of such a Palestinian state would lay a cornerstone to something else … Either the state of Israel – or a Palestinian state.”
Our discussion paper was written in August 1976 (and published in Matzpen in February 1977), when the first Rabin government was in office. The leader we quoted was Moshe Dayan (as reported in Ha’aretz December 12 1975). Plus ça change …
Indeed, no Israeli government has signed any legally binding commitment to the creation of a Palestinian Arab state. In particular, the Oslo accords of August 1993, signed by the second Rabin government, contain no mention of a Palestinian state (they also contain no commitment on Israel’s part to halt its colonisation of Palestinian lands).
Abbas’s UN bid is not remotely likely to give the Palestinians in the foreseeable future a state in any substantive sense. At most, it will result in a symbolic act of international recognition of notional Palestinian statehood, of the Palestinians’ right to have a state. But even this symbolic international legal act is more than Israel is prepared to countenance. Hence Netanyahu’s vehement opposition.
US position
In our discussion paper, comrade Farjoun and I explained also the American position, which has not changed since then:
“The minimal demand, which even the most moderate current in the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) cannot give up (so long as it exists as an independent actor), is the establishment of a sovereign Palestinian state in the occupied territories, which would exist for an entire historical period alongside the Zionist state of Israel.
“The Americans for their own part could accept this demand in order to tranquilise the [Arab] national ferment. From a purely American viewpoint, as from that of the moderate current in the PLO, a compromise that includes the establishment of a sovereign Palestinian state under US protection would be acceptable. But in practice such a compromise is precluded by the resolute Zionist position and the special position of Israel in the American set-up in the region.”
The total, apparently slavish, US support for the Israeli position (illustrated for the hundredth time by Obama’s veto threat) is often explained by the great influence in Congress and the US media of the pro-Israel lobby (consisting of some important Jewish organisations and a much larger fundamentalist Christian network). But this ‘Israeli tail wags US dog’ explanation is at best only part of the truth, and it begs the question as to why that lobby is allowed to wield such influence. There is no sign that any major US capitalist interest group, including the dominant military-industrial and oil complex, which commands huge political and financial resources, makes a really serious effort to counteract or limit the effects of pro-Israel lobbying (billionaire George Soros is a rather isolated exception[2]).
In fact, Israel is the most reliable American ally – in effect, a junior partner – in the Middle East, and is even more indispensable now, given the downfall of some Arab protégés of the US, and the general instability in the region. So the Obama administration is torn between its reluctance to arouse anti-American rage among the masses of the Arab world and beyond, and its commitment to Israel, obliging it to block the PA’s UN membership bid by a veto in the security council. To save the US this embarrassment, its EU camp followers (led by Nicolas Sarkozy and Catherine Ashton) have devised alternative plans: to persuade the PA to withdraw its bid for full UN membership, and apply instead for non-member-state status (like that of the Vatican). This can be granted by a two-third majority in the general assembly, where the US has no veto. Failing that, if the PA insists on its full membership bid, the issue can be kicked into the long grass of endlessly prolonged deliberation among members of the security council.
Why Abbas went to UN
It is impossible to believe that the Ramallah-based PA has not cottoned on long ago to the Israeli negotiating strategy and realised that the ‘peace process’ is leading nowhere except to the expansion of Israeli colonisation and theft of Palestinian land and resources. No-one can be that stupid. The reason why Arafat, and later on Abbas, and their clique have persevered in collusion with this pretence is – apart from their pathetic pro-US commitment – the considerable privileges in status granted by Israel to its favourite collaborationists, and the material benefits derived from their control of various funds, including grants from the EU (in this, Tony Blair has played a significant role as pander).
But even collaborationism has its limits. The Abbas leadership has been so discredited among its own people that it was rapidly losing control. Here the Arab awakening has played a crucial role in raising the expectations of the Palestinian masses. No Arab leader whose mandate on power has long expired can feel secure. In desperation, Abbas played the UN gambit. In the short term, it has won him fairly wide, open support in the West Bank, and covert support in the Gaza Strip, where the rival Hamas leadership has suppressed any open pro-Abbas manifestations.
