Israel sinks the peace process

[mudplanet]

The overwhelming view in Israel seems to be that the creeping process of settlements and annexation will force — with draconian laws and effective apartheid — many Palestinians into leaving their country for neighbouring Arab states. And those left will have no choice but to live on Israeli terms, which will essentially ‘solve’ the Palestinian problem

The hopes raised by the Obama presidency for a resolution of the Palestinian question have been dashed. What started with his Cairo speech extending a hand to the Muslim world, and acknowledging the centrality of the Palestinian question, has now been relegated to the hard-to-tackle basket. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton openly acknowledged the US’s inability to initiate direct talks between the two sides after the Israeli refusal to freeze new construction activities in the West Bank and east Jerusalem. The only way open now will be indirect talks through US channels.
When Hillary Clinton said that the US was unable to bring about a settlement of the vexed question, she was in fact acknowledging that Israel and its US lobby has a veto on the issue. Since Israel is insistent on continuing its settlements construction activity in the West Bank and east Jerusalem, any continuation of the talks — direct or indirect — have no meaning. After all, what the Palestinians rightly want is their own sovereignty in the occupied territories, lost since the 1967 six-day war.

But Israel is so arrogant that it refused a generous US package for a three-month freeze on new construction activity. The package included $ 3 billion worth of military aid, including 20 F-35 fighter aircraft, and a commitment to veto anti-Israeli resolutions in the UN. Israel is so confident of having its way with the US that its government did not feel obliged or coerced into heeding the US request. This is a humiliating diplomatic setback for President Obama and his administration. The Israeli veto on the US policy concerning Palestine continues because the Jewish lobby in the United States exercises tremendous political influence.

On the role of the Jewish lobbies, Peter Beinart wrote in The New York Review of Books: “...in the United States, groups like American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and the Presidents’ Conference — Jewish organisations — patrol public discourse, scolding people who contradict their vision of Israel as a state in which all leaders cherish democracy and yearn for peace.” And what exactly is this vision, as articulated by Benjamin Netanyahu — now prime minister of Israel — in his 1993 book, A Place among the Nations? According to Beinhart again, based on Netanyahu’s book, “...he denies that there is such a thing as a Palestinian... And the effort ‘to gouge Judea and Samaria — the West Bank — out of Israel’ resembles Hitler’s bid to wrench the German-speaking ‘Sudeten district’ from Czechoslovakia in 1938.” Indeed, according to Netanyahu, Israel has already made big territorial concessions by abandoning its claim to Jordan.

Read the rest at: http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2010\12\24\story_24-12-2010_pg3_5