From many sources, there is a widespread effort to resume a peace process that has in the past led to failure, frustration, and anger, and often to renewed violence. The newly appointed American Secretary of State, John Kerry, is about to make his fifth trip to Israel since the beginning of 2013, insisting that the two sides try once more to seek peace, and warning if this doesn’t happen very soon, the prospects for an agreed upon solution will be postponed not for just a year or two, but for decades. Kerry says if this current effort does not succeed, he will turn his attention elsewhere, and that the United States will make no further effort.
So far, aside from logging the air miles, Kerry seems perversely to be responsive to Tel Aviv’s demands for land swaps to allow settlement blocs to be incorporated into Israel and to promote further Palestinian concessions in relation to security arrangements, and totally unresponsive to Ramallah’s demands for some tangible signs from the Israeli government that resumed negotiations will not be another slammed door. In this vein, Kerry’s most ardent recent plea was at the Global Forum, an annual event organized under the auspices of the American Jewish Committee. Kerry told this audience that they possessed the influence to make the peace talks happen.
Somewhat surprisingly, even Marwan Barghouti, writing from prison, has seemingly endorsed this Washington activism, and seemed to go further, calling upon the United States Government to use its leverage with Israel to resolve the conflict in a manner that recognizes Palestinian rights, and at the same time serves the broader American interest of stability in the Middle East. If Barghouti’s response to written questions submitted by Adnan Abu Amer of Al-Monitor, and published on May 28, 2013, is read carefully, it reinforces an extremely pessimistic assessment of current prospects for peace.
Barghouti is urging the U.S. Government that it must make a 180 degree turn away from its posture of unconditional support for Israel if it wants to be credible with Palestinians in the search for a solution to the conflict that accords with natural justice. The United States would need, above all, to insist that Palestine becomes a fully sovereign state within the 1967 borders, have East Jerusalem as its capital, while supporting the full implementation of UN Resolution 194 that affirms the right of return of Palestinian refugees, and the removal of the settlements without noting any exceptions.
These are all reasonable positions to take, each in furtherance of the relevant standards of international law. Yet it must be observed, and I am sure this is not news to Mr. Barghouti, Palestinian reasonableness in the context of the Israel/Palestine struggle means choosing not to be politically relevant.
It is from precisely this perspective that Barghouti words should be carefully and respectfully pondered. He calls the two-state solution “the only possible solution” and adds that it “must not be abandoned.” It is a vision of a two-state solution that comes superficially close to what the Israeli peace activist, Uri Avnery, advocates, but seems light years away from the kind of ‘solution’ that Israel might consider or Kerry advocate.
In other words, there are two radically different two-state solutions that are often not being carefully distinguished: what might be called ‘the American conception,’ originally detailed in Barack Obama’s May 21, 2011 speech delivered at the U.S. State Department, which at the time of its utterance seemed to look toward Israel’s withdrawal to 1967 borders, with minor border adjustments, but included a general acceptance of Israel’s refusal to implement the Palestinian right of return behind the green line and its expectation that the main settlements would be incorporated into Israel sovereign territory.
As so often has happened during the Obama presidency, what seemed initially forthcoming was soon altered by backpedaling in a manner that has severely damaged American credibility as a fair-minded third party. The U.S. Government in this instance has gradually come to acquiesce in, even if does not openly avow, these Israel’s unyielding demands, which makes Washington approach to the idea of two states for two peoples radically different than the Barghouti/Avnery conception of Palestinian statehood and self-determination.
This latter conception is premised on the establishment of a genuinely sovereign and independent Palestine with East Jerusalem as its capital, and a genuine equality of the two states on matters bearing on security, resources, and refugee identity. There are, to be sure, important differences between Barghouti and Avnery with respect to the right of return, with Avnery opting for a more territorial view of the conflict consistent with the more moderate and humane Zionist views about limiting rights of Palestinian refugees and of the second-class status of the Palestinian minority living in Israel, but still rather far from the Barghouti position on these crucial matters so often ignored by the Western media.