Hamas is by no means alone in its sceptical attitude to Abbas’s UN gambit. Palestinian opinion generally is deeply divided. While many Palestinians point out the advantages – symbolic, diplomatic and legal – of internationally recognised statehood, many others are worried about the disadvantages. They point out that the likely outcome would be freezing the Palestinians for the foreseeable future in possession of a symbol devoid of any reality, without actual control of any territory, borders and resources such as water; and unable to halt further Israeli colonisation. The Palestinian refugees outside the occupied territories would remain in limbo.[3]
Our response
Let me end with a few words about the position that, in my opinion, socialists should take towards the whole issue.
We should certainly be critical of the motives behind Mahmoud Abbas’s initiative, as well as of his utterly compromised and politically bankrupt Palestinian Authority. More generally, the so-called two-state ‘solution’, to which the PA is committed and on which the present UN membership bid is based, is a dead end as far as Palestinian liberation is concerned, and will not provide a resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.[4]
However, right now socialists, especially in Israel and in the west, should direct their main attack against the moves by Israel, the US and its camp followers to block Palestinian UN membership. Whatever we think of the PA and its UN bid, the hypocritical positions of Netanyahu, Obama, Sarkozy, Cameron and Ashton are a thousand times worse.
Notes
1. On the systematic pro-Israel bias in British TV reporting, see G Philo, M Berry More bad news from Israel London 2011. Israeli attacks are invariably described as ‘retaliation’. Palestinian revenge is invariably described as ‘starting a new cycle of violence’.
2. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Soros and his article, ‘On Israel, America and Aipac’ New York Review of Books April 12 2007.
3. For a position of profound scepticism by Palestinian nationalists (including Karma Nabulsi) towards the Abbas initiative, see http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/features/2011/09/20119881338104223.html. For a more robust Palestinian nationalist criticism, see G Karmi, ‘A token state of Palestine’ The Guardian September 24.
4. See my article, ‘Breaking the chains of Zionist oppression’, Weekly Worker February 19 2009.
IDF soldier suspected of leaking military actions to West Bank settlers: Haaretz
Arrest of member of the Samaria Brigade’s rabbinate comes as tensions between extremist settlers, military rises following the September demolition of illegal structures in the Migron outpost.
Military Police investigators arrested an Israeli soldier on Monday, following suspicions that he had leaked Israel Defense Forces operations in the West Bank to Jewish settlers.
The soldier, a married man and father of two children, served in the Samaria Brigade’s rabbinate and has yet to be informed of the specific charges against him.
Military Police officials have also indicated that the man had been a known propagator of the “The King’s Torah,” a book written by the head of Yitzhar’s Od Yosef Chai Yeshiva, which spells out the circumstances under which it is admissible to kill Gentiles who threaten Israel.
Tensions between the military and extremist settlers have been on the rise recently, following the demolition of three illegal homes in the West Bank outpost of Migron last month.
Following that incident, Israeli settlers vandalized an IDF post in the Samaria region in a so-called “price tag” attack.
IDF officials called the incident grave and unprecedented, as it marks the first time settlers had carried out a planned act of vandalism against army equipment.
The Yesha Council, which represents West Bank settlers, strongly condemned the act and called on the perpetrators to turn themselves in.
Israeli occupation, settlements are impeding Mideast peace, Erekat says: Haaretz
Top Palestinian official rejects comments by Quartet envoy Tony Blair, according to which the Arab Spring was complicating the peace process, saying that it is Israel’s policies that hinder talks’ resumption.
Israel is impeding efforts to achieve Middle East peace, Saeb Erekat, the former chief Palestinian negotiator said on Monday, rejecting comments by Quartet envoy Tony Blair, according to which the so called Arab Spring was destabilizing the region and harming the peace process.
