Palestine Issue (Important Articles)

[Roshan wadhwani]

The peace process and erosion of Palestinian rights

April 14, 2012
By As’ad Abdul Rahman

When the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO) Chairman Yasser Arafat addressed the United Nations General Assembly in 1974, he said: “The roots of the Palestinian question do not stem from any conflict between two religions or two nationalisms; neither is it a border conflict between neighbouring states. It is the cause of a people deprived of their unalienable rights, driven out of their homeland, dispersed and uprooted and living mostly in exile and refugee camps.”

In saying so, Arafat was addressing the world to take notice and be warned of the consequences that might stem from the loss of Palestinians’ unalienable rights. He wanted the world to be fully aware that the loss of Palestine to the very well-armed forces of the Zionist state does not mean in any way, shape or form, the loss of the national identity of the Palestinian people and their struggle to attain their unalienable rights that are the absolute rights of every people in our world as decreed by the United Nations charter. Indeed, liquidating the Palestinian national identity was the second item on the Zionists’ agenda after historical Palestine came under the control of the colonial Israeli occupation. Tel Aviv was adamant in refusing to address the issue of the Palestinian refugees for fear of having to deal with their unalienable rights guaranteed by the UN charter which politically created the Zionist state in 1949.

Status quo

In this context, let us ‘cut to the chase’ and observe the status quo of the so-called ‘peace process.’ The whole world, including Israel, has agreed that the only solution to the Palestinian question is the two-state solution, a Palestinian state living side-by-side with Israel in tranquillity and peaceful co-existence. Such a lofty goal to ensure a just and ever enduring peace in the Middle East requires that the two states provide to their respective peoples the same UN-guaranteed unalienable rights. This crucial requirement of full equality in national rights regarding both the Israeli and Palestinian states does not even exist on the agenda of the so-called ‘peace process’ making the process of reaching a final settlement totally unfeasible.

In fact, this process now stands between ‘a master race’ with endowed divine entitlements such as ‘the chosen people of God’ and an ‘inferior people’ who must stay subservient to ‘the master race’. The very actions of the Israeli colonial rule in the Occupied Territories are based upon the apartheid system which has been inflaming the emotions of the entire Islamic world in addition to many others, including Jews inside and outside Israel. The establishment of a Palestinian state is far greater in scope and significance than the demarcation of boundaries that are shrinking by the day by Israeli annexations of Palestinians lands to build more colonies.

The so-called ‘peace process’ was never meant to be taken seriously nor was it an intention of Israel to address the unalienable rights of the Palestinian people towards establishing their own democratic and independent state of Palestine within the framework of a two-state solution. The basic ideology of Zionism refers to all historical Palestine as ‘Eretz Israel’ or ‘the land of Israel’, said to be divinely promised only to the adherents of the Jewish faith, ‘the only true faith’! The same Zionist belief has been embraced as a scheme totally Judaising occupied Jerusalem to be “the eternal capital of the Jewish State”.

Meanwhile, the peace process is asking the Palestinians and the Arab countries to recognise Israel as a Jewish state despite the fact that Judaism is a religion not a nationality. At this juncture, it is worth noticing that the real agenda of the current right-wing government in Israel will directly affect the very survival of the Zionist state. Many in Israel along with many Jews around the world, especially in America, are fully aware of the suicidal path being followed by the right-wing government of Israel. They are doing their best to prevent the right-wing politics in Israel from destroying the Zionist state and world Jewry with it. So, the so-called peace process, to the minds of the majority of Israelis, is meant to allow Israel time to carry through its Zionist agenda of completely Judaising historical Palestine including occupied Jerusalem. Any resistance against the process of Judaisation taking place under the guise of the peace process will be branded as a terrorist act against Israel as well as international security!

This is why, the peace process has turned the Palestinian people into prisoners abused and robbed on a daily basis in the name of ‘peace-in-the-making’ that will never be realised at the hands of the present Israeli government. The ugly fact of the peace process is that it has been transformed into a daily swallowing up of pieces of Palestinian lands to feed the hungry process of Judaisation of historical Palestine which cannot be finalised without the total transfer of all the Palestinians in the Occupied Territories from their historical homeland including occupied Jerusalem.

