How
Can A Pro-Israel Solution Also Be A Pro-Palestine
Solution?
11 December 2009By
Debbie Menon
The Israelis have long gone past the point of making a
peace deal, or sharing a land with the Palestinians.
By their conduct they have forfeited all and any
rights they might have had, even by their own warped
codes.
Leading Israeli Scholar Avi Shlaim says in his
interview with Amy Goodman of Democracy Now, that
Israel is committing "State Terror" in Gaza,
preventing peace.
Avi Shlaim makes excellent points, but he neglects to
mention that Israel and its US lobbies (through money
and media) have an absolute lock on this, and all
other Middle East, issues. Anything Obama did with
Palestine, Syria, Lebanon, Iran that is not in
accordance with the neo-Zionist interests, would be a
political kiss of death for him. AIPAC & company would
go all out to ruin him, and they would succeed.
That is why Obama and all other presidential
contenders make pilgrimages to Jerusalem, to pledge
their fealty to the State of Israel.
To commence talks with Hamas is essential as former US
President James Earl Carter advocates, but:
The talks must be more than a monologue. They must
also involve listening to, hearing and understanding
what Hamas has to say.
They should not be based on the premise that Hamas is
a "Terrorist" organization which has stolen Gaza from
the Fatah, but that Hamas, like it or not, was elected
to office in an election promoted and monitored by the
United States, and has a legitimate claim to be the
government of Palestine.
I doubt that Israel will accept the second condition
under any terms, unless they abandon the strategy they
have followed for sixty years ever since they were
given the stolen goods called Palestine.
It is not consistent with total political Israeli
dominance in the territory. In other words,
"negotiation" and "dialogue for peace" does not exist
in the Israeli diplomatic lexicon. "Dictation" is the
only term they know and will settle for.
The US monologue with Hamas will open with "lay down
your arms, desist of your terrorist activities, and
stop rocketing Israel and we will tell Israel to stop
bombing you." Of course, Hamas, having been led, and
having seen the PLO being led down that blind alley
and after being mugged every evening for sixty years
now, is not going to accept that, any more readily
than Israel is going to accept Hamas as a legitimate
negotiator.
Israel will insist that Hamas disarm, and will refuse
to disarm themselves under the right of self-defense,
to which they will claim Hamas and Palestine have no
claim or need, since Israel will be their guarantor of
Peace.
Like I said, Palestinians have been mugged on this
alley before.
So, we may have another truce, which will be called a
successful Obama/Clinton Peace victory, and it will
last about as long as the others.
When you look at your chess board and see that you are
the only one with the Royal pieces, and all the other
guy has are pawns, you do not negotiate the game with
him, except to offer him a chance to concede
unconditionally! You just take his pawns.
A Muslim reader writes to me, "I am Member of many
progressive organizations in US; one of them is J
Street which is a Jewish organization. There was a
piece in 60 minutes about the Jewish settlements in
the occupied Palestine and the following is the
reaction to the reaction of fundamentalist Jews in the
US to that broadcast:
Dear Member:
When 60 Minutes and Bob Simon came under attack for
"anti-Israel bias" for their powerful and thoughtful
report on the danger that Israeli settlements pose to
the chances for a two-state solution to the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict, we leapt into action.
Together, we collected over 15,000 letters of support
for 60 Minutes.
Last week, I went with two J Street supporters to
bring your letters of support to the CBS offices in
New York City and took a few pictures.
I've also pasted three moving letters to Bob Simon
from J Street members at the bottom of this email. I
hope you'll take a look.
Thanks again for participating in our action alert -
and I'll be in touch soon with ways you can advocate
for a pro-Israel, pro-peace direction for American
foreign policy in the Middle East.
I hope you'll consider making a secure, online
contribution to support our work here.
-Isaac
Isaac Luria
Campaigns Director
J Street
I could not help noticing that the bottom line for
every one of the commentators in the Letters is a
pro-Israel, pro-American peace, and for many, a
two-state solution.
Their willingness to "settle" by giving back less than
half of what they have stolen is a good tactic, which
appears to give them the moral high ground of
benevolence, but one is not being benevolent when they
only return less than half of what they stole.
