14 September 2010By Shamus
Cooke
What a joke. President Obama
surely knows there is zero chance that his Middle East
peace talks will succeed, even with the deck stacked
in his favor. All of the main actors are on the U.S.
payroll:
Israel,
Egypt, and Jordan get billions in
foreign aide, while the
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas
has proven a pliable puppet for the U.S. as he is
disdained by his own people.
But even puppets have their
limits. If the above governments were to support the
type of
peace treaty that Israel would
agree to, their already oppressed people would
revolt.
This is because Israel has been
quite clear about what it will and will not
"concede.” The basis for all Middle East Peace talks
has always been the land that Israel stole during the
1967
six day war: the
Golan
Heights in
Syria
must be returned; the
West Bank must be un-occupied;
East
Jerusalem must be returned to the
Palestinian people. UN
Resolution 242 demands that Israel return these
territories. It will not.
Nor will Israel stop
Israeli settlers
from building communities in the West Bank or allow
all
Palestinian refugees
to return to their land and homes that were
confiscated beginning in 1948. Israel does not grant
equal civil and political rights to any Arabs living
in this theocratic state. The U.S. and Israel will not
even allow the only political party in the
occupied territories with any
legitimacy, Hamas, to participate in the "peace
process.”
In fact, the only reason that
Israel has agreed to participate in this sham is for
some good public relations. Years of oppressing the
Palestinians has earned Israel
international condemnation, especially after the
recent flotilla massacre. Israel hopes that in making
a "sincere effort" in the peace process, it will shift
attention away from the ongoing atrocities it commits
as a matter of state policy.
Obama has similar motives as he
pursues a path leading to nowhere. At home, Obama
becomes more unpopular with each passing day, as he
confronts a jobs depression by ignoring it or by
pretending that the economy is improving for working
people.
The wars that Obama is conducting
are failures; hundreds of billions of dollars continue
to flow into the doomed effort, money that could
instead be used to create jobs.
As Obama chooses to pursue
policies only acceptable to corporations, he must lean
heavier on right-wing elements. The same approach that
Israel uses to oppress the Palestinians -- racism,
scapegoating, and fear -- are being transferred to the
U.S., especially towards those with ancestry from the
Middle East or immigrants from
Latin America.
As former Labor Secretary Robert
Reich recently explained:
"The practical choice we face is
this: Either major action to reverse the jobs
emergency or years of intolerably high unemployment
coupled with demagoguery and scapegoating." (September
3, 2010, robertreich.org)
If there were good intentions
behind the peace talks that included serious
proposals, Obama would deserve credit for his
effort. Unfortunately, this is not the case. Obama
refuses to cut U.S. aid to Israel, which it uses to
wage war
against its neighbors and to crush the
Palestinians. This is because Obama continues to use
Israel as a giant extension of U.S. corporate
interests: Israel uses its U.S. financed military to
ensure that profitable resources like oil do not fall
into the "wrong hands."
Obama and the Democrats will
travel down their corporate inspired path until there
are obstacles thrown in their way. On October 2nd
attention will be given to the enormous need for jobs
as
labor unions,
the NAACP, and other organizations descend on
Washington, D.C. for a mass demonstration.
Demonstrations in other states are being planned too.
The bigger the demonstrations,
and the louder that the demand of “Jobs For All!,” the
less able are politicians to focus on foreign affairs
and phony negotiations. The bigger the focus on
creating jobs and making
Wall Street
pay for them, the less able are right-wing elements to
steer workers frustration into racism, scapegoating,
and other fake solutions.
All Out For October 2nd !
Shamus Cooke is a social
service worker, trade unionist, and writer for Workers
Action (www.workerscompass.org).
He can be reached at
shamuscook@gmail.com
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