Professor As’ad Abdul Rahman is the Chairman of the Palestinian Encyclopaedia.
Source: Gulf News

[Roshan wadhwani]

Peace-making without Mediators

May 17, 2012
By Nicola Nasser**
Exclusive Article

A surplus of mediators have been around all the time, including the heavy weight Quartet of the UN, U.S., EU and Russia, as well as heaps of terms of reference of UNSC resolutions, bilateral signed accords and “roadmaps,” in addition to marathon bilateral talks that have left no stone unearthed, international as well as regional conferences were never on demand to facilitate the “peace process,” which has been lavishly financed to keep moving.

However the Palestinian – Israeli peace-making is still elusive as ever as Samuel Beckett’s “Waiting for Godot” has been, without a glimpse of light at the end of the endless tunnel of Israeli military occupation of Palestinian territory and people.

Palestinian – Israeli peace-making has been for all practical reasons on hold since 2000, and bilateral peace contacts have been dormant since Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu came to power in 2009 except for a failed five-round “exploratory” talks hosted by Jordan last January.

The latest indirect exchange of letters between Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and PM Netanyahu and the joint statement issued by their corriers pledging mutual commitment to peace are no less misleading: “No peace No War” is still the name of the only game in town, which is in fact the ideal prescription for the implosion or explosion of an unsustainable status quo in the Israeli – occupied Palestinian territories.

And the almost twenty-year old U.S.-led and EU-financed “peace process” is still a non-starter for any feasible, credible or sustainable peace-making in any foreseeable future.

Failure of the “peace process” to deliver is proof enough that it is inherently infertile, but most importantly it is proof enough that there has never been any serious mediation, or the mediators themselves were only either managing a process instead of trying to solve a conflict, were unqualified, or the parameters of their approach were the wrong ones.

The end result however is that all mediators have failed and it is the time to acknowledge their failure and to make room for other options, like sending back the file of the Palestinian – Israeli conflict to the United Nations, which was responsible for creating the conflict in the first place when the UN General Assembly adopted the non-binding resolution No. 181 for partitioning Palestine in 1947, which triggered a series of Arab – Israeli wars, thus undermining its own main mission as the organization created for the sole purpose of maintaining world peace.

Since 1947, the “two-state solution” has been on the agenda. Sixty five years on, none is closer to that end. The U.S. and EU conduct over those years has been in effect to reinforce the “one state solution”, i.e. Israel.

Olivia Ward speculated in the Canadian “The Star” on May 1 that the “one-state solution to Mideast peace may arrive by default,” but she might not have anticipated it to be a bi-national, bilingual and bi-religious one state for Israelis and Arab Palestinians, Arabic and Hebrew and Jews and Muslims, which is a recipe for apartheid in view of the prevailing balance of power in favor of Israeli Jews in historic Palestine.

I wonder whether U.S. Rep. Joe Pitts (R-Pa.) was completely out of touch with a major foreign-policy reality or was he satirically sarcastic when he responded to a constituent last April by a letter calling for peace negotiations between deceased Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, who has been in a coma since 2006?!

The UN option is obviously what President Abbas is left to try now as the only option available for a man of peace like him, and this is exactly the door which the U.S. administration is determined to close; for this purpose, according to Esther Brimmer, the Assistant Secretary for International Organizations Affairs, in Miami on April 24 this year:

“Over the past several months, we have engaged in a global diplomatic marathon to oppose the Palestinian” option, “because, … the United States strongly opposes efforts to address final status issues at the United Nations rather than in direct negotiations,” which Brimmer’s country failed to mediate, revive and resume through the terms of the last three presidents who collectively failed to deliver on their promises to the Palestinians to conclude negotiations on final status issues in 1999 (Bill Clinton), in 2005 (George W. Bush), in 2008 (G.W. Bush again) and within two years of his assuming office (Barak Obama).

Not to honor U.S. promises and pledges to Palestinians could only be interpreted as out of bad faith, bad management of the “peace process” or failure to deliver, which all dictate, as another option, a change of course and that the US monopoly of the sponsorship of peace-making should be discarded and replaced by more efficient peace makers, or that the current U.S.-led peace mediators should be replaced by peace enforcers.

Aaron David Miller of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars noted on May 11 that, “The only three breakthroughs in the history of Arab-Israeli peacemaking – involving Israeli deals with the Egyptians, Jordanians, and Palestinians – came about through secret diplomacy in which Washington wasn’t even involved.” Miller stopped short of saying that the U.S. and Quartet mediation is no more needed.

The International Crisis Group, in an executive summary on May 7, 2012, concluded that the U.S.-led mediation efforts have “become a collective addiction, … And so the illusion continues,” adding: “All actors are now engaged in a game of make-believe: that a resumption of talks in the current context can lead to success; that an agreement can be reached within a short timeframe; that the Quartet is an effective mediator, …” On April 26, the American Jewish newspaper “Algemeiner” described the “Middle East Quartet” as “An Institutionalized Failure.”

