When considering the most important issues, which influence the World’s politics, the Palestinian-Israeli conflict rises to the top of the list. During the last sixty years, this conflict has been used by many as an important bargain chip, ground for “extortion”, or sometimes a sheer pretext for the individual, or state instigated acts of violence, in all sorts of forms and dimensions.
As mentioned in my previous post on the subject (April 29, 2011 – “Egypt, Israel and Palestine – volatile mixture…”), this conflict is probably the best known conflict in the World, the same time being one of the most difficult to define and systematize, let alone solve.
Launched repeatedly, heavy handed and un-proportional Israeli responses to the Palestinian militants assaults, along with the consistent policy of spreading new settlements to the occupied Palestinian territories, have been greatly ignored by the World. This denial hasn’t changed even after the independent body of experts came back from the fact-finding mission, and created a report revealing the crimes against humanity committed by the occupying forces (Goldstone Report – on late 2008, early 2009 “Cast Lead” Israeli Military Campaign – in Gaza).
It’s worth noting that the report itself has been a target of attacks and dismissal both by the Israeli, and American legislative bodies.
Solving of the Palestinian-Israeli “problem” has been on the agenda of many American administrations. Most of the time the efforts have been limited to the “lip service”, yet a few American leaders pushed the normalization process closer to the lasting peace solution, treading carefully between the mutually exclusive demands of the interested parties.
Our previous Administration brought the “lip service” to the new, unprecedented level of “excellence”.
Since Barack Obama took the office of the President of the USA, the new hope has been brought by his numerous speeches on the subject. The most famous was his Cairo University speech in 2009 in which he promised the new, completely revised US policy toward the Middle East and the “notorious” Palestinian-Israeli relationship.
Mistrust toward America in the Arab World is nothing new. Unfortunately it hasn’t changed with the Arab Spring. While the Arab “Street” counted on a decisive from the White House, during the Tunisian, and Egyptian Revolutions, the support hasn’t happened in a timely manner. In such dramatic, and dynamic times “timing” is everything. However, the American Administration waited with the support of the movement until the Dictator (Mubarak) was already on his way out. It didn’t go well with the highly emotional, and hungry for recognition, crowd.
During the revolution, there were no Anti-American (and no Anti-Israeli) demonstrations. No flag burning, no inflammatory rhetoric. Had the support from the Obama Administration been strong and timely, we would have seen by now the American flags waving proudly on the streets of Cairo… And yet, we do not see them now. One of the decisive factors leading to this ‘cold-shoulder’ is, and has been for a long time, the Palestinian-Israeli issue.
_______
The split in the Palestinian factions, which lasted since 2005, has been ended recently, when both parties agreed to end hostilities, and join forces to organize the parliamentary elections within a year. The SPLIT, while lasted, was a very convenient factor, for all whose interest lay in de-legitimizing the Palestinian authorities.
As per old Roman war rule: “divide and conquer” – two, little Palestinian territories, divided by a body of Israel proper, with the governments actively fighting with each other, were much easier to handle.
The historic moment of Hamas-Fatah agreement shook the delicate equilibrium of the region.
It was met with the aggressive negation and threats of the Netanyahu Government who still considered Hamas a terrorist organization, and wouldn’t negotiate with it.
It was met with cautious, and hopeful position of the American Administration.
It was met with an ecstatic approval of the “Arab Street”, and all the pro-Palestinian activists around the World.
________
On May 19, 2011, President of the USA, Barack Obama, in his televised speech, spoke to the Americans (and anybody who listened) on his Middle East policy. It would be a great exaggeration to say that the World waited anxiously for what President Obama had to say. No, after 2 years in office, and numerous failures to deliver on promises given during his pre-election campaign, or on other occasions (including the Cairo speech), the World, especially the Arab World developed certain “immunity” to the round, and promising statements of such speeches.
However, the significance of this particular speech is not to be diminished – it was televised a day before a scheduled meeting between Obama and the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.
It has been obvious to all the political observers, that the American Principles of Democracy, along with championship for the Civil Freedoms, and Human Rights, are not necessarily in accord with the short-term, and/or long-term interests of the United States and it’s allies, especially considering the stabilization in the region, counter-terrorism, as well as oil resources. President Obama acknowledged that the resulting from it policy has to be a compromise of all these factors.
Obama quickly summarized the American position in consideration of the Arab Spring, emphasizing the American involvement in the Libya crisis, remembering the decisive support (although quite late, too late, according to the ‘street’) for the democratic movements in Tunisia and Egypt. He expressed the strong disapproval for the Yemeni President, and called him to step down. When addressing the Syrian uprising, his judgment fell much shorter than in the previous case, leaving up to the President Assad, either to lead the country through the democratic process, or step down.
It leaves the Bahrain, where the government forces cracked down on protesters, with hundreds of dead, and others dying without help (since the ER services were prohibited to take the casualties for treatment). Since the Bahrain is a home to our 5th Fleet, a simple advice to refrain from the violence and a call for the dialog sufficed (?). He remarked though: “you can’t have a real dialog when part of a peaceful opposition is in jail”.
A week before the G-8 Summit, Obama promised the strong support for the economies of the “new countries” like Tunisia and Egypt, including a $1 Billion relief of the Egypt’s debt, and pressing for the investment opportunities.
The President’s speech, although very mildly, created an unusual political situation. Contrary to the previous administration, he stated firmly that the ground for the Two-State solution must be based on returning to the PRE-1967 borders, with some necessary ‘swaps’ (a quite fuzzy term ‘swaps’ created a lot of mistrust and aggravation in the Arab World). This statement, unnoticed by many, and later downplayed by the Press Secretary, by itself set Obama’s plan on the different platform, than the previous ones.
