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U.S., Iran, Israel, and Palestine: The Fateful Quadrangle Page 3
Is Israel operating as a Middle Eastern state or as a European colonizing power that does not belong there?
Since 1967, when Israel completed its occupation of 100% of historic Palestine, Israel has been operating in the region as a colonial power, treating Palestinians in occupied territories as second-class citizens. Road blocks to restrict Palestinians’ movement, imprisonment without charges for indefinite terms, routine killing of unarmed, peaceful protestors against occupation, separate roads for Palestinians and Israelis, invading and destroying Gaza and its inhabitants every one or two years, and imposing the illegal siege of Gaza by land, air, and sea since 2006 are just a few examples of Israel’s brutal colonialism and apartheid policies. Even President Obama, a true friend and avid supporter of Israel, has stated that with its rejection of the two-state solution, Israel has put at risk its own legitimacy as a state. The international community has now to decide whether it needs to continue indulging and appeasing Israel. Many observers have calledwhat Israel has been doing to Palestinians since 1948 a Holocaust in slow motion. The difference is that this time it is not the Nazis but some Israelis who are carrying it out. Instead of putting and end to this tragedy, US government’s continuedprotection of Israel’s aggression with diplomatic, military, and financial support and hollow statements about the two-state solution have made matters worse.
During the past half century, the U.S. government has been periodically repeating its official policy against Israeli settlements in the occupied territories but never cut off or even suspended its huge aid to Israel. In his book The Fateful Triangle, Noam Chomsky has well articulated Israel’s hold on the U.S. Congress:
“Complaints and accusations are indeed hypocritical as long as material assistance is provided in an unending and ever-expanding flow, along with diplomatic and ideological support, the latter, by shaping the facts of history in a convenient form. Even if the occasional tempered criticisms from Washington or in editorial commentary are seriously intended, there is little reason for any Israeli government to pay any attention to them. The historical practice over many years has trained Israeli leaders to assume that U.S. "opinion makers" and political elites will stand behind them whatever they do” (Chomsky 2).
Former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s following words from an October 3, 2001, speech are an example of Chomsky’s point: “Every time we do something you tell me America will do this and will do that. . . . I want to tell you something very clear: Don’t worry about American pressure on Israel. We, the Jewish people, control America, and the Americans know it” (Bold letters for emphasis). This control of Israel over the U.S. is also evident in Israel’s defiance of President Obama’s numerous calls to halt settlement building and in its anti-U.S. and anti-U.N. declaration to never allow a Palestinian state.
Two options to solve the problem: One state or two states?
Now that Israel has terminated the 1947 partition of Palestine, the U.S. and the international community must decide between one-state or two-state solutions.
The United Nations can step in to establish just one democratic state where all citizens are equal regardless of their religion or ethnicity. The name of the state could be Palis or Ispal (combining the two nations of Palestine and Israel).As Ali Abunimah has suggested in his book One Country: A Bold Proposal to End the Israeli-Palestinian Impasse, the name of this new democratic country for all could be decided with a coin toss under U.N. supervision. This idea of one country blends in with how Palestine was before the partition and before the Zionist-European enterprise seized the region. As a direct result of Israel’s recent declaration to never allow a Palestinian state in Palestine, an overwhelming majority of those who had been supporters of the two-state solution seem to have changed their mind and now favor the one-state solution. This seems to be a logical and viable option to solve the problem and is likely to prove more enduring than the two-state solution, given Israel’s intentions.
However, if enforcing this option is not possible because of entrenched vested interests, then the two-state solution would be the only way forward to preserve Israel as a state and create a viable Palestinian state. The border between the two states will have to be according to the original United Nations’ partition of Palestine (U.N. Resolution 191) that gave Israel 53% of historic Palestine, with Palestinians getting 46%, and 1% (Jerusalem and surrounding area) to be an international zone shared by both sides. There are some advantages to Israel if it agrees to the 1947 partition plan. It will no longer have to worry about two of its major problems. The first problem is that compliance with UN Resolution 194 requires Israel to allow the right of return to all those Palestinians who were driven from their homes in 1948. The number of refugees has increased dramatically since 1948 if we include the refugees’ offspring. Israel may no longer be required to follow that UN Resolution, since Palestinians in that case will get 46% of historic Palestine instead of the ridiculously unfair 22% where it now barely exists. The new state of Palestine will take in the dispossessed Palestinians in that extra land that they will need if Israel is not to take back all those who were made refugees in 1948, together with their descendants.
The second major benefit to Israel if it accepts the original partition plan is that it can then fulfill its long-cherished dream of being a Jewish only state. The 20% Arab citizens of Israel may choose to either remain in Israel – an unlikely choice for them to make in view of rampant discrimination against them in Israel – or they may go to Palestine. This is a point on which the two sides can negotiate. The original UN Partition Resolution 181 should now be reintroduced before the Security Council. It was never implemented because the civil war broke out as soon as the partition plan was announced.
This way the long-festering tragic conflict between Israel and Palestine can be brought to an end. It has resulted in thousands of avoidable deaths on both sides, many more on the Palestinian side because of Israel’s asymmetrical fire and defense power.Israel needs to be told in clear terms that, to quote Dr. Martin Luther King’s words, "we still have a choice today: nonviolent coexistence or violent co-annihilation” and that “power without compassion, might without morality, and strength without sight” are a recipe for disaster.
Israel will never make peace on its own. It has to be forced to do so.