Israel, U.S. and the Quartet mediators are all winners in this “make-believe” non-delivering mediation; the Palestinian people are the only losers.

Palestinians have had enough and now saying enough is enough: Peace is a mirage, peace-making is a failure, peace process is a sham, peace mediators are a fake, and if all the parties involved can enjoy the luxury of “addiction” to the status quo, Palestinians cannot; their survival is at stake.

* Nicola Nasser is a veteran Arab journalist based in Bir Zeit, West Bank of the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories.
* nassernicola@ymail.com
The article is contributed to pkaticleshub.com

[Roshan wadhwani]

The peace process comes to an end

June 4, 2012
By Adel Safty

One of the most remarkable talents of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel is his ability to “influence” American public opinion as he once bragged to a family of colonists, unaware that he was being filmed.

In the space of a few months, he managed to dampen US President Barak Obama’s enthusiasm for a settlement for the Israeli Palestinian conflict. He frustrated American and European efforts at restarting the stalled peace talks between Israelis and Palestinians. And he defiantly refused to accommodate Obama’s request for a freeze on colony construction in the occupied Palestinian territories.

Perhaps Netanayahu’s most remarkable achievement has been his ability to move American leaders to espouse Israel’s priorities. The most cogent example of this extraordinary feat has been the elevation of israel’s concern about Iran’s perceived nuclear ambitions to the top of American foreign policy agenda; and the downgradingl of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process from the list of American foreign policy priorities.

The peace process has died a thousand deaths in the past, but it refused to be buried. That is because as long as it was perceived to be going somewhere it was judged to be better than the alternative-perpetual conflict.

The fallacy of this premise is evident from the fact that various Israeli leaders rhetorically accepted the peace process while actively working to undermine it and strengthen its alternative-perpetual occupation and unending conflict. Netanyahu boasted about his role in destroying the Oslo Accords — a short-lived meagre achievement of the peace process.

The other contradiction that plagued the peace process was that although the process was officially sponsored by the Quartet (US, Russia, EU and UN), it was practically driven by the US. Given the nature of American politics, the peace process necessarily became a domestic politics issue. This created a fatal tension that sooner or later was bound to lay bare the inherent contradiction of the American conduct of the peace process.

Washington claims to be an honest broker in the peace process, while evidently siding with one of the parties. This became palpably clear when Obama, addressing the UN General Assembly last September, admitted his inability to move the peace process forward and devoted a substantial part of his speech towards making the case for Israel.

This left the Palestinians with little alternative but to try to internationalise the issue by seeking membership in the UN and Its various agencies. Washington openly sided with Israel and threatened to block Palestinian request to the UN Security Council.

In a letter to Netanyahu, in April, President of the Palestine Authority Mahmoud Abbas called for the establishment of a Palestinian state based on the 1967 borders and for an end to colony construction in the occupied territories. Abbas warned that in the absence of a peace settlement, the two sides were drifting towards a one-state solution.

“As a result of actions taken by successive Israeli governments,” he stated, “the Palestinian National Authority no longer has any authority and no meaningful jurisdiction in the political, economic, territorial and security spheres,”

In a letter delivered to Abbas last week, Netanyahu is reported by the Israeli press to have repeated the Israeli position, rejecting a freeze on colony construction as a condition for the resumption of peace talks.

Two proposals have recently emerged, seeking to fill the void created by American paralysis in the long-suffering peace process.

One comes from a group of distinguished figures (Shlomo Ben-Ami, Thomas C. Schelling, Jerome M. Segal and Javier Solana) and published in the New York Times last week. The authors note that there was no prospect of meaningful negotiations between the Palestinians and the Netanyahu government. They compared their approach to that of the UN Special Committee on Palestine in 1947 (UNSCOP), which, in 1947, had submitted the Partition Resolution, 181. They call it UNESCOP 2.

The authors propose the establishment of a committee that will go and listen to the Palestinian people and the Israeli people themselves. If the committee determines that there is sufficient basis for an agreement, it will draft a plan for an end of the conflict and submit it to the UN Security Council which will call on the Israelis and Palestinians to use UNESCOP 2 as the starting point for negotiations.

This proposed new peace process suffers from serious flaws. First, the comparison with UNESCOP in 1947 is misleading. In 1947, Palestine was under British mandatory rule and the British were anxious for the UN to relieve them of that growing burden. Today, the prospect of Israeli leaders supporting anything that remotely looks like UNESCOP are close to nil.

