Opinions of Peter Belmont
Speaking Truth to Power
|
Jeffrey Goldberg-Quick Observations About Hamas and Israel |
|
by Peter A. Belmont / 2011-04-30
Jeffrey Goldberg’s “Quick Observations About Hamas and Israel” (The Atlantic, April 28, 2011) makes so many ridiculous hard-line-Zionist arguments so concisely that the best way to comment on them may be to quote the whole thing, as Israel Policy forum also does—and then correct the most obvious nonsense. Quick Observations About Hamas and Israel And now a few comments. 1. “Hamas and the Palestinian Authority government of the West Bank have reconciled, at least on paper.” At least on paper? OK, cast doubt about permanency. But why? Is this merely ad hominem stuff? I don’t like Arabs? Arabs don’t make permanent alliances? Arabs don’t keep promises? But who does? Does President Obama keep all the promises he made before he was elected? Does Goldberg trash Obama (on that account)? 2. “Netanyahu * * * can claim, with more legitimacy than he had earlier this week, that Israel is under siege”. What on earth does this mean? Has Hamas suddenly, and by this agreement, acquired more rockets? That Palestinians may soon speak with a more united voice is a “siege”? But surely if Netanyahu seeks a peace agreement with the Palestinian leadership on terms the Palestinian people could accept—as most reasonable people (apparently including Goldberg himself, see next point, below) doubt—this is a step forward. How is it a siege? How does it increase Israel’s difficulties (if any)? 3. “Breathing space, for [Netanyahu], means paralysis in the peace process (so-called)”. OK, Goldberg agrees with me that the so-called peace process is merely “so-called”. In 1988, the PLO recognized Israel’s “right to exist” in its pre-1967 borders. Saudi Arabia and the Arab League have more recently offered to do so by peace treaty. Since Madrid (1991), the Israeli government has had 20 years to make peace. Most if not all of that time it has had “breathing space.” If it has not made peace, it is not because of “breathing space”. It is because Israel has preferred indefinite military occupation to any peace the Palestinians would accept. (To be fair, I should add “and vice-versa”. The sides have not been at all close to a peace agreement.) 4. “Israel must find, now—not later, but now—a formula that will allow it to withdraw its settlers from beyond the security fence”. Here, Goldberg addresses a very real internal Israeli political problem. That is the problem of the Israeli removal, by Israel’s own volition, of settlers from occupied territory—into which Israel, in violation of international law and UNSC Res. 465 (1980)—has allowed and encouraged them to move and establish residence. This is indeed a very big political problem for Israel. The settlers, and perhaps especially those beyond the Wall, are so unwilling to be removed that some even threaten an intra-Israeli civil war. (Indeed, this is such a large problem that Israel will probably not be able to get this job done without help—outside pressure—so that the removal of settlers can be regarded as imposed on rather than chosen by Israel.) But Goldberg—by slight of hand—reduces the real problem illegitimately to the (mere) problem of removing settlers from beyond the “security fence” (a barrier I prefer to call Israel’s “Apartheid Wall”). He fails to mention all the other (illegal) settlers. To conform with international law and with the most likely requirements of a just and lasting peace acceptable to the Palestinian people, Israel will have to remove far more settlers than merely those beyond the Wall. Israel’s illegal settlers now number about 550,000. By law, all should be removed. The number Goldberg mentions is probably fewer than 100,000 (70,000 in 2009) 5. “to create conditions for the emergence of, at the very least, a more autonomous Palestinian entity, one that would become independent as soon as Israel can figure out a way to neutralize the Iranian threat.” By these words, we see that Goldberg is not even imagining (or proposing) a Palestinian state, but something a good deal less than that. However, perhaps it is right for supporters of the “Zionist entity” to propose a “Palestinian entity”. But why is “peace” between Israel and Palestine dependent on Iran, or its “threat”? Goldberg doesn’t say. Is Israel so limited that it cannot walk and chew gum at the same time? Does Goldberg believe that making peace with Palestine would exacerbate Israel’s problems (if any) with Iran? Why wouldn’t peace-making improve Israel’s position with Iran and with the whole Muslim world? (Only kidding! Of course, Israel believes