“If you do not create
your destiny, you will have your fate inflicted upon you” - American
philosopher William Irwin Thompson
Mohamed Khodr / Intifada Palestine
(WASHINGTON
D.C.) – “On the 29th November,
1947, the United Nations General Assembly passed a resolution calling for the
establishment of a Jewish State in Eretz-Israel; the General Assembly required
the inhabitants of Eretz-Israel to take such steps as were necessary on their
part for the implementation of that resolution. This recognition by the United
Nations of the right of the Jewish people to establish their State is
irrevocable.” –Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel; May 14,
1948
“Believers are those to whom people said, “The people have
gathered against you, so fear them.” But that merely increased their faith and
they said, “Allah is enough for us and how excellent a Guardian is He.” (Qur’an:
3:173)
The Palestinian Authority, under Mahmoud Abbas, must
immediately stop the limping and lackluster effort and present their resolution
this September to the U.N. General Assembly to recognize a Palestinian State.
This will be the only worthy initiative that the PA has ever adopted since its
founding in which the far majority of the world is supportive.
However Abbas must first and foremost find the courage and
will to sacrifice his status and future much like every Palestinian child
living under the daily brutality of occupation who fearlessly faces an Israeli
tank or bulldozer ready to kill him, his family, or demolish their home and
farm.
Since 1967 all the Palestinians have ever asked is for a
State, albeit divided between the West Bank and Gaza, with East Jerusalem as
their capitol, a mere 22% of their original homeland. Given the never ending
“peace process” they now live on only 14% of their homeland, which is shrinking
rapidly every day.
Time is of the essence for Abbas to quickly submit the
resolution to the U.N. to recognize a Palestinian States regardless of the
threatened Obama need Jewish re-election money Veto.
If Abbas succumbs to fear of failure and fear of American
consequences than Abba Eban’s (late former Israeli Foreign Minister), dictum
that the “Palestinians never lose an opportunity to lose an opportunity”, will
once again prove right.
Unfortunately given Abbas’ past history of buckling under
American pressure the submission of the resolution to recognize a Palestinian State is not certain. For whatever
personal, political, or financial considerations he may have, he has constantly
surrendered to the decade’s long Israeli/American lie that only direct
negotiations between the two parties can lead to a peace settlement, i.e. the
road map to nowhere but whose ultimate aim is to buy time to completely expel
all Palestinians from Palestine.
Case in point: Abbas has previously dropped the endorsement
of the Goldstone Report at the U.N. Human Rights Council that accused Israel
of war crimes and crimes against humanity shocking his people and the entire
world. The leaked “Palestinian Papers” revealed that his government was willing
to concede to all of Israel’s
demands including the surrender of East Jerusalem.
How can anyone in the entire world still believe that Israel with its dominance of the U.S.
Government and foreign policy actually seeks or wants peace with the
Palestinians? What it seeks is all of Palestine
without any Palestinians.
While the majority of the world is eager, supportive, and
sympathetic to the plight of the occupied Palestinians and is willing to
support such a resolution, it is the Palestinians themselves who are as of yet
squabbling internally on the issue while the clock ticks down to ground zero, a
point of no return for the Palestinians.
For Abbas and Palestine’s
future submitting the Resolution to the General Assembly for a recognized state
this September is the single most important moment of truth regarding the
destiny of his people. There must be no choice, no hesitancy, and no fear of
failure but to forcefully and resolutely proceed with the resolution to the
U.N. to recognize a Palestinian State
However if Abbas’ lives up to his usual puppetry to U.S. and
Israeli pressure and forgoes this historical opportunity at the U.N., then two
things will and should happen.
World support for the Palestinians may seriously be
diminished long term with the logic that if Palestinians don’t care about their
own plight and future, why should the world? Palestinian fatigue is already
setting in many quarters of the western world.
A mass uprising of the Palestinian people must occur against
their incompetent leaders in the West Bank and Gaza and hold them accountable for crimes
against humanity against their own people.
What can Israel
do to the Palestinians that it already hasn’t and continues to do?
