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25 May, 2011

The Electronic Intifada

At 4:17pm GMT on Sunday, I threw a shoe at my television screen, aimed at US President Barack Obama, precisely at the moment he began to explain that the reference in his Thursday speech at the State Department to the 1967 borders was in accordance with the Israeli interpretation of these borders.

Not that I was thrilled with that speech either but it was at least as meaningless as his previous speeches on the topic. But at 4:17 he said there will be “no return to the borders of June 4, 1967” and the thousands who attended the AIPAC convention cheered wildly. Annexation of Israeli settlement blocs built illegally in the occupied West Bank and the creation of a small Palestinian bantustan in the spaces in between was the essence of Obama’s real vision for peace.

It was a soft shoe and all it did was to bounce off the screen. Being such a harmless weapon it was also directed at my Palestinian friends who since Friday explained, publicly, how unusual and important was Obama’s speech at the State Department.

It is tough enough to know that in the White House sits someone who betrayed not only the Palestinians, but all the oppressed people in the world and in the US he promised to engage and represent.

But I have turned on my TV set and moved to Puerta del Sol in Madrid — there where thousands of young people were reformulating the powerful message that came from Tahrir Square in Cairo and which was also heard on the borders of Palestine on Nakba Day and in London’s Trafalgar Square during recent student demonstrations.

It was a call of defiance against such political discourse and its poisonous effects. Yes, they say in Madrid as they did on Palestine’s borders, our lives are ruled and affected by smug, cynical and indifferent Western politicians who hold immense power to maintain the unjust world for years to come, but we have had enough of this and will resist it.

Wherever one is affected by this political and economic Western elite, one faces two options. Either to accept fatalistically that the only thing one can do is retire to small, personal gardens of Eden and try to ignore them as much as one can and sustain oneself without them, within the limits of what is possible. Or if one does not possess this inclination or luxury, one can instead join all those who are unwilling to succumb and are telling this elite that its world and agenda is not theirs.

In some places the authorities shoot at massive demonstrations carrying such a message; in others they just ignore them. These are early days to judge the failure or success of such endeavours but it is clear that so far the protest is expanding. It defies the hegemonic political dictates of governments and it displays growing impatience with, and resentment toward, the manipulative corporate games and macro-economic ploys.

The people of the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip were a victim of such politics and economics under the guise of the so-called peace process. However, recently, in Palestine, the local politicians have at last heeded the popular demand for unity and assertiveness after years of ignoring it.

As a result, the support for the people’s effort in commencing a new phase in the popular resistance against the Israeli occupation is galvanizing the global Palestine solidarity movement with the similar energy generated before by the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement.

The regaining of the initiative by the common people in the Arab world and Europe should help us to avoid sinking too deeply into paralysis and inaction in the face of such cynicism. So much can still be done, in total disregard of the hegemonic discourse and inaction of western political elites on Palestine. So much has already been done in the continued resistance against the Israeli destruction of the land and its people.

One can continue to boycott Israeli goods and cultural representatives in France, even if there is a new law against it. If Palestinians in Israel can defy Israeli laws against Nakba commemoration, insidious European laws and regulations should be ignored as well. One can curb any academic institutional connection between British universities and Israel despite the embarrassed Foreign Office’s and official academia’s position on it. And finally, one can continue to spread through the alternative media the truthful and expanded picture despite the shameful way in which “liberal” American and European media is portraying the reality on the ground.

The world after Obama’s two speeches is a bizarre place. The gap between Obama, Berlusconi, Netanyahu, Cameron, Merkel and their ilk has disappeared. For a while there was a danger that one could count some Palestinian leaders within this undignified group of western leaders. But hopefully this danger has waned.

Very much as in the case of Israel, so it is in the case of the western political systems, the option of change from within the political systems is doubtful and vesting too much energy in it may be useless. But everything which is not there — churches, mosques, progressive synagogues, ashrams with a worldview, community centers, social networks and the world of nongovernmental organizations — indicate the existence of an alternative.

A relentless struggle against the ethnic cleansing of Palestine will continue outside the realm of the western corridors of power. What we learned from Egypt and Tunisia, even if we are not sure what would be the endgame there, is that struggles outside corridors of power do not wait for leaders, well-oiled organizations and people who speak in other people’s names.

If you are part of that struggle be counted today and do what you can regardless of the unfortunate Obamafication of our world.

Ilan Pappe is Professor of History and Director of the European Centre for Palestine Studies at the University of Exeter. His most recent book is Out of the Frame: The Struggle for Academic Freedom in Israel(Pluto Press, 2010).

 

 

 

25 May, 2011  Countercurrents.org

“From the moment we took on a role that included the permanent military domination of the world, we were on our own—feared, hated, corrupt and corrupting, maintaining ‘order’ through state terrorism and bribery, and given to megalomanic rhetoric and sophistries that virtually invited the rest of the world to unite against us. We had mounted the Napoleonic tiger. The question was, would we—and could we—ever dismount?” (Chalmers Johnson, The Sorrows of Empire 284).

Johnson’s prescient observation, made six years ago, erupted in full view of the world community this past week as Netanyahu and Obama attempted to control the tiger unleashed by the creation of the state of Israel in the midst of the Arab world–by deceit, theft, terrorism, and military might–faced now with the Arab spring rising from the ashes of fallen dictators. Coercion, bribery and military might created an illusion of peaceful stability as long as agreements providing billions of dollars for security police, military training by the U.S. and technical and ordnance support secured the dictator in power.

But with America forced to do the bidding of its adopted child by the “corpocracy” that governs this empire and its unending need for wars to sustain its economic growth, America finds itself woefully weak as its forces futilely attempt to contain terrorism throughout the mid-east. Now America finds itself bereft of power, bereft of resources, and bereft of friends, manipulated by Israeli Zionists like Sharon, Olmert, and Netanyahu who disdain America’s weakness holding its Congress prisoner by coercion, bribery and deceit the very strategies that Israel has used against the people of the mid-east to create the illusion of peace.

Ironically, as Obama lectured AIPAC and Netanyahu on Monday, he drew a demographic map that forces both Israel and the world communities to take notice of what the Likud Party really stands for even as it declares that “Peace is a primary objective of the State of Israel.” The Palestinian population in historic Palestine will equal the Jewish population before 2014 (Palestine Bureau of Statistics). That fact “on the ground” makes the land west of the Jordan River a Palestinian majority; the irony rests in a little noticed Likud Platform statement, “The Government of Israel flatly rejects the establishment of a Palestinian Arab state west of the Jordan river .” Not only is this declaration a total rejection of a Palestinian state by the Israeli government (comparable indeed to that of Hamas in its denial of the Israeli state), it does so even when confronted by the inevitable reality that Jews will be a minority in Palestine . Denial of a Palestinian state will result in Israel becoming a minority controlled apartheid, non-democratic state like South Africa decades ago.

