The Failure of the Israeli - Palestinian peace process and Israeli oppression

        Another point I want to raise here about human rights abuses of Palestinians is the Israeli practice of curfew, which like house demolitions, is also a form of collective punishment.  Israeli security forces claim they need to impose the measure to maintain law and order, but these curfews may be imposed for long periods, causing economic hardship – especially for those Palestinians who make their living from agriculture and who have to be out of their homes to pick crops.  These can last for hours or even days and make people prisoners in their own homes.  Palestinians have been begging countries like the United States and others to send international observers into the Occupied Territories but their calls are always ignored.  This doesn’t seen like an unreasonable request, given that a U.N. Assembly resolution also calls for an international presence. Israeli abuses therefore continue to go unpunished, and for the most part, unobserved.  Consequently, this can only be logically interpreted as a deliberate attempt by Israel and the United States to conceal or hide certain practices or unpleasant facts, since it is Israel who is opposed to the implementation of international observers and it is the United States who consistently blocks UN attempts to put UN observer forces in the Occupied Territories.    

        Israel also continues its policy of the appropriation of Palestinian resources (including land, water and other resources necessary for the normal functioning of the Palestinian economy), preventing Palestinian economic growth and condemning millions of innocent people to live in sub-standard conditions in the Occupied Territories.  In the following section we will look at the lack water available to the Palestinians, a chronic shortage of land, the economic blockade of Palestinian areas being carried out by Israel against the Palestinians and the general lack of economic development in Palestinian areas.

        Israeli settlers moving into the Occupied Territories are the main problem in the whole equation here.  They move into Palestinian areas, establish settlements, then drain water essential for the survival of Palestinian inhabitants.

“The Palestinian population on the West Bank grew by 84% since 1967 but water allotted for domestic use only increased 20%…In 1990, Palestinians were allotted only 17% of the West Bank ground water…83% is used within Israel or by Israeli settlers in the West bank…The approximate 100,000 settlers in the West Bank use 160mcm [metric cubic meters] yearly…In contrast, only 137mcm was allotted to 1 million Palestinians in 1989.  Each [Israeli] settler received 1,600 cm [cubic meters] that year and each Palestinian received 127 cm [for the same period]”   Recent studies by the IMF on economic development in the region paint a dismal picture of life for Palestinians in the Occupied Territories.

“…average urban water supply on a per capita basis in the WBGS [West Bank, Gaza Strip] is about half the level it is in Jordan and about one-quarter the level in Egypt, and water supplies are frequently contaminated…poor waste water management has contributed to the contamination of ground water, particularly in the Gaza strip”

This process of depriving Palestinians of water has been going on for some time now.  The U.N. Security Council raised the issue in 1980, over 20 years ago, and the inequality, shortages and problems continue until this day.  The Palestinians continue to suffer, therefore to hate, therefore to resist.            

        Palestinians are also systematically deprived of land as a resource, that is, territory that they need to survive and to grow economically.  The potential economic strength of any future Palestinian entity is being systematically and purposefully eroded by Israeli authorities, by the post 1967 land grab on the part of Israeli settlers in the Occupied Territories and by illegal and unfair practices, which includes Palestinian land placed off limits by Israeli officials.  The process by which the Israelis unlawfully chase Palestinians off their land in a ridiculous farce, and includes orders arbitrarily ‘declaring’ certain tracts of land (Israeli) state land.  The Palestinian villager faced with such a declaration can ‘appeal’ to a committee of Israeli Army and Reservist officers, but almost always loses the decision.  Furthermore, Israeli officials frequently demand documents and maps from Palestinian villagers, which many of them do not possess.  (Even though the land may have been in that Palestinian villagers hands for centuries).  Palestinians have to “relinquish land reserves essential for their development and absorption of refugees.”

