Palestine: If America won’t do what is needed Europe should and here’s why
As events were to demonstrate the Nazi holocaust became the most powerful weapon in Zionism’s propaganda arsenal. In the war for the truth of history it was the equivalent of a nuclear bomb and it was dropped time and time and time again to silence criticism of Israel’s policies and actions.
It follows, surely, that those countries most responsible for setting the stage for conflict in and over Palestine that became Israel have an unquestionable moral obligation to use the influence and leverage they have to end it.
What could they actually do?
They could start by declaring and meaning that they were prepared to isolate and sanction Israel if it did not end its defiance of international law and become serious about peace on the basis of justice for the Palestinians and security for all.
But for that to happen governments would have to be pushed, driven, by public opinion; and what I am really suggesting in this article is that the time has come for activist groups of all faiths which campaign for justice for the Palestinians to focus on mobilizing public opinion to demand that European governments, starting with those in Britain and Germany, act to end Israel’s defiance of international law.
The message to be conveyed to governments by informed, concerned and mobilized public opinion could be summarised as follows.
As nations of Europe we have a clear choice. We can continue by default to be complicit in Israel’s on-going colonization of the occupied West Bank, in which case the most likely end game will be a final Zionist ethnic cleansing of Palestine followed by another great turning against Jews everywhere; or we can use the leverage we have to bring about peace based on justice for the Palestinians and security for all.
It is all about numbers. If enough European citizens demanded that their governments acted to stop the countdown to catastrophe for all, governments would have to act.
And if they did it is not impossible that America would follow, as was the case with the pressure of sanctions which ended apartheid in South Africa. European citizens and then their governments led and eventually America decided that it didn’t want to be left alone with apartheid.
In conclusion I must point to what I regard as the flaw in Barenboim’s analysis.
He says that Germany should make it clear to Israel’s government that Israel won’t have a lasting future unless enters into a genuine peace agreement with the Palestinians, one that results in them obtaining a sovereign state of their own.
This assumes that a two-state solution is still possible. It isn’t. It’s dead (long dead in my view), killed by Israel’s on-going colonization of the occupied West Bank – more and more illegal Jewish settlement, more and more demolitions of Palestinian property, more and more destruction of Palestinian olive trees and the theft of more and more Palestinian land and water.
The reality on the ground invites only one conclusion.
Real and lasting peace has to be on the basis of justice for the Palestinians and security for all, but that could only be achieved in one state for all – meaning equal human, political and all other civil rights for Arabs and Jews.
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