But Obama’s lecture went beyond population figures. He attempted to teach the Israelis that walls and chain link fences cannot contain the projected 6.1 million even with rolled barb wire, watch towers and sophisticated technology. How could Israel manage to contain a population greater than its own on approximately 15% of historic Palestine while its population occupies 85%? (PCBS). How could the world communities grapple with the injustice of such a situation, especially since these figures do not include the 5.6 million refugees living in various Arab lands. Under international law, these people have a right to return and many of them would have a right to return to land now claimed by Israel. Obama is suggesting that it would behoove Israel to accept a settlement that would provide adequate land and resources for the Palestinians or face the inevitable dissolution of the Jewish state as the one state solution becomes a de facto reality. In 2002 the Saudi Prince proffered a peace plan based on the 1967 borders carrying with it full recognition of the state of Israel by all Arab countries. Israel and the US rejected it out of hand.

While Obama did not demand what the Israeli government must do, he did note that the times are a changin’. No longer will it be possible, Obama implied, to cull out of an elite few those who could be bribed into a pseudo-peace agreement with Israel like those that existed in Egypt and Jordan, or force into play sweet oil deals with Gaddafi look- a-likes, or invade illegally a nation that has done nothing against the U.S., as happened in Iraq and Afghanistan, affecting thereby a complacent leader that will do our corporate will. No, the times have changed; the new Arab is aware of America’s depleted resources, understands its economic crisis and towering debt, realizes the vice being turned by the Palestinian population growth on the Jews, realizes that justice demands equity for themselves and the Palestinians, and has the knowledge to force its awareness on the international community through the United Nations General Assembly.

Obama knows all too well how little power he possesses as President of the United States. He knows that the Representatives of the people are owned by corporate power and the Israeli lobbies. That means he can affect no legislation, foreign or domestic, if he confronts the Zionists that control this government, nor could he expect to gain reelection. He is a shackled man, subservient to his overseers. But he also knows that America is threatened by this subservience, that its soldiers are being used by a foreign power, and that hatred of Americans festers in the souls occupied by Israeli troops.

Mark Perry describes an unprecedented bombshell briefing with Admiral Mullen in which the views of senior Arab leaders that the US administration is ineffectual and incapable of standing up to Israel are conveyed, as well as those of General Petraeus who sees the so-called ‘special relationship’ with Israel as putting American lives and interests at risk.

The January Mullen briefing was unprecedented. No previous CENTCOM commander had ever expressed himself on what is essentially a political issue; which is why the briefers were careful to tell Mullen that their conclusions followed from a December 2009 tour of the region where, on Petraeus’s instructions, they spoke to senior Arab leaders. “Everywhere they went, the message was pretty humbling,” a Pentagon officer familiar with the briefing says. “America was not only viewed as weak, but its military posture in the region was eroding.” (see Mark Perry, “Putting American Lives At Risk”)

The following is General Petraeus’s Centcom Statement before the Senate Armed Services Committee – 16th March 2010:

Insufficient progress toward a comprehensive Middle East peace . The enduring hostilities between Israel and some of its neighbors present distinct challenges to our ability to advance our interests in the AOR [area of responsibility]. Israeli-Palestinian tensions often flare into violence and large-scale armed confrontations. The conflict foments anti-American sentiment, due to a perception of U.S. favoritism for Israel. Arab anger over the Palestinian question limits the strength and depth of U.S. partnerships with governments and peoples in the AOR and weakens the legitimacy of moderate regimes in the Arab world. Meanwhile, al-Qaeda and other militant groups exploit that anger to mobilize support. The conflict also gives Iran influence in the Arab world through its clients, Lebanese Hizballah and Hamas.

Obama understood the imminent implications of the rebirth of humanitarian desires on the part of the people of Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Bahrain, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Jordan, Iran and even Palestine, most especially Palestine, as those desires overflow onto the desks of the United Nations representatives demanding recognition of the besieged and occupied citizens of Palestine. With that action expected in September, when the countries of South America, Asia, most of Europe, and the whole of the Arab world accept into membership the State of Palestine on the 1967 borders, the long ordeal of the Palestinian people, sixty three years of aborted peace initiatives by the state of Israel, will be ended (see Jeff Halper, “Israel is the Problem,” The Plight of the Palestinians).

That vote will cast Israel into an untenable position since it will require of the United States that it abandon its position as protector of this state that has defied the UN for all these years making the very intent of the UN irrelevant and helpless and the desires of the world communities moot. Obama’s speeches before Congress and AIPAC will either force Netanyahu to capitulate to peace negotiations that establish a viable Palestinian state or have the United Nations and not the US serve as broker to make the Palestinian state a reality, something Israel fears. Yet the truth is that the state of Israel was accepted into the United Nations by a vote of the General Assembly in 1949 thereby making moot a similar vote on behalf of the Palestinians. Only by having the UN intervene in establishing legitimate borders for both countries, thus creating equity at the outset, can the potential for a true and just peace be made possible.

Netanyahu, by contrast, ignored these implications and attempted to defend the megalomanic rhetoric of the Israeli state,

•  a rhetoric that decries the threat inherent in Hamas’ Charter not to recognize the Israeli state but fails to tell the world of its own Likud Platform that flatly rejects the existence of a Palestinian state;

•  a rhetoric that bemoans the ’67 borders as indefensible for Israel while it remains silent on the massacres inflicted on the Palestinians before and after the UN Partition Plan implementation that resulted in the confiscation of 21 thousand dunams in the Galilee, Al-Muthalath, and Negev;

•  a rhetoric that declares the settlements must remain in the West Bank together with the apartheid highways that only Jews may use despite the fact that there are upwards of 517,774 Jews spotted throughout the West Bank making a viable Palestine impossible while an additional 1496 dunams have been confiscated to construct the Expansion and Annexation Wall for expanded settlements;

•  a rhetoric that demands Palestinians recognize Israel as a democratic and Jewish state, even though that is by definition an oxymoron, and in practice makes Arab Israelis second class citizens, while Israel rejects a Palestinian state could exist west of the Jordan river;

•  a rhetoric that demands Palestinians reject violence even though it is Israel that occupies their land illegally, and Syrian Land and Lebanese land and has exercised unrestrained slaughter of Palestinians since its inception, a fact that is recorded in countless UN resolutions.

