From Dan:

There is a report today on World Net Daily that the Obama administration will support a United Nations creation of a Palestinian state that will include the 1967 borders.

The 1967 borders were the result of the 1967 Israeli-Arab war whereby Israel took control of Jerusalem, the Gaza strip, and the west bank of the Jordan River. That war effectively solidified much of Israel as a return to its historical Biblical territory. Upon the capture of Jerusalem, the Israelis declared they would never again give up their Biblical city.

If the UN creates a Palestinian state – as it almost certainly will – that includes the 1967 borders, it will effectively dismember Israel. Israel will never agree to it, and this action will only serve to exponentially increase the tension in an already volatile area. By doing so, the Obama administration and the UN are virtually assuring a major Mideast war. Since Obama appears to be an anti-semite, he will not support Israel, and the Israeli military will stand alone against the whole of the Arab world.

If my analysis is correct, Obama is guaranteeing a conflagration that can easily become World War III.

This man must be stopped.

Palestine, Israel and the U.S. Empire provides a sharp analysis of historic and current events in the struggle for Palestine—from the division of the Middle East by Western powers and the Zionist settler movement, to the founding of Israel and its regional role as a watchdog for U.S. interests, to present-day conflicts and the prospects for a just resolution.

The book’s narrative is firmly rooted in the politics of Palestinian liberation. Here is a necessary introduction to the heroic efforts of the Palestinian people to achieve justice in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds.

Take advantage of the limited promotional offer.

Testimonials About the Book

“Becker gives us the most sharply focused and penetrating analysis we have of the real dynamics at work in the continuing persecution of the Palestinian people. The ‘sacred covenant’ of the League of Nations to create a Palestinian state long ago succumbed to the imperial interests of the few who have determined U.S. and Zionist policies toward the domination and exploitation of the larger Middle East and beyond. A consequence has been decades of intolerable violence, cruelty, suffering and falsehood inflicted on Palestine, all failing to crush the indomitable spirit of its people. Becker calls for international unity among all people to end this tragic injustice and the threat of imperialist power it poses to the world at large. Hear his call and join the struggle.”

—Ramsey Clark,
former U.S. attorney general, Former litigation attorney for the Palestine Liberation Organization

“Richard Becker foregrounds what other students of Palestine/Israel usually set aside: the integral role played by U.S. imperialism with the Zionist state as an essential partner. His approach has the great merit of connecting the Palestinian struggle with a universal perspective, which gives the people dignity and strength. The political implications are great, and equally essential to the freeing of Palestine and the building of an effective anti-war movement, each of which must be seen as crucial to the other.”

—Joel Kovel, author, “Overcoming Zionism”

“Finally, a breath of fresh air, and analysis, on the question of Palestine. Richard Becker’s new insightful book, Palestine, Israel and the U.S. Empire, is an extremely well written and comprehensive analysis of the issues, dynamics and history of Palestine. At a time when liberal and progressive political narratives have lost their bearings on how to understand and analyze the Palestinian issue, Becker offers a refreshing historical contextualization that will allow readers to comprehensively fathom the current abject state of U.S.-Israeli policies and why Palestinians continue to struggle under the yoke of a profound occupation.

“The chapters in Becker’s book unfold in a way that will allow the reader to understand the macro-political development from an originally indigenously  populated Palestine to the current colonized status that we see today. The role of U.S. imperial strategies in Palestine and the Arab World are well articulated, and this will help debunk so many myths about the role of the Israeli lobby and the “wag the dog” syndrome that often pervades our discourse. This is a must read for anyone interested in the U.S. geo-political project and in understanding Palestine. It should be read by academics, activists, and most of all, be read by policy makers who continue to labor under simplistic notions of how to create peace in the Arab World. Bravo to Richard Becker for his incisive and skilled analysis—it is long overdue.”

—Dr. Jess Ghannam, professor,
University of California, San Francisco

“Palestine, Israel and the U.S. Empire is required reading for anyone interested in the Israel-Palestine conflict. Providing deep analysis, replete with annotation and documentation, Becker offers a first-rate and very readable examination of the history and long-term imperialist program at the heart of the conflict. By laying out the facts so cogently, it becomes as well a call to all of us to become part of the crucial humanitarian movement to save Palestine and the Palestinians.”

—Susan Curtiss, professor
University of California, Los Angeles

“For over six decades the American people have been inundated with a one-sided, fictional pro-Israel narrative that negates the legitimate struggle of the Palestinian for human dignity and freedom. Richard Becker’s book provides with factual clarity the injustices the Palestinians have courageously resisted, and why we must end the last vestiges of colonialism in the 21st century.”

—Imam Mahdi Bray, executive director,
Muslim American Society Freedom

Events

Richard Becker

Richard Becker is embarking on a nationwide speaking tour to promote Palestine, Israel and the U.S. Empire.

Orange County Forum
& Book Signing
Sat, Dec. 12 at 2:00pm
Unitarian Universalist Church
of Anaheim
511 S. Harbor Blvd.
Anaheim, CA 92805
Info: 213-251-1025,
answerla@answerla.org

More events are currently being scheduled for cities and towns across the country and will be posted soon.

Events have already taken place in over 20 cities, including: San Francisco, Sacramento, Los Angeles and Riverside, California; Boston, Worcester and Wellesley, Massachusetts; Providence, Rhode Island; New Paltz, New York; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Baltimore, Maryland; Washington, D.C.; Sioux Falls, South Dakota; Chicago, Illinois; Yellow Springs, Columbus and Toledo, Ohio; Ann Arbor, Detroit and Dearborn, Michigan. (See below for a partial archive of past events.)

Read “Palestine book tour travels across New England and the East Coast“ published on PSLweb.org.

If you would like to organize an event with the author in your city or town, please email books@PSLweb.org or call 415-821-6171.

I believe that, while our eyes are to be fixed upon our Lord Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, it’s important also that we keep an eye on current world affairs that pertain to Bible prophecy. The situation with Iran is becoming steadily and increasingly more dangerous. Could this lead to World War 3?

Acting Palestinian Authority Chief Mahmoud Abbas (L) and Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez says that Israel is aiming to ‘exterminate the Palestinian nation’ and that he backs the establishment of East Jerusalem Al-Quds as capital of an independent Palestinian state.

“We are on the side of the Palestinian people’s memorable struggle against the genocidal state of Israel that knocks down, kills and aims to terminate the Palestinian people,” Chavez told acting Palestinian Authority Chief Mahmoud Abbas in Caracas on Friday night.

“We reiterate our greatest commitment and our greatest solidarity for the creation of an independent Palestinian state with the holy city of Jerusalem Al-Quds as its capital,” he added.

During the meeting Mahmoud Abbas dismissed an Israeli plan to temporarily halt construction of new West Bank settlements as insufficient, saying Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu chose occupation rather than peace.

“Wednesday’s announcement by Netanyahu of a 10-month halt to new construction in the West Bank Jewish settlements didn’t bring anything new because the occupation is going to continue in the West Bank and in Jerusalem Al-Quds,” Abbas said.

The acting Palestinian Authority Chief added, “We don’t have any condition to restarting negotiations except the commitment of the two sides to the foundations of the peace operation according to the road map, and especially stopping the expansionist activities of the Israelis.”

Abbas earlier visited Brazil, Argentina, Chile and Paraguay to build support for efforts toward a Palestinian state.

Latin American leaders backed his calls for Israel to halt settlement construction and also to guarantee that future borders are based on 1967 lines.

Under the 2002 Roadmap for Peace plan brokered by the United States, the European Union, the United Nations, and Russia, Israel has to ‘dismantle settlement outposts erected since 2001 and also freeze all settlement activities’.

There are currently 121 Israeli settlements and approximately 102 Israeli outposts built illegally on Palestinian land occupied by Israel in 1967. All of these settlements and outposts are illegal under international law and have been condemned by numerous United Nations Security Council resolutions.

These settlements and outposts are inhabited by a population of some 462,000 Israeli settlers. Some 191,000 Israelis are living in settlements around Jerusalem Al-Quds and a further 271,400 are further spread throughout the West Bank.

Source: rebelnews.org

A Jewish settler moves a window after a house was demolished at an outpost near the West Bank Jewish settlement of Negohot November 16, 2009. REUTERS/Baz Ratner

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israel triggered a fresh rift with Washington over settlement building on Tuesday by approving the building of 900 homes for Jews on West Bank land it occupied in a 1967 war and annexed to its Jerusalem municipality.

