I don’t really believe that a lot of people will be surprised to find out that the current Palestinian-Israeli peace talks has come to a dead end once again.
Israel’s decision not to extend a ban on West Bank settlement building has nearly called off the peace talks that America was trying hard to boost.
The unwillingness of the Israeli side to freeze the construction of new settlements on the occupied Palestinian west bank has instead frozen the yet to start peace negotiations.
The USA – as usual- said that it was “disappointed” by Israel’s decision not to extend a ban on West Bank settlement building. But I think “disappointed” is an understatement, the United States should be looking for a tougher word that would reflect the stand of a super power being internationally ridiculed by a small country like Israel.
But let’s be realistic here, let`s face the facts on the ground and ask this crucial question; why would Israel want to seek peace with the Palestinians? Why should Israel even be interested in sitting with the Palestinians at the same table for negotiations?
Game of make-believe
Usually any negotiating parties sit together to negotiate disputed items where the two negotiating parties engage into the political game of – give and take.
But then, why should Israel be engaged in such a game when she has no intention to give anything- unless it was a game of make-believe? Israel will not give up one inch of Arabic land she managed to seize by force. That, she has taken to keep; not to give back on some negotiating table.
History of Arab-Israeli peace talks
Decades ago when the first Arab-Israeli peace talks was launched by the bold initiative of the late Egyptian president Sadat in 1977, the agreement of the Sadat- Begin peace talks was based upon “Recognition of the state of Israel in exchange for the restoration of the occupied Egyptian and Arabic land.”
Begin, Carter and Sadat at Camp David 1978
Well, that seemed to have worked then, first, because Egypt had just won its last military war — the October war or Yom Kippur War — against Israel in 1973, and that was politically seen as a winning card to negotiate with.
Second, back in the late 1970s Israel was dying to get any Arabic country to recognize it as a legitimate sovereign state in the region, and one of the biggest Arabic countries — Egypt — was willing to satisfy that urgent political need.
So, Israel went ahead and reluctantly signed a peace treaty with Egypt — Camp David accords — in 1978 that was witnessed by the American president Jimmy Carter.
The Palestinian dilemma
The current Palestinian-Israeli so called peace talks are totally different.
The Palestinians are in no position to dictate any terms and they are stuck in no war- no peace zone. They cannot offer anything tempting to the Israelis. Some argue that security is a winning card for the Palestinians negotiators, but most of the Arab-Israeli conflict analysts don’t think so.
Who in his right mind would believe that some hand-made and improvised rockets — which the Palestinians see as the only armed resistance they got left — that are fired with minimal precision to fall astray at some deserted spot in the Israeli territories could impose any tangible threat to Israel security?
On the contrary, those random, inaccurate and infrequent rocket firing are the perfect excuse for the Israelis to play the innocent victims to the attacks of Palestinian- or the so called terrorists — and at the same time could conveniently fit in as the pretext for waging wars of extermination on Gaza and the west bank.
The last Israeli war on Gaza resulted in 1,417 Palestinian deaths and the destruction of its infrastructure which turned Gaza into one of the biggest slums on earth. The extent of damage and the high number of civilian casualties led some critics to accuse Israel of committing a massacre. But as usual the Israelis got away with it.
Security was an issue of concern for Israel to discuss with Egypt – now neutralized by a peace treaty- or Iraq — now destroyed by 9/11 counter-attack.
But security was never an issue — and never will be for the Israelis — to discuss with the Palestinians, otherwise they would have welcomed negotiating with the Palestinians without delay.
Israeli grab of Palestinian land 1946 to 2000
If you doubt my thesis, take a look at the map of Palestine back in 1947 — before Nakba — and now in 2010. You will be surprised to find out that the indigenous Palestinians of today hardly have any land left except some scattered villages in the west bank and the strip of Gaza out of the whole land that used to be Palestine. You will also be surprised to know that “Jerusalem” and the area surrounding it originally belonged to the Palestinians according to UN declaration in 1947.