Palestine’s destiny is up to its people and not for debate,
discussion, and decision by foreign powers. In due time and God willing with a
region wide Arab uprising overthrowing the rule of America’s tyrants it will be
Israel that will sue for peace with the Arab world; having missed the
opportunity for more decades.
The American philosopher William Irwin Thompson said it best
when he wrote: “If you do not create your destiny, you will have your fate
inflicted upon you”
Mr. Abbas and Mr. Meshaal of Hamas, when we all meet our
maker on Judgment Day, how will you explain your failure to seize this
historical moment and seek recognition of a State for your people and the
eventual freedom of an Independent Palestine?
Will you say you feared an American veto or another illegal
settlement? Or will Palestine
remain: “A land without leadership, for a leadership without a land.”
PLEASE Consider Signing the Petition Below to Urge President
Obama to Recognize a Palestinian
State at the United
Nations. Thank you, and please distribute widely.
**********************************
Mohamed Khodr is an American Muslim born in the Middle East. He is political activist who frequently
writes on the plight of Palestinians living under the brutal occupation of Israel, U.S. Foreign Policy, Islam, and
Arab politics.
“Israel [is] not
being isolated because it is a Jewish state and hence illegitimate, but because
of how it treat[s] the Palestinians.”
by Dr. Lawrence Davidson
Part I
On 24 June 2011 MJ Rosenberg published an interesting piece
entitled “Netanyahu Is the One ‘Delegitimizing’ Israel.”
Deligitimization as used here is, according to Israel’s Haaretz newspaper, a “buzzword in the world of pro-Israel
activism.” Rosenberg tries to turn the concept
back on the Zionists by claiming it is their own actions that are actually
eroding Israel’s
legitimacy. He is correct but there is more to be said on this topic. First,
some additional background information.
In 2010 the Zionists decided they would try to split the
opposition by defining different categories of criticism of Israel. Those who are critical of
just particulars, this or that Israel
policy or tactic, were put in the category of acceptable critics. I would point
out that this was a big concession on their part for, if you think back ten
years or so, any public criticism of Israel was assumed to be inspired
by anti-Semitism. In any case, that charge has now been narrowed down to those
assigned to a second category–the “delegitimizers.” These are the ones who,
allegedly, are critical in a way that calls into question the right of Israel
to exist as a Jewish state.
According to the Zionists, this delegitimizing approach is,
so to speak, beyond the pale, or as the American Zionist leader William Daroff put it, a “cancerous growth.”
The Zionists have gone to a lot of trouble to make this
process of categorization appear well thought out and researched. In March of
2010 the Tel Aviv based Reut Institute issued a 92 page report which defines
delegitimizing criticism as that which “exhibits blatant double standards,
singles out Israel, denies its right to exist as the embodiment of the
self-determination of the Jewish people, or demonizes the state.” .
Rosenberg says this effort on the part of the Zionists is a
gambit “to change the subject from the existence of the occupation to the
existence of Israel…That is why Prime Minister Netanyahu routinely invokes
Israel’s ‘right of self-defense’ every time he tries to explain away some
Israeli attack on Palestinians…If the whole Israeli-Palestinian discussion is
about Israel’s right to defend itself, Israel wins the argument. But if it is
about the occupation–which is, in fact, what the conflict has been about since
1993 when the PLO recognized Israel–it loses.” He concludes, “Israel [is] not being isolated
because it is a Jewish state and hence illegitimate, but because of how it
treat[s] the Palestinians.”
Part II
Rosenberg
certainly has a point. However, one can draw a more general and troublesome
message from the debate about Israel
and delegitimization. This more basic insight goes like this:
1. The distinction drawn by the Zionists between acceptable and unacceptable criticism works only if one assumes that the policies and tactics of the Israeli state leading to, on the one hand, expansion into the Occupied Territories (OT), and on the other, the segregation of its non-Jewish minorities, are not structural.
