Special to the Palestine Chronicle.
The U.S. has long opposed any “unilateral” action on the part of the Palestinians to seek fulfillment of their right to self-determination, and there is a very real threat that if the Palestinian Authority goes to the United Nations in September seeking international recognition of Palestinian statehood, the U.S. will respond by cutting or eliminating aid that the P.A. has come to depend on in order to function.
The P.A. must not bow to such threats, and the Palestinian people must take their case to the U.N. if their legitimate political aspirations are ever to be achieved. It won’t be an easy road to statehood, but the alternative is to return to the U.S.-led “peace process”, which is the process by which the U.S. and Israel have sought to entice the Palestinian leadership to back away from their 1988 Declaration of Independence and to prevent the establishment of a viable, independent, and fully sovereign state of Palestine.
The U.S. is not the “honest broker” it proclaims itself to be. It supports illegal Israeli policies financially, militarily, and diplomatically, and, all rhetoric to the contrary aside, it has long rejected the Palestinians’ right to self-determination.
This should be obvious to any honest observer. It is a truth manifest in U.S. support for Israel’s full-scale military assault on Gaza dubbed “Operation Cast Lead”, and in its efforts to block any implementation of the recommendations of the U.N. fact-finding mission report, which included the recommendation that if the parties to the conflict did not launch credible investigations into their own conduct, allegations of violations of international law and war crimes should be referred to the International Court of Justice.
It is a truth manifest in the U.S.’s similar support for Israel’s deadly attack on the Freedom Flotilla in international waters in May 2010, which resulted in the murder of nine peace activists, and in its similar efforts to prevent any condemnation of this violation of international law at the U.N.
It is a truth manifest in U.S. tacit approval of continued Israeli colonization of the West Bank. The U.S. has officially considered the settlements an “obstacle to peace”. This rhetoric is meaningful only in the fact that it doesn’t acknowledge that all of the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, are under international law considered “occupied Palestinian territories” and that all of the settlements have been and are being built illegally. And rhetoric aside, the U.S. supports this Israeli policy, as apparent in its veto of a U.N. resolution condemning Israel for continuing to construct illegal settlements.
It is a truth manifest in the U.S. demand that the P.A. return to “peace” talks with Israel “without preconditions”—meaning that the Palestinians must accept the condition that Israel be allowed to further prejudice the outcome of any such negotiations by continuing to build facts on the ground. And under the framework of the “peace process”—from Madrid to Oslo, to Camp David, to the Roadmap, to Annapolis—the U.S. and Israel have an effective veto power over the establishment of a Palestinian state.
In May, President Barack Obama spoke words concerning the pre-June 1967 armistice lines as constituting a term of reference for negotiations. This rhetoric deceived many, who marked it as a “shift” in U.S. policy towards acceptance of the international consensus on a two-state solution, the legal basis for which is the recognition under the U.N. Charter and other relevant bodies of international law of all people’s right to self-determination, as well as Security Council Resolution 242 calling for both the withdrawal of Israeli forces from the occupied territories and the establishment of secure and recognized boundaries.
But Obama was speaking with a forked tongue, and his inclusion of the reference to the ’67 lines was nothing more than an attempt to lure the P.A. to set aside its plan to go to the U.N. in September and instead return to the “peace process”.
The fact is that Obama, while expressing support for a “two-state solution” clearly and explicitly rejects the two-state solution, as already noted. As a further example of his rejectionism, one might recall his speech in Sderot, prior to his election into office and before Operation Cast Lead, that Jerusalem would be the undivided capital of Israel. His opposition to the Palestinians’ plan to go to the U.N. in September is itself another clear manifestation of his rejectionism.
The Palestinian people and their leadership must not be deceived by such meaningless talk from Obama. They must move forward by turning away from the “peace process”, which is premised upon U.S.-Israeli rejectionism, and instead take their case to the international community, where it will find an international consensus supporting the two-state solution.
In doing so, there is another potential mistake that must be avoided, which is to seek statehood in terms of acceptance of the legitimacy of U.N. General Assembly Resolution 181 of 1947. The P.A. must not refer to 181 as granting legitimacy to the goal of Palestinian statehood, as the PLO erred in doing in its 1988 declaration. The Palestinians’ right to statehood does not derive from 181. Similarly, 181 neither created Israel nor conferred any kind of legal authority or legitimacy to the Zionists’ unilateral declaration of the existence of the state of Israel in 1948.
