Robert Fisk: Why the Middle East will never be the same again - Fisk

A good paragraph to read, “But it had been the UN, which met to decide the fate of Palestine on 29 November 1947, which gave Israel its legitimacy, the Americans being the first to vote for its creation. Now – by a supreme irony of history – it is Israel which wishes to prevent the UN from giving Palestinian Arabs their legitimacy – and it is America which will be the first to veto such a legitimacy.”

Robert Fisk: Why the Middle East will never be the same again

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/fisk/robert-fisk-why-the-middle-east-will-never-be-the-same-again-2357514.html

The Palestinians won't achieve statehood, but they will consign the 'peace process' to history.

Tuesday, 20 September 2011

The Palestinians won't get a state this week. But they will prove – if they get enough votes in the General Assembly and if Mahmoud Abbas does not succumb to his characteristic grovelling in the face of US-Israeli power – that they are worthy of statehood. And they will establish for the Arabs what Israel likes to call – when it is enlarging its colonies on stolen land – "facts on the ground": never again can the United States and Israel snap their fingers and expect the Arabs to click their heels. The US has lost its purchase on the Middle East. It's over: the "peace process", the "road map", the "Oslo agreement"; the whole fandango is history.

Personally, I think "Palestine" is a fantasy state, impossible to create now that the Israelis have stolen so much of the Arabs' land for their colonial projects. Go take a look at the West Bank, if you don't believe me. Israel's massive Jewish colonies, its pernicious building restrictions on Palestinian homes of more than one storey and its closure even of sewage systems as punishment, the "cordons sanitaires" beside the Jordanian frontier, the Israeli-only settlers' roads have turned the map of the West Bank into the smashed windscreen of a crashed car. Sometimes, I suspect that the only thing that prevents the existence of "Greater Israel" is the obstinacy of those pesky Palestinians.

But we are now talking of much greater matters. This vote at the UN – General Assembly or Security Council, in one sense it hardly matters – is going to divide the West – Americans from Europeans and scores of other nations – and it is going to divide the Arabs from the Americans. It is going to crack open the divisions in the European Union; between eastern and western Europeans, between Germany and France (the former supporting Israel for all the usual historical reasons, the latter sickened by the suffering of the Palestinians) and, of course, between Israel and the EU.

A great anger has been created in the world by decades of Israeli power and military brutality and colonisation; millions of Europeans, while conscious of their own historical responsibility for the Jewish Holocaust and well aware of the violence of Muslim nations, are no longer cowed in their criticism for fear of being abused as anti-Semites. There is racism in the West – and always will be, I fear – against Muslims and Africans, as well as Jews. But what are the Israeli settlements on the West Bank, in which no Arab Muslim Palestinian can live, but an expression of racism?

Israel shares in this tragedy, of course. Its insane government has led its people on this road to perdition, adequately summed up by its sullen fear of democracy in Tunisia and Egypt – how typical that its principle ally in this nonsense should be the awful Saudi Arabia – and its cruel refusal to apologise for the killing of nine Turks in the Gaza flotilla last year and its equal refusal to apologise to Egypt for the killing of five of its policemen during a Palestinian incursion into Israel.

So goodbye to its only regional allies, Turkey and Egypt, in the space of scarcely 12 months. Israel's cabinet is composed both of intelligent, potentially balanced people such as Ehud Barak, and fools such as Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, the Ahmadinejad of Israeli politics. Sarcasm aside, Israelis deserve better than this.

The State of Israel may have been created unjustly – the Palestinian Diaspora is proof of this – but it was created legally. And its founders were perfectly capable of doing a deal with King Abdullah of Jordan after the 1948-49 war to divide Palestine between Jews and Arabs. But it had been the UN, which met to decide the fate of Palestine on 29 November 1947, which gave Israel its legitimacy, the Americans being the first to vote for its creation. Now – by a supreme irony of history – it is Israel which wishes to prevent the UN from giving Palestinian Arabs their legitimacy – and it is America which will be the first to veto such a legitimacy.