Or, to put it another way, that Israel’s imperial and discriminatory policies are not a function of the ethno/religious definition of the state. But what happens if Israel’s tactics and polices are not just opportunistic, but indeed structural? What if the behavior of the government flows from the very nature of a country designed first and foremost for a specific group? If that is the case, you cannot separate out criticism of this or that policy from criticism of the very character of the Israeli polity. The state and its behavior are inseparable.
1. The distinction drawn by the Zionists between acceptable and unacceptable criticism works only if one assumes that the policies and tactics of the Israeli state leading to, on the one hand, expansion into the Occupied Territories (OT), and on the other, the segregation of its non-Jewish minorities, are not structural.
Or, to put it another way, that Israel’s imperial and discriminatory policies are not a function of the ethno/religious definition of the state. But what happens if Israel’s tactics and polices are not just opportunistic, but indeed structural? What if the behavior of the government flows from the very nature of a country designed first and foremost for a specific group? If that is the case, you cannot separate out criticism of this or that policy from criticism of the very character of the Israeli polity. The state and its behavior are inseparable.
Please note that I am not singling out Israel in this regard (though, as
we will see, I do single it out in other ways). Actually, it would not matter
if Israel
(or any other country) was Jewish, Catholic, Protestant, Muslim, White, Black,
American, English, Russian, Chinese, or created by and for little green men
from Mars. If any state:
- a) is designed to first and foremost serve one specific group while,
- b) having in its midst minorities which it systematically segregates by,
- c) either structuring its laws in a discriminatory way, and/or purposely educating its citizenry to act in a discriminatory fashion,
- d) then from the standpoint of civilized, modern democratic principles, one can justly question not only its tactics and policies, but the legitimacy of the social/political structure that generated them.
This is so whether the country is expansionist or not. In
other words, if Israel
had never moved beyond its 1967 borders and never set up its wretched colonial
regime in the OT, there would still be a problem because of the way it treats
Israeli Arabs. Here is where I would take the Rosenberg argument one step further. It is
not just the occupation, it is Zionism as a guiding socio-political ideology
that is illegitimate.,
2. Given the ideological insistence that Israel must be a “Jewish” state, how does one argue against Zionist Israel without opening oneself to the charge of anti-Semitism? The best way to do so is by generalizing out Rosenberg’s argument – by taking the general position that all governments that use their laws to discriminate against minority groups delegitimize themselves. In the case of Zionist Israel (which, we should keep in mind, does not represent all Jews) just ceasing to behave in an imperialist fashion may be necessary, but it is not a sufficient corrective. Israel must cease to structure its laws and social behavior in a discriminatory fashion and for that it has to get rid of its present Zionist governing ideology. If Israel wants to be both Jewish and a legitimate, civilized, modern democratic state, it has to find a non-discriminatory way to do it. As long as it stays a Zionist state, it will constantly be hoisting itself with its own petard.,
3. Beyond Israel’s borders, it is the Zionist political and media efforts to convince world opinion that they must be considered both legitimate and be allowed to operate in a discriminatory fashion that are particularly corrupting. To explain this lets address the Zionist charge that deligitimizers “single out Israel” by using “blatant double standards.”
2. Given the ideological insistence that Israel must be a “Jewish” state, how does one argue against Zionist Israel without opening oneself to the charge of anti-Semitism? The best way to do so is by generalizing out Rosenberg’s argument – by taking the general position that all governments that use their laws to discriminate against minority groups delegitimize themselves. In the case of Zionist Israel (which, we should keep in mind, does not represent all Jews) just ceasing to behave in an imperialist fashion may be necessary, but it is not a sufficient corrective. Israel must cease to structure its laws and social behavior in a discriminatory fashion and for that it has to get rid of its present Zionist governing ideology. If Israel wants to be both Jewish and a legitimate, civilized, modern democratic state, it has to find a non-discriminatory way to do it. As long as it stays a Zionist state, it will constantly be hoisting itself with its own petard.,
3. Beyond Israel’s borders, it is the Zionist political and media efforts to convince world opinion that they must be considered both legitimate and be allowed to operate in a discriminatory fashion that are particularly corrupting. To explain this lets address the Zionist charge that deligitimizers “single out Israel” by using “blatant double standards.”