Resolution 181 was itself a rejection of the Palestinian’s right to self-determination, a fact that was recognized, ironically, by the General Assembly committee it established to pursue its recommendation for partitioning Palestine, as well as by the Security Council, where the proposal was found to be itself a violation of the principles of the U.N. Charter, and where it died.
The U.S. and Israel object to the P.A.’s plan by calling it a “unilateral” action, which, besides being plain nonsense (it is an action that would involve all U.N. member nations) is hypocritical to the extreme, given the fact that Israel was unilaterally declared to exist in 1948, and given the fact that it is Israel which continues to take unilateral actions that would prejudice the outcome of any negotiated settlement.
Neither would international recognition from the General Assembly be merely “symbolic”. What the U.S. and Israel really fear about the plan is that it would further isolate them from the world community and expose the lie of the “peace process” for the pursuit of a policy of rejectionism that it is. They could no longer maintain that Israel’s annexation of major portions of the West Bank was a matter for negotiations. They could no longer maintain, based on a legally invalid and unilateral interpretation of Resolution 242, that Israeli withdrawal from the occupied territories was a matter for negotiations and should only occur as a consequence of a final settlement on borders.
There will be difficult consequences if the Palestinians pursue the course of turning to the international community. It will be merely the beginning of a long and difficult struggle. But the Palestinian people are no stranger to struggle and hardship, and this is the only hope that their aspirations will be achieved.
In order to achieve statehood, the Palestinians must be united. There must be genuine reconciliation between Fatah and Hamas, and an end to factional infighting. There will of course always be disputes among any leadership, but any disagreements must be reconciled to a framework wherein there is a single common goal, Palestine, and a single common understanding of how to achieve it.
The leadership also must act as one to end Palestinian terrorism, including inherently indiscriminate rocket attacks against Israel, which are not only a violation of international law and immoral, but are strategically counterproductive, serving not the goals of militants who fire them, but rather of Israel, by handing it the pretext it requires to continue to collectively punish the populations of the occupied territories and to pursue its policy of rejectionism.
There is hope. It lies in recognizing the U.S.-led “peace process” for what it is and consigning it to the dustbin of history in favor of a real peace process led by the Palestinians themselves and supported by the international community. The Palestinians must no longer be kept isolated, which is one end goal of the U.S.-led process. Let the U.S. and Israel isolate themselves if they choose, and let them remain in the past. The future is Palestine.
If it is ever reached, the current and any other artificial “peace agreement” will be illegitimate before it is ever signed because (1) all people living in Palestine regardless of religion, race, origin, etc. (hereinafter “All People of Palestine”) were never given a choice on how they want their land to be governed, and (2) all contracts signed under duress are null and void.
The biggest problem in Palestine is that the Zionist regime never offered a choice to All People of Palestine on how they want to govern their land because the Zionist regime cannot exist as a democratic entity. If there was ever any democratic process in Palestine, Zionists would have been outvoted and the Zionist regime would have never existed. That is why the Zionist regime is the occupier because it does not offer choice (i.e. democracy), but instead imposes its regime (i.e. occupies). Imagine if Russians would simply occupy a town in the U.S. where they are in significant numbers and attempt to create a Russian state there without giving the rest of the Americans living there a choice. Imagine then if they would try to institute a “peace agreement” that would attempt to legitimize their occupation. The “peace agreement” would logically and legally be illegitimate because the Americans were not given a choice.
Under all countries’ laws, any contract is null and void if it is signed under duress. The current Palestine “peace agreement” process reminds me of The Godfather movie where the mafia boss (i.e. the Zionist regime) made a guy “an offer he could not refuse” by placing a gun (i.e. Zionist conventional and nuclear arsenal) to his head and making him sign the contract. Like the mafia boss’ offer, any “peace agreement” other than the choice for All People of Palestine is a crime, and the contract is legally null and void.