Does Israel have a right to exist? The question is a tired trap, regularly and stupidly trotted out by Israel's so-called supporters; to me, too, on regular though increasingly fewer occasions. States – not humans – give other states the right to exist. For individuals to do so, they have to see a map. For where exactly, geographically, is Israel? It is the only nation on earth which does not know and will not declare where its eastern frontier is. Is it the old UN armistice line, the 1967 border so beloved of Abbas and so hated by Netanyahu, or the Palestinian West Bank minus settlements, or the whole of the West Bank?

Show me a map of the United Kingdom which includes England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, and it has the right to exist. But show me a map of the UK which claims to include the 26 counties of independent Ireland in the UK and shows Dublin to be a British rather than an Irish city, and I will say no, this nation does not have the right to exist within these expanded frontiers. Which is why, in the case of Israel, almost every Western embassy, including the US and British embassies, are in Tel Aviv, not in Jerusalem.

In the new Middle East, amid the Arab Awakening and the revolt of free peoples for dignity and freedom, this UN vote – passed in the General Assembly, vetoed by America if it goes to the Security Council – constitutes a kind of hinge; not just a page turning, but the failure of empire. So locked into Israel has US foreign policy become, so fearful of Israel have almost all its Congressmen and Congresswomen become – to the extent of loving Israel more than America – that America will this week stand out not as the nation that produced Woodrow Wilson and his 14 principles of self-determination, not as the country which fought Nazism and Fascism and Japanese militarism, not as the beacon of freedom which, we are told, its Founding Fathers represented – but as a curmudgeonly, selfish, frightened state whose President, after promising a new affection for the Muslim world, is forced to support an occupying power against a people who only ask for statehood.

Should we say "poor old Obama", as I have done in the past? I don't think so. Big on rhetoric, vain, handing out false love in Istanbul and Cairo within months of his election, he will this week prove that his re-election is more important than the future of the Middle East, that his personal ambition to stay in power must take first place over the sufferings of an occupied people. In this context alone, it is bizarre that a man of such supposed high principle should show himself so cowardly. In the new Middle East, in which Arabs are claiming the very same rights and freedoms that Israel and America say they champion, this is a profound tragedy.

US failures to stand up to Israel and to insist on a fair peace in "Palestine", abetted by the hero of the Iraq war, Blair, are responsible. Arabs too, for allowing their dictators to last so long and thus to clog the sand with false frontiers and old dogmas and oil (and let's not believe that a "new" "Palestine" would be a paradise for its own people). Israel, too, when it should be welcoming the Palestinian demand for statehood at the UN with all its obligations of security and peace and recognition of other UN members. But no. The game is lost. America's political power in the Middle East will this week be neutered on behalf of Israel. Quite a sacrifice in the name of liberty...

Do the Palestinians deserve a state?

The writer in the following piece write, "Freedom and democracy will come to Palestine when someone can stand in the public square and proclaim, “I love Israel!” without being stoned to death." The question is can you reverse the question without being harassed? If it is good for one, it has got to be good for the other, else it will not sustain.

Mike Ghouse

In Plain Language: Do the Palestinians deserve a state?

09/15/2011 15:12 By STEWART WEISS

http://www.jpost.com/Magazine/Opinion/Article.aspx?id=238077

Photo by: Reuters

It may be the 11th hour and at this point it may seem like water under the bridge, but the question still needs to be asked: Do the Palestinians deserve a state of their own? Even if the world at large has made up its mind, even if the United Nations vote is a fait accompli, we Israelis – upon whom this decision will impact mightily – have a right to broach the subject and weigh in with our own opinion. We need not – perhaps we dare not – give that little shrug of the shoulder which our toddlers so often do, and remain silent and submissive.

In my estimation, there are three primary considerations before us:

Will this state be free and viable?

Pundits like to refer to the Palestinians as “the Jews of the Arab world,” but cute slogans aside, there isn’t a whole lot of similarity between us.

The Jewish people faced staggering challenges in the early years of building this country. Our ranks had been decimated by the Holocaust, we were surrounded by hostile neighbors, and oddsmakers gave us little if any chance of carving out a new republic in the arid sands of the Middle East.