The ultimate goal of UNESCOP 2 is to get a landmark UN Security Council resolution. But for what purpose? And why would the fate of another UN Security Council resolution be any different from that of previous UN SC resolutions?

The authors conclude by proposing that the US could be invited to play the role of “honest broker.” But it was precisely Washington’s inability to play that role that doomed the defunct peace process. Why would it be any different now?

The second contender for leadership of a new peace process is none other than a more assertive European Union. In a recent statement, the EU notes that Washington is now hanging a sign that says the peace process is now “closed for business.” It regrets “settler extremism”, and twice refers to the “forced transfer” of Palestinians, and warms of the receding “viability of the two-state solution”.

Here again, despite the good intentions, enforcement mechanism and crucially leverage over Israel are lacking. And this bodes ill for the two contenders for a new peace process.

The Palestinian leadership ought to pursue the internationalisation of the peace process through membership in the UN and its various agencies. It may be, however, that with the end of the peace process the two-state solution has also come to an end.

Adel Safty is Distinguished Visiting Professor and Special Advisor to the Rector at the Siberian Academy of Public Administration,

Russia His book, Might Over Right, is endorsed by Noam Chomsky, and published in England by Garnet, 2009.

Source: Gulf News

[Roshan wadhwani]

Settlements in Palestine

March 20, 2013 .

Even though the UN, through a report by a fact-finding mission of the UN Human Rights Council, has called for an end to the building of settlements in the occupied territories of Palestine, it will pay no attention as usual. Indeed, on the same day, Monday, the report was presented to the Council, the Israeli Knesset approved a new governing coalition, which included a strong showing of pro-settlement hardliners. This government comes into existence after the recent elections, in which Prime Minister Netanyahu won re-election. The election showed a majority of Israeli voters supporting a hardline position that flew in the face of international opinion.

One reason for this Israeli intransigence is the unquestioning backing it finds through the US, even though the current Israeli Prime Minister has a mercurial relationship with US President Obama. However, blatant Israeli disregard of not just world opinion, but extending even to US opinion, further compounds the feeling that Israel is unmanageable by the world community combined, whereas there seems to be no such problems when attempting to bring say Iran to its knees.

It must not be lost sight of that the settlements, by changing the situation in the territories designated as Palestinian, make it impossible for Palestinians to negotiate. This is something Pakistanis should find familiar, as they have seen India doing its best to change the ground realities in Kashmir which, like Palestine, came onto the UN agenda at the same time, but remains unresolved. Both aggressors, India and Israel, not only defied the UN but have cozied up to each other. Now it seems they are using the same underhand tactics. At the same time, Pakistan cannot afford to ignore the reality that both India and Israel claim a special relationship with the USA, while it feels an affinity with the Palestinian people, who are fellow Muslims. The government must support the UN Council in its efforts to help the Palestinian people. As a first step, it should help publicise the report.

http://www.nation.com.pk/pakistan-ne...s-in-palestine

[Roshan wadhwani]

I was wrong

Israeli-Palestinian peace is on the president’s trip agenda

A few weeks ago, I assumed that the main emphasis of President Barack Obama's upcoming visit to the Middle East would not be the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Taking my cues from Secretary of State John Kerry's recently completed trip and the way the White House had been "low-balling" expectations about making any progress in restarting Israeli-Palestinian talks, I thought that the president would focus his visit largely on the challenge posed by Iran's nuclear programme and the humanitarian and political crises resulting from the ever-worsening conflict in Syria.

However, after an hour-long meeting with the president and his national security staff, followed a few days later by a detailed press briefing on the president's itinerary by a deputy national security advisor, it is clear that I was wrong.

Earlier this week, I was part of a group of Arab American leaders who met with President Obama and his senior advisers to discuss his visits to Israel, Palestine, and Jordan. Following our conversation, the White House issued a statement saying, in part, that the president "underscored that the trip is an opportunity for him to demonstrate the United States' commitment to the Palestinian people—in the West Bank and Gaza—and to partnering with the Palestinian Authority as it continues building institutions that will be necessary to build a truly independent Palestinian state".

Our discussions with the president were instructive on many levels—in particular, his interest in hearing our ideas about how to make the visit as productive and meaningful as possible. We offered a range of suggestions including the need to reach out directly to the Palestinian people: the business community struggling to create jobs; young people in need of hope; Christians concerned about their future in the Holy Land; women seeking empowerment; and those who are committed to a non-violent approach to challenging the occupation.