On Sunday, Blair was quoted as saying that Arab pro-democracy could complicate peace efforts between Israel and the Palestinians, saying that it “is a great thing that people are wanting democracy, but in the short term there is reduced stability in the region so that can pose problems for Israel and the peace process.”
“Because of the instability and uncertainty in the region, it’s right that we grip the peace process and put it back on track again,” the Quartet envoy added.
Speaking to Palestinian radio on Monday, however, Erekat rejected Blair’s critisim, placing the blame for the lack of Mideast peace progress squarely on Israel’s shoulders.
“It is the Israeli occupation which is impeding peace and democracy,” Erekat was quoted by the Ma’an news agency as saying, adding that the Palestinian side remains committed to all international guidelines and terms of the Quartet’s roadmap for peace.
The top Palestinian official was quoted by Ma’an as saying that Israel’s publishing of new settlement plans and its disregard for peace process guidelines were the reasons Mideast peace has yet to be achieved.
Erekat’s comments came as Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman attacked Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ conduct, calling his the “greatest obstacle” to the peace process.
“If there is one obstacle that should be removed immediately, it is [Abbas],” he said. “If he were to return the keys and resign, it would not be a threat, but a blessing.”
“The only thing that interests Abbas is to inscribe himself in the history books as he who brought about the Palestinian state and the reconciliation with Hamas,” Lieberman added. “Anyone who succeeds him would be better for Israel. If Abu Mazen goes, there would be a chance to reignite the peace process.”
Referring to the report in Haaretz earlier Monday regarding the defense establishment’s recommendation that Israel release Fatah prisoners as a gesture to Abbas, Lieberman said he had never heard of such a proposal and would oppose the move vehemently.
“I don’t know of any such recommendation, and I completely oppose every gesture,” he said. “I would not agree in any way if recommendations such as these were brought to cabinet.”
Setting a price tag for Israeli supremacy: The Electronic Intifada
Jonathan Cook 14 October 2011
Inspecting the damage caused to a mosque following an arson attack by far-right Zionists. (Chaska Katz / ActiveStills )
Jewish far-right groups responsible for a series of arson attacks on West Bank mosques over the past year broke dangerous ground last week when they turned their attention for the first time to holy places inside Israel.
A mosque was torched, followed days later by an attack on Muslim and Christian graves. In each case the settlers left their calling card — the words “Price tag”, indicating an act of revenge — scrawled on their handiwork. None of the recent attacks against Palestinians has led to prosecutions.
Half-hearted investigations
The so-called “Jewish division” of the Shin Bet (Israeli secret police), which is charged with solving such crimes, is known to be more than half-hearted about pursuing investigations. Like many state institutions, including the army, its ranks are filled with settlers. Paradoxically, a recent report from the Shin Bet warned that Jewish terror networks were not only flourishing in the hothouses of the West Bank’s settlements but growing bolder because of this impunity.
The desecration last week of a mosque in the Bedouin village of Tuba Zangariya, in northern Israel, should not therefore have been a surprise. It was followed at the weekend by the despoiling of two cemeteries in Jaffa, next to Tel Aviv. The goal of the settler movement is to destroy any hope of a two-state solution, which is seen as limiting the Jewish people’s right to all of the land promised by God.
Egged on by an ever larger number of rabbis, the hardliners in this camp are too blinkered to understand that Israeli leaders, including prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, have already voided the peace process. It was no coincidence that the torching of Tuba’s mosque came in the wake of an application last month to the United Nations by Mahmoud Abbas to recognize Palestinian statehood. The Palestinian Authority president raised the stakes, and so too did the settlers — by this time including Israel’s Palestinian Arab minority, a fifth of the population, in their “price tag.”