Israel denies (!) it has imposed a virtual economic blockade on the Palestinians, yet the IMF reported in a study in 1995 that,

“In view of the greater than expected disruption in the movement of labour and goods, including imports for public and private investment…notably as a result of prolonged border closures…the growth forecast has been revised downward.”  All of this contributes to a situation where Palestinians are virtually reduced to the status of slaves serving Israel.  Even the Israeli Foreign Minister Simon Peres, recognizing this trend, cautions against this process when he states, “We must not allow two different economies to develop: a poor Arab economy offering cheap labour and a rich Israeli economy profiting from that labour”  Azmi Bishara, a Palestinian Christian activist and the only Arab member of the Israeli Knesset sounds strikingly similar in his assessments, when he stated recently that,

“The Arabs in Israel are individuals who work for the Jews. They get a higher salary, that's it. In the West Bank and Gaza there are two dairy factories...The Arab villages are not more than motels where you sleep to go to work for the Jews. The only bourgeoisie is the mediating bourgeoisie between Arab workers and Jewish production.” 

The U.N. has “reaffirmed the principle of the permanent sovereignty of peoples under foreign occupation over their natural resources” but as usual it does little good.  Israel’s record of complying with U.N. resolutions is a dismal disgrace, and all the yelling the U.N. does about it seems to lead nowhere.

One of the central problems is the question of land in the Occupied Territories and who gets it.  In a calculated cycle of organized theft, Israel illegally and arbitrarily confiscates land, then occupies it, and then tries to make use of rule-bending complex arguments that try and make the whole process not sound like expropriation.  Firstly, the confiscation of Palestinian territory in the West Bank and Gaza is totally illegal, period.  U.N. Resolution 181 in 1947 clearly states that there shall be an ‘Arab State’ with ‘boundaries’ called ‘Palestine’.  These boundaries clearly extend beyond the present day divisions of the West Bank and Gaza, but even these territories are being taken from the Palestinians.  Therefore, even if Israel has seized the West Bank and Gaza, they still have rightly and legally become ‘occupied territories’, and not just ‘disputed territories’ as the Israeli officials like to claim.  But the proponents of Israel’s position never give up.  One view holds that,

“It has been contended by a distinguished scholar…that the long duration of that occupation makes it quite unique, as a consequence, not all the legal constraints concerning ‘normal’ belligerent occupation could apply in the case of Israeli ‘administration’ of the Arab territories”  What ‘distinguished scholars’ get to decide what ‘long duration’ means?  Israeli government officials?   The principles of international law that forbid an occupying power from confiscating land are clear.  Article 46(2) of the Hague Regulations expressly forbid the confiscation of private property.  When logic breaks down, supporters of Israeli hard line positions resort wild distortions, attempting to twist the facts, swearing that night is day.  Raphael Israeli writes,

“Other countries can conquer, annex, settle and alter the status quo; Israel seems to be the exception, even though it has given up 70% of the territory of historical Palestine as a result of various partitions imposed on it”   

        The above statement apparently claims that Israel has given up 70% of its territory.  In actual fact, the West Bank and Gaza comprise only 22% of pre-1948 Palestine.  After 1967, Israel began a deliberate policy to colonize and break up what was left of Palestinian territory.  The U.N. has on numerous occasions condemned this confiscation process, but Israel and the United States is apparently not interested in the weight of international law or the will of the international community.

        It is this illegal Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory itself which is the main cause of terrorism.  Since the Palestinians have openly and officially renounced the destruction of Israel from the Palestinian Charter, Israel can no longer legitimately claim that Palestinian violence against Israelis is motivated by anything else except resistance to occupation.  Even the Israelis were satisfied with the renunciation, when in December of 1998,

“In the presence of President Clinton, hundreds of top Palestinian officials, including former guerrilla fighters, today revoked parts of the Palestinian charter that called for the destruction of Israel. ``I hope this will close this chapter forever,'' Yasser Arafat said. At Arafat's call, members of the Palestine National Council voted by standing with their hands raised. The vote, which Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had insisted on, was not counted, but officials called it nearly unanimous. A senior adviser to Netanyahu said the show of hands was acceptable. ``This is the cancellation according to the formula of the Wye River conference. There was a vote, there was not question about that,'' said the adviser, David Bar-Illan. ``The issue, as far as we are concerned, is now off the table,'' Bar-Illan said. 

