Topic:
A recent public opinion poll asked Americans which of two options they would favour if a two-state solution to the Israel/Palestine conflict was no longer on the table. (It is in the rhetoric of leaders and diplomats but not in reality). The two options were:
I have long thought that Dr. Hanan Ashrawi, a senior member of the PLO's Executive Committee and the Palestine Legislative Council, is the most articulate spokesperson in Israeli occupied territory for her cause. Her latest comment is a bleak assessment of the prospects for getting a real peace process going. She was responding to a statement by an Obama administration official that both Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and Palestinian President Abbas will be able to "express reservations about individual provisions" in the framework document Secretary of State Kerry is preparing. Here's what Ashrawi said:
Way back in October 2001, a prominent and widely respected liberal London rabbi, Dr. David Goldberg, made what I thought at the time was the most remarkable statement ever made by a Jew in the 53 years that had passed since the creation, mainly by terrorism and ethnic cleansing, of the Zionist (not Jewish) state of Israel. He said that Israel's "colonization" of Palestine had left many Jews "questioning their unconditional support for Israel." Then this: "It may be time for Judaism and Zionism to go their separate ways."
The answer to my headline question could be, not necessarily would be, "Yes" IF President Obama was prepared to put America's own best interests first and use as necessary all the leverage he has to oblige Israel to accept that peace with the Palestinians requires a complete end to its occupation of the West Bank. With East Jerusalem the capital of a Palestinian state or, preferably, Jerusalem an undivided, open city and the capital of two states, Israel back to its 1967 pre-war frontiers subject only to minor and mutually agreed border modifications is an Israel the Palestinians could and would make peace with. But...
Following the interim agreement with Iran the next six months will tell us whether or not the American-led Zionist lobby and Zionism itself has played its last card and lost. If it does lose President Obama will be free to use the leverage he has to try to cause Israel to be serious about peace on terms almost all Palestinians and most other Arabs and Muslims everywhere could accept (and which would not pose any threat to the wellbeing and security of those Jews now living in Palestine that became Israel and who wanted to stay). The stakes could not be higher.
His own explanation was that he wants to avoid or minimise the prospects for an "unnecessary confrontation" with the international community, for which read President Obama and the European leaders who would follow his lead (with the arguable exception of the French whore).
For once Israel is telling a part of the truth. It was impossible for any of its own (Israeli-Jewish) agents to get into the rubble of Arafat's compound to administer the poison that killed him. But they didn't need direct access. Israel's role was to provide the radioactive polonium for one of its collaborators in Fatah's leadership.
I was inspired (perhaps I should say provoked) to write this piece by something U.S. Vice-President Joe Biden said in his speech to the recent J Street National Conference in Washington DC.
I am withdrawing from the battlefield of the war for the truth of history as it relates to the making and sustaining of the conflict in and over Palestine that became Israel, and the following is an explanation of why.
The news of the death of Britain's Iron Lady, Baroness Thatcher, promoted me to recall my favourite story about her. In 1980, in the first of her three terms as prime minister, she said in a speech to her Conservative Party's Conference: "You turn if you want to. The lady's not for turning." Because I was personally engaged with her at the time, I know that she performed her first U turn in her first 48 hours of being prime minister.