Commentary By Ron Beasley
Thomas Friedman has been taking some reality drugs.
The Israeli-Palestinian peace process has become a bad play. It is
obvious that all the parties are just acting out the same old scenes,
with the same old tired clich�� and that no one believes any of it
anymore. There is no romance, no sex, no excitement, no urgency � not
even a sense of importance anymore. The only thing driving the peace
process today is inertia and diplomatic habit. Yes, the
Israeli-Palestinian peace process has left the realm of diplomacy. It
is now more of a calisthenic, like weight-lifting or sit-ups, something
diplomats do to stay in shape, but not because they believe anything is
going to happen. And yet, as much as we, the audience, know this to be
true, we can never quite abandon hope for peace in the Holy Land.
He continues:
This peace process movie is not going to end differently just
because we keep playing the same reel. It is time for a radically new
approach. And I mean radical. I mean something no U.S. administration
has ever dared to do: Take down our �Peace-Processing-Is-Us� sign and
just go home.Right now we want it more than the parties. They
all have other priorities today. And by constantly injecting ourselves
we�ve become their Novocain. We relieve all the political pain from the
Arab and Israeli decision-makers by creating the impression in the
minds of their publics that something serious is happening. �Look, the
U.S. secretary of state is here. Look, she�s standing by my side. Look,
I�m doing something important! Take our picture. Put it on the news.
We�re on the verge of something really big and I am indispensable to
it.� This enables the respective leaders to continue with their real
priorities � which are all about holding power or pursuing ideological
obsessions � while pretending to advance peace, without paying any
political price.Let�s just get out of the picture. Let all these
leaders stand in front of their own people and tell them the truth: �My
fellow citizens: Nothing is happening; nothing is going to happen. It�s
just you and me and the problem we own.�
The only thing he doesn't see fit to mention is that when the US goes home it needs to take it's military aide with it. The politicians on neither side want peace, they want the other side dead or gone. I don't think the same can be said for the people on either side. With the US military aide to Israel we are simply encouraging continued violence - it has become fairly obvious that Israel is using arms received from the US in was not allowed by treaty. We need to quit giving the politicians cover and make them explain to their people why there is continued violence.
As one would expect uber Zionist/neocon Barry Rubin has a different take and makes the following outrageous claim in a guest post over at TMV.
Israel is proving flexible while the Palestinian Authority refuses even
to talk no matter how much the Administration panders to and coddles it.
Since when is continuing to build settlements on Palestinian land flexible?
Guess you don't follow the news. The US and Israel have just agreed to end the construction, which was the point of the article. That was what President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hilary Clinton have been working on in the last eight months. So it isn't an outrageous statement but based on what the secretary of state had just announced. The use of the word "uber" is German and has a Nazi-like tone which I guess describes your politics. I am not a neo-conservative but a life-long liberal Democrat. Neoconservatives have certain beliefs tat I don't share, as my writings show.
ReplyDeleteSetting aside this tiff with Rubin for a moment, this from Tony Karon strikes me as a more positive take on the Israeli-Palestinian impasse.
ReplyDeleteThe sad truth dawning on Ramallah, now, is that there will be no salvation from Washington. Not now, possibly not ever. A sad truth, perhaps, but the kind that can set free those who recognize it. In the shocked aftermath of the 1967 war, Fatah took the lead in breaking the Palestine Liberation Organization free of the tutelage of the Arab League, in a declaration of independence that put their fate in their own hands rather than relying on Arab armies to defeat Israel. Today, they face a similar challenge � declaring independence from Washington and once again taking their fate into their own hands.
The idea of a two-state solution being negotiated between Israeli and Palestinian leaders with US arbitration is in the deep freeze. Curiously enough, though, despite Israel�s intractable military dominance, it is feeling increasingly vulnerable � not to the much-hyped Iranian threat (Israel, after all, is threatening to bomb Iran, not the other way around) but to a growing sense of international isolation. The Goldstone issue highlights the trend towards holding Israel accountable to universal standards from which it has traditionally claimed a free pass.
Tomorrow marks the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, breached not by an assault from the West, but by the rot that had festered in the society it ostensibly protected. Last week, in the Palestinian village of Bi�lin, activists managed to breach Israel�s West Bank security barrier in a kind of �Mr Netanyahu, tear down this wall!� moment evoking Ronald Reagan�s challenge to Mikhail Gorbachev. The Palestinians don�t need suicide vests or rockets to put Israel on the back foot, and raise the political cost of the occupation. But the Obama administration won�t do it for them.
Which could explain why Abbas claims to be throwing in the towel. An internal struggle between Fatah and Hamas is revealed to be as much an obstacle to progress as Gaza/Goldstone. The ball is now in the Palestinian court.
It's a classic struggle between principles and power. At the moment, Bibi claims both.
It is up to the Palestinians to seize one or the other, and power is not the one to go after.