We emphasised that just as he intended, in Israel, to speak directly to the Israeli people, making clear to them his understanding of their history and his commitment to their security, it would be equally important to find opportunities to address remarks directly to ordinary Palestinians. In this context, we found promising the post-meeting statement issued by the White House and the details of the final trip schedule.

As has been made clear on several occasions by administration officials, the president will not use this visit to offer a plan to immediately restart negotiations. Conditions simply do not exist for a peace-making initiative to bear fruit. The newly constituted Israeli government leans too far to the right. The Palestinian house is also in disarray, with reconciliation talks still stalled.

Given this, the best the president can do, in the short term, is to attempt to speak directly to both peoples reasserting his commitment to them and to a peaceful future in an effort to change the discourse in both societies away from the cynicism and hardline views that have made progress toward peace so difficult.

Seen in this light, almost every aspect of the president's visit contains a message to the Israeli and Palestinian peoples. He will want to win their confidence, demonstrating that he understands their histories and current realities. He will then note the dangers inherent in the current trajectory of regional developments and pose the challenges and opportunities that making peace will entail.

He will engage the leadership of both communities, but he will also go beyond the leaders to speak directly to young Israelis and Palestinians about their futures.

No doubt, both Iran and the Arab Spring will be topics of conversation in Israel and Jordan. While in Jordan, the president will want to support the changes underway and will encourage the king to continue on the path of reform. He will also focus on the impact of the humanitarian crisis which has seen hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees coming into Jordan, testing that country's resources and political order. Another aspect of the Syrian war and the Middle East's tumultuous last decade is the increased vulnerability of the region's Christians. In a surprise move the White House added a stopover in Bethlehem between the president's visit to Israel and his trip to Jordan. Going to that city's Church of the Nativity will allow the president to focus attention on the two-thousand-year old presence of Christians not only in the Holy Land, but in Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, and Iraq.

It is important to note that while in Bethlehem the president's team will be able to see first-hand the impact of the occupation on Palestinian daily life. First and foremost will be the 30 feet wall that snakes around the little city cutting Bethlehem off from Jerusalem. And then there is the Israeli settlement of HarHoma. While the Israelis refer to this development as a "neighbourhood" of Jerusalem, it is actually built on land seized in large part from Bethlehem. It will be recalled that in the late 1990's then President Bill Clinton strongly objected to Prime Minister Netanyahu's plans to build HarHoma on the green hill of Jabal Abul Ghnaim. Netanyahu defied the US. Today that green space is gone, replaced by a settlement that is home to 15,000 Israelis (with expansion plans calling for a few thousand more). It, like the wall, separates Bethlehem from Jerusalem.

This will be the president's first trip of his second term and while he will not table a peace plan, every indication is that he remains committed to an Israeli-Palestinian peace. This trip is designed to be the beginning of a process to engage the Israeli and Palestinian peoples (and American Jews and Arab Americans) in an effort to win new support for peace-making efforts that will follow.

The writer is President of the Arab-American Institute.

http://www.pakistantoday.com.pk/2013...s/i-was-wrong/

[Roshan wadhwani]

Extreme approach

March 22, 2013 . 2

Any hope that President Obama in his second term in office might emerge as an advocate of the beleaguered Palestinians seems to have been dashed when during a joint press conference with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Tel Aviv on Wednesday, he stated that US-Israel alliance was “eternal”. This policy virtually most US presidents have religiously followed adds up to the negation of the process by which Palestinian state is to be formed. It reflects the tremendous hold the Israeli lobby enjoys over most centres of power on the Capitol Hill.

Such partisan support for Israel in the face of all that it is doing to ensnare up more and more of the occupied Palestinian territories in Gaza and the West Bank runs contrary to the principles of human dignity and freedom which the US stands for. The anger in the Muslim world particularly against the West is the result of this one-sided support. The present government led by President Mehmoud Abbas has been committed to non-violence but even this has not paid off; which is definitely bad for the Middle East. President Obama must avoid going to extremes while trying to win Israel’s favour. After all, he should have regard of his own past statements and commitment in support of the Palestinian cause and extend to the people who have fighting for their legitimate rights.

http://www.nation.com.pk/pakistan-ne...treme-approach

[Roshan wadhwani]

Obama’s blatant partiality

Rewards for Israel, threats for Iran, Syria and Hezbollah

Barack Obama’s first destination at the start of his second tenure was Israel. The US President was under fire during the election campaign for ignoring Israel. The powerful Israeli lobby in Washington is still pressurizing the administration to do more for Israel even if it implies further depriving the Palestinians of their rights. The visit was apparently aimed at reassuring the newly elected Benjamin Netanyahu who had supported Mitt Romney during the campaign that with Obama in power once again, Israel’s interests would be fully safeguarded. In what Netanyahu called a key development, the leaders announced new talks on extending US military assistance to Israel for another 10 years past the current agreement that expires in 2017.

