Palestine Update 641
Comment
A new paradigm of justice is urgent
In 2014, 60% of Palestinians said the final goal of their national movement should be “to work toward reclaiming all of historic Palestine from the river to the sea”. A poll published in 2021 by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research revealed that only 39% of Palestinians support the two-state solution. Another report published in 2021 by the RAND Corporation found that Israelis across the political spectrum opposed a two-state solution.
There have been many diplomatic efforts to realize a two-state solution, starting from the 1991 Madrid Conference. There followed the 1993 Oslo Accords and the failed 2000 Camp David Summit followed by the Taba negotiations in early 2001. In 2002, the Arab League proposed the Arab Peace Initiative. The latest initiative, which also failed, was the 2013–14 peace talks. A 2021 survey of experts found that 52 percent believe that the two-state solution is no longer achievable. 77 percent believe that if not achieved, the result would be a “one-state reality akin to apartheid“. According to a 2021 PCPSR poll, support for a two-state solution among Palestinians and Israeli Jews, as of 2021, has declined to 43 percent and 42 percent, respectively. According to Middle East experts David Pollock and Catherine Cleveland, as of 2021, the majority of Palestinians say they want to reclaim all of historic Palestine, including pre-1967 Israel. A one-state solution with equal rights for Arabs and Jews is ranked second.
In this context, China’s emergence as a political influence in Middle East politics must be taken more seriously especially after the West has both failed and betrayed the Palestinians with their one-sided political manipulations. China has declared its intent to play an “active role” in encouraging peace between Israelis and Palestinians. This was stated by the Chinese Foreign Minister, Qin gang, at the end of a telephone conversation with the counterpart of the Palestinian National Authority (PNA), Riyadh al-Maliki, held a few hours after a telephone conversation with the head of Israeli diplomacy, Eli Cohen, during which he urged Israelis and Palestinians to re-launch peace negotiations. These are declarations with which Beijing demonstrates, for the second time in a few months, its willingness to act as a peace broker in a region, the Middle East, characterized by long-standing tensions and alliances.
China has demonstrated its intent to change the political contours of the Middle East when it brokered a deal between Saudi Arabia and Iran, who, after years of hostilities have decided to put an end to their diplomatic rift. “This historic deal has the potential to transform the Middle East by realigning its major powers, replacing the current Arab-Iranian divide with a complex web of relationships, and interweaving the region with China’s global ambitions. For Beijing, the announcement was a big leap forward in its rivalry with Washington”, highlighted the US magazine “Foreign Affairs”.
The many-sided reports in this issue of Palestine Updates illustrates why even fermenting peace should be viewed as urgent. The West cannot and will not pursue a just solution. Guilt from the holocaust times, and racial prejudices are two factors which will never allow them to be facilitators of justice for the Palestinians. They have not just lost the trust of the Palestinians but also the political capacity to be honest mediators.
On behalf of MLN Palestine Updates
Ranjan Solomon
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Israel’s One-State Reality: It’s Time to give up on the Two-State Solution
“The temporary status of “occupation” of the Palestinian territories is now a permanent condition in which one state ruled by one group of people rules over another group of people. The promise of a two-state solution made sense as an alternative future in the years around the 1993 Oslo accords, when there were constituencies for compromise on both the Israeli and the Palestinian sides and when tangible if fleeting progress was made toward building the institutions of a hypothetical Palestinian state. But that period ended long ago. Today, it makes little sense to let fantastical visions for the future obscure deeply embedded existing arrangements.
It is past time to grapple with what a one-state reality means for policy, politics, and analysis. Palestine is not a state in waiting, and Israel is not a democratic state incidentally occupying Palestinian territory. All the territory west of the Jordan River has long constituted a single state under Israeli rule, where the land and the people are subject to radically different legal regimes, and Palestinians are permanently treated as a lower caste. Policymakers and analysts who ignore this one-state reality will be condemned to failure and irrelevance, doing little beyond providing a smokescreen for the entrenchment of the status quo.”
Read more from Foreign Affairs
Could Israel Carry Out Another Nakba?
Peter Beinart
“In mainstream American political discourse, such a prospect seems unthinkable. US government officials don’t acknowledge Palestinian fears of another Nakba. They more often treat Palestinians as a people that would be on route to independence if only they avoided “unhelpful” actions—like demanding international pressure on Israel— that leave them “further away from a two-state solution.” But when Palestinians claim that Israel’s long term goal is not Palestinian statehood but Palestinian expulsion, they aren’t hallucinating. Expulsion is deeply rooted in Zionist history, and the sentiment pervades Israel today, including among politicians and commentators generally viewed as centrists. Israel’s current defense minister, national security advisor, and agriculture minister—members of Benjamin Netanyahu’s center-right Likud party—have all alluded to removing Palestinians from the country. While the pace of Palestinian expulsion has waxed and waned in the 75 years since Israel’s war of independence, there is reason to worry that the radicalism of Israel’s current government, combined with rising violence in the West Bank, could turn the current trickle into a flood. Another Nakba is possible. By pretending it isn’t, American officials conveniently avoid an uncomfortable but vital question: What would they do to try and stop it?”