What exactly do any of them mean by a "pro-Israel,
pro-American solution?" How can a pro-Israel solution
also be a pro-Palestine solution? This is not equity!
This may or may not be what the neo-Zionists who are
driving the Israeli bus are aiming for, but it is also
not a very equitable solution for Palestinians, who
deserve to have more than just bits and parts of what
is left of their country, if not the entire country,
and who deserve peace in their own land on their own
terms, not a pro-Israeli peace, but a pro-Palestinian
peace.
And who says a pro-Israel Peace is necessarily a
pro-American Peace? Nor should a Pro-American peace
necessarily include a Pro-Israeli peace. I say cut
them loose and let them fend for themselves. They
would soon find enough inspiration to make a peace.
These are the kind of people who Karin Friedemann (The
Emotional Violence of Jewish Advocacy) says she talks
about, but never to, for it is impossible to reason
with them reasonably.
Israel kills and smashes and the world appeals for
funds to re-build? This senseless charade has been
going on for decades. It is a farce!
I hear none of them vociferously and totally
repudiating Israel, Zionism, and world Jewry for what
they have done, as Judith Wiessman has given some
pretty powerful testimony below. Weisman is a Toronto
psychotherapist, a member of Independent Jewish
Voices, and a founding member of Not In Our Name, Jews
for a Just Peace and the Jewish Women's Committee to
End the Occupation (of Palestine).
http://ca.youtube. com/watch? v=Nx1eRkBgzcA& NR=1
and some even more powerful poetry, built on some very
hard truths about Zionism and Israel and as Michael
Neumann has, totally condemning them said: "In the
end, you will give the Palestinians some scrap of a
state. You will never pay for your crimes and you will
continue to preen yourself, to bask in your illusions
of moral ascendancy. But between now and the end, you
will kill and kill and kill, gaining nothing by your
spoilt-brat brutality?"
Mainstream writers and Middle Eastern brothers and
sisters out there who think they are discovering and
dealing with important and seminal issues, I suggest
they stop wasting their time slapping plasters on all
the cuts and bruises, and focus on identifying the
disease and prescribing a treatment, i.e. Israel and
the neutralization of Zionism, of which AIPAC and all
of this fallout in the US and the world are just the
incapacitating and debilitating symptoms.
Band-Aids do not cure cancer. To expect otherwise is
foolish idealism! Only radical surgery can have any
effect on the situation. The patient sometimes dies of
the surgery!
Just a cursory review of the topics they offer looks
like they are too busy treating the symptoms and
debilities of the disease to identify, diagnose and
prescribe for the disease itself.
To wit; They spend a lot of space describing economic,
political, national and international issues,
legislation, regulation, "Obama says...." and "he
says," "she says," "they say...." things, and I see no
mention at all of the what and why behind all of these
ailments, which is the Israeli-Jewish- American lobby
of 100,000 members and its influence, which runs
America, and which directly and deliberately has
created all of this hullabaloo.
Dr. Mahathir correctly invoked "look to the Jew for
organization and unity," but people refuse to listen,
and instead go for the distortion and
misrepresentation of his words that the massive media
present. I think his words were quite complimentary of
the Jews and their Unity, but, politics, spin
politicians and their tame and house-broken media
being what they are, I am not surprised to see them
twist his words and turn them against him.
Here is an index of Israeli businesses being sold on
Amazon. Obviously not to be used for the purpose of
boycotts, which is illegal in America? See the
following government website. But, it would be nice to
have a list of Israeli businesses anyway, simply so
you know where to buy so that you didn't inadvertently
break any US Laws by not buying Israeli goods: (see
here and here).
Because A "Non-Violent" Protest, such as this, if
observed even for a single day, would be more
effective than Hamas lobbying rockets over the Wall
protesting Israel's Apartheid treatment.
In the meanwhile, rather than waste my time like a
novice rabbi fighting brush fires in the Sinai desert,
I shall go off and seek God or try to find out the why
instead of trying to change the what of life.
Better to find and shoot the arsonists than to spend
the rest of the day fighting fires which they will
only relight elsewhere and else when.
About the author: Debbie Menon is an independent
writer based in Dubai. She can be reached at
debbiemenon@ gmail.com.
©
EsinIslam.Com
Add Comments