Yet we refused to be deterred by the prophets of doom. We put our nose to the proverbial grindstone, worked our collective backsides off and slowly but surely made our little piece of the desert bloom. We worked the fields while guarding against Arab marauders, cleared the swamps and reclaimed the land by working 12-hour days in intolerable conditions. We welcomed millions of our brethren into our midst, willing to share what little we had with them. We were happy to have help from abroad, when it was offered, but we pretty much did it all by ourselves. In a land virtually devoid of natural resources – save the Dead Sea – we combined ingenuity, creativity and resolve to create a world-class economy and elevated quality of life.

In the process, we fashioned a vibrant and vocal – some would say too vocal – democracy, where squabbles were settled civilly and elections held peacefully. Freedoms were safeguarded and the rule of law enforced.

Can “Palestine” claim the same? Will this new nation stand on its own two feet and do what it takes to support itself? Having taken tens of billions of dollars over the years from well-meaning donors, can the Palestinians learn to be self-sufficient, or are they entrenched in a welfare state, where someone else is always expected to pay the bills? And will they use the massive amounts of money thrown at them wisely? In the course of the last six decades, they have built no new hospitals or medical centers, no great universities, no respectable housing projects to relocate their poor who suffer in squalid refugee camps. Instead, after all their hierarchies of henchmen stole their share, the bulk of what was left was used for weapons and training for war.

As for basic freedoms and human rights, there is no indication that “Palestine” will be any less of a repressive, sadistic police state than Iran. Hamas – the full and legal partner of the Palestinian Authority in this gambit – has already shown the world its disdain for democracy and all that it implies. Whether by executing supposed “collaborators” without trial or by banning free press, free assembly, free elections and free speech, Hamas has essentially restricted all basic human freedoms.

The PA, while presenting a somewhat more modern face, is hardly more tolerant or enlightened. “Honor killings” – the murder of women who express too much independence – go largely unpunished; the press is strictly controlled so that any negative comments vis-àvis the ruling powers are deemed “harmful to the state” and severely punished; and suicide bombers and terrorists are still glorified and exalted. PA President Mahmoud Abbas’s declaration that the new state will be Judenrein certainly does not inspire confidence.

Freedom and democracy will come to Palestine when someone can stand in the public square and proclaim, “I love Israel!” without being stoned to death.

Will the state respect its neighbors and international law?

While “Palestine” will have limited access to advanced weaponry – at least in the initial stages – what will its posture be toward its neighbors, specifically Israel and Jordan? Will it promote good relations and reliable security for all the countries around it, especially the bordering Jewish State? Or will it follow the example of its partner Hamas and use its newfound territory to create more terror bases to bomb those around them? Will it be willing – or able – to wage civil war against Hamas when that terrorist entity seeks to take over the West Bank, as it did Gaza? The signs so far are not encouraging. The Palestinians have worked overtime trying to defame and dismiss Israel at every opportunity, instituting anti-Israel boycotts around the world and blaming us for all their ills and woes. Even while our own president was appealing to international donors to support the fledgling Palestinian economy, our neighbors were fomenting the harassment of Israel on university campuses and pressuring other countries to limit or dissolve their ties with us.

As for respecting international and bilateral agreements, a prerequisite for joining the community of nations, the Palestinian track record is dismal. Just last week, the PA condemned the United Nations-backed Palmer Report, which affirmed Israel’s right to maintain the blockade of Gaza, calling it “illegal and immoral.”

Indeed, the very act of seeking statehood at the UN is a direct violation of the Oslo accords, which explicitly prohibit such unilateral actions.

If they blithely ignore these agreements, what will they do about future agreements with us?

Does this new state have a vision for the future?

Of course, the Palestinians seek to legitimize a homeland for their people, in much the same way Israel considers this land the natural home of the Jewish people. (Not to compare the two, of course; Israel is our ancestral home, the seat of our language, culture and history dating back 3000 years, while any longtime Palestinian connection to the land is an audacious fabrication of fact.) But beyond being a homeland, what aspirations do the Palestinians have for their state? We see this land not only as an integral part of our peoplehood, but also as a proving ground for promoting the vision of a just and moral society, spreading the truth and wisdom of God’s Torah and the words of our ancient prophets, ushering in a model society that is not only a home for its inhabitants, but a beacon to the nations. While we may often fall short of these noble ideals, at least we have a utopia to strive for.