Read full article in Jewish currents
Over 100 rights groups lobby UN to not adopt IHRA antisemitism definition
Organizations claim formula could be abused to impact freedom of speech, prevent criticism of Israel, and block advocacy for Palestinian rights
“Over 100 human and civil rights organizations have signed a letter urging the United Nations not to adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance working definition of antisemitism, warning it could impact freedom of speech and curtail criticism of Israel, Human Rights Watch said Thursday…The letter was first sent to UN Secretary-General António Guterres on April 3 with 60 signatures and since then dozens more have added their names to it, HRW said in a statement, putting the current total at 104.”
“Over 100 human and civil rights organizations have signed a letter urging the United Nations not to adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance working definition of antisemitism, warning it could impact freedom of speech and curtail criticism of Israel, Human Rights Watch said Thursday…The letter was first sent to UN Secretary-General António Guterres on April 3 with 60 signatures and since then dozens more have added their names to it, HRW said in a statement, putting the current total at 104.”
Source:
The Israeli right’s most dangerous anti-Palestinian smear
The Jewish far right has been calling Palestinians ‘Nazis’ for almost 80 years, casting them as an irredeemable enemy in an eternal war.
“Yom HaShoah, or Holocaust Remembrance Day, is a solemn occasion in Israel and across the Jewish diaspora. Memorial ceremonies are held, often attended by survivors; testimonies about the horrors of the Nazi regime are disseminated across social media and in the press; and, in Israel, two-minute air-raid siren blares, bringing much of the country to a halt. The occasion is also, however, an opportunity for hasbarists to share one of their favorite, and most repugnant, smears: that the Palestinian people are, in fact, Nazis…But the broadest, most dangerous function of the smear is in the latitude it is intended to grant Israel in its abuses, thus contributing to the larger project of obscuring the root causes of violence in Israel-Palestine. Describing one’s victims using the internationally-recognized shorthand for pure evil makes the ugly business of colonization and occupation not just permissible, but a moral imperative. Under this rubric, forced displacement, mass incarceration, extrajudicial killings, and home demolitions are not war crimes or human rights abuses, but rather necessary tools in a desperate, existential struggle against an irredeemable enemy.”
Read more from 972 Mag
Israeli Police Violently Beat Several Holy Fire Worshippers Trying to Defy Capacity Limits
Angry pilgrims and clergy jostled to get through while Israeli police struggled to hold them back, allowing only a trickle of ticketed visitors and local residents inside
“Tens of thousands of Christians took part in the Holy Fire ceremony on Saturday, an annual Orthodox Christian ceremony held in Jerusalem’s Church of the Holy Sepulchre, amid tension between police and Christian worshipers over Israel’s decision to place limits on the number of participants for the third year in a row. Thousands of clergy, police, diplomats and pilgrims huddled inside the church, while thousands more huddles in the surrounding alleys, where police clashed and in some cases violently beat worshipers trying to make their way through their barricades.”
Read more from Haaretz
China offers itself as a peace broker in the Middle East, a new slap in the face for the US
Only on March 10 Beijing achieved an important diplomatic result by negotiating the agreement between Saudi Arabia and Iran
La in China it is willing to play an “active role” in encouraging peace between Israelis and Palestinians. This was stated by the Chinese Foreign Minister, Qin gang, at the end of a telephone conversation with the counterpart of the Palestinian National Authority (PNA), Riyadh al-Maliki, held a few hours after a telephone conversation with the head of Israeli diplomacy, Eli Cohen, during which he urged Israelis and Palestinians to relaunch peace negotiations. These are declarations with which Beijing demonstrates, for the second time in a few months, its willingness to act as a peace broker in a region, the Middle East, characterized by long-standing tensions and alliances. Only on March 10, China achieved an important diplomatic result, brokering the deal between Saudi Arabia and Iran, who, after years of hostilities that have fueled conflicts throughout the region, have decided to put an end to their diplomatic rift. “This historic deal has the potential to transform the Middle East by realigning its major powers, replacing the current Arab-Iranian divide with a complex web of relationships, and interweaving the region with China’s global ambitions. For Beijing, the announcement was a big leap forward in its rivalry with Washington”, highlighted the US magazine “Foreign Affairs”.
22 April 2023
Source: nakbaliberation.com