Israel/Palestine: Is it too late for peace?
Before I offer my own answer here’s a quick review of how things are and look like going.
* President Obama is not going to use the leverage he has to cause or try to cause Israel to end its defiance of international law and denial of justice for the Palestinians.
In the past I entertained some hope that in the last year of his second term he would do so, and there was quite a good reason for a small degree of optimism on my part. It was in what President Jimmy Carter once said to me. He explained that any president has only two windows of opportunity to take on the Zionist lobby and its stooges (I prefer to call them traitor agents) in Congress.
The first window is the first nine months of his first term because after that the fund raising for the mid-term elections gets underway. (In his first none months Obama tried and failed to get a settlement freeze).
The second window is the last year of his second term if he has one. (President Carter didn’t).
Because Obama has nothing to lose personally (accept perhaps his life) I think it’s not impossible that he would like to confront the Zionist lobby and those who do its bidding in Congress, but he knows that doing so would almost certainly have disastrous consequences for some Democrats who are seeking election or re-election to Congress. So he won’t.
* There is no reason to believe that Obama’s successor or any future president will ever have the freedom and the will to put America’s own best interests first and do whatever is necessary to try to oblige Israel to make peace on terms the Palestinians could accept.
That said, there could be a scenario for hope if the rules were changed to take big money out of the electioneering process – to prevent wealthy supporters of Israel right or wrong buying those seeking election or re-election to Congress.
But that’s most unlikely to happen. President Kennedy tried several times to introduce legislation to prevent wealthy donors buying chunks of what passes for democracy in America, but on each occasion he was blocked. (The notion that America is a democracy in more than name is as ridiculous as Zionism’s assertion that Israel has always lived in danger of annihilation).
* Those who believe that France, Britain, Germany and other European powers will one day get totally fed up with America’s refusal to call and hold Zionism to account and use the leverage they have to try to oblige Israel to be serious about peace on terms the Palestinians could accept are guilty of wishful thinking.
On the matter of confronting the Zionist monster or not the European powers will only follow America/s lead.
* The regimes of a corrupt, authoritarian and repressive Arab Order will never confront Zionism in any meaningful way and/or use the leverage they have to try to cause America to do so.
* The occupied and oppressed Palestinians have no credible leadership.
As Abdalhadi Alijla noted in a recent article for openDemocracy, “Most of the occupied and oppressed Palestinians have no trust in Fatah, Hamas and the PA (Palestine Authority) in general.”
His article was headlined “Peace” – a meaningless concept. And he opened it with this line. “‘Peace’ now has no meaning and has been discredited as both a concept and a word.” He added: “Since Netanyahu came to power in 1996, peace has become a nauseating word.”
* The BDS (Boycott, Divestment & Sanctions) movement is gathering momentum, and that in part is a manifestation of the rising, global tide of anti-Israelism which is being provoked by the Zionist state’s policies and actions, but… Without the endorsement and participation of governments, BDS is most unlikely to be a game changer.
Taking account of what I have summarised above, and that Israel is stealing more and more Arab land and water and demolishing more and more Arab homes, my answer to my headline question is yes. I mean that as things are and look like going it is too late for peace based on justice for the Palestinians and security for all.
In my view there’s a very strong case for saying that it’s actually been too late since November 1967 when the American-dominated UN Security Council surrendered to Zionism with Resolution 242. Because the Six Days War in June of that year was a war of Israeli aggression not self-defence, 242 ought to have required Israel to withdraw from the newly occupied Arab territories without conditions; and it ought to have put Israel on notice that it would be isolated and sanctioned if it settled the new Arab land it had grabbed.
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