           Palestinian and Israeli officials at the highest levels and others all seem to agree that the main cause of the terrorism is the occupation.  Simon Peres states,

        “Without two separate states, a binational state will come into being, to the great frustration of the two peoples.  A binational tragedy would ensue which in the course of time would force Israel to stay armed against the Palestinians, whose bitterness could lead once more to terrorism” 

        If we examine his words carefully, we can see that even some Israelis feel that the a binational state (occupation) is the cause (whose bitterness could once more lead to) of the resistance (terrorism).  Yasser

Arafat of course agrees, even though he may use more direct language, when he says, “The Palestinian people have resisted the occupation with full determination”  Others note that the length and harshness of the occupation, and large scale and persistent Israeli violations of the laws of belligerent occupation seem to justify civil resistance by almost the entire Palestinian population.

The most telling evidence that the blame for the failure to reach a comprehensive, lasting and durable peace settlement most probably lies primarily with Israel and failed Israeli policies and practices is the fact that Jewish settlements dot the Palestinian territory of the West Bank and Gaza.  This is the biggest obstacle to peace, the largest cause of violence and the most depressing chapter in the whole tragedy so far, because any workable peace settlement will have to involve, as Shimon Peres has so rightly pointed out, a permanent separation of the two peoples.  This separation is not possible, however, with present and past Israeli policies in effect.  What’s in store therefore, is more violence, killing of civilians and bloodshed on both sides, because the Palestinians have no choice but to resist.  As things stand now, the Palestinian people are being squeezed into a smaller and smaller corner.  There appears to be a systematic attempt here on the part of Israel to, over time, to completely erase the Arab Palestinian presence from the Occupied Territories.  This is nothing less than a deliberate genocide of an innocent and desperate people, and as powerful nations disgracefully stand back and do nothing, we are faced with the destruction of an entire people of W.W. II like proportions.  The Jewish settlements in the Palestinian Occupied Territories are illegal, imperialistic and in effect, are acting as deliberate tools of genocide.

The Palestinians can not and will not believe that Israel is serious about peace until this issue is addressed and until all of the Israeli settlements are removed from the West Bank and Gaza.  Arafat rightly points out that Israel,

“continues its refusal to the presidential statement issued by the Security Council which has demanded Israel to stop all the settlement measurements in Jerusalem and the Occupied Palestinian Territories.  This causes a severe concern and raises real inquiries about the sincere intentions of this Israeli government, which pays no attention to the international agreements.  It flagrantly challenges the international will and violates all its obligations and the resolutions of the international legitimacy”   

U.N. resolutions call the settlements illegal and obstacles to peace , and specifically call for their dismantling and for Israel to stop building new ones.  Israel, as usual, doesn’t care what the U.N. wants and continues to openly defy the international community on this issue.  It doesn’t care because it is conducting a deliberate, imperialistic long term policy of colonization of the Occupied Territories.  

A quick glace at a map of Israeli settlements in the West Bank alone tells the story.  Approximately, 32 settlements were built from 1967-1977.  Even during Camp David peace negotiations with the Egyptians between 1977 and September of 1978, 21 new Israeli settlements were added. (True, these were not negotiations that involved the Palestinians, but this process of continuing settlement of the West bank area does demonstrate both a deliberate and long term Israeli policy of colonization of Palestinian territory and an unwillingness to come to a real workable solution with the Palestinians on the issue of territorial division).  14 more settlements were added from 1978-1983, and more thereafter.

“This policy of colonization is being implemented by a systematic practice of seizing private Christian and Muslim Palestinian property and transferring such properties to exclusive Jewish control”  Other sources point out that spatial development in the Occupied Territories is exclusively directed by Israeli officials and  “is oriented towards expanding Israeli settlements while constricting the growth of Palestinian towns and villages…the military government …forbids Palestinians not currently residing in the territories from inheriting land.”                 