In this season of remembrances, it is incumbent upon the people of the United States to reflect on the role they played in the abortive birth of the state of Israel and the disastrous catastrophe inflicted upon the people of Palestine. Ironically, most Americans can recall neither the Israeli Declaration of Independence nor the Nakba, yet in 2011, their very existence economically, politically, and internationally grows from the decades of unconditional support the U.S. government has provided to the terrorist state of Israel. Ironically as President Obama implies in his reactions to the changing conditions in the mid-east, America’s “unshaken support” for the state of Israel has brought upon it the world’s condemnation as a nation that has lost any semblance of justice for the humiliated and defenseless becoming thereby a nation distrusted, dishonored and dismissed. Perhaps this is the catastrophe of American power policy that seeks domination of the world for our Corporate elite.William A. Cook is a Professor of English at the University of La Verne in southern California.

He writes frequently for Internet publications. He can be reached at wcook@laverne.edu or www.drwilliamacook.com

 

 

25 May, 2011  Countercurrents.org

“From the moment we took on a role that included the permanent military domination of the world, we were on our own—feared, hated, corrupt and corrupting, maintaining ‘order’ through state terrorism and bribery, and given to megalomanic rhetoric and sophistries that virtually invited the rest of the world to unite against us. We had mounted the Napoleonic tiger. The question was, would we—and could we—ever dismount?” (Chalmers Johnson, The Sorrows of Empire 284).

Johnson’s prescient observation, made six years ago, erupted in full view of the world community this past week as Netanyahu and Obama attempted to control the tiger unleashed by the creation of the state of Israel in the midst of the Arab world–by deceit, theft, terrorism, and military might–faced now with the Arab spring rising from the ashes of fallen dictators. Coercion, bribery and military might created an illusion of peaceful stability as long as agreements providing billions of dollars for security police, military training by the U.S. and technical and ordnance support secured the dictator in power.

But with America forced to do the bidding of its adopted child by the “corpocracy” that governs this empire and its unending need for wars to sustain its economic growth, America finds itself woefully weak as its forces futilely attempt to contain terrorism throughout the mid-east. Now America finds itself bereft of power, bereft of resources, and bereft of friends, manipulated by Israeli Zionists like Sharon, Olmert, and Netanyahu who disdain America’s weakness holding its Congress prisoner by coercion, bribery and deceit the very strategies that Israel has used against the people of the mid-east to create the illusion of peace.

Ironically, as Obama lectured AIPAC and Netanyahu on Monday, he drew a demographic map that forces both Israel and the world communities to take notice of what the Likud Party really stands for even as it declares that “Peace is a primary objective of the State of Israel.” The Palestinian population in historic Palestine will equal the Jewish population before 2014 (Palestine Bureau of Statistics). That fact “on the ground” makes the land west of the Jordan River a Palestinian majority; the irony rests in a little noticed Likud Platform statement, “The Government of Israel flatly rejects the establishment of a Palestinian Arab state west of the Jordan river .” Not only is this declaration a total rejection of a Palestinian state by the Israeli government (comparable indeed to that of Hamas in its denial of the Israeli state), it does so even when confronted by the inevitable reality that Jews will be a minority in Palestine . Denial of a Palestinian state will result in Israel becoming a minority controlled apartheid, non-democratic state like South Africa decades ago.

But Obama’s lecture went beyond population figures. He attempted to teach the Israelis that walls and chain link fences cannot contain the projected 6.1 million even with rolled barb wire, watch towers and sophisticated technology. How could Israel manage to contain a population greater than its own on approximately 15% of historic Palestine while its population occupies 85%? (PCBS). How could the world communities grapple with the injustice of such a situation, especially since these figures do not include the 5.6 million refugees living in various Arab lands. Under international law, these people have a right to return and many of them would have a right to return to land now claimed by Israel. Obama is suggesting that it would behoove Israel to accept a settlement that would provide adequate land and resources for the Palestinians or face the inevitable dissolution of the Jewish state as the one state solution becomes a de facto reality. In 2002 the Saudi Prince proffered a peace plan based on the 1967 borders carrying with it full recognition of the state of Israel by all Arab countries. Israel and the US rejected it out of hand.

While Obama did not demand what the Israeli government must do, he did note that the times are a changin’. No longer will it be possible, Obama implied, to cull out of an elite few those who could be bribed into a pseudo-peace agreement with Israel like those that existed in Egypt and Jordan, or force into play sweet oil deals with Gaddafi look- a-likes, or invade illegally a nation that has done nothing against the U.S., as happened in Iraq and Afghanistan, affecting thereby a complacent leader that will do our corporate will. No, the times have changed; the new Arab is aware of America’s depleted resources, understands its economic crisis and towering debt, realizes the vice being turned by the Palestinian population growth on the Jews, realizes that justice demands equity for themselves and the Palestinians, and has the knowledge to force its awareness on the international community through the United Nations General Assembly.

Obama knows all too well how little power he possesses as President of the United States. He knows that the Representatives of the people are owned by corporate power and the Israeli lobbies. That means he can affect no legislation, foreign or domestic, if he confronts the Zionists that control this government, nor could he expect to gain reelection. He is a shackled man, subservient to his overseers. But he also knows that America is threatened by this subservience, that its soldiers are being used by a foreign power, and that hatred of Americans festers in the souls occupied by Israeli troops.

Mark Perry describes an unprecedented bombshell briefing with Admiral Mullen in which the views of senior Arab leaders that the US administration is ineffectual and incapable of standing up to Israel are conveyed, as well as those of General Petraeus who sees the so-called ‘special relationship’ with Israel as putting American lives and interests at risk.

The January Mullen briefing was unprecedented. No previous CENTCOM commander had ever expressed himself on what is essentially a political issue; which is why the briefers were careful to tell Mullen that their conclusions followed from a December 2009 tour of the region where, on Petraeus’s instructions, they spoke to senior Arab leaders. “Everywhere they went, the message was pretty humbling,” a Pentagon officer familiar with the briefing says. “America was not only viewed as weak, but its military posture in the region was eroding.” (see Mark Perry, “Putting American Lives At Risk”)

The following is General Petraeus’s Centcom Statement before the Senate Armed Services Committee – 16th March 2010:

Insufficient progress toward a comprehensive Middle East peace . The enduring hostilities between Israel and some of its neighbors present distinct challenges to our ability to advance our interests in the AOR [area of responsibility]. Israeli-Palestinian tensions often flare into violence and large-scale armed confrontations. The conflict foments anti-American sentiment, due to a perception of U.S. favoritism for Israel. Arab anger over the Palestinian question limits the strength and depth of U.S. partnerships with governments and peoples in the AOR and weakens the legitimacy of moderate regimes in the Arab world. Meanwhile, al-Qaeda and other militant groups exploit that anger to mobilize support. The conflict also gives Iran influence in the Arab world through its clients, Lebanese Hizballah and Hamas.

