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by Peter A. Belmont / 2011-01-24
Israel is descending into a racist, fascist, anti-democratic nightmare, as Jews vilify Jews, court rulings are ignored by government and military, Jews vilify non-Jews, and international law continues—after 43 years—to be ignored in the manner of Israel’s occupation of Syrian and Palestinian lands.
The Palestinian people, for its part, has an elected leadership (mostly affiliated with Hamas, which Israel and the USA, and even the Fatah-PA treat as outcasts, outlaws, terrorists, (treated by Israel as less-than-human in its vicious 2008/2009 onslaught on Gaza);—and mostly sitting in Israeli jails); a fully discredited West Bank “Fatah/PLO/Fatah-PA” (discredited for many years as corrupt and, just now, even further discredited as having contemplated and nearly offered to give away to Israel almost everything that Palestinians have been holding out for for 62 years); and denied elections by Israeli-USA interference and favoritism.
This is a double crisis.
It is time for the rest of the nations to take matters out of Israeli/Palestinian hands. The newly proposed UNSC resolution once again declaring the Israeli settlements illegal is a good first step, as are the numerous new (and old) “recognitions” of Palestinian statehood.
It makes me as an an American feel good to see how many (South) American states have declared their recognition of Palestine (and their independence of USA dominance).
But the proposed UNSC resolution is only good as a first step. The nations must go farther. Next they must demand that Israel remove all settlers (about 550,000 people all told) from all occupied territories. It would be well if they also demanded the dismantling of the Israeli wall and of all settlements (buildings) as the settlers leave.
These demands will be useless however, if no regime of enforcement-sanctions is spelled out in the resolution. After all, UNSC 465 (1980) already called for the removal of settlers and the dismantling of settlements. But it had no teeth and it had no effect. The Israelis are clever enough to know the difference between words and deeds. (“Go to sleep, darling.” “You gonna make me? You and who else?”)
The need for international action of this sort is urgent. Calls on the USA or the UN to dictate “peace” may someday be timely but it is my belief that such calls are premature today. The nations should not dictate peace (or allow the USA or any other not particularly trustworthy entity) to do so until all the settlers are removed, all the settlements and the wall dismantled—and the parties have failed to make a peace freely between themselves while or soon after all this was happening.
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