Ever since 1948, the Israeli grab of the Arabic land of Palestine has been viciously going on and even the remaining tiny part of the Palestinian land of today is shrinking by the minute. Who needs to talk peace with a situation like that, certainly not the Israelis. And moreover you can’t expect them to in the future. And if they do, it will be a make-believe peace negotiation aimed at wasting time for the Palestinians and gaining more time for the Israelis.
The Israelis are always after grabbing more land and more time to fortify their newer facts on the ground. Forty years ago Arabic recognition of the Israeli state was a big issue to the Israelis but not anymore now. Ten years ago Iraq was envisioned by the Israelis as a big military threat but not anymore now.
The Israeli idea of peace in the Middle East
Peace is not what Israel after; Israel has a rather different strategic goal to achieve. Israel’s ultimate long run- target is to expel the remaining Palestinians now living in Gaza strip and the west bank.
That might sound a little bit strange, but with some critical thinking and reviewing the recent history of the Israeli aggression, we should come to see this as crystal clear. The Israeli blockade on Gaza is not about security purposes; its not about suffocating Hamas; it is about making life unbearable for Gazans in hope that they would eventually migrate from Gaza.
Israel now is in control of almost 90% of the land and the Israelis believe that they must have total control and leave nothing, absolutely no land for the Palestinians. And there’s only one way to accomplish this sinister plan and that is by Ethnic Cleansing.
When some scholars called the 1948 Palestinian exodus “ethnic cleansing,” Benny Morris — contemporary Israeli historian — responded that “there are circumstances in history that justify ethnic cleansing. I know that this term is completely negative in the discourse of the 21st century, but when the choice is between ethnic cleansing and genocide — the annihilation of your people — I prefer ethnic cleansing.”
But Morris overlooked the fact that it was the Nazis who embarked on the genocide of the Jews, not the Arabs. Jewish, Christian and Muslim Arabs coexisted side by side peacefully in the Arabic land of Palestine for hundreds of years prior to the establishment of the zionist state of Israel.
Morris’ comments concerning the Palestinian expulsions in 1948 have also proved controversial in an interview with the Israeli newspaper Haaretz in 2004:
if he was already engaged in the expulsion, maybe he should have done a completed job. I know that this stuns the Arabs and the liberals and the politically correct types. But my feeling is that this place would be quieter and know less suffering if the matter had been resolved once and for all. If Ben-Gurion had carried out a large expulsion and cleaned the whole country – the whole land of Israel, as far as the Jordan valley. It may yet turn out this was his fatal mistake. If he had carried out a full expulsion – rather than a partial expulsion – he would have stabilized the state of Israel for generations.
So, the exodus of the Palestinians from Palestine is the Israeli idea of an everlasting peace.
Palestinian refugees in 1948
The idea is so simple, and yet so sinister. The Zionists wanted to establish a state with an overwhelming Jewish population in an area of overwhelming indigenous non-Jewish population. So, the only option is to expel them out- in mass exodus- of their land to live as Palestinian Diaspora. The Israelis know best how to do it; after all, they are the ones who invented the Exodus and Diaspora myths.
Israel has been involved in the so called peace talks with the Palestinians for decades now. Every time she manages to disrupt the peace talks that entailed long and tedious negotiations. Every time the Palestinians find themselves starting over the so called peace talks from scratch. A vicious circle of make-believe peace with the Palestinians alternating with hard to believe war on them.
The Israeli’s rationale is understandable. The Israeli historian Benny Morris said that the concept of Transfer was deeply embedded in the Zionist mentality. And in his UN speech this week Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman pressed a plan for transferring Israeli Arabs out of Israel. Given that, what does that say of the Palestinian Arabs?
Why shake hands and have peace with people you intend to kick out of their land. Why make peace when you can make their life a living Hell so that they – hopefully someday – would pack up and leave Palestine for good.