The argument that Jewish hard liners use to claim that they have a moral right to occupy Palestinian territories is a religious and illogical one.  In effect, Jews are claiming that they have a right to perpetrate this genocide on the Palestinians because ‘God told them’ to do so and promised them the land.  This is their whole logical basis for settlements in the Occupied Territories, and any legal claims based on these religious arguments and clearly ridiculous.  How do we know God told these Jewish settlers from New York and Russia and Eastern Europe to come to the West Bank and Gaza and take property and land away from Palestinian families who have lived there for hundreds of years?  Where are the phone records with these conversations between God and the Jewish settlers?  Can they produce any other evidence or records of these conversations?

Foolishness combines here with Israeli trickery on the issue of Jewish settlements.  The long term policy of successive Israeli governments has been to flood the Occupied Territories with Jewish settlers, so as to effect  the permanent status of the West Bank and Gaza (the change of status trick),  presenting the Palestinians and the World with a fait d’accompli.  

“Israeli government policies after 1967, especially during the 1977-92 period of Likud Government, were aimed at creating facts that would make disengagement from the Occupied Territories politically impossible” “…expansion of Jewish housing there tends to change the status of the area making it more likely to remain in Israeli hands.  Much of the point of settlements is to increase the likelihood that the settled area will enjoy the states of Israeli territory”     

The U.N. has chastised Israel for this practice and has directly criticized them for this underhanded game, but until the U.N. is joined by the United States in trying to force Israel to abide by its resolutions, the law of the strong over the weak will remain in effect.  The idea that a Labour government in Israel is somewhat more flexible on the issue of settlements than a Likud one is, is also misleading.  The policy of colonization of Palestinian areas is deliberate and long term, and there is likely to be little change in Israeli settlement policy until a powerful and multi-national peacekeeping force arrives and forces the removal of Jewish settlers from the West bank and Gaza.  “To the very end, however, the Labour government refused to consider removing even the smallest and most provocative of settlements.”  In light of these facts, Israeli efforts at peace negotiations with the Palestinians are a delaying tactic while they change the status of Palestinian areas through settlement.  The Palestinians understand all of this, and also realize that time is not on their side.  They therefore have little choice, it seems, but to resort to increasingly desperate and violent means of resistance.  If Israeli extermination of the Palestinian presence in the Occupied Territories in the eventual goal (and there is little evidence to suggest that this is not the case, as witnessed by the Israeli settlement policy in the region), then the Palestinians must realize that they are doomed in any case.  Why not die resisting?, the Palestinians reason.  Labelling Palestinian resistance to Israeli occupation and extermination is therefore a clever Israeli lie, like calling ‘occupied land’ ‘disputed land’.  Denying facts and playing on words are old tactics.  Golda Meir, former Israeli prime minister, once said  “There was no such thing as Palestinians [before we arrived in the West bank and Gaza]…they did not exist” 

If settlements are the biggest stumbling block to peace, then Jerusalem might just rank as number two.  Israeli claims to Jerusalem are illegal, irrational and impractical.  Israel also employs tricks and sneaky tactics in order to claim as much of Jerusalem as possible.  

The U.N. has clearly (as usual), noted that, “the decision of Israel to impose its laws, jurisdiction and administration on the Holy City of Jerusalem is illegal and therefore null and void and has no validity whatsoever”  Others point out that “The World as a whole condemns the destruction of Arab Jerusalem and yet the U.N. remains totally impotent in forcing Israel to adhere to decisions taken.”

 Israeli claims are also based on silly and irrational outdated religious arguments.  Sharon, never accused of being too diplomatic has labelled Jerusalem the “eternal, undivided capital of the Jewish people in the state of Israel forever.”  He also reminds listeners,  “You know, as Jews we have been praying for 2,000 years, ‘next year in Jerusalem’ Thank God, we are in Jerusalem.” 

