Palestine’s Dilema Part 2 !

The United Nations offi­cial­ly came into exis­tence on October 24^th 1945. The char­ter was rat­i­fied by China, France, The Soviet Union the United States, the United Kingdom, and by a major­i­ty of oth­er sig­na­to­ries. The name United Nations was coined by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, in 1942 dur­ing the sec­ond world war 26 nations pledged to con­tin­ue fight­ing against Hitler’s Germany, Italy and Japan the three major Axis pow­ers. Over the years the role of the United Nations has evolved to include fight­ing human rights abus­es, and sup­pos­ed­ly work­ing toward per­ma­nent world peace. It would be fair to expect that the United nation by the words in its own char­ter, ensure that each and every coun­try is treat­ed with respect and that all peo­ple are guar­an­teed equal respect , and afford­ed their fun­da­men­tal rights giv­en to them by God Almighty, what­ev­er they may call their God. Today Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas entered the cham­bers of the United Nations to a stand­ing ova­tion and sus­tained and thun­der­ous applause from mem­bers of the General Assembly. Abbas came to the United Nations with the hopes and aspi­ra­tion of the Palestinian peo­ple weigh­ing heav­i­ly on him.

Cable tele­vi­sion showed thou­sands of Palestinian peo­ple in the West Bank stand­ing in rapt con­cen­tra­tion in Arafat Square, as their pres­i­dent, Mahmoud Abbas affec­tion­ate­ly called Abbu Mazen, deliv­ered a his­toric speech, punc­tu­at­ed with applause from the entire world body of lead­ers in the assem­bly. Abbas spoke elo­quent­ly and pas­sion­ate­ly of the trails and tribu­la­tion of his peo­ple under Israeli Occupation and bru­tal Oppression. He spoke to the plight of Palestinian farm­ers cut off from their farms,without access to water, sick peo­ple tak­en to hos­pi­tal sub­ject to check­points, its peo­ple sub­ject to humil­i­a­tion and degra­da­tion from the Hands of Israel and it’s agents, Abbas spoke pas­sion­ate­ly and elo­quent­ly about the fact that Palestinians are the only occu­pied peo­ple left on plan­et earth, occu­pied by a pow­er that have thumbed it’s nose at inter­na­tion­al laws and the atten­dant con­dem­na­tions that come with those transgressions. 

The United States, through the pro­gres­sion of many pres­i­den­cies, some­how con­vinced the world that it is an hon­est bro­ker for peace between the Israelis and the Palestinian peo­ple, this how­ev­er does not pass the smell test, when the United States start every state­ment on the issue, by affirm­ing its com­mit­ment to the state of Israel. How can any medi­a­tor say “I will medi­ate peace between these two war­ring fac­tions, but I am on the side of this one”? At the heart of the prob­lem is the demand by Israel that Palestinians rec­og­nize their right to exist as a jew­ish state. To the casu­al observ­er that may seem like a pret­ty easy thing to do as a cat­a­lyst to peace. The truth is, the prob­lem is far more com­pli­cat­ed than that. In 1947 the Jewish state of Israel was cre­at­ed, and insti­tut­ed by the United States and England at the mouth of the Suez Canal, a vital ship­ping cor­ri­dor to and from the Arabian peninsular,the Jewish State from its incep­tion has been a sub­ject of intense fight­ing and debate , not as some would have you believe that it’s about Israel’s right to exist, but more so ‚a ques­tion of Israel’s right to exist at that par­tic­u­lar loca­tion. The Americans have armed and sup­port­ed Israel despite repeat­ed con­dem­na­tion from most coun­tries in the world a move that for all intents and pur­pos­es iso­lates Israel fur­ther in the eyes of most of the International com­mu­ni­ty, which sees Israel as a pari­ah state, one not sub­ject to International laws, but pro­tect­ed by a super­pow­er which is hyp­o­crit­i­cal, as it speaks from both sides of its mouth , sup­port­ing an apartheid style rogue state, whilst at the same time argu­ing for democ­ra­cy in oth­er coun­tries with which it disagrees.

At the same time Abbas was artic­u­lat­ing the case for state­hood for his peo­ple, the United States was wait­ing in the wings with the threat of veto if the request gar­ners enough sup­port . The Palestinians need nine votes out of a total of fif­teen coun­tries that make up the secu­ri­ty coun­cil. There is how­ev­er a sub-plot to America’s threat to veto any state­hood for the Palestinians. America has stat­ed its com­mit­ment to see a two state solu­tion to the prob­lem over the course of sev­er­al pres­i­den­cy, this is true also of the present occu­pant of the White House, Barack Obama. So how then can America argue that it will veto some­thing it says it sup­ports ? President Obama ‚Prime Minister Netanyahu, US Ambassador to the UN Susan Rice and sup­port­ers of Israel say quote ” There is no short­cut to peace” they argue there can be no peace from a piece of paper adopt­ed at the United Nations; They argue the Palestinians must nego­ti­ate with Israel with a view to a set­tle­ment of their dis­pute. Wait just one minute ! Did America nego­ti­ate it’s inde­pen­dence with England ?