Obama understood the imminent implications of the rebirth of humanitarian desires on the part of the people of Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Bahrain, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Jordan, Iran and even Palestine, most especially Palestine, as those desires overflow onto the desks of the United Nations representatives demanding recognition of the besieged and occupied citizens of Palestine. With that action expected in September, when the countries of South America, Asia, most of Europe, and the whole of the Arab world accept into membership the State of Palestine on the 1967 borders, the long ordeal of the Palestinian people, sixty three years of aborted peace initiatives by the state of Israel, will be ended (see Jeff Halper, “Israel is the Problem,” The Plight of the Palestinians).

That vote will cast Israel into an untenable position since it will require of the United States that it abandon its position as protector of this state that has defied the UN for all these years making the very intent of the UN irrelevant and helpless and the desires of the world communities moot. Obama’s speeches before Congress and AIPAC will either force Netanyahu to capitulate to peace negotiations that establish a viable Palestinian state or have the United Nations and not the US serve as broker to make the Palestinian state a reality, something Israel fears. Yet the truth is that the state of Israel was accepted into the United Nations by a vote of the General Assembly in 1949 thereby making moot a similar vote on behalf of the Palestinians. Only by having the UN intervene in establishing legitimate borders for both countries, thus creating equity at the outset, can the potential for a true and just peace be made possible.

Netanyahu, by contrast, ignored these implications and attempted to defend the megalomanic rhetoric of the Israeli state,

•  a rhetoric that decries the threat inherent in Hamas’ Charter not to recognize the Israeli state but fails to tell the world of its own Likud Platform that flatly rejects the existence of a Palestinian state;

•  a rhetoric that bemoans the ’67 borders as indefensible for Israel while it remains silent on the massacres inflicted on the Palestinians before and after the UN Partition Plan implementation that resulted in the confiscation of 21 thousand dunams in the Galilee, Al-Muthalath, and Negev;

•  a rhetoric that declares the settlements must remain in the West Bank together with the apartheid highways that only Jews may use despite the fact that there are upwards of 517,774 Jews spotted throughout the West Bank making a viable Palestine impossible while an additional 1496 dunams have been confiscated to construct the Expansion and Annexation Wall for expanded settlements;

•  a rhetoric that demands Palestinians recognize Israel as a democratic and Jewish state, even though that is by definition an oxymoron, and in practice makes Arab Israelis second class citizens, while Israel rejects a Palestinian state could exist west of the Jordan river;

•  a rhetoric that demands Palestinians reject violence even though it is Israel that occupies their land illegally, and Syrian Land and Lebanese land and has exercised unrestrained slaughter of Palestinians since its inception, a fact that is recorded in countless UN resolutions.

In this season of remembrances, it is incumbent upon the people of the United States to reflect on the role they played in the abortive birth of the state of Israel and the disastrous catastrophe inflicted upon the people of Palestine. Ironically, most Americans can recall neither the Israeli Declaration of Independence nor the Nakba, yet in 2011, their very existence economically, politically, and internationally grows from the decades of unconditional support the U.S. government has provided to the terrorist state of Israel. Ironically as President Obama implies in his reactions to the changing conditions in the mid-east, America’s “unshaken support” for the state of Israel has brought upon it the world’s condemnation as a nation that has lost any semblance of justice for the humiliated and defenseless becoming thereby a nation distrusted, dishonored and dismissed. Perhaps this is the catastrophe of American power policy that seeks domination of the world for our Corporate elite.William A. Cook is a Professor of English at the University of La Verne in southern California.

He writes frequently for Internet publications. He can be reached at wcook@laverne.edu or www.drwilliamacook.com

 

 

 

 

25 May, 2011

Countercurrents.org

Israel’s unwillingness to compromise on key issues might annul a two-state solution, making only power-sharing viable.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will address US legislators on Tuesday. He will, no doubt, tell members of Congress that he supports a two-state solution, but his support will be predicated on four negative principles: no to Israel’s full withdrawal to the 1967 borders; no to the division of Jerusalem; no to the right of return for Palestinian refugees; and no to a Palestinian military presence in the new state.

The problem with Netanyahu’s approach is not so much that it is informed by a rejectionist worldview. The problem is not even Netanyahu’s distorted conception of Palestine’s future sovereignty, which Meron Benvenisti aptly described as “scattered, lacking any cohesive physical infrastructure, with no direct connection to the outside world, and limited to the height of its residential buildings and the depth of its graves. The airspace and the water resources will remain under Israeli control…”

Rather, the real problem is that Netanyahu’s outlook is totally detached from current political developments, particularly the changing power relations both in the Middle East and around the world. Indeed, his approach is totally anachronistic.

Netanyahu’s not-so-implicit threat that Israel will continue its colonial project if the Palestinians do not accept some kind of “Bantustan solution” no longer carries any weight. The two peoples have already passed this juncture.

The Palestinians have clearly declared that they will not bow down to such intimidations, and it is now clear that the conflict has reached an entirely new intersection.

At this new intersection, there are two signs. The first points towards the west and reads “viable and just two-state solution”, while the second one points eastward and reads “power sharing”.

The first sign is informed by years of political negotiations (from the Madrid conference in 1991, through Oslo, Camp David, Taba, and Annapolis) alongside the publication of different initiatives (from the Geneva Initiative and the Saudi Plan to the Nussaiba and Ayalon Plan), all of which have clarified what it would take to reach a peace settlement based on the two-state solution. It entails three central components:

1. Israel’s full withdrawal to the 1967 border, with possible one-for-one land swaps so that ultimately the total amount of land that was occupied will be returned.

2. Jerusalem’s division according to the 1967 borders, with certain land swaps to guarantee that each side has control over its own religious sites and large neighbourhoods. Both these clauses entail the dismantlement of Israeli settlements and the return of the Jewish settlers to Israel.

3. The acknowledgement of the right of return of all Palestinians, but with the following stipulation: while all Palestinians will be able to return to the fledgling Palestinian state, only a limited number agreed upon by the two sides will be allowed to return to Israel; those who cannot exercise this right or, alternatively, choose not to, will receive full compensation.

Israel’s continued unwillingness to fully support these three components is rapidly leading to the annulment of the two-state option and, as a result, is leaving open only one possible future direction: power sharing.

The notion of power sharing would entail the preservation of the existing borders, from the Jordan valley to the Mediterranean Sea, and an agreed upon form of a power sharing government led by Israeli Jews and Palestinians, and based on the liberal democracy model of the separation of powers. It also entails a parity of esteem – namely, the idea that each side respects the other side’s identity and ethos, including language, culture and religion. This, to put it simply, is the bi-national one-state solution.

Many Palestinians have come to realise that even though they are currently under occupation, Israel’s rejectionist stance will unwittingly lead to the bi-national solution. And while Netanyahu is still miles behind the current juncture, it is high time for a Jewish Israeli and Jewish American Awakening, one that will force their respective leaders to support a viable democratic future for the Jews and Palestinians living between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. One that will bring an end to the violent conflict.