This is the Israeli moral justification, therefore for inviting Russian and Eastern European ‘Jews’ to colonize Palestinian areas and expel Palestinians from their homes.  Neutral parties to the dispute are suppose to understand that the Jews just want to come back to their ‘homeland’ that their ancestors were promised ‘by God’.  A very interesting question for people who believe this is: “How did all those descendants of Abraham get into Russia and Eastern Europe anyhow?”  The most probable answer according to research on this question is that they are not descendants of Jews from Israel at all, but rather, were Khazars who converted to Judaism en masse about the seventh century in the region of the Ukraine.  If this is true, it might explain how all those ‘Jews’ got into Eastern Europe and it would be a strong argument against these so called ‘Jews’ of Eastern European and Russian origin having an ‘ancestral right’ to move onto settlements on the West Bank and disenfranchising Palestinians of their property and homes on the basis that it is their ‘ancestral homeland’.  

Israeli supporters like to point out that no Arab state ever had Jerusalem as its capital.  Some hard liners claim,

“There was the myth in a nutshell: Palestine used to belong to the Palestinians who ruled it from their capital in Jerusalem until the Jews swarmed in and drove them out. That is the root of all the violence and grief, and until the Palestinians can return to their homeland, the violence and grief will go on. The truth is rather different…The truth is that Jerusalem was never the capital of any Arab state or province”

        Please note carefully here that between 1838 and 1967, it appears as if Jews DID in fact swarm in and drive them (the Palestinians) out.  A careful look at the population numbers for Jerusalem clearly demonstrates this.  In 1838, the Jewish population of Jerusalem was just 27.2%.  By 1946, it had reached 48.6%, and by 1967, the Jewish population in Jerusalem rose again to 74.2%.  In the period from 1946 to 1967, the total Arab population (including Christians and Jews) declined from 51% of the total in 1946 to just 26% of the total in 1967.  This is just a small example of the inaccurate reporting that goes on and lies that are propagated by supporters of the Israeli hard line position.  

This position is also, therefore, impractical.  The Palestinians will never accept Sharon’s logic on the issue.  Arafat has stated (in an diametrically opposite fashion) that “Jerusalem is the capital of Palestine.  There is no concession or bargaining on it.”  At least Barak had the sense to suggest a twin capital scheme with the Palestinians.  This statement, however, strangely coincided with Sharon’s controversial visit to the Temple Mount (near the Al Aqsa Mosque) on September 28, 2000 that sparked a new wave of violence.  Sharon meekly commented on camera immediately after the riot started that he was not trying to provoke anything, but when the U.S. Secretary of State Madeline Albright criticized his visit and suggested that it may have caused tension, he reacted defiantly, stating flatly, “The united city of Jerusalem, as well as the Temple Mount, are under full Israeli sovereignty.  Neither I, nor any Israeli citizen, need to seek permission from the PA or from any foreign entity to visit there”  The rigid Israeli hard line diplomatic position of people like Sharon is therefore unworkable and counterproductive.  Hundreds of millions of Christian pilgrims and Muslims regard Jerusalem as sacred, and for Israel to claim total sovereignty is both selfish and unjust.  The best solution would probably to make it an open, international city administered by the United Nations.  Why not share access?  No, say Israeli hard liners – they want it all.

To reach their goal of eradicating the Palestinian presence in Jerusalem, the Israelis have followed a sneaky but reliable tactic of status change over time.  In addition, they have also employed a new tactic, the ‘archaeological sites trick’ – roundly condemned by the United Nations.  As recently as May of 2001, the U.N. voted to

“condemn Israel's dubious attempts to assert its sovereignty over Jerusalem and certain areas of the West Bank by seeking to have a number of archaeological sites in Jerusalem and the occupied Palestinian territories inscribed on the World Heritage List”