In the background is the persisting unwillingness of the Netanyahu government, despite the overall backing it receives from Washington, to make Kerry’s life easier by undertaking some obvious confidence-building gestures: a settlement freeze and the release of some Palestinian political prisoners. Netanyahu insists on no preconditions for resumed negotiations, which means no letup in settlement expansion, no lifting of the Gaza blockade, and the continuing abusive treatment of the West Bank population.
Kerry was probably hoping that his remarks at the AJC event would generate some pressure on Netanyahu to be somewhat more forthcoming. It is clear that if the Palestinian Authority is to enter direct negotiations while settlement expansion continued unchecked, it would likely be extremely detrimental to the claims of Mahmoud Abbas to be the sole legitimate voice of the Palestinian people, a view that Barghouti rejects despite his Fatah affiliation.
If Netanyahu was more adroit, he could yield on these confidence-building prerequisites, and put Abbas in a bind. What has the Palestinian Authority to gain by entering into negotiations with an unabashedly expansionist and settler oriented Israeli government? Perhaps, it would win momentary favor in Washington. But for what benefit in relation to the struggle of the Palestinian people for a just solution?
There are no signs whatsoever that Israel would even consider an outcome for negotiations that remotely resembled the Barghouti/Avnery two-state conception even if their differences are set aside for the moment. What would likely happen is that the negotiations would breakdown, as in the past, with the Palestinians receiving the lion’s share of the blame.
Israel has much more spin control in the world media, especially if its narrative is backed by the United States, as has been the case in the past and would almost certainly be in the future. The likely hasbara assault would put the Palestinians in the position of once more being seen as rejecting what would be put forward to the world as generous Israeli proposals for a two-state solution that if looked at closely offered a statelet instead of a state, and even then subject to a humiliating and intrusive Israeli regime of control, all in the name of security, which should recall the disingenuous Israeli claim that its ‘disengagement’ from Gaza in 2005 put an end to the ‘occupation’ of the Gaza Strip.
Barghouti’s distance from what Kerry is trying to broker was also underscored by his expression of anger directed at the recent acceptance by the Arab League of modifications of its 2002 Arab Peace Initiative made in response to pressures exerted by Kerry. Barghouti’s comment on this aspect of Kerry’s diplomacy is worth reproducing: “The Arab Peace Initiative is the lowest the Arabs have gone in terms of a historical settlement with Israel. The statements of the Arab ministerial delegation to Washington in regards to amending the 1967 borders and accepting the land-swap inflict great damage on the Arab stance and Palestinian rights, and stimulate the appetite of Israel for more concessions. No one is entitled to amend borders or swap land; the Palestinian people insist on Israel’s full withdrawal to the 1967 borders, in addition to removing the settlements.” In effect, what Kerry put forward as a diplomatic coup, Barghouti denounced as an Arab betrayal. It all goes to show that there are many contradictory understandings cohabiting within the two-state tent.
It is notable that Barghouti also warns Israel and the United States that reliance on the status quo, which seems so comfortable from Tel Aviv’s perspective in recent years, is dangerously shortsighted: “security cannot be achieved without peace.” And further by implication, although not expressed in these words, “peace cannot be achieved without justice.”
In this spirit of defiant nationalism, Barghouti also affirms that a right of resistance belongs to the Palestinian people, but its exercise should be sensitive to the limits of international law—“The tortured and oppressed Palestinian people have the right to defend themselves by all means approved by the UN Charter and international law. Total resistance is the most effective.”
Barghouti in his responses strongly stresses the importance of moving to fulfill the tentative agreement between Fatah and Hamas to achieve Palestinian unity, while restating his awareness that resolving the refugee issue is central to a just solution while reaffirming his faith in an eventual Palestinian victory.