The Israeli daily Yedioth Ahronoth said U.S. President Barack Obama’s envoy, George Mitchell, had asked an aide to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, at a meeting in London on Monday, to block the proposed construction at the settlement of Gilo.

But a government planning commission approved the addition of 900 housing units at Gilo, where 40,000 Israelis already live.

The Israeli decision drew an unusually sharply worded rebuke from the White House, which said it was “dismayed” and accused Israel of undermining Obama’s efforts to resume peace talks with Palestinians stalled since December.

Robert Gibbs

“At a time when we are working to relaunch negotiations, these actions make it more difficult for our efforts to succeed,” White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said.

In his statement, Gibbs also said the United States objected to continued evictions and demolitions of Palestinian homes in East Jerusalem.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon also deplored the Israeli move, spokesman Farhan Haq said. Ban “believes that such actions undermine efforts for peace and cast doubt on the viability of the two-state solution” for Israelis and Palestinians, he said.

Nabil Abu Rdaineh, aide to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, said Israel’s move “destroys the last chances for the peace process.” Abbas has said peace talks stalled since December may resume only once Israel freezes settlement construction.

A spokesman for Nir Barkat, the Israeli mayor of Jerusalem, seemed to confirm the newspaper report about Mitchell’s request, saying Barkat “strongly objects to the American demand to halt construction in Jerusalem.”

Israel rejects the international description of Gilo as a settlement and says it is a neighborhood of Jerusalem, the city it claims as its capital.

Some 500,000 Jews live in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, also captured in 1967, among 2.7 million Palestinians.

Israel annexed East Jerusalem after the 1967 war, a move that was not recognized internationally. Palestinians want East Jerusalem to be the capital of a state they hope to establish in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

STALEMATE

Mark Regev, a spokesman for Netanyahu, had said in response to the newspaper report that “Prime Minister Netanyahu, in order to get the peace process back on track, is willing to adopt the policy of the greatest possible restraint concerning growth in the West Bank — but this applies to the West Bank.”

“Jerusalem is Israel’s capital and will remain as such,” he said, stating an Israeli position not recognized by world powers.

Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad al-Malki said Israel’s decision was a further step “intended to prevent the Palestinian state from happening.”

Britain’s consulate-general in Jerusalem also condemned the Israeli move saying “this decision on Gilo is wrong and we oppose it.”

Obama is pressing for a resumption of peace talks and has asked Israel to show restraint on settlements while seeking to persuade Abbas to resume negotiations without a total freeze on the construction.

Netanyahu has offered a temporary restriction on building projects, but Abbas has rejected this as insufficient, both in scale and because it does not include areas Israel annexed to Jerusalem.

Palestinian officials asked the United Nations and the European Union earlier this week to consider whether they might at some point endorse the framework of a Palestinian state without a negotiated solution to the conflict with Israel.

Obama green-lights Arab land grab
But Israel threatens retaliation if U.N. approves Palestinian state

Article: World Net Daily

A top Palestinian Authority official told WND that the PA reached an understanding with the Obama administration regarding a Palestinian threat to unilaterally ask the United Nations to recognize a Palestinian state outside of negotiations with Israel.

Ahmed Qurei, former PA prime minister and member of the Palestinian Liberation Organization executive committee, said in an interview that the PA “reached an understanding with important elements within the administration” to possibly bring to the U.N. Security Council a resolution to unilaterally create a Palestinian state.

Asked to which “elements” he was referring, Qurei would only say they were from the Obama administration.

A top PA negotiator, speaking on condition of anonymity, named the U.S. ambassador to the U.N., Susan Rice, and National Security Council member Samantha Power as among the Obama administration officials who were involved with the Palestinians’ U.N. threat.

Despite widespread assumptions the U.S. would veto any such U.N. Security Council resolution, the PA negotiator said that in initial discussions, the Obama administration did not threaten to veto their conceptual unilateral resolution.

“The U.S. told us that they prefer a negotiated settlement with Israel, but if we (Palestinians) insist on a resolution, the Americans will not necessarily reject it,“ the PA negotiator said.

WRONG. We AMERICANS absolutely reject it. BHussein and his cronies do; and they do NOT count as Americans. They stand for NOTHING that America represents. They stand for hate, fraud, deceit, lies, and destroying the fundamental elements of our country.

“The U.S. has a history of never before vetoing any U.N. move to create a new state,” the negotiator pointed out.

Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said yesterday the Palestinians had decided to turn to the U.N. Security Council to unilaterally declare a Palestinian state in the Gaza Strip, West Bank and eastern Jerusalem.

YOU can’t expect ANYONE in the world to expect the Israelis to give JERUSALEM over to the fucking shitstain Palestinians. Jerusalem was given to Israel by GOD. Nobody has the power to force Israel to give up Jerusalem – LET ALONE any other bit of their land. FUCK that noise.

Separately, the negotiator, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that the Obama administration is “totally on board” with a plan by Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad to create a state on the pre-1967 borders within two years.

WND first reported in September that according to a top PA official, the Obama administration has largely adopted the positions of the Palestinian West Bank leadership to create a Palestinian state within two years based on the pre-1967 borders, meaning Israel would retreat from most of the West Bank and eastern sections of Jerusalem.

The PA negotiator WND spoke with yesterday said that his authority’s primary goal now is to secure a letter of support from the Obama administration affirming the U.S. commitment to a pre-1967 Palestinian state within two years.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu yesterday hit back at the PA plan to unilaterally declare a state, warning such a move will be met by “one-sided Israeli measures.” He did not elaborate.

That’s RIGHT. Because Netanyahu is a MAN. A true man. A great leader who cares about the people he serves. I wish WE had a Netanyahu. But no, we have a shitball.

“There is no substitute for negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority and any unilateral attempts outside that framework will unravel the existing agreements between us and could entail unilateral steps by Israel,” Netanyahu told a high-level gathering of Israeli and American policy makers at the Saban Forum in Jerusalem.

Netanyahu stressed that in order to achieve peace, “negotiations must resume immediately.” He affirmed Israel was prepared to begin talks “with a generous spirit.”

“I want to stress that we are willing to take steps that will help in advancing the peace process, but it must begin, there is no reason to waste time,” said the Israeli leader.

While negotiations were not easy, Netanyahu said, “there is no other way to bring about change.”

In September, a senior PA official told WND that aside from supporting a Palestinian state in the pre-1967 borders, the Obama administration also had accepted the PA position that Israeli-Palestinian negotiations begin where they left off under Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, who went further than previous Israeli leaders in his concessions to the Palestinians.

Olmert reportedly offered the PA not only 95 percent of the West Bank and peripheral eastern Jerusalem neighborhoods but also other territories never before offered by any Israeli leader, including parts of the Israeli Negev desert bordering Gaza as well as sections of the Jordan Valley.

“We understand from the U.S. that the Netanyahu government is not in a position to go against creating a state within two years,” the PA official said.

The official claimed the Obama administration was ready to ultimately consider “sanctions” against Israel if the Netanyahu government rejected negotiations leading to a Palestinian state. The official refused to clarify which sanctions he was referring to or whether he was specifically told by the U.S. government it would consider sanctions.

The PA official claimed Obama can make a “headache” for Netanyahu if the Israeli leader does not conduct negotiations leading within two years to a Palestinian state.

FUCK you, Barack Hussein Obama. I don’t care WHERE you stand, but I stand behind Israel. Sure, I’m just one small person. Just little ol’ me… but I understand the importance and significance of our relationship with Israel. They are not only our allies POLITICALLY – but they are also our brothers. Our brothers in Christ.

By Aaron Klein, at WorldNetDaily.  Original article found at: http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=116154

TEL AVIV – A top Palestinian Authority official told WND that the PA reached an understanding with the Obama administration regarding a Palestinian threat to unilaterally ask the United Nations to recognize a Palestinian state outside of negotiations with Israel.

Ahmed Qurei, former PA prime minister and member of the Palestinian Liberation Organization executive committee, said in an interview that the PA “reached an understanding with important elements within the administration” to possibly bring to the U.N. Security Council a resolution to unilaterally create a Palestinian state.

Asked to which “elements” he was referring, Qurei would only say they were from the Obama administration.

A top PA negotiator, speaking on condition of anonymity, named the U.S. ambassador to the U.N., Susan Rice, and National Security Council member Samantha Power as among the Obama administration officials who were involved with the Palestinians’ U.N. threat.

Despite widespread assumptions the U.S. would veto any such U.N. Security Council resolution, the PA negotiator said that in initial discussions, the Obama administration did not threaten to veto their conceptual unilateral resolution.