Did the peo­ple of South Africa nego­ti­ate with the Apartheid régime for their free­dom? How then, can America expect any objec­tive per­son not sold out to the Israeli lob­by, to accept that the Palestinian peo­ple under occu­pa­tion and sub­ju­ga­tion, nego­ti­ate with their oppres­sors for state­hood , when they can’t get from point A to point B with­out going through sev­er­al check­points? Many peo­ple have argued and lament­ed at the oppres­sion of the Palestinian peo­ple, not least of whom is for­mer President and nobel peace prize win­ner Jimmy Carter. What Israel and its sup­port­ers have done is to attack the mes­sen­gers as anti-Semitic and anti-Israel. It is one thing to demo­nize free­dom lov­ing peo­ple who speak out , it is one thing to block­ade Gaza and turn back con­voys of food and med­i­cine intend­ed for suf­fer­ing peo­ple in that over­pop­u­lat­ed ghet­to. It is how­ev­er anoth­er thing when Jimmy Carter a for­mer President who has worked assid­u­ous­ly and tire­less­ly to fur­ther the peace process between the two fac­tions speak out. It is anoth­er thing when for­mer pres­i­dent Bill Clinton stat­ed in an inter­view with CNN a few days ago quote ” Israel should state pub­licly that it does not sup­port a two state solu­tion, let the Palestinians get on with their lives , and live with the con­se­quences” end quote. 

What gives the state­ments of these two ex-pres­i­dents such weight, is the fact that they were at the fore­front of many ardu­ous dis­cus­sions, back and forth in an effort to arrive at a just res­o­lu­tion. Netanyahu summed up Israel’s posi­tion rather suc­cinct­ly, when he stat­ed that Israel is a very small coun­try that needs addi­tion­al ter­ri­to­ry to be able to defend itself , nev­er mind that the very land-grab they claim as legit­i­mate and nec­es­sary for their secu­ri­ty , is at the heart of the case the Palestinians are mak­ing why they can­not nego­ti­ate with Israel as long as the build­ing of set­tle­ments con­tin­ue. What this mean is that there is a stale­mate. Israel knows full well that the Palestinians will not agree to any dis­cus­sions with them as long as they con­tin­ue to annex more Palestinian lands.