Those who had hoped that the appointment of Chuck Hagel as Defence Secretary was reflective of a change in Obama administration’s policy towards the Middle East would be disappointed. Obama had nothing for Iran, Syria and Hezbollah except warnings and threats. For Israel were reserved approbation and rewards. The speech that Obama delivered before a youth gathering in Jerusalem was one part Zionist ideology and one part real talk, observed a British daily. While sharing Netanyahu’s concern about Iran’s nuclear activity, Obama endorsed Israel’s right to defend itself as it deemed fit. This was an encouragement to Israel’s aggressive designs. Obama has raised with Netanyahu the bogey of Syria’s chemical weapons. He has repeated warnings to the Syrian government to keep them off the battlefield and out of the hands of groups such as Hezbollah. On the issue of the illegal Israeli settlements Obama actually backtracked. During his first tenure he had required putting a freeze on the activity. This time he told the Palestinians not to make the issue a precondition for peace talks. This is in fact a hint to Israel to continue the activity.

Obama talked a lot about peace in the Middle East. The word actually occurs 22 times in the speech he delivered before the Israeli youth. But there was not a word about a new plan to bring Israelis and Palestinians to the negotiating table. Obama reiterated what he was doing for Israel, The security relationship between the two countries was never stronger, he observed. There were more exercises between the two militaries, more exchanges among their political, military and intelligence officials than ever before. The largest program to date to help Israel retain its qualitative military edge was already in place. Despite all the leverage that these measures provide it, Washington was not willing to put pressure on Israel to end the illegal settlements. Nothing was given to the Palestinians. They were however required to give concessions. This is thoroughly immoral.

The visit is likely to raise the anti-US sentiment in the Middle East. What is more, it would strengthen the extremists.

http://www.pakistantoday.com.pk/2013...nt-partiality/

[Roshan wadhwani]

Is Obama’s visit to Israel going to change history?

March 24, 2013

“Speaking as a politician, I can promise you this; political leaders will not take risks if the people do not demand that they do. You must create the change that you want to see.”

This was one of the highlights of Obama’s speech, who was addressing Israeli students and youth in Jerusalem, during his three day trip to the holy-land, his first as a US president, where he tried to reach out to the people of the region, rather than giving the spotlight to political leadership.

Although most parts of his speech came as expected, it also had chunks of surprises for the Israelis and the world media.

The visit, the statements, and finally the speech narrated the lessons Obama learnt from his mistakes during his 2009 speech in Cairo – where his praise for Muslims did not go well with his critics in the US and Israel.

Although praising the Israeli legacy and affirming the country’s importance in the global community, President Obama shockingly uttered the words that no American president had said before, he said,

“The need for justice for the Palestinians.”

A point worth taking from this statement was the US president’s reiteration of the need for Palestinian justice, meaning the stamping of the concept of the two-state theory, which Israel, on the other hand, is ignoring for years by expanding the Jewish settlements in Palestinian areas.

Such blunt remarks showed Obama’s political maturity.

He manoeuvred his speech well by initially lavishing praise on Israel and afterwards calling for a just solution to the Palestine issue. This, more diplomatic, strategy seemed to work well as his criticisms for Israeli settlements and actions were easily digested.

Another pivot to Obama’s speech was highlighting the security concerns of Israel and their usage as a primary factor for actions against the Palestinian authority. Such an approach, according to Obama, is not fruitful in order to reach a peaceful settlement among both the parties.

Using the term “fortress Israel” and how the country portrays itself as a stronghold under security threats from Palestine, Obama made clear that such a setup for the country would hardly be beneficial.

When it came to Iran, the president held a more rhetorical line of argument.

Most of his comments on Iran were tried and tested jargons of “Nuclear Iran is a threat to Israel and the world”, and “A nuclear Iran leads to terrorism in the region”.

Although he emphasised the possibility of having all the options on the table, there was a lack of focus on a diplomatic end to the deadlock between Israel, Iran and the US.