“The U.S. told us that they prefer a negotiated settlement with Israel, but if we (Palestinians) insist on a resolution, the Americans will not necessarily reject it,” the PA negotiator said.

“The U.S. has a history of never before vetoing any U.N. move to create a new state,” the negotiator pointed out.

Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said yesterday the Palestinians had decided to turn to the U.N. Security Council to unilaterally declare a Palestinian state in the Gaza Strip, West Bank and eastern Jerusalem.

Salam Fayyad

Separately, the negotiator, who spoke on   condition of anonymity, said that the Obama administration is “totally on board” with a plan by Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad to create a state on the pre-1967 borders within two years.

WND first reported in September that according to a top PA official, the Obama administration has largely adopted the positions of the Palestinian West Bank leadership to create a Palestinian state within two years based on the pre-1967 borders, meaning Israel would retreat from most of the West Bank and eastern sections of Jerusalem.

The PA negotiator WND spoke with yesterday said that his authority’s primary goal now is to secure a letter of support from the Obama administration affirming the U.S. commitment to a pre-1967 Palestinian state within two years.

Benjamin Netanyahu

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu yesterday hit back at the PA plan to unilaterally declare a state, warning such a move will be met by “one-sided Israeli measures.” He did not elaborate.

“There is no substitute for negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority and any unilateral attempts outside that framework will unravel the existing agreements between us and could entail unilateral steps by Israel,” Netanyahu told a high-level gathering of Israeli and American policy makers at the Saban Forum in Jerusalem.

Netanyahu stressed that in order to achieve peace, “negotiations must resume immediately.” He affirmed Israel was prepared to begin talks “with a generous spirit.”

“I want to stress that we are willing to take steps that will help in advancing the peace process, but it must begin, there is no reason to waste time,” said the Israeli leader.

While negotiations were not easy, Netanyahu said, “there is no other way to bring about change.”

In September, a senior PA official told WND that aside from supporting a Palestinian state in the pre-1967 borders, the Obama administration also had accepted the PA position that Israeli-Palestinian negotiations begin where they left off under Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, who went further than previous Israeli leaders in his concessions to the Palestinians.

Olmert reportedly offered the PA not only 95 percent of the West Bank and peripheral eastern Jerusalem neighborhoods but also other territories never before offered by any Israeli leader, including parts of the Israeli Negev desert bordering Gaza as well as sections of the Jordan Valley.

“We understand from the U.S. that the Netanyahu government is not in a position to go against creating a state within two years,” the PA official said.

The official claimed the Obama administration was ready to ultimately consider “sanctions” against Israel if the Netanyahu government rejected negotiations leading to a Palestinian state. The official refused to clarify which sanctions he was referring to or whether he was specifically told by the U.S. government it would consider sanctions.

The PA official claimed Obama can make a “headache” for Netanyahu if the Israeli leader does not conduct negotiations leading within two years to a Palestinian state.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is in the US right now, and he has requested a meeting with President Obama. Watch this video to see Mr. Irvin Baxter explain how this meeting is prophetic in nature.

The issue of dividing the land of Israel is of utmost seriousness to God. God will surely bring judgment upon those who promote the division of the land He calls His own (see scripture bellow). This issue will ultimately be  settled by Jesus at His return during the Battle of Armageddon (in the Valley of Jehoshaphat). America would certainly enter a new level of judgment by God should the Obama administration go forth with their intention to support the unilateral declaration of a Palestinian State including such large portions of the land allotted by God to the Jewish people.

Let us pray that God will bring about a change of course in these decisions.

“FOR BEHOLD, in those days and at that time when I shall reverse the captivity and restore the fortunes of Judah and Jerusalem, I will gather all nations and will bring them down into the Valley of Jehoshaphat, and there will I deal with and execute judgment upon them for their treatment of My people and of My heritage Israel, whom they have scattered among the nations and because they have divided My land.” (Joel 3:1-2)

Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad

TEL AVIV – The U.S. is considering adopting a unilateral Palestinian declaration of independence in the West Bank and Jerusalem regardless of negotiations with the Jewish state, according to Israeli sources speaking to Israel’s Haaretz newspaper.

WND first reported in September that according to a top Palestinian Authority official, the Obama administration has largely adopted the positions of the PA to create a Palestinian state within two years based on the pre-1967 borders, meaning Israel would retreat from most of the West Bank and eastern sections of Jerusalem.

WND reported that the White House had accepted the positions of Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, who had quietly called for a state on the pre-1967 borders within two years.

Now Haaretz is quoting reports indicating that Fayyad has reached a secret understanding with the Obama administration over U.S. recognition of an independent Palestinian state.

Haaretz quoted Israeli sources stating Fayyad’s plan specifies that at the end of a designated period for bolstering national institutions, the PA, in conjunction with the Arab League, would file a “claim of sovereignty” to the United Nations Security Council and General Assembly over the 1967 borders.

Israeli officials further told Haaretz that Fayyad had boasted of positive meetings about his plan with prominent EU member states, including the United Kingdom, France, Spain and Sweden.

Fayyad also told Israeli officials the Obama administration did not oppose his plan.

A senior Israeli foreign-policy official told Haaretz, “It’s a very dangerous move.”

Israeli sources further said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is in Washington today, discussed Fayyad’s proposal in previous meetings with U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Obama’s Mideast envoy George Mitchell.

Netanyahu reportedly requested the U.S. tell Fayyad that it would not support his proposal and would veto it in the Security Council. Haaretz reported Netanyahu has yet to receive a clear response from Washington on its stance on Fayyad’s plan.

‘Obama can create headache for Netanyahu’

A top PA official told WND in September that the Obama administration told the PA it will support the announcement of a Palestinian state within two years.

The official also said Obama had accepted the PA position that Israeli-Palestinian negotiations begin where they left off under Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, who went further than previous Israeli leaders in his concessions to the Palestinians.

Olmert reportedly offered the PA not only 95 percent of the West Bank and peripheral eastern Jerusalem neighborhoods but also other territories never before offered by any Israeli leader, including parts of the Israeli Negev desert bordering Gaza as well as sections of the Jordan Valley.

“We understand from the U.S. that the Netanyahu government is not in a position to go against creating a state within two years,” the PA official said.

The official claimed the Obama administration was ready to ultimately consider “sanctions” against Israel if the Netanyahu government rejected negotiations leading to a Palestinian state. The official refused to clarify which sanctions he was referring to or whether he was specifically told by the U.S. government it would consider sanctions.

Obama can make a “headache” for Netanyahu if the Israeli leader does not conduct negotiations leading within two years to a Palestinian state, the PA official claimed.

By Alan Hart

Part 1

Informed and honest analysis suggests that no American president will ever be able to break the Zionist lobby’s stranglehold on Congress on matters to do with Israel/Palestine unless and until a majority of Jewish Americans, in order to protect their own best interests and those of all their fellow Americans, indicate that they wish him to do so, or that they will not object if he tries.

In the context of the conflict in and over Palestine that became Israel, what those best interests are can be summarised in two sentences. America, on account of its unconditional support for the Zionist state and its contempt for international law, has made enemies of many if not most of the world’s 1.4 billion Muslims. A change of American policy that required Israel to behave in accordance with international law would convert almost all Arabs and most other Muslims into friends and allies of America. (I agree that America’s unconditional support for Israel right-or-wrong is not the only cause of the hurt, humiliation and anger that drives Arab and other Muslim anti-Americanism, but the Palestine problem is the cancer at the heart of international affairs, and a cure for it would make many other problems more manageable).

From the perspective summarised above, it can be said that Jewish Americans, all of them not just the 25% or thereabouts who are cannon fodder for the Zionist lobby in its various manifestations, have real political power, actually more democratic power if those choose to exercise it than AIPAC can mobilize by playing the fear card. On 9 November, when he addresses the General Assembly of The United Jewish Communities (UJC), to be known from then on as The Jewish Federations of North America, President Obama has the opportunity to speak truth to that power (or at least a very significant number of its representatives).

If I was writing Obama’s speech for that occasion I would have him say this:

To make peace in the Middle East on terms that provide security for Israel and an acceptable amount of justice for the Palestinians, I need two irrevocable, good faith commitments of intent – one from the Arab and wider Muslim world, the other from Israel.

In headline terms, the irrevocable commitment I need from the Arab and wider Muslim world comes down to this. In return for an end to Israeli occupation of all Arab land captured in 1967, it will make a full and final peace with Israel and establish normal state-to-state relations.