What is the Palestinian utopia? What does it seek to add to the betterment of the planet? Does it aspire to promote peace and good will, create a better life for its citizens and lessen strife and suffering? Or does it see statehood as Step 1 in an ongoing land-grab, claiming more and more holy soil for Islam? If its reason for living includes our dying, then why should we contribute to our own execution? If the answer to the above questions forms the proverbial “Three Noes,” then we had better stand strong against the coming tsunami. The recent events in Egypt and Turkey should be a clear warning to every Israeli who loves this country about the danger of wishful thinking. We have more than enough threats from the countries that already surround us; why create yet another that is bent on our destruction?

The writer is director of the Jewish Outreach Center of Ra'anana; jocmtv@netvision.net.il

Netanyahu's stance jeopardizes Israel's security

May 26, 2011

Professor Alon Ben-Meir

http://www.alonben-meir.com/

 

The supposed controversy over President Obama's speech on the Middle East, manufactured by Prime Minster Netanyahu and enabled by the media, is disgraceful and insincere. President Obama said nothing new about borders, just the facts: no border will ever be acceptable to the Palestinians that does not carve out a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza, the two territories based on the "1967 lines," and no border will ever be acceptable to Israel that does not include the three major settlement blocs. Negotiating the 1967 lines with mutually agreed land swaps meets both demands, which is why it has been the foundation of border negotiations in every peacemaking effort including UN Resolutions 242 and 338, to which Israel is signatory. However, by misrepresenting the President's remarks, Netanyahu irresponsibly chose to pick a fight with the one man who can safeguard Israel from near total international isolation, while ignoring the very significant steps the president took in Israel's favor.

 

Days before President Obama's speech, Netanyahu spoke to the Knesset and identified Israel's core demands: maintaining the settlement blocs, a united Jerusalem, opposing Palestinian refugees' return to Israel, and receiving recognition as a Jewish state. President Obama has now backed them all-but Netanyahu is choosing not to listen. Netanyahu's reaction to Obama's speech, stating that the 1967 lines are "indefensible" simply ignored Obama's call for mutually agreed land swaps, which inherently means an adjusted 1967 border, as President Obama's explained in his remarks to AIPAC. The notion of "indefensible" borders also ignores pure common sense. The width between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River is a mere 44 miles-if an adjusted 1967 border is "indefensible," what is defensible? How many handfuls of acres or kilometers more are needed to maintain the balance of Israel's national security? The inconvenient truth is that expanding territory by a few more acres is not what will maintain Israel's national security. Israel's security can only be guaranteed by four elements: 1) a lasting peace agreement, 2) credible deterrence, 3) enforceable international guarantees and finally 4) a strong U.S.-Israel relationship that provides Israel with a security umbrella. This will safeguard Israel from international opprobrium by supporting its right to self-defense and working alongside it to address regional threats such as that from Iran.

 

Meanwhile, Netanyahu, along with much of the media, and the president's critics and challengers chose to ignore the significant steps Obama took to place the onus on the Palestinians. In fact, Obama's iteration of the 1967 border discussion was geared directly for this purpose. First, it provides the Palestinians - and the Europeans - with a new consideration ahead of the planned United Nations General Assembly vote in September. That President Obama gave an exclusive interview after the speech to the BBC - addressing a European audience - and soon after embarked on a five-day trip to Europe, only underscores his commitment to ensuring that "efforts to delegitimize Israel will end in failure," and that "actions to isolate Israel at the United Nations in September won't create an independent state." Second, the focus on borders was intended to remove the issue of a settlement freeze from continuing to serve as the primary obstacle to negotiations. It appears he has succeeded, with Palestinians now requesting Netanyahu's response to Obama's formulation on borders as a prerequisite to renewed negotiations, rather than a full freeze. Third, the president addressed Palestinian national aspirations in the context of the Arab Spring to maintain credibility for the United States in the region. But more importantly, he did so without wavering from the United States' commitment to Israel's security "as a Jewish state." In fact, his reiteration of "Israel as a Jewish state and the homeland for the Jewish people, and the state of Palestine as the homeland for the Palestinian people," were both endorsements of a two-state solution and a rejection of the Palestinian right of return to Israel. Fourth, not only did President Obama state that the Palestinians "walked away from talks," but with regard to the recent Fatah-Hamas unity government, he challenged the Palestinians to produce a "credible answer" to the question, "How can one negotiate with a party that has shown itself unwilling to recognize your right to exist?"

