UN recognition of a Palestinian make-believe state would be no more meaningful than this fantasy “institution-building”, and could push Palestinians even further away from real liberation and self-determination.
Diplomacy
Haaretz’ coverage of WikiLeaks documents concerning Israel is very interesting and well worth reading HERE.
The world knows that this is a battle between the Israeli Goliath and the Palestinian David, and its heart is with the underdog. The world heard Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speak of a two-state solution and was filled with hope. But after two years of total deadlock, hollow talk, illusions, Israel’s unreasonable setting of conditions and the construction of more and more settlements, the world has condemned Israel. No hasbara can change that.
Israeli leaders have barely hidden their jubilation at an opinion article … by the South African jurist Richard Goldstone reconsidering the findings of his UN-appointed inquiry into Israel’s attack on Gaza in winter 2008… Israel would certainly like observers to interpret Goldstone’s latest comments as an exoneration. In reality, however, he offered far less consolation to Israel than its supporters claim.
More than 1,000 leftists and pro-Palestinian activists are expected to take part in the flotilla, which sources say will include more than 20 vessels of various sizes.
Comment by Deputy PM comes as Israel sets out to embark on a diplomatic and public relations campaign seeking to leverage in its favor the article published by Judge Richard Goldstone.
IOA Editor: For a ‘reality check,’ see Richard Silverstein: Goldstone’s tawdry turn, Israel’s false dance of vindication
Libya is a different case. Libya is rich in oil, and though the US and UK have often given quite remarkable support to its cruel dictator, right to the present, he is not reliable. They would much prefer a more obedient client. Furthermore, the vast territory of Libya is mostly unexplored, and oil specialists believe it may have rich untapped resources, which a more dependable government might open to Western exploitation.
Ban Ki-moon: “Both sides must protect civilians and act in conformity with international law to prevent further escalation and loss of life… Time is of the essence in realizing the two-State solution. The occupation that started in 1967 is morally and politically unsustainable, and must end. The Palestinians have a legitimate right to the establishment of an independent and viable State of their own… A way must be found for Jerusalem to emerge as a capital of two States, Israel and Palestine… And there must be a just and agreed solution to the prolonged plight of the Palestinian refugees.”
European diplomats have confirmed that such a message was conveyed several days ago. One diplomat said his country did not receive a serious response when asked what unilateral steps Israel might take. Another diplomat … said in light of the current deadlock in negotiations, international recognition of Palestinian statehood appeared unavoidable in September.
IOA Editor: The Israeli government is clearly concerned about the diplomatic front turning against it. But what could it do, “unilaterally,” that hasn’t been done in the past 43 years? Bomb? Annex? Re-Occupy?
[S]ome American officials and pundits are searching for any kind of interpretation that will enable them to divorce US support for the Israeli occupation from America’s relations with the Arab world. By claiming that the Palestinian issue is no longer central to Arab thinking, they imagine that the US can simply impose a ‘solution’ that ensures Israeli hegemony in the region and falls short of accepting the Palestinian people’s right to exercise self-determination.
Yossi Alpher: “At this point it’s all spin designed to fend off pressures… The object of the exercise is to gain a day, or a week, or a month, before having to come up with some sort of new spin.”
Suddenly, to be an Arab has become a good thing. People all over the Arab world feel a sense of pride in shaking off decades of cowed passivity under dictatorships that ruled with no deference to popular wishes. And it has become respectable in the West as well. Egypt is now thought of as an exciting and progressive place; its people’s expressions of solidarity are welcomed by demonstrators in Madison, Wisconsin; and its bright young activists are seen as models for a new kind of twenty-first-century mobilization.
A crisis erupted between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and German Chancellor Angela Merkel. During a telephone call this week, Merkel told Netanyahu that he had disappointed her and had done nothing to advance peace.
US Senator John Kerry and Syrian President Bashar Assad reportedly began drafting an unofficial position paper that would define the principles of negotiations with Israel.
The sigh of relief in Israel after it turned out that for the time being the Egyptian people are making do with military rule could be heard all the way to Cairo’s Tahrir square. The democratic threat had been removed from the agenda for the time being.
The main value of the 1979 Camp David treaty to the Israeli leadership has been three decades of calm on Israel’s south-western flank. That, in turn, has freed the army to concentrate on more pressing goals, such as its intermittent forays north to sow sectarian discord in Lebanon, its belligerent posturing towards first Iraq and now Iran in the east, and its campaign to contain and dispossess the Palestinians under its rule.
US is the only Security Council member that opposes the resolution; though its wording does not conflict with Washington’s stance on settlements it fears that if the resolution passes it will be an obstacle to renewal of peace talks.
The new vice-president of Egypt, Omar Suleiman, is a long-standing favourite of Israel’s who spoke daily to the Tel Aviv government via a secret “hotline” to Cairo, leaked documents disclose.
IOA Editor: The implications on the continuation of the Gaza siege are only too obvious. Another reason to oppose the US-lead efforts to limit the change of government in Egypt.
Mubarak is taking his cues for impudence from the far rightwing government of Israeli PM Binyamin Netanyahu, which began the Middle Eastern custom of humiliating President Barack Obama with impunity… Israel was founded on the primal sin of expelling hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from their homes in what is now Israel, and then conniving at keeping them stateless, helpless and weak ever after… The policy of the United States has been for the most part to accommodate this Israeli policy and to collaborate in the maltreatment of the Palestinians.
President Shimon Peres has not abandoned his old friend Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. “We always have had and will have great respect for President Mubaraek. Not everything he did was right, but he did do one thing for which all of us are thankful. He was the peace keeper of the Middle East,” Peres [said].