The irrevocable commitment I need from Israel comes down to this. In return for the Arab and wider Muslim world’s commitment of intent, Israel commits to withdrawing its military forces and settlers to the borders as they were on 4 June 1967, to make the space, on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, for the creation of a viable Palestinian state.

Of course the headlines don’t tell the whole story. It includes the fact that there is a Saudi-inspired peace plan that’s been on the table since its adoption by an Arab summit in Beirut in 2002. It comes close to the irrevocable commitment I am seeking from the Arab and wider Muslim world, but Barack Obama the honest broker has to say this about it. Under two headings, that peace plan requires some clarification and amendment if it is to be transformed into the commitment I need.

• The Arab peace plan calls for “the achievement of a just solution to the Palestinian refugee problem to be agreed upon in accordance with UN General Assembly Resolution 194.” That resolution, passed on 11 December 1948, declares that all Palestinian refugees wishing to return to their homes and live in peace with their neighbours “should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date”. It also declares that “compensation should be paid for the property of those not wishing to return”.

Sixty years on it could be said, and I do say, that it’s more than reasonable for all Palestinians who were dispossessed of their homes, their land and their rights to have the expectation of returning in accordance with Resolution 194, which itself is in accordance with international law. But as things are today, it’s not a practical proposition. If there was no limit to the number of Palestinians who returned, the Jews of an Israel inside its borders as they were on 4 June 1967 would be out-numbered by Arabs; and, if Israel remained a democracy, it would be voted out of existence. As some might put it, an unlimited return would lead to the “de-Zionisation” of Israel, “the end of Zionism’s colonial enterprise”. No Israeli government is ever going to agree to that.  I therefore suggest that the commitment of intent I am seeking from the Arab and wider Muslim world should declare that the Palestinian right of return will be limited to the Palestinian state of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, and that those Palestinians wanting to return and who cannot be accommodated will be cash compensated.

I wish to add here my own recognition of the fact that such a solution to the Palestinian refugee problem would be far from ideal. It would require the Palestinians to settle for something considerably less than full and complete justice. But they have to be realistic.

• The Arab peace plan calls for the establishment of a sovereign Palestinian state “with East Jerusalem as its capital”. In the context of the history of the conflict and appropriate UN resolutions for a solution to it, that’s a perfectly reasonable proposition. However, a possible implication is that the Jerusalem of the peace the Arabs want will be divided. I think the prospects for a real and lasting peace would be best served by Jerusalem being an open, undivided city and the capital of two states. I would therefore like to see a statement to that effect in the commitment of intent I am seeking from the Arab and wider Muslim world.

Now let me share a private thought with you. During my presidency to date there have been moments when I wondered if I was naïve and possibly even stupid to have had “Yes, we can!” as my campaign slogan. On some of the problems I am dealing with, the jury in my own mind is still out, but not on the matter of making peace in the Middle East. If I get the two commitments of intent I am seeking, I can and will do it!

I would also have the President anticipate and address one key question (actually the key question). Suppose you get the commitment you seek from the Arab and wider Muslim world but not from Israel. What will you do then?

I would have President Obama answer as follows.

When I met briefly with Prime Minister Netanyahu and President Abbas in September, I said to them, “We must all take risks for peace”. In the event of it becoming clear that Israel is the obstacle to peace, I would take a risk.

The first duty of any president is to protect America’s best interests. I have to tell you very frankly that it would not be in America’s best interests to go on giving unconditional support to an Israel that had been shown itself to be the obstacle to peace – peace on terms which, in my view, would be accepted with relief by any rational government and people in Israel. Some commentators have said that the name of the game is “saving Israel from itself”. In my assessment that’s not the whole game but it is an important part of it.

In the event of Israel not be willing, for a real and lasting peace, to commit to withdraw from all Arab land it occupied in 1967, I would seek to prevail upon Congress to enable me to use all the leverage the United States has to oblige Israel to do what is required of it by the spirit as well as the letter of UN resolutions representing the will of the organised international community and international law.

Though much denied, it is true that the lobby which supports Israel right-wrong has had enough influence in Congress to block policy initiatives that were not to Israel’s liking. If necessary I would seek to counter that influence by personally lobbying each and every member of Congress. I would ask them all a very simple question – Are you an American first or a supporter if only by default of a foreign power? And if still I was blocked, I would go over the heads of Congress and appeal directly to all my fellow Americans. I would ask them to play their part in calling and holding their elected representatives to account in order to make our democracy work for justice and peace.

If I had to go down that road, I would hope to have the support of the vast majority of my Jewish fellow Americans. Your response to me here today will give me a first indication of whether or not that hope would be justified.

Because I came to this meeting determined to be completely honest about my own thoughts and feelings, there is more I must say.

In my view there is no bigger threat to the security of America and all Americans than continuing and unending conflict in the Middle East and the hatreds it fuels in the region and far beyond. And that’s why national security adviser James Jones told “J” Street’s first conference that advancing the Israel-Palestinian peace process is the “epicenter” of U.S. foreign policy. He put it this way: “If there was one problem I could recommend to the president if he could solve only one problem, this would be it. Bringing about an Israel-Palestinian peace agreement would create ripples around the world. The reverse is not true. This is the epicenter.”

When I spoke recently in Hackensack I called for the cynics and skeptics to be cast aside to prove that “leaders who do what’s right and what’s hard will be rewarded not rejected”. On that occasion I was appealing for understanding of Jon Corzine in his bid for re-election to the governorship of New Jersey, and for him to be rewarded not rejected. Today I can tell you that the time may be coming when I will have to make that same appeal on behalf of myself. And this is why.

If it became apparent that Israel is the obstacle to peace, and if then I was prevented from using the necessary leverage to bring an intransigent Israel to its senses, I would resign. As I said earlier, the first duty of any president is to protect America’s best interests. If I was not allowed to do that, I would see no point in being president.

I wish to add only this. It’s time to stop regarding politics as “the art of the possible”. That’s a cover for the politics of expediency which are taking us and the whole world to hell. It’s also time to recognise that “Yes, we can” is not an urgent enough call to action. With a number of problems threatening the wellbeing and perhaps even the survival of humankind, we need to regard politics as the art of doing what must be done if our children wherever they live are to have a future worth having. And our call to action should be “Yes, we must!”

If anybody who reads what I have written above has a way of drawing it to President Obama’s attention, please do so.

Part 2 after Obama has spoken.

Footnote: As I was preparing to post this article, Secretary of State Clinton was saying that peace talks (about talks) will go ahead “with or without a freeze on settlements”. I find myself wondering if that was a two-fingered gesture from her to Obama as well as to the Palestinians.

Alan Hart

Alan Hart is a former ITN and BBC Panorama correspondent who covered wars and conflicts wherever they were taking place in the world and a specialist on the Middle East. He’s the author of Zionism: The Real Enemy of the Jews. He blogs on www.alanhart.net and tweets on www.twitter.com/alanauthor

By: Dan Lieberman

“Israel has revealed its nature; a nation built on actions normally termed war crimes by world institutions; a nation that does not follow international law; and a nation that does not heed United Nations Resolutions. Distracting and deceiving the world community with contrived and fallacious narratives permits Israel to continue its illegal maneuvers. Setting the record straight will straighten the road to Middle East peace. “

Distracting the world community permits Israel to continue its illegal maneuvers.
As Israel’s democratic posture becomes more questioned, its mystique becomes more exaggerated. To prove the validity of its actions, Israel’s supporters focus on three components of Israel’s drive to an accomplished nation:

The significance of the Zionist mission, Israel as a Jewish state, and Israel not being responsible for the Palestinian displaced persons.

All of these issues, which had roles in establishing the Israel state, are expressed with sweeping generalities, devoid of specifics and facts. Obfuscation, lack of clarity and an assumption that what is being related is correct often characterize discussions of these issues. No questions asked and nothing to explain.

Evidence contradicts the narratives that Israel’s supporters work diligently to create.

Before constructing a base for Middle East peace, it is essential to deconstruct the spurious Israeli narratives.
The Zionists portray themselves as a vanguard of Jewish thought and aspiration, leading the masses of Jewish people to freedom and fulfilling the promises denied to them by an adversarial world. History contradicts these portrayals, especially that of Zionism as a mass movement by the Jewish people. Zionist philosophy had little appeal to the Jewish people in the late 19th century.

“The first Zionist Congress (1887) was to have taken place in Munich, Germany. However, due to considerable opposition by the local community leadership, both Orthodox and Reform, it was decided to transfer the proceedings to Basle, Switzerland.