Yet after all of this, still nothing is done to bring Israel into line with international standards of respectability and human decency.  Even the Israeli Labour party’s position is not all that ‘soft’ when it come to negotiations with the Palestinians.  Peres admits, “Throughout the Oslo process, we were determined not to make any concessions on Jerusalem”  The Palestinians know what all this means – the handwriting is on the wall for them.  Cornered and facing slow extinction, they have chosen to fight.  Arafat has asserted,

“Israel has denied the existence of our people, and worked hard to erase and extinguish his identity and his entity…[they]  went to far with animosity…confiscating and demolishing Palestinian houses.  It [Israel] has frozen negotiations and refused to implement signed agreements”

These hard line Israeli policies are both genocidal and counter-productive towards the search for a peaceful solution.  Israel continues these practices because they think they can get away with them, but their policies create a never ending cycle of violence, that puts both Palestinians and Israelis at risk of violence and death.  The harshness of Israeli rule and the abuse of the Palestinians at the hands of the settlers is building Palestinian hatred of Israelis is inciting them to commit acts of terrorism against Israeli targets out of a sense of vengeance and desperation.    

“Chief of Staff Rafael Eitan…issued orders to Israeli soldiers to rough students and demonstrators to ‘deter’ further disturbances.  Thus, a ghastly cycle of retribution set in.  Reservists noted a sharp rise in the aggressiveness among Palestinians”

Israeli extremists receive little press coverage or attention compared to Hamas and Islamic Jihad, but both sides clearly are using violence as a means of conflict resolution.  It is important, however, to understand that words like ‘terrorism’ and ‘extremism’ are only terms used by people to evoke emotional responses, and are useless as descriptive terms unless the terms themselves are clearly defined.  Were Jewish fighters carrying out terrorist acts in 1948 against British and Arab targets ‘terrorists’, or were they ‘resistance fighters’?  Zionist settlers shooting Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and Gaza might be doing so in a particular act of self-defence, but Palestinians who use violence against Zionist settlers might just as accurately be described as ‘resistance fighters’, because they are resisting an act of occupation.  Why does the international media consistently label Palestinians who resist occupation ‘terrorists’, even though there are clearly elements of resistance to occupation present?  This is another issue, but there is very clearly a huge media bias being played out in Israel’s favour in the Western media.  There is another very important point here worth mentioning.  If there should be any media bias or sympathy at all, it should go to the underdog.  The conflict among Israelis and Palestinians is not a contest among equals.  The Palestinians logically have more of a reason to resort to so called ‘terrorism’, since they are in a more materially inferior, weaker and desperate position in relation to the Israelis.  In order to diffuse the conflict, it would therefore be more reasonable for the aggressor and occupying force ( in this case, Israel) to reduce (on it’s part) acts of violence by extremist Israelis towards Palestinians, AND towards others, including Jews, who support peace with the Palestinians.  If Yitzak Rabin, the former Prime Minister of Israel, was the victim of this extremist element in Israeli society, how safe can the Arab-Israelis, Jews, Palestinians and others opposed to them feel?  The Rabin assassination was not just an isolated incident, but rather one in a string of ‘terrorist’ acts by Israeli extremists which includes blowing up buildings (like the King David Hotel Massacre of 1946), walking into a mosque and shooting innocent, defenceless worshipers, killing 24 of them (Ibrahimi Mosque Massacre, courtesy of settler Baroukh Goldstein, on February 25, 1994), and village massacres, or knowingly letting militiamen allied to the IDF walk into Palestinian refugee camps and line people up and shoot them    ( Sabra & Shatila Refugee Camp Massacres in Lebanon, September 16, 1982).  There have been over 58 official cases of  Jewish massacres of innocent civilians from 1946 to the present, on the record, where elements of Israeli extremist groups have ruthlessly killed defenceless civilians.  These extremists include Israeli security forces, Jewish settlers in the West Bank and Gaza – even Ariel Sharon, the Israeli Prime Minister, has been implicated in the Sabra & Shatila killings, having been officially accused of war crimes!   Why aren’t these acts of ‘terror’ ever highlighted in the Western press?  An important point to remember here is that these vicious Jewish extremist acts of terror against innocent people go a long way in explaining the behaviour of so called Palestinian terrorists  Western news media sources might inadequately cover these events, briefly scanning over the details and quickly moving onto the sports highlights of the day, but Arab media coverage of the same events is extensive.  Consequently, the killings of Arabs by Jewish extremists carries a greater significance than it does for the careless observer in the United States, Denmark or Portugal.  The extremists in Israeli society are therefore a big factor in the failure of the peace process, because they induce the Palestinian extremists to commit violence in return, thus perpetuating a never ending cycle of retribution.  The United States does little to reign in the extremists in Israeli society and limit Israeli violence against Palestinian civilians, even though violence by Jewish extremists has been roundly condemned by the U.N.  Does this sound familiar?    