Neve Gordon is the author of Israel’s Occupation and can be reached through his website .

This article first appeared in Al Jazeera

Prof. Neve Gordon

Department of Politics and Government

Ben-Gurion University

Beer-Sheva 84105

 

 

25 May, 2011

Countercurrents.org

The outspoken scholar and Princeton University professor Cornel West has been viciously attacked by many on the political left, especially supporters of President Obama. Why? Because he had the courage to call Obama a “black mascot of Wall Street oligarchs and a black puppet of corporate plutocrats.” For more of West’s views see this article.

Most of the attention has been on the use of the word “black,” as if the black Cornel West had made a racist comment. In fact, West got it right because he and some other true progressives have condemned Obama for not being an authentic progressive. Right again, Obama has never shown himself to be a true leftist progressive, even though many on the conservative right may think he is one. West thinks Obama “has no backbone.”

It is not that Obama is not black enough, as some think West was saying. It is about the dishonesty, deceit and corruptness of Obama.

What everyone should be praising West for is that he correctly made the point that Wall Street oligarchs and corporate plutocrats have stolen the US government by using vast sums of money to corrupt both Democrat and Republican politicians.

West just told the truth about Obama who got elected because as a candidate for president he received a huge sum from the most awful Wall Street company, Goldman Sachs.

What West has explained is that “poor and working people have low priority in US government policy including the Obama Administration.” No surprise because West is definitely a true liberal progressive who has been making this kind of criticism very openly for a long time. Indeed, if poor and working people, as well as all African Americans, would wake up to reality they would abandon Obama, even as the lesser evil. Obama has told too many lies and done too many wrong things to deserve their support.

Nearly all members of Congress, both Republicans and Democrats, are nothing more than mascots of Wall Street oligarchs and puppets of corporate plutocrats, something that all intelligent Americans, including those in the Tea Party movement, should totally agree with.

Here is something else West said: “The tea party folk are right when they say the government is corrupt. It is corrupt. Big business and banks have taken over government and corrupted it in deep ways….we’ve got to think seriously of third-party candidates, third formations, third parties.”

Over at FutureofCapitalism.com this point was made: Obama “has basically enshrined the too-big-to-fail banks while also propping up GE and the firms that will benefit from ObamaCare.” True enough.

We need many more people that get mass media attention to say the kind of things that West has said. Americans need to be reminded incessantly that their government has been hijacked by rich and powerful elites.

With a corrupt two-party plutocracy elections no longer offer the promise of much needed reforms. Odds are that Tea Party people will realize that their favored Republicans will also not deliver a rehabilitated, honest government serving the interests or ordinary Americans.

[Contact Joel S. Hirschhorn through delusionaldemocracy.com.]

 

 

 

May 28, 2011

 

 

 

 

IT WAS all rather disgusting.

 

There they were, the members of the highest legislative bodies of the world’s only superpower, flying up and down like so many yo-yos, applauding wildly, every few minutes or seconds, the most outrageous lies and distortions of Binyamin Netanyahu.

 

It was worse than the Syrian parliament during a speech by Bashar Assad, where anyone not applauding could find himself in prison. Or Stalin’s Supreme Soviet, when showing less than sufficient respect could have meant death.

 

What the American Senators and Congressmen feared was a fate worse than death. Anyone remaining seated or not applauding wildly enough could have been caught on camera – and that amounts to political suicide. It was enough for one single congressman to rise and applaud, and all the others had to follow suit. Who would dare not to?

 

The sight of these hundreds of parliamentarians jumping up and clapping their hands, again and again and again and again, with the Leader graciously acknowledging with a movement of his hand, was reminiscent of other regimes. Only this time it was not the local dictator who compelled this adulation, but a foreign one.

 

The most depressing part of it was that there was not a single lawmaker – Republican or Democrat – who dared to resist. When I was a 9 year old boy in Germany, I dared to leave my right arm hanging by my side when all my schoolmates raised theirs in the Nazi salute and sang Hitler’s anthem. Is there no one in Washington DC who has that simple courage? Is it really Washington IOT – Israel Occupied Territory – as the anti-Semites assert?

 

Many years ago I visited the Senate hall and was introduced to the leading Senators of the time. I was profoundly shocked. After being brought up in deep respect for the Senate of the United States, the country of Jefferson and Lincoln, I was faced with a bunch of pompous asses, many of them nincompoops who had not the slightest idea what they were talking about. I was told that it was their assistants who really understood matters.

 

 

SO WHAT did the great man say to this august body?

 

It was a finely crafted speech, using all the standard tricks of the trade – the dramatic pause, the raised finger, the little witticisms, the sentences repeated for effect. Not a great orator, by any means, no Winston Churchill, but good enough for this audience and this occasion.

 

But the message could be summed up in one word: No.

 

After their disastrous debacle in 1967, the leaders of the Arab world met in Khartoum and adopted the famous Three No’s: NO recognition of Israel, No [] negotiation with Israel, NO peace with Israel. It was just what the Israeli leadership wanted. They could go happily about their business of entrenching the occupation and building settlements.

Now Netanyahu is having his Khartoum. NO return to the 1967 borders. NO Palestinian capital in East Jerusalem. NO to even a symbolic return of some refugees. NO military withdrawal from the Jordan River – meaning that the future Palestinian state would be completely surrounded  by the Israeli armed forces. NO negotiation with a Palestinian government “supported” by Hamas, even if there are no Hamas members in the government itself. And so on – NO. NO. NO.

The aim is clearly to make sure that no Palestinian leader could even dream of entering negotiations, even in the unlikely event that he were ready to meet yet another condition: to recognize Israel as “the nation-state of the Jewish people” – which includes the dozens of Jewish Senators and Congressmen who were the first to jump up and down, up and down, like so many marionettes.

Netanyahu, along with his associates and political bedfellows, is determined to prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state by all and any means. That did not start with the present government – it is an aim deeply embedded in Zionist ideology and practice. The founders of the movement set the course, David Ben-Gurion acted to implement it in 1948, in collusion with King Abdallah of Jordan. Netanyahu is just adding his bit.

“No Palestinian state” means: no peace, not now, not ever. Everything else is, as the Americans say, baloney. All the pious phrases about happiness for our children, prosperity for the Palestinians, peace with the entire Arab world, a bright future for all, are just that – pure baloney. At least some in the audience must have noticed that, even with all that jumping.

 

NETANYAHU SPAT in Obama’s eye. The Republicans in the audience must have enjoyed that. Perhaps some Democrats too.

It can be assumed that Obama did not. So what will he do now?

