The failure of the US to halt the slow-motion ethnic cleansing of Palestinians by Israel has consequences. The failure to acknowledge the collective humiliation and anger felt by most Arabs because of the presence of US troops on Muslim soil, not only in Iraq and Afghanistan but in the staging bases set up in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, has consequences. The failure to denounce the repression, including the widespread use of torture, censorship and rigged elections, wielded by our allies against their citizens in the Middle East has consequences. We are soaked with the stench of these regimes.
Diplomacy
Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said Wednesday in an interview with the Qatar-based Al-Jazeera television that a U.S. citizen, who worked in the U.S. State Department, and a British citizen, a former MI6 and EU official, are the ones responsible for leaking the so-called ‘Palestine papers.’
A summary of important articles and documents covering revelations of The Palestine Papers.
A selection of video reports from Al-Jazeera’s comprehensive coverage of the leaked Israeli-Palestinian negotiations documents.
The “Palestine Papers” demand a serious re-evaluation of two lingering, erroneous assumptions made by many Western observers: 1) the US’ self-proclaimed role as honest broker; 2) the assumption that peace talks have fallen into abeyance chiefly because of the election nearly two years ago of Netanyahu’s rightwing Israeli government. The Americans’ goal was to strong-arm him into bringing into his coalition Tzipi Livni who is widely regarded as the most credible Israeli advocate for peace. However, Livni, previously Mr Olmert’s foreign minister, emerges in the leaked papers as an inflexible negotiator, dismissive of the huge concessions being made by the Palestinians.
IOA Editor: Indeed, as we’ve said since the release of The Palestine Papers.
Livni to Ahmed Qurei and Saeb Erekat: “Israel was established to become a national home for Jews from all over the world. The Jew gets the citizenship as soon as he steps in Israel, and therefore don’t say anything about the nature of Israel… The basis for the creation of the state of Israel is that it was created for the Jewish people. Your state will be the answer to all Palestinians including refugees. Putting an end to claims means fulfilling national rights for all.”
Al-Jazeera TV , the Guardian: PA agreed to concede almost all of East Jerusalem to Israel, accept Israeli demand to recognize Israel as a Jewish state, and much more.
At a meeting in November 2007, [Livni] told Qureia that she believed Palestinians saw settlement building as meaning “Israel takes more land [so] that the Palestinian state will be impossible”; that “the Israel policy is to take more and more land day after day and that at the end of the day we’ll say that is impossible, we already have the land and we cannot create the state”. She conceded that it had been “the policy of the government for a really long time”.
IOA Editor: US-backed Israeli rejectionism, delivered by Tzipi Livni — generally regarded as Israel’s “more flexible” opposition leader. [Ha!] Nothing that we didn’t already know, other than the details on the specific Palestinian concessions. Even more interesting is Qureia’s March 2008 comment to Condoleezza Rice “You bring back life to the region when you come.” After Israel’s mass killing campaign in Lebanon and the US slaughter Iraq, it would have been far more accurate to state “you bring death to the region.”
Al-Jazeera TV , the Guardian: PA agreed to concede almost all of East Jerusalem to Israel, accept Israeli demand to recognize Israel as a Jewish state, and much more.
Chief Palestinian negotiator, Saeb Erekat: “This is the first time in Palestinian-Israeli history in which such a [concession] is officially made.” … But the offer was rejected out of hand by Israel because it did not include … Ma’ale Adumim as well as Har Homa and several other [settlements] deeper in the West Bank, including Ariel. “We do not like this suggestion because it does not meet our demands,” Israel’s then foreign minister, Tzipi Livni, told the Palestinians.
IOA Editor: US-backed Israeli rejectionism, delivered by Tzipi Livni — generally regarded as Israel’s “more flexible” opposition leader. [Ha!] Nothing that we didn’t already know, other than the details on the specific Palestinian concessions.
The ‘diplomatic holding action’ that Israel is conducting has enjoyed partial success, but the world is gradually becoming accustomed to the idea that Palestine will join the family of nations this summer.