that delay for any reason, or for no reason, will not make its Palestine problem any worse. Israel obviously has not believed for 20 years that it had any reason to make peace with the Palestinians. It doesn’t think it has any such reason now. Waiting indefinitely—for example, until the Iran “threat” is dealt with—is just another way to say that Israel is cool with the present situation, the indefinite apartheid-like undemocratic single-state of Israel-Palestine.) On one side of his mouth, Goldberg says that “breathing space” is bad because it gives Netanyahu more time for delay. And from the other side of his mouth he suggests that delay is good, making it seem reasonable and acceptable that Netanyahu delay as long as there is an “Iranian threat”. Whatever that means, it is a form of words that appears ready-made to allow for indefinite delay. It’s sort of like saying the USA need not do this-or-that until the global-war-on-terror is over (or has been won) (or something else ridiculous). 6. “The Third Intifada might be only a matter of months away. The first intifada was one of stones; the second, suicide bombers on buses. This next one will be the Intifada of rockets. I think it’s coming.” Could be. Except that, of course, there have been rockets (from Gaza) right along, and no-one called them an “intifada”. Even with the extraordinarily cruel and lawless Israeli siege on Gaza, The 2007–present blockade of the Gaza Strip refers to a land, air, and sea blockade on the Gaza Strip by Israel and Egypt since June 2007, a more severe version of restrictions which began in 2001. wikipedia present_blockade_of_the_Gaza_Strip, there have not always been rocket attacks on Israel. Does Goldberg predict a third intifada because he sees Palestinian patience growing unreasonably thin, or because he sees Israeli management of the now 44-year-long occupation as growing unreasonably intransigent and oppressive? Or is it the hopes of self-reliance and democracy ignited by the “Arab Spring” that seems likely to make (otherwise docile) Palestinians likely (in Goldberg’s view) to try, once again, to shake off (“intifada”) Israel’s increasingly oppressive and increasingly illegitimate occupation? 7. “It is not Hamas that is changing. It is the Palestinian Authority, which is sidelining Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, the man most responsible for bringing the Authority the international credibility it needs to declare independence.” Goldberg doesn’t know who or what is changing, but pretends he does. Why? To support pro-Israel opinion in the USA. Why the Palestinian entente at this time? Perhaps it is changes in Egypt—which appears to have brokered this reunion, a reunion which flies in the face of joint USA and Israeli policy of divide and conquer—that are most important. If so, changes in Egypt may be far more important for Israel than Iran, Syria, or even the (powerless) Palestinians themselves. What may be changing, and I for one hope so, is that Palestinians as negotiators will stop rolling over and playing lap-dog to Israel and the USA’s longing for indefinite stasis. I, for one, believe that President Obama as a man wishes for a just and lasting Israeli-Palestinian peace. But I know that President Obama as a politician is as trapped by AIPAC and other forces of the USA’s lobby-driven politics-of-funding (make that politics-of-legalized-bribery) as any other politician. It doesn’t matter what he feels or thinks. And what he does is clearly set to conform with AIPAC’s agenda. And AIPAC wants unending military occupation, and siege of Gaza. The fighting (almost a civil war) between Hamas and Fatah was instigated by the USA whose policy depends on dividing Palestinians into so-called “good guys” (Fatah, which loves peace and licks the USA’s hand) and “bad guys” (Hamas, called “terrorist” by the USA, which elects not to call Israel “terrorist” although the number of Palestinian and Lebanese civilians killed by Israel far outnumbers the number of Israelis killed by Hamas). So, Goldberg tells us that Hamas is “sidelining Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, the man most responsible for bringing the Authority the international credibility it needs to declare independence.” OK. Let’s wait until September. It’s right around the corner. If Palestine is “declared a state” by the UNGA (not likely by the UNSC, what with the USA’s veto and all), we will assess whether Hamas and Fatah had the “credibility” “to declare independence” or not. |
Comments:
Submit a comment, subject to review:
|
123pab.com | Top
©2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024 www.123pab.com |