 

It is one thing to establish maximalist positions knowing that negotiations will ultimately moderate these stances to achieve one's actual goals. It is entirely another matter to articulate a position that is totally and completely unacceptable to the other side, as Netanyahu has done when he addressed a joint session of Congress, and that does not allow any opportunity for negotiation. After all, both parties know very well what the contours of any peace agreement will look like.

 

On borders, as Obama stated, a negotiated border will be based on the 1967 border with land swaps to include the major settlement blocs. On Jerusalem, the city must remain "united" but the Palestinians must also have some presence in the Arab neighborhoods to form a capital in East Jerusalem for a Palestinian state. On security, Israel must have ironclad security guarantees with an international peacekeeping force (perhaps with some Israeli and Palestinian participation) to be stationed along the Jordan River. The force should be assembled from specific countries that have a vested interest in maintaining peace, including Arab states such as Jordan, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia, EU nations like Britain, France and Germany, all under the command of the United States. Finally, both sides must face these hard truths: that Israel's recognition as a Jewish state requires a Jewish majority that can only be sustained through a two-state solution, and, in turn, a solution to the plight of Palestinian refugees must be a return to Palestine, not to Israel. No moderate Israeli or Palestinian could accept anything less. None of this is new, none of it should be controversial, and none of it can be achieved without the active participation, encouragement and facilitation of the United States-whether the international community, the Palestinians, or Israel likes it or not.

 

Still, if this solution is ever to be achieved, Israel and the Palestinians must address those who would rather perpetuate the conflict than end it. For Israel, this means not enabling settlers and other right-wing radicals to hijack the Zionist cause in ways that are weakening the United States-Israel alliance and placing Israel's future in jeopardy. It also means that instead of shielding his eyes from the truth, and pointing to obstacles to justify his inaction, Netanyahu must be pro-active in presenting real leadership and a realistic, practical path that can bring Israel toward greater peace and security, and away from its growing isolation. For the Palestinians it is a clear recognition that violence will only lead to destruction. Hamas must be disabused of the notion that Israel can be destroyed. The use of such rhetoric, and violence, will not just place Hamas at risk, it will completely annihilate it. Israel will not hesitate to respond to such threats by decapitating its leadership and inflicting a severe blow on its infrastructure, even at the expense of international condemnation. But Israel should also welcome any sign of moderation on the part of Hamas, especially if the reconciliation agreement between Hamas and Fatah holds.

 

Top Egyptian officials have privately conveyed this message to Hamas leaders-if they ignore the advice, they will do so at their own peril, and at the demise of the Palestinian national cause as well as the significant progress that has been made to achieve the goal of Palestinian independence. As one Palestinian recently told me, he is concerned about the unknown changes that will emanate from the recent reconciliation between Fatah and Hamas: "Right now the Palestinians in the West Bank feel as though we are living in Switzerland-except we don't sleep," he said. "Now, we have so much to lose." The same is true of Israelis-the situation can change overnight, and time is running out. In his remarks on Sunday to AIPAC, President Obama was blunt: "If there is a controversy, then it's not based in substance. What I did on Thursday (in the speech on the Middle East) was to say publicly what has long been acknowledged privately. I've done so because we can't afford to wait another decade, or another two decades, or another three decades to achieve peace. The world is moving too fast ... The extraordinary challenges facing Israel will only grow. Delay will undermine Israel's security and the peace that the Israeli people deserve."

 

Reflecting on these remarks, Israelis must ask themselves: Are we better off today than we were more than two years ago when the Netanyahu government came to power? The question, of course, is rhetorical-but the answer is a clear, unequivocal "no." As such, Israeli leaders should be asking themselves a subsequent question: What are we prepared to do about it? If Netanyahu's speech to a joint session of Congress is his answer, the Israelis should expect further isolation while jeopardizing rather than enhancing their national security.

 

*A version of this article appears in the Jerusalem Post, May 26, 2011 and is available online:http://www.jpost.com/Magazine/Opinion/Article.aspx?id=222338