This assertion has become so common that when one ventures
into a public forum to discuss Israeli behavior, one is almost assured the
following question: Why are you singling out Israel? How about all those other
countries doing horrible things to people? How about the Russians slaughtering
Chechynians? How about the Chinese committing cultural genocide against Tibet? What
about Darfur? If you think about it, the
question is an unfortunate one from the point of view of those asking because,
implicitly, it (quite accurately) puts Israel into the same category as all
these other bad guys and that certainly is not what the questioner intends. In
any case, there is a ready answer to the question and it goes like this: The
fact that Zionist influence spreads far beyond Israel’s area of dominion and
has long influenced many of the policy making institutions of Western
governments, and particularly that of the United States, makes it imperative
that Israel’s oppressive behavior be singled out as a high priority case from
among the many other oppressive regimes that may be candidates for pointed
criticism and even boycott. In other words, unlike the Chinese, the Russians
and other such governments, the Israelis and their supporters directly
influence, in a corrupting fashion, the policy makers of our own countries and
this often makes our governments accomplices in Israel’s abusive policies. This
being so, singling out Israel
is not hypocrisy, but rather necessity. William Daroff, the Zionist leader
mentioned above who appears on the look out for “cancerous growths,” might find
this pathology in the on-going corruptive nature of his own organization’s
influence.
Part III
From the standpoint of intellectual debate it is not
difficult to defeat Zionist arguments. I have been doing it for years both in
writing and in public forums. I humbly admit that (where they have not turned
into bedlam) I have never lost one of these encounters. However, international
affairs and the fate of nations are not normally settled by intellectual
debates. Nor, unfortunately, are they often settled by international law.
Historically, they are settled by political intrigue and back room lobbying (at
which level Zionist influence works) and/or brute force.
Is there a way around this historical roadblock? I think so.
There is a growing, world-wide movement of civil society seeking the isolation
of Israel
at all levels. This is the same strategy that brought change to apartheid South Africa.
And, toward the growth of this movement, intellectual debate is very useful and
important. It is no accident that the Zionists point to those who advocate
boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) against Israel as the number one enemies
within their category of delegitimizers. I think they know, or at least sense,
that the BDS movement is the very best long term strategy for those who wish to
force Israel to rid itself of what makes it truly illegitimate– its Zionist
ideology.
**************************
DR. LAWRENCE DAVIDSON is professor of Middle East history at
West Chester University in West Chester, PA, and the author of America’s
Palestine: Popular and Official Perceptions from Balfour to Israeli Statehood
(University of Florida Press, 2001), Islamic Fundamentalism (Greenwood Press, 2003),
and Foreign Policy, Inc.: Privatizing American National Interest (University of
Kentuck Press, 2009).
William A. Cook
This week the United States Senate unanimously adopted a
resolution drafted by its masters, the State of Israel and AIPAC, to prevent
the United Nations, of which the United States is a member, from exercising its
constitutional rights to free speech to deliberate on the recognition of a
Palestinian State. The resolution is an exercise in coercion since its intent
is to withhold funding from the Palestinian Authority should the UN deliberate
on such a resolution of recognition, making the UN responsible for depriving
the Palestinian people of America’s support.
Given the reality of what is euphemistically called
“negotiations for peace” or the “Israeli/Palestinian peace process,” that have
been on-going for approximately 50 years with no results: no peace, no
Palestinian state, no equity of living conditions, no acceptance of proposals
to enforce terms negotiated, no borders established for either state, and no
expectation of results, it would appear to most people of common sense that the
process is flawed. To have America
act as a broker for peace limiting the participants to Israeli and Palestinian
negotiators is futile at best since the US is not an objective broker nor
could it be. Delay benefits the partner in the process that wields the power;
that is Israel.
Palestinians suffer and die as the years go by and the world waits, wonders and
watches with indifference.