Both Kerry and Barghouti reject a one-state solution as not of any political interest, unfortunately leaving the peace process where it currently belongs—in an undurable limbo of indefinite extension. Netanyahu and Kerry have a Plan B that might really be their Plan A. It involves what Netanyahu shamelessly calls an ‘economic peace,’ a persistence of the occupation and status quo, but in a manner that makes life materially somewhat better for West Bank Palestinians (Gazans are nowhere to be found on this most dubious ‘map of conscience.’).
It cannot be a coincidence that at this time Kerry is peddling a scheme to induce $4 billion of investment in the West Bank, presumably to convert the occupation and Palestinian statelessness into a new kind of ‘golden arch.’ The moment may have arrived to chase the moneychangers from the temple!
In pondering this dismal landscape of peace talk without peace, one wonders what became of ‘the roadmap’ and ‘the Quartet.’ It may be a small blessing that their irrelevance is being tacitly acknowledged. These creations never seemed more than a thin and deceitful veil thrown over a one-sided American control over Israel/Palestine diplomacy. [For compelling documentation see Rashid Khalidi’s Broker of Deceit (2013)]
In this sense the boldness of Kerry’s statecraft and Barghouti’s implicit recognition that the peace ball is in America’s court at least moves in the direction of ‘eyes wide open.’ For Kerry this means another set of grand gestures; for Netanyahu it means remaining immobile in the comfort zone created by the Palestinian shift away from the tactics of violent resistance; for Barghouti it means a call for resistance, a plea for more solidarity, and a kind of longing for an Israeli, or even an American, France’s DeGaulle or South Africa’s De Klerk who both dramatically ruptured prior expectations by replacing confrontation with accommodation.
Until something as drastic as this occurs, although not necessarily the work of a charismatic counter-hero, we need at least to have the honesty to admit that the end of the tunnel is dark except for occasional flickers of light. I discern such a flicker in the undertakings of those engaged in a legitimacy war against Israel, step by step gaining the high moral and legal ground, which may soon uncover political tipping points that will abruptly alter the relations of forces in support of Palestinian justice claims. The Palestinian Legitimacy War combines Palestinian resistance with a global solidarity campaign that is being waged on a global battlefield.
There will be no peace in Middle east untill the Arab occupiers of the land of Israel end their illegal occupation of 1300 years and just return to where they came from-Arabia.hence their name-Arabs.
Mr.Falk is obsessed with promoting the lie of “Palestinians”.
Well, mr. Falk-we will liberate the rest of our Land of Israel from Arab occupation.Then, and ONLY THEN, will peace be possible.
Yusuf Dhu Nuwas was an Arab who ruled (517 – 525) as the last Himyarite King over what we now refer to as Yemen.
His conversion to Judaism has long been verified, that would make him an Arab who accepted Jewish religious beliefs.
Just so servocad can understand; First there were Arabs, then came Monotheistic religion.
Loads and loads and loads of architectural evidence of this obvious fact, not a scrap of historical evidence suggesting otherwise.
Mr Falk basically shows he’s a fraud.
Falk does want 2 states.
He wants 2 Palestinian states.
He wants a Palestinian state that is Jew free and wants an Israel flooded with millions of Arabs, so Jews are a minority and living under Sharia law.
Mr Falk must think Israelis are insane to live under Palestinians who glorify murdering them.
Its all on Palmediawatch http://www.palwatch.org
So Mr Falk wants another Jew free Arab state, even thought their was never in history any state called Palestine governed by Palestinians in history.
He constantly quotes Marwan Barghouti like he’s a saint and Falk calls for resistance against Israel as Barghouti calls for.
You see more and more what a jihadist this Falk is.
Falk doesn’t tell you the type of terrorist Barghouti was.
I tried posting on Falk’s site 2 posts rebuking him, but ofcourse my posts weren’t posted.
This is the apartheid policy Falk has barring all opposition, like the Iranian and dictators ruling their countries.