Reform Judaism in a series of proclamations, which culminated in the 1885 Pittsburgh Conference, rejected the Zionist program (Note: Overturned in 1999 by contemporary Reform Judaism):

“We consider ourselves no longer a nation, but a religious community; and we therefore expect neither a return to Palestine, nor a sacrificial worship under the sons of Aaron, nor the restoration of any of the laws concerning a Jewish state.”

The 19th century emancipation movements liberated West and Middle European Jews and permitted them to integrate into European society.

“Jews emerged as writers of secular literature, enriching English, French, and German literature with novels, short stories, poems, and essays. In Britain Benjamin Disraeli, who converted to Christianity, wrote popular novels before becoming prime minister. Heinrich Heine, who converted to Christianity in order to earn a law degree in Germany, became one of the best-loved German poets.”

The Zionist agenda evidently preferred Disraeli to remain Jewish and not become Britain’s Prime Minister. Jews rejected this agenda, which they perceived as prompting nations to question the loyalty of their Jewish citizens, as serving to impede their advances, and as reinforcing a race-baiting theory that Jews engaged in international conspiracies. Anti-Zionist Rabbis insisted: “Zion exists everywhere but in Zion.”

Examine the Russian Jews. They had significantly more problems than other European Jews. Nevertheless, they didn’t consider Zionism as a relief for their difficulties. Between 1881 and 1914, 2.5 million Jews migrated from Russia-1.7 million to America, 500,000 to Western Europe, and almost 300,000 to other nations. Until 1914, only a mere 30,000 – 50,000 Russian Jews followed the Zionist call to Palestine and 15,000 of them eventually returned to Russia.

So, if not for Zionism, how did the Israel state arrive and swell into millions of inhabitants?

By 1914, Zionism had become a stagnant adventure. Somehow, and in some way, someone took advantage of the Allies victory in World War I to promote the Balfour Declaration, which approved “a national home for the Jewish people in Palestine.” The League of Nations’ certification of the British mandate in Palestine prevented the formation of a national Palestinian governing body and many English speaking European Jews came to work in the British administration Fly below the cloud of propaganda and rhetoric and the principal result of the original Zionist agenda is easily observed: People of uncertain circumstance (not dedicated Zionists) and favored by the Zionists have been transferred from their countries to a new land, while people of more certain circumstances and not favored by the Zionists have been displaced from their lands. The less favored have become refugees and, in many cases, been reduced to poverty.

The Jews who immigrated to Israel immediately after 1948 arrived for mainly economic and political reasons and not to fulfill a Zionist mission. Israel even claims the massive number of immigrants from North Africa and the Middle East (Mizrahi) did not arrive voluntarily, but were forced out of their homes. Zionism has not persuaded a great number of Jews to leave their western nations, not deterred them from greatly participating in their nations’ economic and social gains and not prevented them from integrating themselves into their nations’ cultures. The Economist (Jan.11, 2007) mentions that only 17% of American Jews regard themselves as pro-Zionist and only 57% say that “caring about Israel is a very important part of being Jewish.”

In the last decades, Russians from the former Soviet Union, most of whom preferred to migrate to the United States, have been the principal immigrants to Israel. Many of them are dubious Jews or lost their Jewish roots during the Communist era. Orthodox Jews, who came for religious reasons and not to join their secular compatriots in common pursuits, are the fastest growing segment of the Israeli Jewish population. Where they settle, the secular Jews tend to leave. More aligned with Rabbis preaching mystical nineteenth century philosophies, these orthodox Jews isolate themselves from their fellow Israelis and from worldwide Jewry..

The dubious Zionists created a dubious Jewish state.

The Jewish State

By what authority did Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu proclaim, “The Palestinians must recognize Israel as the state of the Jewish people,” and “Jerusalem is the united capital of the State of Israel and the Jewish people?”

The Jewish people don’t have a central authority and no referendum of its 15 millions has been taken. PM Netanyahu might not care, but many Jews fear that their fellow citizens might one day ask: “You have a country, what are you doing here?” or suggest that Jews are more loyal to a foreign nation and are working for that nation.

It is difficult to characterize Israel as a Jewish nation. Avraham Burg, former Knesset speaker and former head of the Jewish Agency has been quoted as saying, “to define the State of Israel as a Jewish state is the key to its end.” The term ‘Jewish nation’ has never been adequately defined and there is nothing exceptional in Israel that identifies a specific Jewish morality, culture or Judaic atmosphere

The cool and breezy manner in which the Israelis express the words ‘Jewish state’ intends to create a comfortable feeling; nothing hostile towards anyone, just a satisfactory note to Jewish citizens. Cause for alarm is abundant. Israel has no written constitution. Its laws discriminate against its minorities and separate its citizens.

The entire Jewish population left Nazareth many years ago and established a new Nazareth. The new Nazareth receives substantial benefits from the government and has grown prosperous and modern. The old Arab Nazareth remains old.
In Haifa, the Arab population lives by the sea. The Jewish population lives in the hills.
Few Palestinians have been able to rent housing or buy property in West Jerusalem.
In Acre, immigrant Jews are able to acquire property but are not allowed to sell the property to Arab citizens.
Tel Aviv has contiguous populations but not mixed populations.
Few, if any Arabs, have been able to purchase government sponsored housing.
The separation of populations results in the separation of activities, recreation centers, schools and education
Although some Arabs are able to obtain college scholarships, the large majority of college scholarships require previous military duty. Since Arabs are not allowed to serve in the Israeli army, few Arabs can obtain college scholarships.
Arabs don’t obtain many housing loans.
The state of Israel owns more than 90 percent of the land. Non-Jewish citizens cannot, except in rare occasions, purchase land.
Whenever the Israeli army wants to construct a military base, Arab property is expropriated for the endeavor.
Since marriages are performed by a rabbi, a Jew cannot marry a non-Jew within the boundaries of Israel.
Separation of ethnicities is most apparent in how Israel and most of the world differ in regarding nationality. It’s not just separation.
It’s a de facto apartheid, which the words ‘Jewish state’ will tend to reinforce.

All Americans have both United States citizenship and nationality. Israelis have Israeli citizenship, but don’t have an Israeli nationality. Israel’s citizens have either Jewish, Arab, Druze, Samaritan, Circassian, Kara’ite or foreign nationality. Jewish nationals already have overwhelming preference in the Israeli state, Defining Israel as a Jewish state seems ominous; only an attempt to give some meaning to the preference, and reinforce it to an extent that being non-Jewish means you might as well leave.

Add to the dangerous mix of laws, which favor the favored nationals, the declarations of Israel’s leaders. According to the Jewish Daily Forward, March 18, 2009, “Foreign Secretary Avigdor Lieberman was elected to the Knesset on a platform that would require a loyalty oath as a condition of Israeli citizenship. He has suggested transferring Israeli-Arab population centers to the control of a future Palestinian state.”

Israel today is a nation whose people have conditions, problems, purposes and values that are different from Jews around the world. The Israeli characteristics aren’t derivatives of a three thousand year-old part urban and part tribal society – but are associated with a specific 21st century industrial society. The specifics create an Israeli identity that is not aligned with the identities of Jews in other nations. Israel is attempting to make all Jews into good Israelis and redefine the meaning of being Jewish. This includes being agreeable to Fundamentalist Christianity, which is not agreeable to world Jewry, but is Israel’s best friend. Israel is strengthening a fervent antagonist of Jewish and progressive peoples.

Recall the conclusion of the King-Crane commission, which was appointed by President Wilson in 1919:

“…a national home for the Jewish people is not equivalent to making Palestine into a Jewish State; nor can the erection of such a Jewish State be accomplished without the gravest trespass upon the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine. The fact came out repeatedly in the Commission’s conference with Jewish representatives that the Zionists looked forward to a practically complete dispossession of the present non-Jewish inhabitants of Palestine, by various forms of purchase.

In view of all these considerations, and with a deep sense of sympathy for the Jewish cause, the Commissioners feel bound to recommend that only a greatly reduced Zionist program be attempted by the Peace Conference, and even that, only very gradually initiated. This would have to mean that Jewish immigration should be definitely limited, and that the project for making Palestine distinctly a Jewish commonwealth should be given up.”

Israelis also make it seem that the route to the ‘Jewish state’ was a natural progression; disregarding their roles in creating the Palestinian displaced persons and the evictions of almost one million Palestinians from their lands.