There is a Jewish joke about a hungry pauper who entered an inn and demanded food. Otherwise, he threatened, he would do what his father did. The frightened innkeeper fed him, and in the end asked timidly: “But what did your father do?” Swallowing the last morsel, the man answered: “He went to sleep hungry.”

There is a good chance that Obama will do the same. He will pretend that the spittle on his cheek is rainwater. His promise to prevent a UN General Assembly recognition of the State of Palestine deprived him of his main leverage over Netanyahu.

Somebody in Washington seems to be floating the idea of Obama coming to Jerusalem and addressing the Knesset. It would be direct retaliation – Obama talking with the Israeli public over the head of the Prime Minister, as Netanyahu has just addressed the American public over the head of the President.

It would be an exciting event. As a former Member of the Knesset, I would be invited. But I would not advise it. I proposed it a year ago. Today I would not.

The obvious precedent is Anwar Sadat’s historic speech in the Knesset. But there is really no comparison. Egypt and Israel were still officially at war. Going to the capital of the enemy was without precedent, the more so only four years after a bloody battle. It was an act that shook Israel, eliminating in one stroke a whole set of mental patterns and opening the mind for new ones. Not one of us will ever forget the moment when the door of the airplane swung open and there he was, handsome and serene, the leader of the enemy.

Later, when I interviewed Sadat at his home, I told him: “I live on the main street of Tel Aviv. When you came out of that plane, I looked out of the window. Nothing moved in the street, except one cat – and it was probably looking for a television set.”

A visit by Obama will be quite different. He will, of course, be received politely – without the obsessive jumping and clapping – though probably heckled by Knesset Members of the extreme Right. But that will be all.

Sadat’s visit was a deed in itself. Not so a visit by Obama. He will not shake Israeli public opinion, unless he comes with a concrete plan of action – a detailed peace plan, with a detailed timetable, backed by a clear determination to see it through, whatever the political cost.

Another nice speech, however beautifully phrased, just will not do. After this week’s deluge of speeches, we have had enough. Speeches can be important if they accompany actions, but they are no substitute for action. Churchill’s speeches helped to shape history – but only because they reflected historic deeds. Without the Battle of Britain, without Normandy, without El Alamein, those speeches would have sounded ridiculous.

Now, with all the roads blocked, there remains only one path remains open: the recognition of the State of Palestine by the United Nations coupled with nonviolent mass action by the Palestinian people against the occupation. The Israeli peace forces will also play their part, because the fate of Israel depends on peace as much as the fate of Palestine.

Sure, the US will try to obstruct, and Congress will jump up and down, But the Israeli-Palestinian spring is on its way.

 

 

 

 

 

28 May, 2011

Countercurrents.org

The Palestinian security officer at the Rafah border was overly polite. He wore a black uniform and walked around self-assuredly, as he instructed weary travelers on their next moves before being allowed back into Gaza. On the other side of the border, in Egypt, there was much anxiety, fear and anticipation.

‘Things will get better,’ said a Palestinian engineer from Gaza, who once studied and now works in a Swedish town south of Stockholm. What he meant was that things will get better at the border crossing, in terms of the relationship between Gaza and Egypt. Without a decisive Egyptian decision to reopen the crossing – completely – Gaza will continue to reel under the Israeli siege. Others agree, but Gazans have learned not to become too confident about political statements promising positive changes.

However, the Egypt of today belongs to an entirely different political category to the Egypt of Hosni Mubarak’s leadership. Palestinians, especially those trapped behind the shut borders in Gaza, are well aware of this. Still they are cautious. ‘Inshallah’ – God willing, they say, ‘May Allah bring good things.’

For now, things remain difficult at the border. When Egyptian border officials collect passports for examination, and return a few hours later to read aloud the names of those allowed in, a large crowd gathers around them. Tensions soon escalate to yelling, and occasional tears.

‘Go back or I will not give any his passport back,’ shouted a large Egyptian officer with some disdain. The veins on the side of his face suddenly bulked up. The crowd disbanded, only to return seconds later. The officer looked exhausted and clearly fed up. The Gaza travelers had already moved beyond the point of humiliation. They simply wanted to get from here to there, and back.

A young woman with a contorted back trotted behind her mother. Her pain was apparent on her face. ‘Yallah yamma,’ – hurry, daughter – urged the mother. ‘They might close the gate any minute.’ The girl, in her twenties, paused, closed her eyes tight, as if summoning whatever strength remained in her frail body to carry on for a few seconds longer.

The gate of the Egyptian border point was very wide, but only a small gap of a few feet was open. When it opened, early Thursday, May 19, hundreds tried to rush in at once. Large bags were tossed over people’s heads, children cried in panic, officers yelled, and a few dared to yell back. ‘Just open the gate, the big one,’ someone said. A white-haired little man, in an oversize, ancient suit, stood back and shock his head. ‘It’s a tragedy,’ he said. Soon, he too was forced to lose his civility and push against the mass of desperate humanity. Later, I saw him inside the border point, circling around nervously and intently puffing on a cigarette.

Here at the border, everyone is nervous, even those who have no reason to be. The Egyptian officers are edgy, as if their fate too is being determined somehow. Both sides know that the Gaza-Egypt border is undergoing an important transition. Egypt’s new foreign minister, Nabil al-Arabi, had already promised a breakup with the past, thus an opening of the border between his country and Gaza. There is much trust among Palestinians that the new Egypt is genuine, but also a fear that a politically vulnerable Egypt might be forced to compromise on its early stances.

But the Egyptian people seem determined to keep their government in check. Palestine is a major theme now in large protests. Hundreds of Egyptian activists were arrested, and many were wounded as they rallied near the Israeli embassy in Cairo, which was closed for few days before re-opening again. An Egyptian call to march to Gaza, in commemoration of the Palestinian Nakba of 1948 – the Day of Catastrophe – was aborted after the Egyptian army sealed much of Sinai. Tanks still dot the highway leading from Cairo to Gaza via the Sinai desert. The soldiers are very polite, though. The Egyptian driver who took me to Rafah in a very late hour seemed happiest with the revolution in his country, simply because he is now treated with respect by men in uniform. ‘Officers used to treat us with so much disrespect,’ he said with a retrospective sense of grief. ‘Now, we are like brothers.’ The driver extended his hand for an unnecessary handshake with a noticeably short solider, wearing a pair of slippers.

The sense of joy, however, hasn’t made it to the Gaza border yet. The hope and anticipation that Gazans feel towards the changes underway in Egypt can only be understood after a degree of investigation. The distance between Cairo and Rafah is long and arduous. It will be no easy task to translate political will in the former into meaningful policy in the latter. Still, the Egyptian people are keeping up the pressure, and Palestinians in Gaza remain hopeful.