Its the Palestinian and Falk appetite for annihilating Israel which is what Mr Falk wants.
http://unitedwithisrael.org/fatah-all-of-israel-for-palestinians/
Fatah Logo all of Israel will be Palestine.
http://www.palwatch.org/main.aspx?fi=157&doc_id=3351
PA continues to teach denial of Israel’s existence
Oct 5, 2010
Itamar Marcus and Nan Jacques Zilberdik
Last week, PA TV rebroadcast an educational documentary that has been broadcast numerous times since 2007. The documentary describes the Israeli cities of Haifa, Acre, Ashkelon, Jaffa and the Sea of Galilee as Palestinian.
Then Mr Falk quotes Marwan Barghouti shows what a sicko he is.
The fact Falk supports this mass murderer Barghouti and calls for resistance against Jews who were living in Israel 15 centuries before Mohammad was born.
Barghouti is such a sadist he murdered a defenseless Monk in Israel. Basically Mr Falk supports Barghouti’s position of Palestinians slaughtering Jews on buses, shopping centers, disco’s, pizzeria’s and Passover seders.
The following are some of the more heinous terror attacks for which Marwan Barghouti is responsible:
Jun 12, 2001 – The murder of a Greek Orthodox monk on the road to Ma’ale Adumim.
Jan 17, 2002 – The shooting attack during a bat mitzva celebration at a banquet hall in Hadera. Six Israelis were killed in this attack, 26 were injured.
Jan 22, 2002 – The shooting spree on Jaffa Street in Jerusalem. Two Israelis were killed, 37 wounded.
Feb 25, 2002 – The shooting attack in the Jerusalem residential neighborhood of Neve Ya’acov. One Israeli policewoman was killed, 9 Israelis were wounded.
Feb 27, 2002 – The murder of an Israeli at a coffee factory in the Atarot industrial zone of Jerusalem.
Feb 27, 2002 – The suicide attack perpetrated by Daryan Abu Aysha at the Maccabim checkpoint in which two policeman were injured.
Mar 5, 2002 – The shooting spree at the Tel Aviv Seafood restaurant. Three Israelis were killed, 31 wounded.
Mar 8, 2002 – A suicide terrorist was killed in Daheat el Barid as he was on his way to carry out an attack in Jerusalem.
Mar 27, 2002 – The interception of an ambulance and the confiscation of an explosive belt which was being smuggled from Samaria into Barghouti’s terrorist infrastructure in Ramallah.
Marwan Barghouti was also directly responsible for operating the terrorist cell of Raed Karmi in Tulkaram which carried out a series of deadly terrorist attacks.
I wonder if you are capable of producing an argument not premised upon fabricating some crazy view and falsely attributing it to the person you are trying to discredit.
Mr Falk is part of the racist U.N that thinks Israel will be destroyed.
UNRWA Displays Map Where Israel is Palestine
UNRWA event displays a map that encourages the delegitimization of Israel by labeling all of Israel as Arab Palestine.
May 23, 2013.
According to Palestinian Media Watch, “At the official launch of two German-funded UNRWA (United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine refugees in the Near East) projects in southern Lebanon, Director of UNRWA Affairs in Lebanon, Ann Dismorr, posed with a map that erases the State of Israel and presents all of it as ‘Palestine.’” Some of the cities that are listed as being part of Arab Palestine are Be’ersheva, Jerusalem, Haifa, and Tiberius, which are all presently cities with a Jewish majority located which are mostly located within mainland Israel.
Palestinian Media Watch claimed that this map was a gift from the Palestinian Women’s Union and was presented during the launch of an event dedicated to improving water networks and shelters for the Palestinian community in Lebanon. The Head of Economic Cooperation and Development at the Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany in Lebanon Dr. Hanan Abdul Rida was also present alongside a number of high-ranking Palestinian and Lebanese officials.