Obama’s trip as well as his speech marked a beginning of an era of public diplomacy. Even though, long before his trip, he played down its importance stating that the world should not expect much out of his visit, yet during his speech, his address to the youth indicated that he wanted to reach out to the people for a solution.

During his first term, he failed to initiate a peace process between both the parties and that is why he called upon the people to pressurise their leaders for peace.

After Israel, Obama’s next obvious destination was Palestine.

On his visit, he met with President Mahmud Abbas and also Prime Minister Salam Fayyad.

Even though both the Palestinian leaders have their explicit differences, Obama’s meeting with both conveyed a message of seriousness- the US administration is starting to solve the West Bank crisis under Obama.

By making such decisive statements and ignoring the reality of the Palestinian situation on ground means that peace reaching this holy land is still far from reality.

Moreover, until and unless there is no clear stance on Iran, the world will keep guessing whether the United States is serious on resolving the Iranian nuclear issue through a diplomatic channel or not. For that purpose, the United States has to decide whether it has to purse the Iranian issue solely for Israel or for the international community, especially the Middle East.

Palestine and its supporters could take heart from the fact that, this was the first time an American leader stressed upon the need for a solution on lines of a two-state system. Without making huge strides during the visit, Obama’s statements gave a glimmet of hope to Palestinians by taking a stand on establishment of a Sovereign Palestine. He made it clear to the Israelis that Israel’s international and democratic image could only be ensured through a sovereign Palestine’s establishment.

But even if he did so, was it a serious statement or just a comment by a presidential tourist on a ceremonial visit?


http://blogs.tribune.com.pk/story/16...ack-on-israel/

[Roshan wadhwani]

America speaks truth, at last

Posted on March 23, 2013

Whatever the reason, the top political man in the United States spoke to the global sentiment when he asked Israel to make peace with Palestinians on Thursday. President Barrack Obama during historic state visit to that country said in a nationally televised speech to the Israeli public that Tel Aviv should accept the Palestinians' right to self-determination, arguing that continued settlement activity by Israel was "counterproductive" to peace in the conflict zone. He said Israelis must accept that an independent Palestine should be viable and that real borders between them would have to be drawn. In a way, Obama suggested the resumption of peace talks in the conflict area of the Middle East that continued till 2009. Peace talks broke off in September 2010 weeks after these were launched with the Palestinians refusing to continue talking while Israel built on the land they, Palestinians, want for a future state. It was subsequent to the suspension of talks that the Obama administration made construction of settlements by Israel the central issue, declaring that it had to stop for peace talks to proceed.

Obama's insistence on stopping construction of settlement is the reason that he and Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have uneasy relationship. That is why Israeli students kept on yelling slogans against Obama throughout his nationwide speech.

In Ramallah on the second day of his visit, Obama, however, insisted that now was the time for the Arab world to "take steps toward normalizing relations" with the Jewish state. The US president again faced an audience which appeared disappointed by his failure to meet expectations that he could help deliver them a state. He held a long meeting with Palestine President Mahmud Abbas who told him there would be no return to negotiations while Israel continued to build on land the Palestinians want for a future state. Obama told his Palestinian counterpart that a two-state solution was still viable. But he seemed disappointed when Abbas took a clear stance on freezing settlement activity. Even then Obama stated that in the conversations he had with President Abbas and Prime Minister Netanyahu, there seemed a possibility that a two-state solution could hold the ground. "The Palestinian people deserve an end to occupation and the daily indignities that come with it. Put simply, Palestinians deserve a state of their own," he said. Although he was quick to identify settlement construction as unhelpful to peace efforts, he steered clear of the question of a new settlement freeze. The Palestinians are hoping Obama will help broker the release of more than 1,000 prisoners held by Israel and also release up $700 million in blocked US aid.

What must have worked in Obama's mind was the resolution the United Nations General Assembly adopted on Nov 29, 2012 according Palestine the status of a non-member observer with an unprecedented vote that was supported by 138 states against nine. The nay Sayers included the US and Israel. This has almost isolated Washington across the globe and Obama might have thought to replenish the damage during his visit to the two countries.

http://www.thefrontierpost.com/article/213274/

[Roshan wadhwani]

Obama’s trip to Israel

By:Arif Ansar Monday, 25 Mar 2013

Why Turkey figured prominently

President Obama’s trip to the Middle East came at an interesting juncture. Netanyahu just appointed a new cabinet and Obama himself started his second term in January. According to most experts, the visit provided a good opportunity for both leaders to reset their ties that had not been so cordial lately.