IOA Editor: A centrist Israeli view about the impending Palestinian statehood. Maybe. Unclear just how any Israeli government — Netanyahu’s or other — would respond. And what kind of state? On that, read Aisling Byrne’s Building a Police State in Palestine.
“If we are building a police state — what are we actually doing here?” So asked a European diplomat responding to allegations of torture by the Palestinian security forces. The diplomat might well ask. A police state is not a state. It is a form of larceny: of people’s rights, aspirations and sacrifices, for the personal benefit of an élite. This is not what the world meant when it called for statehood. But a police state is what is being assiduously constructed in Palestine, disguised as state-building and good governance.
It was once widely assumed that creation of the Palestinian state would be negotiated between Israelis and Palestinians. No more. The final nail in the direct-negotiations coffin was driven by Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu when he coldly rejected President Obama’s offer of an extra $3.5 billion in U.S. aid in exchange for a 90-day settlement freeze.
IOA Editor: Just when was the last time such an assumption could be made? Twenty years ago? If then. Netanyahu’s predecessors, of the Likud and Labor alike, drove many earlier nails into the negotiations coffin. While Rosenberg is correct in calling for a US recognition of a self-declared future Palestinian state — a theoretical entity lacking borders, authority, or substance — he neglects to mention the historical role of all US governments in the burial of Israeli-Palestinian negotiations: it is US support of Israel — militarily, financially, and diplomatically — that enables the Occupation to continue unabated, now on the Nobel Laureate’s watch.
Medvedev: “As we did in 1988, Russia still recognizes an independent Palestine.” Russian president makes announcement after meeting with PA President Mahmoud Abbas in West Bank; Israeli officials fear recognition will cause a domino effect of other states following Russia’s lead, including China.
Rashid Khalidi: “Palestinian statehood is 62 years overdue. It should have happened at the time of the partition plan, a Jewish state, an Arab state. That’s what the U.N. mandated. It’s 44 years since the West Bank and the Gaza and Jerusalem were occupied, and we’re still waiting for a peace process that is going absolutely Nowhere, in fact, has made things much worse.”
While intensively engaged in illegal settlement expansion, the government of Israel is also seeking to deal with two problems: a global campaign of what it perceives as “delegitimation” – that is, objections to its crimes and withdrawal of participation in them – and a parallel campaign of legitimation of Palestine.
The American-Israeli special relationship is a classic example of the tail that wags the dog. As a result of its palpable partiality towards Israel, America has lost all credibility in the eyes not only of the Palestinians but of the wider Arab and Muslim worlds. The so-called peace process has been all process and no peace. It is worse than a sham. Peace talks that go nowhere slowly provide Israel with just the cover it needs to pursue its relentlessly expansionist agenda on the West Bank.
The U.S. last year denied reports that it had received a request for assistance from Dubai, but a recently released WikiLeaks cable proves otherwise.
Given [Israel’s] predispositions, combined with the disparities in bargaining power between the parties, as well as the one-sided hegemonic role of the United States, who but a fool could think that a just peace could emerge from the such a deformed pattern of geopolitical diplomacy?
Clinton illustrated how completely the administration has bought into the Israeli discourse. In her eagerness to support an Israel that is both Jewish and democratic, she skated perilously close to racism. She warned that “the long-term population trends that result from the occupation” were endangering the Zionist vision. In other words, that another four million Palestinians might soon demand equal rights in an Israel that has effectively controlled all of mandate Palestine from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea since 1967.
After reports reached Jerusalem that the Palestinian Authority is trying to persuade about a dozen European Union member states to upgrade the PA’s diplomatic status, the Foreign Ministry on Monday ordered every Israeli envoy abroad to begin “urgent” diplomatic activity. The aim is to thwart Palestinian efforts at drafting a United Nations resolution that would recognize a unilateral declaration of statehood and put international pressure on Israel to halt settlement construction.