Upon being questioned, the UNRWA’s spokesman Chris Gunness responded that this map spoke of pre-1948 Palestine but such assertions don’t really hold under scrutiny. As Palestinian Media Watch reported, “UNRWA spokesperson Gunness’ justification that the map ‘depict[s] a pre-1948 map’ is baseless, as the map includes the PLO-PA flag and not a British flag. That exact map erasing Israel, especially when accompanied by the PA flag, is one of the many ways the PA expresses its rejection of Israel’s existence and right to exist.”
As Israel’s Ambassador to the UN, Ron Prosor, noted, “It’s quite something for UNRWA to insist that the map predates the creation of Israel, given that the PLO only adopted this flag in 1964.” He also explained that the map was titled Arab Palestine and not the British Mandate for Palestine. Additionally, the map displayed Israel’s neighbors Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria with their contemporary borders, further underlining the fact that the map spoke of the present and not the past.
Prosor has sent in a letter of protest to the United Nations as a result of this incident. “Many in the international community doubt UNRWA’s impartiality and motives,” the letter reads. “Israel supports UNRWA’s important humanitarian work; however, actions that encourage incitement, conflict and, ultimately, violence undermine this work.” Prosor concluded, “UNRWA’s grasp of history and geography is nothing short of appalling.”
Instructive you accuse Palestinians and the UN of wanting to replace “Israel” with “Palestine” on the map while in another comment you said Palestinians were occupying Israeli land, thus making clear your own desire to wipe Palestine off the map.
There is perhaps no society on earth with as dark a history of promoting a child death cult, sacrificing its children, encouraging its children to seek death, praising those who die, than the Palestinians. Any serious investigation here will not go well for the Palestinians and Mr Falk.
The Palestinians indeed ghoulishly exploit the children whose deaths they cause by using them as human shields and strapping bombs on them, telling them if they kill Jewish children they will get 72 virgins.
The sick reality is the U.N is also behind this led by Mr Falk and UNRWA.
Look what the U.N schools are teaching in Gaza.
Just google this article.
Learn about Islam, Jihad, martyrdom – at UNRWA schools.
July 4, 2012
My comments.
As Former Israeli PM Golda Meir 40 years ago said.
“We can forgive the Arabs for killing our children. We cannot forgive them for forcing us to kill their children. We will only have peace with the Arabs when they love their children more than they hate us.”
Mr Falk is a supporter of Palestinian Nazism.
PA spends 6% of its budget paying Palestinians in Israeli jails, families of suicide bombers.
Hamas terrorist who orchestrated 2002 Park Hotel massacre, in which 30 Israelis died, gets $3,000 a month, Channel 2 reports; bomb-maker jailed for 67 killings gets $1,000
ILAN BEN ZION
September 3, 2012
Despite the Palestinian Authority’s financial hardships, it spends tens of millions of shekels each month paying salaries to prisoners held in Israeli jails for security offenses and acts of terrorism against Israel — including mass murderers — and last year Prime Minister Salam Fayyad tripled their monthly pay. The PA also pays monthly stipends to the families of suicide bombers.
Payments are made not only to members of Fatah, the political faction of PA President Mahmoud Abbas, but also to those of his bitter Islamist rivals from Hamas, and other factions.
As of May 2011, the PA spent NIS 18 million ($4.5 million) per month on compensating Palestinian inmates in Israeli prisons and a further NIS 26 million ($6.5 million) on payments to families of suicide bombers. In all, such payments cost the PA some 6 percent of its overall budget, Israel’s Channel 2 news reported on Monday night, citing documentation signed by Fayyad.
The PA also makes payments to Israeli Arabs jailed for security offenses against Israel, the report said.
Starting in 2003, Palestinian law mandated the dispensation of a monthly salary of NIS 1,000 ($250) to security detainees sentenced to up to five years in prison. The longer the sentence, the higher the pay. An inmate serving a life sentence was paid NIS 4,000 ($1,000) per month.
An amendment of the law in January 2011 enacted by Fayyad increased the salaries by up to 300%, Channel 2 reported.