At the end, no one was turned back. Everyone made it into Gaza. The man with the very old suit was still smoking and cursing for no apparent reason. The girl with the hurt back was still in terrible pain, but also happy to be home. The Gaza-Swedish engineer had a crowd of young cousins waiting for him. In Rafah, I found myself invited to a lunch followed by Arabic coffee with many men I didn’t know, most of whom were called Mohammed. They all seemed happy.

‘So, Egypt has changed, right?’ asked one Mohammed with a knowing smile and a nod. Everyone seemed to agree, although they didn’t pinpoint exactly how that change has affected Gaza so far. Palestinians in Gaza survive largely because of the 500 or so tunnels that connect the impoverished, besieged Strip to Egypt. Now, they feed on hope and cheap cigarettes, much of it also coming from Egypt.

‘Ramzy Baroud,’ called out an older officer loudly. ‘Welcome home, son,’ he said, as he handed me my passport and waved me in. No words could possibly have been sweeter at that moment.

After seventeen years of constant attempts to visit Gaza again, I am finally here.

I am in Gaza. I am home.

– Ramzy Baroud (www.ramzybaroud.net) is an internationally-syndicated columnist and the editor of PalestineChronicle.com. His latest book is My Father Was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza’s Untold Story (Pluto Press, London), available on Amazon.com.

 

 

 

 

May 30, 2011 “The Independent” — This month, in the Middle East, has seen the unmaking of the President of the United States. More than that, it has witnessed the lowest prestige of America in the region since Roosevelt met King Abdul Aziz on the USS Quincy in the Great Bitter Lake in 1945.

While Barack Obama and Benjamin Netanyahu played out their farce in Washington – Obama grovelling as usual – the Arabs got on with the serious business of changing their world, demonstrating and fighting and dying for freedoms they have never possessed. Obama waffled on about change in the Middle East – and about America’s new role in the region. It was pathetic. “What is this ‘role’ thing?” an Egyptian friend asked me at the weekend. “Do they still believe we care about what they think?”

And it is true. Obama’s failure to support the Arab revolutions until they were all but over lost the US most of its surviving credit in the region. Obama was silent on the overthrow of Ben Ali, only joined in the chorus of contempt for Mubarak two days before his flight, condemned the Syrian regime – which has killed more of its people than any other dynasty in this Arab “spring”, save for the frightful Gaddafi – but makes it clear that he would be happy to see Assad survive, waves his puny fist at puny Bahrain’s cruelty and remains absolutely, stunningly silent over Saudi Arabia. And he goes on his knees before Israel. Is it any wonder, then, that Arabs are turning their backs on America, not out of fury or anger, nor with threats or violence, but with contempt? It is the Arabs and their fellow Muslims of the Middle East who are themselves now making the decisions.

Turkey is furious with Assad because he twice promised to speak of reform and democratic elections – and then failed to honour his word. The Turkish government has twice flown delegations to Damascus and, according to the Turks, Assad lied to the foreign minister on the second visit, baldly insisting that he would recall his brother Maher’s legions from the streets of Syrian cities. He failed to do so. The torturers continue their work.

Watching the hundreds of refugees pouring from Syria across the northern border of Lebanon, the Turkish government is now so fearful of a repeat of the great mass Iraqi Kurdish refugee tide that overwhelmed their border in the aftermath of the 1991 Gulf war that it has drawn up its own secret plans to prevent the Kurds of Syria moving in their thousands into the Kurdish areas of south-eastern Turkey. Turkish generals have thus prepared an operation that would send several battalions of Turkish troops into Syria itself to carve out a “safe area” for Syrian refugees inside Assad’s caliphate. The Turks are prepared to advance well beyond the Syrian border town of Al Qamishli – perhaps half way to Deir el-Zour (the old desert killing fields of the 1915 Armenian Holocaust, though speak it not) – to provide a “safe haven” for those fleeing the slaughter in Syria’s cities.

The Qataris are meanwhile trying to prevent Algeria from resupplying Gaddafi with tanks and armoured vehicles – this was one of the reasons why the Emir of Qatar, the wisest bird in the Arabian Gulf, visited the Algerian president, Abdelaziz Bouteflika, last week. Qatar is committed to the Libyan rebels in Benghazi; its planes are flying over Libya from Crete and – undisclosed until now – it has Qatari officers advising the rebels inside the city of Misrata in western Libya; but if Algerian armour is indeed being handed over to Gaddafi to replace the material that has been destroyed in air strikes, it would account for the ridiculously slow progress which the Nato campaign is making against Gaddafi.

Of course, it all depends on whether Bouteflika really controls his army – or whether the Algerian “pouvoir”, which includes plenty of secretive and corrupt generals, are doing the deals. Algerian equipment is superior to Gaddafi’s and thus for every tank he loses, Ghaddafi might be getting an improved model to replace it. Below Tunisia, Algeria and Libya share a 750-mile desert frontier, an easy access route for weapons to pass across the border.

But the Qataris are also attracting Assad’s venom. Al Jazeera’s concentration on the Syrian uprising – its graphic images of the dead and wounded far more devastating than anything our soft western television news shows would dare broadcast – has Syrian state television nightly spitting at the Emir and at the state of Qatar. The Syrian government has now suspended up to £4 billion of Qatari investment projects, including one belonging to the Qatar Electricity and Water Company.

Amid all these vast and epic events – Yemen itself may yet prove to be the biggest bloodbath of all, while the number of Syria’s “martyrs” have now exceeded the victims of Mubarak’s death squads five months ago – is it any surprise that the frolics of Messrs Netanyahu and Obama appear so irrelevant? Indeed, Obama’s policy towards the Middle East – whatever it is – sometimes appears so muddled that it is scarcely worthy of study. He supports, of course, democracy – then admits that this may conflict with America’s interests. In that wonderful democracy called Saudi Arabia, the US is now pushing ahead with a £40 billion arms deal and helping the Saudis to develop a new “elite” force to protect the kingdom’s oil and future nuclear sites. Hence Obama’s fear of upsetting Saudi Arabia, two of whose three leading brothers are now so incapacitated that they can no longer make sane decisions – unfortunately, one of these two happens to be King Abdullah – and his willingness to allow the Assad family’s atrocity-prone regime to survive. Of course, the Israelis would far prefer the “stability” of the Syrian dictatorship to continue; better the dark caliphate you know than the hateful Islamists who might emerge from the ruins. But is this argument really good enough for Obama to support when the people of Syria are dying in the streets for the kind of democracy that the US president says he wants to see in the region?