The Displaced Persons

Israel did not permit Palestinians who left or were evicted during the 1948 and 1967 conflagrations to return to their homes and lands. Assets, businesses, property and household items were confiscated and the owners were not reimbursed. Israeli historian Benny Morris summarized the evictions well:

“I feel sympathy for the Palestinian people, which truly underwent a hard tragedy. I feel sympathy for the refugees themselves. But if the desire to establish a Jewish state here is legitimate, there was no other choice. It was impossible to leave a large fifth column in the country. From the moment the Yishuv was attacked by the Palestinians and afterward by the Arab states, there was no choice but to expel the Palestinian population. To uproot it in the course of war.”

Benny Morris used the correct phrase: “. if the desire to establish a Jewish state here is legitimate.” It was not legitimate. The choice was not between “having a Jewish state and not dispossessing the Palestinians.” The choice was between “not having the expanded state that Israel gained” and “dispossessing the Palestinians.” Almost all the evicted Palestinians were in the territory granted to the Palestinians. Not since the days of American expansionism has a group of individuals (Israel was not even a declared nation when the confiscations began nor had Arab armies attacked at that time.) invaded another land, seized the territory and cleared the area of the indigenous people.

Can anyone believe that Israel is not directly responsible for the Palestinian exodus? Did these people voluntarily decide to leave their homes, face starvation, have entire families commit suicide because of their desperation and then be willing to sit quietly in refugee camps? Are these verified reports of forced removals, terrorizing killings and destruction of more than 400 Palestinian villages only stories? Why were the villages destroyed? Why weren’t the villagers allowed to return? Why were vacant homes instantly occupied? In Rwanda, Bosnia, Kosovo and elsewhere, the western nations were firm in demanding prompt return of refugees and fought to achieve that demand. In other situations, refugees had been created, but wanton property and asset seizures were not a rule. In Palestine, Israel seized all properties and assets and allowed newly arrived foreigners to occupy vacant homes. No precedent for these illegal operations exists in the post World War II western civil ized world. We have perpetrators telling victims; “Look it’s over, let’s forget it. You want restitution; it isn’t going to happen.”

Israel has revealed its nature; a nation built on actions normally termed war crimes by world institutions; a nation that does not follow international law; and a nation that does not heed United Nations Resolutions. Distracting and deceiving the world community with contrived and fallacious narratives permits Israel to continue its illegal maneuvers. Setting the record straight will straighten the road to Middle East peace.

Dan Leiberman

Dan Lieberman is the editor of Alternative Insight, a monthly web based newsletter. Dan’s many articles on the Middle East conflict have circulated on websites and media throughout the world. He contributed this article to PalestineChroincle.com.
Contact him at alternativeinsight@earthlink.net.

By:Saree Makdisi

Justice denied – To victims of Israeli War Crimes. (Wissam Nassar/MaanImages)

Palestinians and others are still absorbing and thinking through the implications of the Palestinian Authority’s decision to withdraw its support for the Goldstone report on Israel’s assault on Gaza last winter. The 575-page Report of the UN Fact-Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict, which was led by South African judge Richard Goldstone, confirmed the already densely documented reports published by human rights organizations that systematically confirmed Palestinian claims that Israel had committed grave breaches of international humanitarian law during the Gaza assault, including crimes against humanity (not least the sealing off an entire civilian population from the outside world, denying it the ability to flee to safety, and then subjecting that same, defenseless, shelterless population — most of it composed of children — to an indiscriminate round-the-clock bombardment).

Nevertheless, as Professor Richard Falk (the UN’s Special Rapporteur on the Human Rights Situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territories) points out, the Goldstone report could have provided a basis for referring Israel’s conduct during the war in Gaza to the International Criminal Court or other international courts, or to the establishment of a war crimes tribunal along the lines of those established after the catastrophes of Bosnia and Rwanda. That would have been the best way to finally hold Israel accountable.

The process of referral depended, however, on obtaining a vote within the UN to have the Goldstone report referred to the Security Council for further deliberation, the creation of a war crimes tribunal, and so on. And all of that depended in turn on the support of Palestinian diplomats appointed by and accountable to Mahmoud Abbas, so-called President of the Palestinian Authority (“so-called” because his term of office, such as it was, expired almost a year ago).

But it is now clear that the Palestinian team representing Abbas at the UN (for they certainly do not represent the Palestinian people) has, on his instructions, dropped its support for the resolution that might have set the legal machinery of the international judicial system in motion. Other states can hardly be expected to stand up to US pressure and support a resolution on behalf of Palestinian rights that the Palestinian delegation itself is unwilling to support. Why should Venezuela or Nigeria or Pakistan be more Palestinian than the Palestinians?

Reports have been circulating in the Arab, Israeli and European media that Abbas and his associates may have been prompted to take this extraordinary action because Israel had been threatening, had they continued with their support of the UN resolution, to withhold its release of a share of the radio spectrum that would have allowed the creation of a new Palestinian mobile phone company, Wataniyya: the product of a joint venture between Qatari investors and the Palestine Investment Fund, to which Abbas himself and one of his wealthy sons have personal connections. Palestinians have suggested that simple corruption and cronyism may have motivated Abbas’s decision. The PA and the circle of officials attached to it have certainly had their share of corruption charges — most shockingly, perhaps, when Ahmed Qureia, then the so-called Prime Minister of the PA (again, “so-called” because prime ministers usually have countries to govern, and the PA is anything but a country), was accused of selling cement to the Israelis to build their wall in the West Bank. The corruption of the PA and the narrow circle of Fatah party officials running it, clinging to it, and benefiting from it, is one of the main reasons why Fatah was swept from office in the 2006 Palestinian elections in favor of Hamas. Most people then were voting against Fatah and its corruption and general hopelessness, rather than for Hamas (which had, and has, little to offer other than simply not being Fatah: a credit which goes only so far).

It’s possible, of course, that corruption and cronyism were not the motivating factors for Abbas’s decision to withdraw Palestinian support for the Goldstone report. There are two other possibilities.

One of these is simple incompetence: that Abbas and his associates are so lacking in intelligence, imagination and political skill that they just bungled the whole affair. This is certainly not out of the question: Abbas himself is an extraordinarily unprepossessing and profoundly compromised man, and his circle of associates — including men like Mohammed Dahlan and Saeb Erekat — hardly inspire any more confidence than Abbas himself. Quite apart from their sheer disregard for Palestinian suffering in Gaza (seeking redress for which ought to be their main priority), it ought to be clear that a party to a negotiation that wantonly throws a rarely-held card out of the window while attempting (or at least claiming) to negotiate is, to put it mildly, not qualified to negotiate in the first place, let alone to claim to “lead” a defiant and unvanquished people like the Palestinians. If the Ramallah leadership is really as hopelessly incompetent as this scenario would have it, that’s reason enough for their removal from office, if not the dissolution of the PA itself. (It’s difficult, though, to “dismiss from office” someone like Abbas who is not actually in office in the first place — he is there because the Israelis and the Americans want him to be there, because the election for his successor after his term expired has been deferred at the behest of Washington and Tel Aviv, and not because he holds any legitimate mandate from the Palestinian people themselves, the overwhelming majority of whom have no faith in him whatsoever, as opinion polls have regularly found).

Another — and I think more likely — possibility is that Abbas, the PA and the essentially defunct Palestine Liberation Organization are not (and never were, at least since the time of Yasser Arafat’s death) interested in serious negotiations with Israel that could have led to the creation of a genuine Palestinian state in the occupied territories. After all, one of the main criticisms of the Oslo accords of 1993-95 which created the PA, is that, far from ending Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory, they merely served to shift the day-to-day burden and cost of administering the occupation to the newly-established PA, while allowing Israel to go on demolishing Palestinian homes, expropriating Palestinian land and building Jewish colonies in the occupied territories in contravention of international law. Oslo formally separated the three main chunks of Palestinian territory that Israel has occupied since 1967 (Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem) from each other and the outside world, and, additionally, broke the West Bank itself into Areas A, B and C. It was only in Area A (about 18 percent of the total) that the PA had any kind of practical presence on the ground, and in Area C (60 percent of the West Bank), the PA had no role or presence at all — and that’s where Israel was (and still is) busy demolishing, expropriating and building. Oslo and the PA, in other words, far from ending the occupation and laying the basis for the creation of an independent Palestinian state, actually allowed Israel to consolidate the occupation and further cement its grip on Palestinian land. Which is exactly why the population of Jewish colonists in the West Bank and East Jerusalem doubled during the period of Oslo and has been increasing ever since — and today numbers almost half a million.