A prisoner sentenced up to three years in prison now receives a base salary of NIS 1,400 per month, and for 3-5 years that rate increases to NIS 2,000, the report said. A NIS 300 bonus is added for a wife, and NIS 50 per child.
According to the Channel 2 report, the PA-funded salaries are an equal opportunity benefit; members of Fatah, Hamas, and Islamic Jihad all receive them.
Prisoners’ salaries also increase based on how many years they have served. Abdullah Barghouti, a Hamas bomb-maker who was sentenced in 2004 to 67 life terms for orchestrating the killings of 67 Israelis, receives a monthly stipend of NIS 4,000. In less than a year that figure will rise to NIS 6,000 ($1,500).
Another major Hamas terrorist figure, Abbas al-Sayyeed, convicted of planning the 2002 Park Hotel massacre, in which 30 Israeli civilians were killed as they sat down for a Passover meal, is paid NIS 12,000 ($3,000) per month.
Prisoners who have sat more than 30 years in Israeli prison receive NIS 12,000 per month.
Prof Falk seems to forget that Jewish people don’t shoot 8 year old Palestinian girls. Palestinians put explosives in children’s lunchboxes and send them to kill Jewish children” and afterwards Palestinians celebrate by handing out candy.
Israel invested millions developing anti rocket fire
Israel invested billions creating shelters for civilians
Israel is doing everthing it can to stop sophisticated arms from entering Gaza
Hamas has done none of this, instead it fights from within the population and fires missiles behind school, mosques and hospitals.
But Jewish people do kill Palestinian girls, as well as young boys, and women, and unarmed men. Around 300 children were murdered in Israel’s “Operation Cast Lead”, for example, which followed Israel‘s violation of the ceasefire with Hamas.
Sorry, but you’re an apologist for assholes, asshole.
If by “apologist”, you mean someone who points out facts in the face of lies and by “assholes” you mean people who speak truth to challenge lies, then, yes, I am.
Jeremy R. Hammond, All deaths, whether it was friendly fire or civilians killed collaterally because Hamas fires rockets from civilian areas could have all been avoided if Hamas just did not fire any rockets into Israel at all!
Do you think Israel is going to do nothing while Hamas fires hundreds of rockets at Israeli civilians.
Again and again and again it is Arab aggression that causes Israeli defensive use of force!
Arabs cannot ever be trusted to tell the truth. Even when they kill their own, they will blame it on Israel or twist the truth to demonize Israel when it is always the Palestinian Arabs who refuse to live in peace with the Jewish state of Israel, it always has been!
Due to the many generations of Arab training to hate and kill Jews, I dont see how peace is possible with these Arab hate mongers.
First of all, under international law, “The presence within the civilian population of individuals who do not come within the definition of civilians does not deprive the population of its civilian character”, and indiscriminate attacks are a war crime. Second, there is no evidence Hamas used human shields during Operation Cast Lead. Third, it was Israel, not Hamas, who violated the ceasefire.
These so-called Palestinians have been living off aid from other countries for so long that now they demand it, even after attacking the people that are helping them.
The Palestinians will blow up the same hospital that gave them excellent care. The will try to blow up the power plant providing electricity from Israel. Their hate knows no end. Until they love their children more than they hate the Jews as Golda Meir said.
The Palestinians are always simmering to kill and hurt someone or something. There always outraged or wronged just because they murder innocent children or old people or bystanders. What is the world coming to, to mistreat such a people as this?
Having been given the opportunity to govern themselves in Gaza, they have created a corrupt, inept govt and a dark society of death that teaches its children to hate and uses women and children as slaves and human shields.
Palestinians get more aid per capita then any people on earth yet they are always angry. All foreign aid should be cut off till they grow up, stop firing missiles at civilians, and learn to be productive humans instead of moochers and terrorists.
My advice to these Pals is very simple.
Quit trying to blow up innocent Israeli families on vacation, stop trying to conduct terrorism around the world.
There is already a Palestinian state. It is called Jordan.