The
Show Goes On ... And On
By Ali Abunimah
18 October, 2007
The
Electronic Intifada
The
"Middle East Peace Process" is like one of those big budget
Broadway extravaganzas; they go on for years, but with each revival
the cast changes. What may seem like a tired production to some nevertheless
manages to remain fresh to the gullible throngs willing to hand over
the price of admission.
Unlike a few hours of theatrical
escapism, however, the producers of the Middle East Peace Process hope
that the audience will actually believe that what they are viewing on
stage, whether performed in Madrid, Oslo, London, Washington or Sharm
al-Sheikh is real-life and even has the potential to end the conflict
caused by a century of western-supported Zionist colonization in Palestine.
In the latest revival, Condoleezza
Rice plays the US secretary of state determined to bring the long-running
conflict to a close with skillful diplomacy designed to put in place
a "process" eventually leading to a two-state solution. George
Bush, tired of being typecast as a warmonger, tries on the role of lame-duck
president who spent years enabling Israeli colonization, but who, with
an eye on his legacy, is now committed to peacefully ending the conflict
once and for all.
Other key actors include
Mahmoud Abbas, a colorless quisling whose only power base is the American
and Israeli guns that keep him installed in his Ramallah Green Zone
-- filling in for the late Yasser Arafat as leader of the Palestinians,
and Ehud Olmert, understudy to Ariel Sharon who left the stage unexpectedly.
Special guest star Tony Blair,
who just completed a long and controversial run as prime minister of
a marginal European power, hopes that by joining the peace process cast
as "Quartet special envoy" he can breathe life into a flagging
career.
Once in a while, reality
bursts on to the stage to disrupt the show -- and that has happened
again just as the producers are getting ready to take it on tour to
Annapolis, where President Bush plans to hold a meeting of key leaders
some time this autumn.
Last week, just after Abbas's
representatives met with Israeli counterparts to try to hammer out a
"declaration of principles" to unveil at the Annapolis meeting,
the Israeli army announced the expropriation of almost 300 acres of
Palestinian land near occupied East Jerusalem for the purpose of expanding
the already massive Jewish-only settlements which bisect the West Bank
and render a contiguous Palestinian state impossible. Since the peace
process began in 1993, Israel has confiscated an area equivalent to
the size of Washington, DC, for the construction of Jewish-only colonies
fully confident that none of the actors on stage will lift a finger
to stop it.
Rice feigns frustration:
"Frankly it is time for the establishment of a Palestinian state,"
she said at a press conference with Abbas. "We frankly have better
things to do than invite people [to the Annapolis meeting] for a photo
op." Yet she will be lucky if she even gets that. Already the meeting
date is likely to be pushed back, not only because of accelerated Israeli
colonization, but because despite the spin there is no fundamental agreement
between the Israelis and Palestinians on the details of what a two-state
solution would look like. As I have argued elsewhere and in my book,
One Country, peace through partition is an unachievable fantasy.
What's more, none of the
players has the credibility or strength to negotiate on behalf of those
whom they purport to represent. Abbas and his unelected cronies are
seen by many Palestinians as petty collaborators determined to do all
they can to retain their place at the master's table. Despite an overwhelming
desire among Palestinians for unity, Abbas, blackmailed and bribed by
the EU and US, refuses to talk to Hamas to heal the rifts caused by
the efforts of Fatah militias armed and supported by Israel and the
US to overturn the results of the January 2006 election won by Hamas.
There can be no serious peace talks without Hamas on board.
Olmert, who is fending off
multiple criminal corruption probes, heads a coalition that depends
for its majority on Jewish racists who cannot countenance peace and
equality with Palestinians under any circumstances. Last week, Tony
Blair met with one of those coalition leaders, deputy prime minister
Avigdor Lieberman who heads the proto-fascist Israel Beitenu party.
According to Haaretz, Lieberman told Blair that any solution to the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict "has to include Israel's Arab citizens
as well, when the basis for an agreement should be a land swap and a
population transfer." In other words, there can be no peace without
the expulsion of over one million Palestinian citizens of Israel. Lieberman
has repeatedly promised to bring down the government if Olmert even
discusses "core issues" at Annapolis such as borders, settlements
and the rights of Palestinian refugees expelled by Israel.
Haaretz did not record Blair's
reaction to this renewed call for ethnic cleansing from a senior Israeli
official. (How would Blair have reacted if Ian Paisley had publicly
declared that there could be no peace in Northern Ireland without the
expulsion of all Catholics from the Six Counties so that Protestant
supremacy could be perpetuated?) But it is a measure of how bankrupt
the process is that EU and US officials meet willingly with avowed ethnic
cleansers of Lieberman's caliber (presumably on the basis that he is
elected) and yet refuse to deal with Hamas, the democratically-elected
representatives of Palestinians under occupation. Hamas leaders have
repeatedly offered Israel a long-term ceasefire and negotiations exactly
on the Northern Ireland model that led to the Belfast Agreement of which
Blair is so proud.
Blair is apparently unable
to understand that what ended the conflict in Northern Ireland was not
his charm, but the acceptance by all parties of the fundamental principle
of equality among all people regardless of ethno-religious identity
and the progressive reform of state institutions, like the police, that
had been nothing more than sectarian militias in official uniforms,
just as the Israeli police and army that steal land for Jews are nothing
more than thuggish sectarian militias with uniforms.
In Palestine-Israel, this
means abrogating all laws in Israel that systematically privilege Jews
and harm non-Jewish citizens, ending Israel's military tyranny in the
Occupied Territories, and allowing refugees to return home. Nothing
like that will be on the agenda in Annapolis which is why the effort
will fail.
Co-founder of The Electronic
Intifada, Ali Abunimah is author of One
Country: A Bold Proposal to End the Israeli-Palestinian Impasse (Metropolitan
Books, 2006).
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