Target carefully chosen
The Jewish extremists’ new strategy is apparently to stoke hatred and violence on both sides of the Green Line. As has been noted by Jafar Farah, the director of the Mossawa Center, an advocacy group for Palestinians in Israel, the intention is to drain any residual support among Israeli Jews for a Palestinian state by persuading them that they are in an apocalyptic struggle for survival. The target was carefully chosen in this regard.
Tuba is one of a few fervently “loyal” Arab communities in Israel. While many Bedouin were expelled during the 1948 war that created Israel, the tribes of Tuba and Zangariya had an area next to Jewish communities set aside as a reward for fighting alongside Israel’s armed forces. Deprived of jobs and facing the same discrimination suffered by the rest of the Arab minority, many young men still serve, like their grandfathers, in the Israeli army. After the mosque attack, a community leader boasted to an Israeli reporter, “We were among the founders of the state of Israel.”
But as news of the mosque’s desecration spread, enraged youth burned government buildings, fired their army-issue rifles into the air and clashed with police. The settlers’ dream of setting the Galilee ablaze briefly looked like it might be realized.
Last Saturday, following the attack on Jaffa’s graves, a Molotov cocktail was thrown at a nearby synagogue in reprisal, further inflaming tensions. Netanyahu was among those who denounced the mosque’s torching, but the logic of his approach to the peace process accords with that of the militant settlers. He and his far-right foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman, have created a climate in which the narrative of an epic Jewish battle for survival sounds plausible to many ordinary Israelis.
Like the settlers, Netanyahu opposes the emergence of a meaningful Palestinian state; he too implies that the world’s anger at Israel is fuelled by anti-Semitism; and he too wants to reopen the “1948 file” — a historical reckoning in which the Arab minority’s status as citizens would be reappraised. And like the settlers, Netanyahu approaches peace with an iron fist that demands at best Palestinian capitulation, and suggests at worst a future in which a second wave of ethnic cleansing might be necessary to “finish the job” of 1948.
Celebrations in the occupied West Bank and Gaza at Abbas’s UN move — a solitary act of defiance by the Palestinian leader — will quickly sour as it becomes clear that the US and Israel are in no mood to make concessions. The question is: what next?
No hope of statehood
Despite the best efforts of Netanyahu and the hard-line settlers to shape the answer, it may not be to their liking. With no hope of statehood, Palestinians will have to devise their own new strategy for coping with the reality of an apartheid system in which the Jewish settlers become their permanent neighbors.
Trapped in a single state ruled over by their occupiers, Palestinians are likely to draw on the experience of their cousins inside Israel. Israel’s Arab community has been struggling with marginalization and subordination within a Jewish state for decades. They have responded with a vocal campaign for equality that has antagonized the Jewish majority and resulted in a wave of anti-Arab legislation.
The two Palestinian communities, both confronting a harsher future under Israeli rule, have every incentive to develop a unified platform and struggle jointly — and more powerfully — against an overarching regime of Jewish privilege. Their response could be tit-for-tat violence — that is certainly what the settlers would prefer.
But a more effective and likely long-term strategy is a civil rights movement much like the ones that fought against Jim Crow laws in the US and against apartheid in South Africa. A simple rallying cry, voiced to a world exasperated by Israel’s self-destructive behavior, would be “one person, one vote.”
Netanyahu and the settlers hope to subdue Palestinians with the establishment of a Greater Israel. But as the conflagration of mosques suggests, they may ultimately achieve the opposite. By reminding Palestinians on either side of the Green Line of their common fate, Israel may yet unleash a force too powerful to control.
The price tag — this time demanded by Palestinians — will be high indeed for the Jewish supremacists.
Jonathan Cook won the 2011 Martha Gellhorn Special Prize for Journalism. His latest books are “Israel and the Clash of Civilisations: Iraq, Iran and the Plan to Remake the Middle East” (Pluto Press) and “Disappearing Palestine: Israel’s Experiments in Human Despair” (Zed Books). His website is www.jkcook.net. A version of this article first appeared in the National, Abu Dhabi.