The bottom line is that All People of Palestine never wanted to divide their land into artificial two states the way the occupation and this “peace agreement” attempt to divide it. From the beginning of the Zionist regime to its unavoidable end, All People of Palestine and the region never wanted the Zionist regime and they do not want it even more after all the atrocities the Zionist regime committed. I just cannot believe how the Zionist regime can be so ignorant to think that this or any other “peace agreement” that does not allow people to choose how they want to be governed will last and ensure its people’s survival. The Zionist regime fails to realize that no matter if it succeeds in muscling this “peace agreement” by unspeakable historic coercion tens of millions of moral people around the world will oppose it until it is corrected, and until justice and free choice prevail. Also, ever increasing number of Jewish people are realizing that Zionism is becoming a destructive force for them and are leading the global resistance to it
Imagine in the current time if France would want to create its own state in Michigan and separate it from the U.S. French are a minority in Michigan so democratic vote on the separation would not work because they would be outvoted by the rest of the Americans living in Michigan. So imagine if they had a historic opportunity when the U.S. is at its weakest and militarily occupy a part of Michigan and impose a regime where only French can vote and all the others who lived there cannot. Furthermore, the occupiers rename the occupied part of Michigan as the “French State” where not only that Americans are not welcome, but they are systematically expelled over time creating huge refugee camps in nearby states of Indiana and Ohio. Imagine then that at that point in history the artificial organization called the United Nations is full of French supporters and somehow that makes the occupation “legal” and Americans who fight for their homes in the occupied part of Michigan are labeled as terrorists. The occupation is a part of a careful log-term plan (i.e. Zionism) of acquiring land by French, so literally days after the occupation is implemented (what a coordinated plan!) the occupiers import millions of other French from all over the world to increase their population in Michigan from around 100,000 to over 5 Million in a short period. Then Americans resist and fight to regain the occupied part of Michigan, but Russia steps in, sends weapons, cash, and everything else the occupiers need to sustain the occupation.
What do you think all of us Americans would feel? We would hate French first, and then all of their supporters (Russia in this analogy) that make the occupation of our land possible. Still questioning yourself why people in the Middle East and other parts of the world do not like us? Because Zionist controlled our government, not the people, supported the very exact scenario as described above against our will and with our tax money making us accomplices in this unspeakable crime. The scenario that would outrage all of us Americans and make us fight against it if it happened in Michigan or anywhere else in the U.S.
This comment is not intended to make derogatory remarks about France and Russia. It is merely used as an example of how Americans would be outraged and fight back in the same situation as the forced establishment of the Zionist regime and its occupation of Palestine.
Urge your state representatives and senators to immediately stop any remaining support for the Zionist regime. Much of the support already stopped because of the increasing pressure on this issue, but we Americans need to completely distance ourselves from this oppressive regime and start actively opposing it
All who wish to reproduce my comment on mailing lists, repost on other blogs, or send to congress, senators and state representatives, or use for lobbying are welcome to do so. Let justice be served:
The only solution for a lasting peace is absolute democratic process (that we Americans cherish so passionately) for the entire territory in question, otherwise, the peace will not last. All people who lived there without regard to religion, race, etc. should vote on how they would like their one country to be run. I favor one state solution because two states would only attempt to “legalize” Zionist occupation that will be remembered in history until it is corrected by future large scale conflicts, so no lasting peace will result. The only issue with the fair democratic process is what to do with all manipulated Jewish people who the Zionist regime imported for decades to increase the Jewish population from around 100,000 to over 5 Million since the start of the occupation. This is obviously an attempt to unjustly manipulate any future democratic process by forcefully increasing the occupier’s population at the expense of others. Any compromise other than the absolute fair democratic process with no manipulated population will be temporary with terrible conflicts looming to correct it in the future.
The truth is that the Zionist regime will not accept any democratic process even if the manipulated Jewish population is included because it cannot exist as a democratic country as Zionists will be outvoted by all others who live there (Zionists were in an infinite minority before the occupation). The Zionist regime can only temporarily exist through the force of its arms as a one people country where only select ones can vote and where different laws apply to different people.
The world must stand up against the Zionist regime by cutting all diplomatic and economic relations with it. Many countries have already stopped all relations with the Zionist regime and others are in the process of doing the same. We Americans need to completely distance ourselves from this oppressive regime through urging our state representatives and senators to do what the rest of the world is doing