However, the issues that have caused tension between their ties remain. While there was no breakthrough on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict during the visit, surprisingly, Netanyahu offered the apology Turkey had demanded of Israel for the Mavi Marmara incident in 2010. The development was a result of consistent American behind the scenes diplomacy, and is indicative of the approach US has adopted towards the solution for Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

From the get go, President Obama has displayed signs his second term is not going to be the same as the previous one. Fiscal pressures are driving some of these changes, but others have to do with attempts to create a legacy and the absence of the pressures connected with reelection.

The selection of John Kerry as the Secretary of Sate and Chuck Hagel as the Secretary of Defence, is reflective of the sea change in the future direction of US policy. This transformation is a direct result of the long drawn out preoccupation with global war on terror. While immediately after 9/11, the country was driven by vengeance and military operations. More than a decade later, a more realistic assessment of what the threats are and what can be done about them, is settling in. A recent report from the President’s Intelligence Advisory Board has reportedly warned that excessive focus on Al-Qaeda has created blind spots for the US.

In this context, the shift towards political approach comes across to many as being compromising or giving in. The reality is different. When one talks of political emphasis, it does not necessarily mean giving up the national interests. It just stresses on diplomacy, as opposed to military means, in achieving those interests. In some instances, however, fiscal restraints are forcing the prioritisation of the security threats and interests.

The new approach was amply at display during President Obama’s Middle East trip in how his administration is approaching the Iran crisis, Syria, and the Israel-Palestinian conflict. While Israel has consistently pressured US to take a military route towards Iran, US has wanted more time for diplomacy and sanctions to work. Both countries have differed on the time factor; specifically on the question of how long Iran has before it acquires nuclear weapons.

At a deeper level, facts on the ground give more credence to the scenario that the US is working on a fundamental change in the landscape of Middle East. The essential elements of this alteration first involve regime change in Syria, causing further isolation of its key ally, Iran. By default, this transformation will also weaken Hezbollah and Hamas that support military solution to the Israel-Palestinian conflict.

While the Gulf monarchs are apparently on board with this vision, Mavi Marmara incident had put a dent in the Turkey-Israel relations, which also complicates NATO and Israeli coordination. These tensions made it difficult to jointly deal with the situation of Syria and the risk posed by its chemical weapons. Not only that, as recently pointed out by PoliTact, because of Israeli actions, US and Turkey relations were also deteriorating to such an extent that PM Erdogan commented on 25 January, “If we get into the SCO, we will say goodbye to the EU. The SCO is better — much more powerful. Pakistan wants in, India wants in as well. If the SCO wants us, we will become members of this organisation.”

In essence, Turkey is critical for the above-mentioned soft solution to work in the Middle East. The announcement of rapprochement between Israel and Turkey during President Obama’s visit shows where the emphasis of the American approach lies. Moreover, it also requires Israel’s acquiescence to not strike Iran, which it has complied with despite the bellicose rhetoric.

Another key component of this solution involves Russian agreement, a key player in the Middle East. And, the US has given a big indication of how it intends to that; by dramatically announcing it is giving up the European component of its Missile Defence System. This was one of the key challenges in the way of US-Russia reset. While the enormous decision was met by a measured initial Russian response, it could change the nation’s posture towards both Syria and Iran.

On the other hand, Iran is not sitting around and waiting. It has moved its own diplomacy in high gear. For example, Iranian President Ahmadinejad made a historic visit to Egypt in February, which was the first since the 1979 Iranian revolution. Despite sanctions, Iran also offered aid to Egypt.

“I have said previously that we can offer a big credit line to the Egyptian brothers, and many services,” Ahmadinejad states in an interview to Al-Ahram.

The visit was watched with extreme interest in the Arab and Western world. Iran is also improving its economic ties with Pakistan. Agreement on Pakistan-Iran gas pipeline project and the decision to develop a refinery at the Gwadar port goes along these lines.

Israeli apology to Turkey will move the country in the same pool as other Gulf nations. With the change in the political landscape of Middle East, as discussed above, the resolution of Israeli-Palestine conflict will become much easier and without the need for military intervention. If the Russians decide to cooperate more on Syria and Iran, this will only increase pressure on China. This, perhaps, is the reason why the new Chinese President Xi Jinping decided to go to Russia on his very first visit abroad.

The writer is chief analyst at PoliTact, a Washington based futurist advisory firm (www.PoliTact.com and http:twitter.com/politact) and can be reached at aansar@politact.com

http://www.pakistantoday.com.pk/2013...rip-to-israel/