As this latest episode so amply demonstrates, the PA serves Israel by facilitating the occupation — which is why Israel invented it in the first place, just as, historically speaking, colonial powers have always attempted to create or coerce local elites into helping them deal with the population at large. This approach is perhaps most gracefully summarized in Macaulay’s Minute on Indian Education of 1835: “We must at present do our best to form a class who may be interpreters between us and the millions whom we govern; a class of persons, Indian in blood and color, but English in taste, in opinions, in morals, and in intellect.” Why would the PA want to bring to an end an arrangement from which it benefits? As the French scholar Regis Debray points out, the status quo provides the PA elites in Ramallah “with a living, status, dignity and a raison d’etre,” and probably (e.g., if the mobile phone contract rumors prove to be true) much more in the way of emoluments besides that.

Even if one were to grant the PA and Abbas and his associates the benefit of the doubt, and say that they really have their people’s best interests at heart, it still remains the case that the PA, even under the best-case scenario, can claim to represent only a minority of the Palestinian people, since only a minority of Palestinians live in the occupied territories. The majority live either in the exile imposed on them by force during the creation of Israel in 1948, or (in the case of those Palestinians who survived that year’s ethnic cleansing and remained) as second-class, non-Jewish citizens of the would-be Jewish state, which systematically discriminates against them simply because they are not Jewish.

These, then, are the possibilities before us: not only does the PA not represent the Palestinian people, it is also, on top of that, either corrupt to an almost unimaginable level; or it is profoundly incompetent and guilty of squandering the rights and hopes of a people that it is not entitled to claim to lead; or it is interested not in its people’s rights and hopes but rather in perpetuating its own status as the day-to-day caretaker of a permanent Israeli occupation — in which case it is no less collaborationist than the Vichy “government” of Nazi-occupied France in the 1940s. Corruption; incompetence; collaboration: ah, the agony of choice.

It is unlikely that Abbas and his associates will declare the “independence” of a Palestinian state in the occupied territories, as has been suggested by the current so-called Palestinian Prime Minister, Salam Fayyad — another man whose claim to office has no legitimacy, since his arbitrary appointment, by Abbas, to replace the legitimately elected Hamas leadership (whatever one thinks of it) was never confirmed by the Palestinian Legislative Council, many of the members of which are in Israeli jails. But even if an “independent” state were declared, it ought to be clearer than ever that such a “state” would offer Palestinians only more of the same choices (corruption, compromise, collaboration), while continuing to serve Israel’s interests, if not actually to take direct orders from Washington and Tel Aviv.

In any case, the Palestinian cause is a struggle for freedom and justice, not for the creation of a statelet in the occupied territories that would, as I said — even in the best circumstances — only address the interests of that minority of the Palestinian people who live there.

What, then, are we to conclude from all this?

Above all, that no Palestinian ought to look to the official leadership as a source of guidance and direction. It has betrayed the people and proved itself totally unworthy of their trust — indeed, many Palestinians, including Abdelbari Atwan, editor of the Al-Quds Al-Arabi newspaper, are demanding that those behind this recent decision be apprehended and put on trial. And of course with a leadership this corrupt, inept or collaborationist, Palestinians can hardly expect better treatment from Washington and Tel Aviv than they are getting from Ramallah. And the Hamas opposition and its alternative leadership has little more to offer in the long run other than resistance for the sake of resistance, which is not, in itself, a blueprint for freedom and justice, and in any case has nothing to offer to Christian or secular Palestinians (and hardly much more than that to offer Muslim ones either, for that matter).

The second immediate conclusion to be drawn from this experience is that, as more and more Palestinians are demanding, the PA ought to be dissolved once and for all — the sooner, the better. This latest action really ought to be the last in a long and dismal record proving that the PA has not only failed to serve the interests of the Palestinian people, but that, on the contrary, it fundamentally serves the needs and requirements of Israel.

Bereft of any credible or legitimate leadership, the Palestinian people will have to look to themselves to continue their struggle for freedom, justice and equality. Indeed, their struggle has been at its best, for example, during the first intifada of the 1980s, when the official leadership — at the time in exile in Tunis — was actually least involved in it. No wonder, then, that the Israeli response to the grassroots autonomy of the first intifada was to usher the official leadership back into Palestine; the first intifada then stalled, and things have gone downhill ever since.

In looking for a resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, then, we should once and for all stop looking to governments and officials (elected or otherwise), in the US, Israel, or among the Palestinians themselves. As the Obama Administration has already demonstrated, the US government, in the present political conjuncture, will never put peace and justice in Palestine ahead of internal domestic pressures and politics; the Israeli government will not for one moment back down from its continually expanding colonization plan in the West Bank and East Jerusalem until it is compelled by outside pressure to do otherwise; and the Palestinian government — well, there is no such thing. There is a people living partly under military occupation; partly in enforced exile; and partly as a racialized and discriminated-against minority inside Israel. What they need is to refocus their struggle in ways that they can all identify with, collectively and equally, and, moreover, in ways that people of good will around the world — who have repeatedly demonstrated in their tens of thousands in support of justice for Palestine — can as well.

Indeed, the Palestinians are not alone: they have the support of people around the entire world. And it is to that reserve of good will and good faith among ordinary people around the world that the Palestinians must look. As the struggle against apartheid in South Africa demonstrated, governments not only can, but do, act, when ordinary people of good will make them act. In fact, even as governments have dithered, a vibrant global campaign to boycott, divest from, and impose sanctions on Israel in order to bring it into compliance with international law and in order to realize the rights of the Palestinian people (all of it) has been recording one success after another, reminding us all that boycotts really do work.

This is the direction in which all Palestinians, bereft of leadership, must now throw themselves. And their demand must be something that addresses and unifies the rights of all segments of the Palestinian people, not just those suffering under occupation, as well as addressing and recognizing the rights of Jewish Israelis — something that most decent people in the world can readily identify with: justice, equality, one person, one vote: in other words, the creation of one democratic and secular state in which Palestinians and Israelis can live equally in a just and lasting peace. For without justice there will be no peace.

Source: Electronic Intifada

Sarree Makdisi

Saree Makdisi is Professor of English and Comparative Literature at UCLA and the author of Palestine Inside Out: An Everyday Occupation. His website is http://sareemakdisi.net/.

By: Prof. Stephen M. Walt

Like so many of his predecessors, President Obama is quickly discovering that persuading Israel to change course is nearly impossible.

Obama came to office determined to achieve a two-state solution between Israelis and Palestinians. His opening move was to insist that Israel stop building settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem — a tough line aimed at bolstering Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and persuading key Arab states to make conciliatory gestures toward Israel. These steps would pave the way for the creation of a viable Palestinian state and the normalization of Israel’s relations with its Arab neighbors, and also help rebuild America’s image in the Arab and Muslim world.

Unfortunately, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has no interest in a two-state solution, much less ending settlement expansion. He and his government want a “greater Israel,” which means maintaining effective control of the West Bank and Gaza. His response to Obama’s initiative has ranged from foot-dragging to outright defiance, with little push back from Washington.

This situation is a tragedy in the making between peoples who have known more than their share. Unless Obama summons the will and skill to break the logjam, a two-state solution will become impossible and those who yearn for peace will be even worse off than before.

Netanyahu initially claimed in early June that the Bush administration had assured Israel that “natural growth” of the existing settlement blocs was permissible — an assertion that Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and other officials promptly denied. Netanyahu further declared that 2,500 housing units under construction would be completed. He then made a minor concession after Obama’s June address to the Muslim world in Cairo, slipping a single reference to a “demilitarized Palestinian state” into an otherwise uncompromising speech at Bar-Ilan University. The onerous conditions that Netanyahu demanded of such a state made it clear that he was merely tossing Obama a bone to avoid clashing with a then-popular U.S. president.

Netanyahu’s stance hardened as Obama’s approval ratings slipped. In July, after U.S. officials tried to halt an Israeli plan to convert an old Arab hotel into 20 Jewish apartments in Sheik Jarrah — an Arab neighborhood in East Jerusalem — Netanyahu told his Cabinet that “Jerusalem is not a settlement, and there is nothing to discuss about a freeze there.” Underscoring the point, Israeli authorities expelled two Arab families in Sheik Jarrah from homes they had inhabited for 50 years.

Then last month, an unnamed “senior U.S. official” told reporters that peace talks might resume without an agreement to halt all settlement construction, and Netanyahu reiterated that he opposed a complete freeze. A few days later, Israel authorized construction of hundreds of additional housing units in the West Bank. In response, the White House merely said that it “regretted” this action, adding that the “U.S. commitment to Israel’s security is and will remain unshakeable.” Three days later, the Israel Lands Administration issued tenders for 468 new apartments in East Jerusalem. And just a week ago, Netanyahu announced that a complete freeze on settlement building “will not happen” and that construction in Jerusalem “would continue as normal.”