One of the vainest elements of American foreign policy towards the Middle East is the foundational idea that the Arabs are somehow more stupid than the rest of us, certainly than the Israelis, more out of touch with reality than the West, that they don’t understand their own history. Thus they have to be preached at, lectured, and cajoled by La Clinton and her ilk – much as their dictators did and do, father figures guiding their children through life. But Arabs are far more literate than they were a generation ago; millions speak perfect English and can understand all too well the political weakness and irrelevance in the president’s words. Listening to Obama’s 45-minute speech this month – the “kick off’ to four whole days of weasel words and puffery by the man who tried to reach out to the Muslim world in Cairo two years ago, and then did nothing – one might have thought that the American President had initiated the Arab revolts, rather than sat on the sidelines in fear.

There was an interesting linguistic collapse in the president’s language over those critical four days. On Thursday 19 May, he referred to the continuation of Israeli “settlements”. A day later, Netanyahu was lecturing him on “certain demographic changes that have taken place on the ground”. Then when Obama addressed the American Aipac lobby group (American Israel Public Affairs Committee) on the Sunday, he had cravenly adopted Netanyahu’s own preposterous expression. Now he, too, spoke of “new demographic realities on the ground.” Who would believe that he was talking about internationally illegal Jewish colonies built on land stolen from Arabs in one of the biggest property heists in the history of “Palestine”? Delay in peace-making will undermine Israeli security, Obama announced – apparently unaware that Netanyahu’s project is to go on delaying and delaying and delaying until there is no land left for the “viable” Palestinian state which the United States and the European Union supposedly wish to see.

Then we had the endless waffle about the 1967 borders. Netanyahu called them “defenceless” (though they seemed to have been pretty defendable for the 18 years prior to the Six Day War) and Obama – oblivious to the fact that Israel must be the only country in the world to have an eastern land frontier but doesn’t know where it is – then says he was misunderstood when he talked about 1967. It doesn’t matter what he says. George W Bush caved in years ago when he gave Ariel Sharon a letter which stated America’s acceptance of “already existing major Israeli population centres” beyond the 1967 lines. To those Arabs prepared to listen to Obama’s spineless oration, this was a grovel too far. They simply could not understand the reaction of Netanyahu’s address to Congress. How could American politicians rise and applaud Netanyahu 55 times – 55 times – with more enthusiasm than one of the rubber parliaments of Assad, Saleh and the rest?

And what on earth did the Great Speechifier mean when he said that “every country has the right to self-defence” but that Palestine would be “demilitarised”? What he meant was that Israel could go on attacking the Palestinians (as in 2009, for example, when Obama was treacherously silent) while the Palestinians would have to take what was coming to them if they did not behave according to the rules – because they would have no weapons to defend themselves. As for Netanyahu, the Palestinians must choose between unity with Hamas or peace with Israel. All of which was very odd. When there was no unity, Netanyahu told us all that he had no Palestinian interlocutor because the Palestinians were disunited. Yet when they unite, they are disqualified from peace talks.

Of course, cynicism grows the longer you live in the Middle East. I recall, for example, travelling to Gaza in the early 1980s when Yasser Arafat was running his PLO statelet in Beirut. Anxious to destroy Arafat’s prestige in the occupied territories, the Israeli government decided to give its support to an Islamist group in Gaza called Hamas. In fact, I actually saw with my own eyes the head of the Israeli army’s Southern Command negotiating with bearded Hamas officials, giving them permission to build more mosques. It’s only fair to say, of course, that we were also busy at the time, encouraging a certain Osama bin Laden to fight the Soviet army in Afghanistan. But the Israelis did not give up on Hamas. They later held another meeting with the organisation in the West Bank; the story was on the front page of the Jerusalem Post the next day. But there wasn’t a whimper from the Americans.

Then another moment that I can recall over the long years. Hamas and Islamic Jihad members – all Palestinians – were, in the early 1990s, thrown across the Israeli border into southern Lebanon where they spent more than a year camping on a freezing mountainside. I would visit them from time to time and on one occasion mentioned that I would be travelling to Israel next day. Immediately, one of the Hamas men ran to his tent and returned with a notebook. He then proceeded to give me the home telephone numbers of three senior Israeli politicians – two of whom are still prominent today – and, when I reached Jerusalem and called the numbers, they all turned out to be correct. In other words, the Israeli government had been in personal and direct contact with Hamas.

But now the narrative has been twisted out of all recognition. Hamas are the super-terrorists, the “al-Qa’ida” representatives in the unified Palestinian leadership, the men of evil who will ensure that no peace ever takes place between Palestinians and Israeli. If only this were true, the real al-Qa’ida would be more than happy to take responsibility. But it is not true. In the same context, Obama stated that the Palestinians would have to answer questions about Hamas. But why should they? What Obama and Netanyahu think about Hamas is now irrelevant to them. Obama warns the Palestinians not to ask for statehood at the United Nations in September. But why on earth not? If the people of Egypt and Tunisia and Yemen and Libya and Syria – we are all waiting for the next revolution (Jordan? Bahrain again? Morocco?) – can fight for freedom and dignity, why shouldn’t the Palestinians? Lectured for decades on the need for non-violent protest, the Palestinians elect to go to the UN with their cry for legitimacy – only to be slapped down by Obama.

Having read all of the “Palestine Papers” which Al-Jazeera revealed, there is no doubt that “Palestine’s” official negotiators will go to any lengths to produce some kind of statelet. Mahmoud Abbas, who managed to write a 600-page book on the “peace process” without once mentioning the word “occupation”, could even cave in over the UN project, fearful of Obama’s warning that it would be an attempt to “isolate” Israel and thus de-legitimise the Israeli state – or “the Jewish state” as the US president now calls it. But Netanyahu is doing more than anyone to delegitimise his own state; indeed, he is looking more and more like the Arab buffoons who have hitherto littered the Middle East. Mubarak saw a “foreign hand” in the Egyptian revolution (Iran, of course). So did the Crown Prince of Bahrain (Iran again). So did Gaddafi (al-Qa’ida, western imperialism, you name it), So did Saleh of Yemen (al-Qa’ida, Mossad and America). So did Assad of Syria (Islamism, probably Mossad, etc). And so does Netanyahu (Iran, naturally enough, Syria, Lebanon, just about anyone you can think of except for Israel itself).

But as this nonsense continues, so the tectonic plates shudder. I doubt very much if the Palestinians will remain silent. If there’s an “intifada” in Syria, why not a Third Intifada in “Palestine”? Not a struggle of suicide bombers but of mass, million-strong protests. If the Israelis have to shoot down a mere few hundred demonstrators who tried – and in some cases succeeded – in crossing the Israeli border almost two weeks ago, what will they do if confronted by thousands or a million. Obama says no Palestinian state must be declared at the UN. But why not? Who cares in the Middle East what Obama says? Not even, it seems, the Israelis. The Arab spring will soon become a hot summer and there will be an Arab autumn, too. By then, the Middle East may have changed forever. What America says will matter nothing.