Beside this changed approach all remained the same – including shifting the responsibility to the Palestinians for creating grounds for negotiating with Israel (Hamas is still considered a terrorist organization by the US and Israel).
Immediately after the speech transmission came the reports of the reactions to it throughout the region, varying greatly depending on a party responding to it:
1. The Israeli Government dismissed it angrily arguing that the border from pre-1967 shouldn’t be a part of any ‘road plan’ since this condition was already abandoned (wrongly so) by the previous US Administration.
2. the official, Palestinian Government statement was cautiously optimistic, accepting the new political atmosphere as a good turn, even accepting the responsibility to convince the opponents of their good intentions.
3. The Palestinian “street”, however, didn’t react too favorably, summarizing it as “usual empty words”, which they have heard multiple times throughout the years.
________
On May 20, 2011, President Obama met in Washington D.C. with the Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. While a day before Obama suggested the return to the pre-1967 borders for the Two-State solution talks, Premier Netanyahu announced plans to build two, new settlements in the occupied West Bank. As summarized by a British journalist Robert Fisk on Al Jazeera yesterday, even Netanyahu was surprised by lack of demands to freeze the settlements from the President.
As expected after the violent reaction to the Obama’s speech by Premier Netanyahu, the talks between the two partners didn’t go too well today. While President Obama, after the talks, still expressed some hope for the progress of the negotiations, Premier Netanyahu flatly rejected all of the Obama’s suggestions, both concerning the 1967 borders and the Palestinian refugees repatriation. He actually had audacity to reject all Obama’s offer with a face of an offended child.
Netanyahu stated:
1. Israel couldn’t return to the borders from before 1967, because these borders would be un-defendable, and because of the “certain” changes which happened on the ground – demographic changes, which happened during these 44 years. -------- Am I missing something? These demographic changes are the result of the ILLEGAL settlements on the ILLEGALLY occupied territories! How can anybody use them as an argument?
2. Israel can’t negotiate with the Hamas, since it is a terrorist organization, which doesn’t accept the Israel’s right to exist. -------- According to the Hamas-Fatah statements, Hamas promised to freeze all the hostilities toward Israel and lead to the general elections in which a legitimate government would be elected. So, where is the real problem? Unless the peace is not in the Israel’s intentions…
3. President Abbas has a choice now to either have peace with Israel, or a peace with Hamas – both mutually exclusive. -------- Considering point 2, no comment.
__________
Let’s draw here a line in the sand.
A few hours after the president’s speech, yesterday, in the Gould Hall in New York, lucky 500 people, who could buy the tickets to this event, participated in the panel discussion under the title: “Blueprint for Accountability: Gaza, Goldstone and the Crisis of Impunity”.
The event was organized by a couple of non-profit organizations: Culture Project (cultureproject.org), and MondoWeiss (mondoweiss.net). Both very vocal on the subject of the human rights and their abuses.
The participants of the panel have been chosen very carefully and all brought to the discussion the passion and the expertise:
a Canadian journalist, writer, film producer, and human right activist, Naomi Klein,
Noura Erakat, a professor of international human rights law in the Middle East at Georgetown University, Palestinian lawyer and an activist,
Colonel Desmond Travers, a retired Irish Army Colonel, member of judicial panel, which created the Goldstone Report,
Currently he serves on the Board of Directors at the Institute for International Criminal Investigations (IICI).
Lizzy Ratner, who is a journalist and a co-editor of a book “The Goldstone Report: The Legacy of the Landmark investigation of the Gaza Conflict”.
The discussion was moderated by an activist and a journalist herself, Laura Flaunders.
For most of the people the term Goldstone Report doesn’t create any associations. Since it was officially dismissed by both Israeli and the US, it fell into oblivion very fast. However, the report itself is just a fruit of a several months of a hard work of a dedicated group of experts sent to the Gaza Strip on a FACT-FINDING mission, after the UN had been alerted about the possibilities of the human right violations and in fact, crimes against humanity, committed by the Israeli Army against the Palestinians, and Hamas against the Israeli population.
As I mentioned in the beginning of this article, the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is probably the best-known conflict in the World. Yet, at the same time is probably the most misunderstood and misrepresented, the most lied about, the most covered up, and the most unclean conflict in the World.
The Palestinian population, especially in the Gaza Strip, living on a sliver of land, less than 4 miles wide, is a subject to the Israeli occupation, resulting in the restriction on any movement, travel, extremely high unemployment, shortage of medicines, shortage of basic necessities, including water… The inhabitants of the Strip do not have a right to leave the Strip under any circumstances. It applies also to those who seek a medical treatment abroad. Most of the Palestinian population of Gaza is too young to know, to remember what freedom actually means and feels. On the top of that, Gaza, from time to time, is a subject to the military intervention like the operation “Cast Lead” in December 2008, when in 22 days, roughly 1450 Palestinians were killed (as estimated - 900 civilians), while the Israeli death tall reached 13. Along the human casualties, the whole infrastructure of the country is being destroyed. Methodically, and systematically.
This A-SYMMETRIC warfare, disproportional use of force by the occupier’s army, rises immediately suspicions of the crimes against humanity – thus the reason for the creation of the investigative, fact-finding team, and publishing of the Goldstone Report as a base for a future criminal proceedings (if they can ever get through the “red tape” of the international politics).
Everybody, even the strongest, and the most “alpha-male” individuals are subject to the law. All the countries and their agencies, even the most advanced and the strongest, are subject to the international law. There is no exception. The international Criminal Court in Hague is quite busy with the cases of the former military leaders who have been accused of perpetrating the crimes against humanity. On it’s benches for the accused, we have seen Military men from the Balkans, we have seen Military men from the African countries, and we are waiting to see the Colonel Gaddafi on it soon.
So far, according the old Roman rule – WINNERS ARE NOT JUDGED. But it may change…