As long as Israel manages to defend itself with US-provided Iron Dome and other means of defense and can kill thousands of Palestinians with US-provided F-16s and Apache helicopters in exchange for only a few Israelis killed, Israel will never think twice about invading Gaza or any other country at will. To protect its own global interests, the U.S. may abandon its blind and self-destructive support of Israel. It may take seriously the words of the former Chair of Joint Chiefs of Staff, David Petraeus, who warned that U.S. support of Israel's intransigence endangers American lives at home and abroad. U.S. politicians may finally wake up to the reality that Israel has become an albatross around America’s neck. If the US government doesn't align its policies with justice, other countries will. The U.S. will then go down in history as a country that provided the means for the annihilation of Palestinian people because Israel has carried out the destruction of Palestine with U.S. diplomatic, military, and financial backing.
Sweden became the first country in the European Union to accept Palestine as a state. Announcing support for Palestine’s right to self-determination, Margot Wallstrom, Swedish Minister of Foreign Affairs, said: “Some will say today’s decision comes too soon. I’m afraid, rather, that it is too late.” On her visit to Gaza, Federica Mogherini, European Union's Foreign Minister, has also strongly supported Palestine's statehood: “We need a Palestinian state – that is the ultimate goal and this “is the position of all of the European Union.” The world cannot afford another war in Gaza, she said. The global Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement against companies profiting from Israel's occupation of Palestine is becoming stronger by the day. It was such a movement that brought the South African apartheid state to its knees. As Noam Chomsky has noted, “There has been a very clear shift in recent years – on U. S. campuses and with general audience as well. . . . Apologists for Israeli violence now tend often to be defensive and desperate, rather than arrogant and overbearing” (Chomsky and Pappe 146). Powerful US groups, such as Jewish Voice for Peace, End the Occupation, and Center for National Interest Foundation, are offering stiff resistance to the so far almighty Israeli lobby known as AIPAC. Adding to the rising chorus of voices supporting Palestine’s statehood are many internationally respected authors, scholars, scientists, sports heroes, musicians, and movie stars. More than 50% of Israelis also support the idea of a viable Palestinian state.
After successfully initiating steps toward a diplomatic solution to the stand-off with Iran, the other related and very pressing need is to prevent further carnage in Israel/Palestine by implementing the U.N. Resolution 181 of 1947. If Israel does not accept the one-state solution, honoring the original partition plan is the only other way for Israel to safeguard its security. Once this issue is resolved, Israel will be recognized by the world and will no longer need to suffer from the disabling phobia of Iran’s interference on behalf of the Palestinians. However, if Israel continues to refuse cooperation, the same kind of sanctions should be imposed on it as were imposed on Iraq and Iran when those countries broke international law. In addressing these pressing issues of our times, let us not forget these haunting words of former U.S. President John F. Kennedy and adopt them as our motto: "Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable."
As the world’s richest and most powerful country, in this fast-changing and deeply troubled world, it is America’s duty to lead the way by promoting diplomatic solutions to the world’s myriad problems and by putting itself squarely on the right side of history. President Obama might have initiated that desperately needed New World Order with his triumphant diplomacy through impressive collaborative efforts with five other top world leaders and with Iran. What now needs to be done is applying the same principled and decisive approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to end what has begun to look more and more like a holocaust in slow motion, the victims this time being the Palestinians.
Works Cited
Abunimah, Ali. One Country: A Bold Proposal to End the Israeli-Palestinian Impasse (Henry Holt and Company, 2006)
Baltzer, Anna. Witness in Palestine: A Jewish American Woman in the Occupied
Territories (Paradigm Publishers, 2007). In Appendix V of her book, Baltzer
synthesizes a lot of relevant information from diverse sources, such as Raphael Patai
(The Complete Diaries of Theodor Herzl); Nur Masalha (Expulsion of Palestinians);
Norman Finkelstein (Image and Reality of the Israel-Palestine Conflict); Edward Said
(The Question of Palestine); Ilan Pappe (The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine); Benny
Morris (The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem); Noam Chomsky (Fateful
Triangle: The United States, Israel, and the Palestinians) and several other sources.
Ben-Ami, Shlomo. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/news/shlomo-ben-ami/
Carter, Jimmy. Palestine Peace Not Apartheid (Simon and Schuster, 2006).
Chomsky, Noam. The Fateful Triangle: The United States, Israel & The Palestinians
(Boston, MA: South End Press, 1983).
Chomsky, Noam and Ilan Pappe. Gaza in Crisis: Reflections on Israel’s War Against the
Palestinians (Haymarket Books, 2010)
Democracy Now (www.democracynow.org) July 18, 2014, broadcast.
Esposito, John. Unholy War: Terror in the Name of Islam (Oxford University Press,
2002).
Findley, Paul. They Dare to Speak Out: People and Institutions Confront Israel’s Lobby
(Chicago Review Press, 2003).
Mearsheimer, John and Stephen Walt. The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy (Farrar,
Straus and Giroux, 2007)
Palmer, Monte. The Politics of the Middle East, (Thomson/Wadsworth, 2007).
Pappe, Ilan. http://www.democracynow.org/2014/7/28/professor_ilan_pappe_israel_has_chosen
Pappe, Ilan. The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine (Oneworld Publications, 2007).
Patai, Raphael. The Complete Diaries of Theodor Herzl (The Herzl Press, 1960).
Peace, Propaganda & the Promised Land (Media Education Foundation, 2003)
Shlaim, Avi. War and Peace in the Middle East : A Concise History (Penguin 1995).
Dr. Abdul Jabbar is Professor Emeritus, English, Political Science, and Interdisciplinary Studies City College of San Francisco, California
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