It is clear to hon­est objec­tive observers that Israel’s strat­e­gy is to annex as much real estate as pos­si­ble which it will claim lat­er, it can­not give up as its cit­i­zens are liv­ing on the land or they have to con­trol the land in order to main­tain their defens­es. The Palestinians are cer­tain­ly not blame­less in the debate, they must renounce the strat­e­gy of sui­cide bomb­ings, and attack­ing inno­cent Israeli cit­i­zens on bus­es and in their homes, there are Jewish peo­ple with­in Israel whom are con­sci­en­tious and car­ing, and who in fact dis­agree vehe­ment­ly with the pos­ture of their Government. The res­o­lu­tion that Palestine seek will not come from sui­cide bomb­ings and fir­ing rock­ets into Israel, it will only embold­en Israel to use dis­pro­por­tion­ate force on Palestinian civil­ians as they have done over the years as the world turns a blind eye.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also addressed the General Assembly, as usu­al he was com­bat­ive, bel­liger­ent and force­ful, his argu­ments were the same as they were before, he start­ed out by insult­ing the mem­bers of the gen­er­al assem­bly, call­ing the assem­bly a place where dark­ness dwells, this com­ment comes as a result of the stance oth­er coun­tries take as it relates to fair­ness and equal­i­ty, of course Israel the per­pet­u­al vic­tim feels no oth­er per­spec­tive is legit­i­mate, and any­one who crit­i­cizes it’s actions are ene­mies of Israel, or worse anti-Semitic, this fear of being labeled as an anti-Semite has stilled the tongue of many who do not want to risk the wrath of the United States and it’s proxy Israel. Those of us who val­ue peace and dig­ni­ty for all human­i­ty must unite and call for a State of Palestine for the Palestinian peo­ple, we must demand that Palestinians stop using sui­cide bomb­ings as a strat­e­gy, we must demand that Palestinians do not rain rock­ets on Israeli cities killing and ter­ri­fy­ing inno­cent cit­i­zens who just want to live in peace. We must demand that Israel return occu­pied lands to their right­ful own­ers and cease the ille­git­i­mate con­struc­tion of set­tle­ments in the West Bank, and return to pre 1967 bor​ders​.it is incon­ceiv­able that in 2011 any nation could argue they are hold­ing onto lands they cap­tured in a war, that kind of think­ing must be out­lawed and con­demned. There is no legit­i­mate argu­ment to be made for the con­tin­ued build­ing of set­tle­ments on con­test­ed land, Israel itself has not even made the claim that the land its set­tlers are occu­py­ing belongs to the state of Israel, there­fore it must rea­son­ably be con­strued that the actions of Israeli set­tlers in build­ing homes on land they know do not belong to them, is sim­ply a land grab,provocative ‚and will do noth­ing to fur­ther the pos­si­bil­i­ty of peace between the two factions.Netanyahu argued that the set­tle­ments are not the cause of the prob­lem but is a result of the prob­lem. Seriously ? What that means is that set­tlers have some kind of legit­i­ma­cy in expand­ing Israel’s bor­ders for the Protection of Israeli cit­i­zens. That is a fun­da­men­tal­ly flawed posi­tion to take as that would mean Israel would have to con­tin­ue to annex more and more land as where ever its cit­i­zens live they will need a buffer from Palestinian retal­i­a­tion. No one should begrudge the peo­ple of Israel a home­land, no one should object to Israel’s right to exist, in fact any­one who so opine is an ene­my of human­i­ty, Jewish peo­ple have suf­fered great­ly at the hands of peo­ple who felt they were less than human . As a result of this a report­ed six mil­lion Jews were slaugh­tered at the hands at racist Nazis. This should sen­si­tive Jews to suf­fer­ing , oppres­sion, and injus­tice the way slav­ery, Jim crow, and con­tin­ued racism sen­si­tized me to inequal­i­ty, vio­la­tions of human rights, and oppres­sion. How can Jews con­tin­ue to expect and in some cas­es demand that oth­ers remem­ber the holo­caust when they are oppress­ing oth­ers ? Many who are in sup­port of Israel on reli­gious grounds are unaware of what is real­ly hap­pen­ing on the ground as it relates to the plight of the Palestinian peo­ple. Israel claims it does not trust the United Nations to be fair. It seeks to dele­git­imize the world body, so that it can con­tin­ue to ignore res­o­lu­tion after res­o­lu­tion, with­out con­se­quence. No oth­er coun­try of six, or six­ty mil­lion peo­ple on this plan­et would be allowed to thumb its nose at the world body as Israel has. War has been waged on Iraq, war has been waged against Bosnian Serbs, War has been waged on Libya, Afghanistan, oth­er nations like Iran has been threat­ened with war based on assump­tions of nuclear pro­grams, gen­er­al­ly at Israel’s demand and with Israeli intelligence.All on UN res­o­lu­tions, The same body Israel claim not to trust as a place where dark­ness dwells. Why is Israel dif­fer­ent? Why is Israel pro­tect­ed by west­ern pow­ers under the guise it is an ally? Does the term ally give a nation carte blanche to ignore and cir­cum­vent International Law ? How can Israel claim not to trust the UN, when the very pow­ers that sup­ports her are the chief spon­sors and finan­cial sup­port­ers of the body? How come Israel calls on the Un to stop Iran’s sup­posed nuclear pro­gram, but claims the body is a place where dark­ness dwells ? It is time for the non­sense to stop , if there are to be rules that gov­ern the inter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty, then the laws must be applied fair­ly and just­ly across the board, irre­spec­tive of the sta­tus of the trans­gres­sor or its friends, then and only then can we as a specie begin to lay claim to a just and peace­ful world, as there can be no peace with­out justice. 

This sit­u­a­tion as it obtains, is unten­able, tra­di­tion­al Israeli allies like Turkey’s Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan a very influ­en­tial fig­ure in the mid­dle east has been sharply crit­i­cal of Israeli killing of an American cit­i­zen of Turkish decent, he spoke to the silence of America on the issue, won­der­ing if America’s silence has any­thing to do with the slain American Turkish ances­try. The peo­ple were killed by Israel’s mil­i­tary try­ing to bring food and med­i­cine to des­per­ate cit­i­zens in Gaza.

Prime Minister Netanyahu came to the UN talk­ing about Iran’s sup­posed nuclear pro­gram, he talked about the prospect of Ahmadinejad hav­ing nuclear weapons, he talked about things of the past and things not con­nect­ed to the issue of the day. In the end the day belonged to Mahmoud Abbas and the hopes and dreams of the peo­ple of Palestine and their desire to be free respect­ed peo­ple like any oth­er human beings cre­at­ed by God.

mike beck­les:

have your say;