Why is Netanyahu defying Obama so openly? Because he has long been committed to the dream of a “greater Israel,” and the only Palestinian state he might accept would be an archipelago of disconnected enclaves under de facto Israeli control. His Cabinet is even more hard-line, which means his government would collapse if he made meaningful concessions. Furthermore, attempting to remove a substantial portion of the 300,000-plus settlers living in the West Bank could trigger a violent reaction within Israel, possibly even putting Netanyahu at risk of suffering the fate of former primer minister Yitzhak Rabin, who was assassinated by a Jewish extremist in 1995.

Some observers say that Netanyahu’s decision to authorize new housing units is merely a sop to his right-wing colleagues and that he will eventually agree to a temporary freeze on settlements and serious negotiations with the Palestinians. But even if he does, history suggests that any pledge to stop settlement expansion would be meaningless. Previous Israeli governments also promised to halt settlement building, most recently in the 2003 “Road Map” agreement that set a formal timetable for Middle East peace. Yet despite these promises, the number of settlers has more than doubled since the early 1990s and has grown by about 5 percent annually since Israel formally accepted the “Road Map” in May 2003.

Nor is settlement expansion the work of a handful of rebellious religious extremists. Labor and Likud governments have backed this enterprise with economic subsidies, essential infrastructure and military protection, as well as an array of roads, checkpoints and security barriers. In demanding a freeze, Obama is attempting to get Israel to halt a project that its major political parties have pursued for more than 40 years. And even though Israel receives more than $3 billion each year from the United States, his efforts to halt expansion and achieve a two-state solution will probably fail.

Why is Obama letting Netanyahu thwart his efforts? To begin with, the president has too much on his plate — the economic crisis, the health-care battle, Afghanistan, Iran’s nuclear problem — so the attention he can devote to Israeli-Palestinian peace is limited.

And then there is the Israel lobby. The good news is that there is a new pro-Israel organization, J Street, which is committed to the two-state solution and firmly behind Obama. The bad news is that the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and other defenders of the status quo remain powerful, and they will surely oppose any attempt to pressure Netanyahu. In May, for example, AIPAC drafted a letter warning Obama to “work closely and privately” with Israel. It garnered 329 signatures in the House and 76 names in the Senate. During the August recess, 56 members of Congress visited Israel, and House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.) told reporters that it was a mistake to make settlement construction the key issue and that there was a “significant difference” between settlements in the West Bank and those in East Jerusalem.

If Obama tries to make aid to Israel conditional on a settlement freeze, Congress will simply override him. Putting real pressure on Israel risks alienating key politicians and major Democratic fundraisers, as well as Israel’s supporters in the media, imperiling the rest of Obama’s agenda and conceivably his prospects for reelection. Moreover, several of Obama’s top advisers, such as Dennis Ross, are enthusiastic supporters of America’s “special relationship” with Israel and would almost certainly oppose using U.S. leverage to force Israeli concessions. Obama and special envoy George Mitchell are negotiating with one hand tied behind their backs, and Netanyahu knows it.

If tangible progress toward a viable Palestinian state does not happen soon, however, Abbas and other moderate Palestinians will only be weakened and radical groups such as Hamas only strengthened. Obama’s commitment to two states for two peoples, and his declaration in Cairo that “it is time for these settlements to stop,” will sound hollow. Israel will be stuck repressing millions of angry Palestinians and will increasingly resemble an apartheid state. As former prime minister Ehud Olmert put it in 2007, failure to achieve a two-state solution will force Israel into a “South-African style struggle.” And if that happens, he warned, “Israel is finished.”

Obama said in Cairo that a two-state solution is “in Israel’s interest, Palestine’s interest, America’s interest and the world’s interest.” He’s right, but it’s not the rest of the world that needs to get behind this vision. It is the Israelis who have to be convinced, and that will take sustained U.S. pressure. To succeed, Obama must use his bully pulpit to explain to the American people that the two-state solution is by far the best outcome for Israel and that time is running out. If he does not get that message across, he will become the latest in a long line of U.S. presidents who tried to end this conflict — and failed.

Source: washingtonpost.com

Prof. Stephen M.Walt

Stephen M. Walt, professor of international affairs at Harvard University, is co-author of “The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy” and a contributing editor of Foreign Policy magazine.

OK. It’s time to take off the gloves and start getting truly radical. My proposal for the Jewish state, Medinat Yisrael, may be hated or loved by the Right and the Left – but it is at least a new direction and gets away from the Two State dogma that threatens to destroy the safety of the Jewish State and the dreams and aspirations of the Palestinians. Here it is:

One Democratic Jewish and Palestinian State:

Where Jews can settle everywhere in the Homeland, in Eretz Yisrael, and Arabs can settle everywhere in what they consider their Homeland.

Note re. Demographic challenges: The most effective way for Israel to increase its Jewish population ratio in the short and long term is by: letting in potentially millions of Africans, Asians and South Americans who self-identify as Jewish, even if they cannot prove their Jewish descent, and work on converting them to normative Judaism, if they wish, when they get to Israel; educating Arab women and men, which has been shown my many studies to be effective in significantly lowering birth rates; enabling the conversions of hundreds of thousands of FSU Israelis who are not currently halachically Jewish, and wish to become halachik Jews.

Five Pillars of the One Democratic Jewish and Palestinian Democratic State from the Jordan to the Mediterranean :

1) All citizens – Jews, Muslims, Christians and others – can live anywhere in the land. Jews will return to live all over Jerusalem – Muslim quarter, Christian quarter, Silwan, City of David – and all over the promised land: in the ancient Israelite cities of Hebron, Bethlehem, and Shechem, and all over Judea and Samaria and the Gaza Strip. Just as in America restrictive covenants are illegal, so, too in the One State: Jews and Palestinians can acquire property anywhere in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Gaza, West Bank, etc. Property rights will be respected, and returning refugees will be accommodated through new housing in or close to their original housing. All Jewish settlements that are legal by current Israeli law will remain, with compensation where necessary.

2) New constitution – needing a super-majority to change – establishing a full democracy, with full separation of church/synagogue/mosque and state, with both a Jewish Bill of Rights and a Palestinian Bill of Rights guaranteeing that the state can be both a Jewish state and a Palestinian state

3) Law of Return for Jews; Law of Return for Palestinians

4) The IDF and internal police and security services will stationed everywhere in the One State – there will be no “no go” areas; and these forces will be slowly integrated, at a pace consistent with the security needs of the new state.

5) Demographic issues will be negotiated with at least three possible solutions: increasing Israel’s Jewish population radically by admitting millions of Jewish identifiers from Africa, Asia and South America before the One State is implemented; returning Palestinians based on an equal admission of Jewish identifiers – perhaps limited to a certain time period; allowing for a natural growth of Jewish or Muslim – or other – populations, while the constitution guarantees that the One State remains compatible as a Jewish state as well as a Palestinian state, perhaps guaranteeing a majority representation for a certain number of years.

Crazy? Maybe. But let’s start with some simple first steps:

An immediate, indefinite moratorium on Arab house demolitions in Jerusalem to allow natural Arab growth, in exchange for official U.S. recognition of the right to build for natural Jewish growth in Jewish settlements in the West Bank. This is just the first step for Jews accepting Arabs and Arabs accepting Jews.

This is the beginning of the New Era.

Step two is more radical, has downsides, but might be necessary: Immediate return of Gilad Shalit; release of Palestinian prisoners; U.S. commuting Jonathan Pollard and sending him to Israel. This is step two of the New Era.

This is an era celebrating integration, tolerance, life and growth. Rather than the old era of separation, hate, demeaning one another, intolerance.

Step three is a radical, but incremental experiment: The return of several thousand Jews to the Muslim and Christian Quarters of the Old City where they were driven out in 1948 and to Hevron, where they were driven out in 1929, but at the same time, the return of several thousand Arabs to the areas in Old Qatamon and Baqqa which they evacuated in 1948. These populations will return as close as possible to their old houses, but no one will be thrown out of the houses occupied since the previous populations left.

The IDF and the Israeli police forces will be stationed everywhere to guarantee the safety of Jews and Arabs.

Now, let’s talk!

Asher Lopatin

by Jessica Bryan

FRC provided links to news stories and responded to President Obama’s call for a Palestinian state and also to the proposed plan to help out newspapers.

A Washington Update email discusses abortion and health care, hate crime legislation, and the embryonic mixup at the Ohio fertility clinic.