It occurred to me, therefore, that Senate Resolution 185 needs
some alterations, alterations that might be possible if our Senators were not
shackled by their masters to unanimously adopt a continuation of the idiocy
that maintains a status quo demanded by the Israelis but not their negotiating
partners, the Palestinians. Hence I offer the following changes as a small
measure of sense into a process marked by ceaseless nonsense.
Excerpts from S. Res. 185, approved by the U.S. Senate on
Tuesday: Whereas a true and lasting peace between the people of Israel and the
Palestinians can only be achieved through direct negotiations between the
parties as the past 44 years of such negotiations clearly demonstrates;
Whereas Hamas, an organization responsible for the death of
more than 500 innocent civilians, including two dozen United States citizens,
has been designated by the United States Government as a foreign terrorist
organization, while Israel, an organization responsible for the deaths of 6,430
innocent Palestinian civilians including 1463 children since September of 2000,
and 45,041 injured, has not been designated a foreign terrorist state;
Whereas Hamas has demolished no Israeli homes while Israel has destroyed 24,873 Palestinian homes, and while Israel has built 236 illegal settlements on confiscated Palestinian land and Hamas has built none on Israeli land;
Whereas Hamas has demolished no Israeli homes while Israel has destroyed 24,873 Palestinian homes, and while Israel has built 236 illegal settlements on confiscated Palestinian land and Hamas has built none on Israeli land;
Whereas the United States has provided Israel 9 million a
day in 2011 for military assistance to ensure that it maintain the fourth
largest military in the world to protect 6 million people while the US has the
largest to protect 310 million and provides Hamas with nothing;
Whereas Israel has refused to designate borders to define its state and unilaterally confiscates any Palestinian land it desires while the land belonging to the Palestinians has shrunk to less than 14% of its original area; Whereas, on April 22, 2009, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton stated, “We will not deal with nor in any way fund a Palestinian government that includes Hamas (despite our expressed desire in 2006 to see Hamas become a credible political party in Palestine, and despite our on-going support of democracy in the mid-east acknowledging that Hamas’ victory at the polls, witnessed by UN observers, was recognized by the nations of the world as fulfilling the goals of a free people choosing their representatives, despite our expressed desires to see democracy in action in Palestine), we assert at this time that unless and until Hamas has renounced violence, recognized Israel and agreed to follow the previous obligations of the Palestinian Authority (even though we do not require that Israel renounce violence as the statistics above attest, nor do we require that Israel recognize the existence of a state for Palestinians nor accept its obligations as a member state of the UN to refrain from illegal land confiscation, return the land it has acquired illegally under international law and rejoin the community of nations of which it should be apart.”);
Whereas Israel has refused to designate borders to define its state and unilaterally confiscates any Palestinian land it desires while the land belonging to the Palestinians has shrunk to less than 14% of its original area; Whereas, on April 22, 2009, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton stated, “We will not deal with nor in any way fund a Palestinian government that includes Hamas (despite our expressed desire in 2006 to see Hamas become a credible political party in Palestine, and despite our on-going support of democracy in the mid-east acknowledging that Hamas’ victory at the polls, witnessed by UN observers, was recognized by the nations of the world as fulfilling the goals of a free people choosing their representatives, despite our expressed desires to see democracy in action in Palestine), we assert at this time that unless and until Hamas has renounced violence, recognized Israel and agreed to follow the previous obligations of the Palestinian Authority (even though we do not require that Israel renounce violence as the statistics above attest, nor do we require that Israel recognize the existence of a state for Palestinians nor accept its obligations as a member state of the UN to refrain from illegal land confiscation, return the land it has acquired illegally under international law and rejoin the community of nations of which it should be apart.”);
Therefore, be it Resolved, that the Senate—baffled by the
inherent contradictions imbedded in this resolution adopts the following
resolution: Reaffirms its strong support for a negotiated solution to
the Israeli-Palestinian conflict resulting in two states, a democratic, Jewish
state of Israel and a viable, democratic Palestinian state, living side-by-side
in peace, security, and mutual recognition; Affirms the necessity that a new peace process be created to
be undertaken by the United Nations through an established authorized committee
of its membership exclusive of the United States but with equitable
representation of other nations including those with Arab populations;
Affirms the absolute necessity of a United Nations vote to
recognize a Palestinian state prior to the creation of the UN Committee
described above so that both Israel and Palestine enter the negotiations on an
equal footing using the UN established 1967 borders as a base for negotiations
in accordance with the President’s wishes; Calls upon the President to announce that the United States
will not veto any resolution on Palestinian statehood that comes before the
United Nations Security Council as a demonstration of America’s good will to
bring a coordinated and internationally accepted resolution to the crisis in
Israel and Palestine;
Affirms its intentions by announcing in advance that the United States will provide financial support for the development of a Palestinian state that will make it a viable member of the nations united for peace in the world; and Will consider restrictions on aid to the state of Israel should it interfere with the recognition of a Palestinian State as adopted by the UN.