The return of Palestinian refugees to the Occupied Territories has also been something that Israel has not cooperated on, most likely because it would work against its long term policy of eradicating the Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza.  

“In December of 1968, the United Nations called on Israel to allow repatriation of Arabs displaced in the 1967 war.  Under pressure, Israel allowed repatriation but only 14,000 out of a total of 410, 000.  Practically none of those repatriated came from the old city of Jerusalem.”

The UN has of course condemned these harsh, genocidal Israeli refugee policies targeted at the Palestinians.  Little wonder that the effectiveness U.N. has become a cruel joke to most Arabs, making a mockery and international laughing stock out of a once noble idea.

This short looks at the failure of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process is by no means exhausting, but  I have attempted to demonstrate that the failure to reach a comprehensive, lasting and durable peace settlement between Israel and the Palestinians is seemingly due to systematic oppression by Israel of the Palestinian people and the blame for this failure most probably lies primarily with Israel and failed Israeli policies and practices, which include Israel’s human rights abuses of the Palestinians, Israel’s appropriation of Palestinian resources (including land, water and other resources necessary for the normal functioning of the Palestinian economy), Israeli confiscation and occupation of Palestinian land, Israeli settlements in the Occupied Territories ( West Bank and Gaza), Israeli claims on the question of Jerusalem, hard line Israeli government positions on these issues, the influence in Israeli extremists in the occupied territories and Israel and the issue of Palestinian refugees.  Israeli government spokesmen and Jewish extremists would most likely disagree, crying victim, but I think it’s pretty clear who the victims are here.  There are small glimmers of hope through all the darkness, however.  There are a number of Jewish activists and peace groups Worldwide who belong to organizations that are trying to promote peace with the Palestinians and guarantee their basic civil rights.  Not all Jews are extremists or Zionists, and the divergence in views among Jews is striking.  Jews struggling to end the violence by fighting for the rights of Palestinians and calling for an end to the killing and the occupation are heroes for peace a noble credit to their people, but their cries for restraint and dialogue are barely heard above the rage of the invading settlers, the shrill of the war-hawks in Israeli extremist circles and the quiet whispers of the rich & powerful supporters of Zionism behind the scenes.        

After a careful look at the facts, it becomes rather clear that the Palestinians have been virtually abandoned by non-Jews in the West in general, and by powerful Western nations like the United States in particular.  By refusing to take on the role of a true, neutral mediator to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and by blocking measures that would reduce tensions (like blocking, little doubt at Israel’s request, the implementation of U.N. resolutions that would put international and impartial observers on the ground), the United States has virtually condemned hundreds of Palestinians and Israelis to die at one another’s hands in the future.  Israel is conducting itself like a cruel, rich schoolboy, robbing his poor classmate of his last penny for lunch, and the United States is playing the role of the irresponsible parent, constantly putting off the spanking or the seeking of a psychiatrist for it’s dangerous and out of control violent, sadistic, privileged child.  The sadistic cruelty being meted out to the poor classmate is, however, attracting more and more attention.  Not only Arabs and Jews, but others in schoolyard are starting to pay attention.  September 11, 2001 may have only just been the beginning.

        

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