by Stephen Lendman
On October 2, Haaretz said “Israel accepts Quartet peace plan,” making Palestinian UN membership conditional on negotiating peace with an unwilling partner.
No matter that decades of on-and-off talks never achieved resolution and won’t now.
Moreover, Israel doesn’t negotiate. It demands. As a result, restarting the charade assures freedom later, not now.
On October 2, Netanyahu and eight senior cabinet ministers agreed “to support the (Quartet’s pro-Israeli scheme) within a month without preconditions.”
A formal statement “welcome(d)” the chance to subvert Palestinian aspirations with Quarter help. In part, it said:
“Israel calls on the Palestinian Authority to do the same and to enter into direct negotiations without delay.”
Israel’s cabinet discussed resuming talks after failing to reach agreement days earlier on accepting the Quartet’s proposal. On Sunday, consensus was reached despite timetable and contentious issue concerns.
Doing so reflects knowing that negotiations between two unequal partners places Israel in control of a process assuring Palestinians dead-end failure again.
On September 28, Israel’s Vice Prime Minister and Minister for Strategic Affairs Moshe Ya’alon told Israel National News that Israeli/Palestinian negotiations assure no prospects for peace, saying:
“Does anyone think we can sign an agreement” when young Palestinians are “brought up” believing “there is no Jewish nation.”
“There is no doubt that the Palestinians going to the UN is a gross violation of the Oslo Accords….(W)e are ready to talk about everything, but the fundamental questions we raised were answered with a resounding ‘no,’ for example of a future consent, not a condition for beginning negotiations, to recognize Israel as a Jewish nation, and we were told that will never happen. So what can we talk about?”
Oslo surrendered to Israeli demands in return for which Palestinians became their own enforcers. Peace or treaty negotiations aren’t contingent on recognizing another nation’s religion.
Principles of the 1994 Israel-Jordan agreement included borders, normalization, security, defense, Jerusalem, water, and Palestinian refugees. Israel never demanded Jordan recognize a Jewish state. It likely never came up nor would it with other Arab states.
Why then Palestine? It’s a convenient way to blame PA negotiators for refusing to accept unreasonable Israeli demands only asked of them to extract more concessions and deny justice again.
Yet Ma’an News said Secretary of State Clinton told Egypt’s al-Hayat TV Saturday that Palestinians must be flexible, saying:
“(N)o matter what happens or doesn’t happen in the United Nations, unless we can get the Palestinians and the Israelis to negotiate over the boundaries of the state, the security provisions, what happens in Jerusalem, what happens with refugees, water, all of the issues we know so well have to be resolved, we’re going to raise expectations without being able to deliver.”
Clinton, of course, knows Palestinian rights again will be denied. Negotiations now will be as futile as decades of failed attempts because they have no willing partner allied with its Washington paymaster/partner supporting its most outrageous acts.
Moreover, dealing with collaborationist leaders like Abbas and Prime Minister Fayyad assure no prospect of achieving long denied justice.
In his September 27 Electronic Intifada article, Jonathan Cook discussed core problems, including Middle East envoy Tony Blair (a reinvented war criminal), acting more as an “Israeli diplomat” than an impartial arbiter.
More important is lack of legitimate Palestinian leadership supporting their interests, not Western ones and Israel’s. As long as Abbas and Fayyad represent them, long denied justice won’t be achieved.
As long as the PA accedes to this type leadership, its credibility will erode. Cook calls it a “casualty” of a failed UN bid.
However, he believes America, Europe and the UN will only have a “marginal” role to play ahead. “The Palestinian old guard are about to be challenged by a new generation that is tired of” same old, same old “pander(ing) to Israel’s interests….”
Wanting change and knowing how social media work, they’re “better equipped to organize a popular mass movement, and refuse to be bound by the borders that encaged their parents and grandparents.”
Fossilized PA leadership is the “problem, not the solution.” Emerging new leaders want what older ones never demanded or remained tied to failed policies benefitting them at the expense of people they’re supposed to serve.
Looking ahead, Palestinians have growing global millions of supporters. At the same time throughout the Middle East, visceral anti-American/anti-Israeli passion is resonant.
Combined with Arab Spring aspirations, it’s combustible enough to target other Israeli embassies besides Cairo’s, demand democratic change benefitting Palestine, and further isolate Israel, America and key EU allies failing to recognize a new spirit and embrace it enough to matter.
Global boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) initiatives are also vibrant, as well as increasing numbers of Israeli Jews voting with their feet and leaving. They’re fed up with rogue leaders and policies no one should tolerate.
Things that can’t go on forever, won’t. They never do no matter how long it takes to roust them. It’s true in America, Israel and everywhere.
Under responsible emerging new leaders, committed grassroots spirit one day will triumph in ways old guard fossils never imagined or pursued. They’re on the way out, or as Cook says, “The old men in suits have had their day.”
For millions of Palestinians, it can’t come a moment too soon.
Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.
Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.
http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour/.