Affirms its intentions by announcing in advance that the United States will provide financial support for the development of a Palestinian state that will make it a viable member of the nations united for peace in the world; and Will consider restrictions on aid to the state of Israel should it interfere with the recognition of a Palestinian State as adopted by the UN.
In all fairness to those who have not been able to see
Senate Resolution 185, since our main stream media choose to omit such items
lest the American people become informed, I offer below the resolution as
presented by Daily Alert, an organ of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs
on behalf of the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations.
Needless to say, AIPAC has been at the forefront of efforts
to ensure that its Knesset passed Resolution 185; here’s how.
AIPAC News
Thousands of AIPAC Activists Ascend Capitol Hill to Lobby
“In a resounding show
of support for a strong U.S.-Israel relationship, thousands of AIPAC Policy
Conference elegates (sic) from all 50 states ascended Capitol Hill on Tuesday
to conduct more than 500 lobbying meetings with members of Congress and their
staff. At the top of the lobbying agenda was U.S.
security assistance to Israel
– the most tangible expression of American support for the Jewish state.” Where
is the American peoples’ voice? I suggest that to be or not to be American
would be answered if this resolution were reconsidered.
Excerpts from S. Res. 185, approved by the U.S. Senate on Tuesday: Whereas a true and lasting peace between the people of Israel
and the Palestinians can only be achieved through direct negotiations between
the parties; Whereas Hamas, an organization responsible for the death of
more than 500 innocent civilians, including two dozen United States citizens,
has been designated by the United States Government as a foreign terrorist
organization; Whereas, on April 22, 2009, Secretary of State Hillary
Clinton stated, “We will not deal with nor in any way fund a Palestinian
government that includes Hamas unless and until Hamas has renounced violence,
recognized Israel
and agreed to follow the previous obligations of the Palestinian Authority.”
Therefore, be it Resolved, that the Senate – Reaffirms its strong support for a negotiated solution to
the Israeli-Palestinian conflict resulting in two states, a democratic, Jewish
state of Israel and a viable, democratic Palestinian state, living side-by-side
in peace, security, and mutual recognition; Reiterates its strong opposition to
any attempt to establish or seek recognition of a Palestinian state outside of
an agreement negotiated between leaders in Israel and the Palestinians;
Calls upon the President to announce that the United States will veto any resolution on Palestinian statehood that comes before the United Nations Security Council which is not a result of agreements reached between the Government of Israel and the Palestinians;
Will consider restrictions on aid to the Palestinian Authority should it persist in efforts to circumvent direct negotiations by turning to the United Nations or other international bodies.
Calls upon the President to announce that the United States will veto any resolution on Palestinian statehood that comes before the United Nations Security Council which is not a result of agreements reached between the Government of Israel and the Palestinians;
Will consider restrictions on aid to the Palestinian Authority should it persist in efforts to circumvent direct negotiations by turning to the United Nations or other international bodies.
**********************************
William A. Cook, Ph.D. is Professor of English at the University of La Verne
in southern California.
His most recent book, The Plight of the Palestinians: a Long History of
Destruction is now available at Macmillan publishing or through Amazon and
other book sellers. He can be reached at wcook@laverne.edu or www.drwilliamacook.com
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