Uncertain
Outcomes:
The Israeli-Palestine Question
By Jim Miles
30 October, 2007
Countercurrents.org
After
9/11, 2001, when I first started examining the various landscapes –
physical, political, cultural, military – of events relating to
that day, I had no real idea that it would lead me into an advocacy
position of Palestinian rights, but everything about the American empire
at the time pointed towards Israel and Palestine as the then current
focal point of the majority of the Middle East, European, and Asian
political problems. I had long been familiar with American arrogance
and patriotic jingoism, with its various wars of suppression supposedly
in the name of protecting the free world from communism, with its corporate
mentality as witnessed by the failed Multilateral Agreement on Investments
as supported by the World Trade Organization and others in the group
of the Washington Consensus, and with its military supremacy, its phoney
antagonism to communism, but most notable in its formidable yet essentially
unusable nuclear arsenal. I had a lot of the pieces for the puzzle,
but had not put them together into a coherent framework. When that framework
did materialize and I was able to see the big picture quite distinctly
– yet still with puzzle pieces missing – Palestine-Israel
appeared to be the central focus. There are many other nuances in different
areas of the globe, but the central feature remained Israel and the
Middle East.
Now with events in Iraq and
Afghanistan becoming predominant within the newscasts, Israel-Palestine
has not seemed to be central to the picture. Unfortunately it still
is, as the Jewish lobby in America has the ear – and foremost
its wallets – of many Americans in its thrall, and those same
groups are now clamouring for an attack on Iran because of Iran’s
alleged desire to completely destroy Israel and Israel’s self-willed
fear of Iranian nuclear power. Regardless of that global centrality,
even if it were not there, the question of what will happen in Israel-Palestine
remains.
That basic Palestinian-Israeli
question relates to what will be the ultimate kind of country that rises
from the current conflict. The ‘status quo’ has never held
the same within Palestine-Israel except for the one factor of the power
dominance of the Israelis in most aspects of life over the Palestinian
people. The geographical situation has changed over time: from the initial
Jewish immigrants; the rebellions against the British by both the Palestinians
and the Jews; through the sudden and swift changes forced by the nakba
and twenty years later the Six Day War (or the naksah); to the gradual
and seemingly inexorable pace of settlement colonies in the occupied
territories. It has seen government structures within Palestine grow
and develop, from a relatively unconstituted state of subjection by
conquest to an acceptance of the PLO as the Palestinian representatives,
the creation of the Palestinian Authority, and finally the democratic
victory of Hamas denied and subverted by everyone caught out on the
weak limb of their own democratic discourse. Still the question lingers
as there have been no political settlements, only vague negotiations
for future status, roadmaps that lead nowhere, and ‘horizons’
that do as all horizons do by simply retreating as the searcher advances.
The question remains. What will be the outcome of the Palestinian-Israeli
conflict?
It is obvious that the current
situation will not remain that way for long. Events within and outside
the area both provide momentum towards some kind of change towards some
kind of settled outcome, of which there are several, some kind, some
not.
Ethnic Cleansing
The worst possible scenario,
the most repugnant of the choices, is that of genocide/ethnic cleansing.
While few actually advocate this, the refrain is still evident in some
Israeli voices. And while few actually advocate measures that would
apply ethnic cleansing in one grand large gesture, it could be argued
that most of the events that have occurred in Palestine-Israel over
the past half-century are in essence a prolonged form of ethnic cleansing.
The UN “Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime
of Genocide” states that genocide “is a crime under international
law” which involves various acts “with the intent to destroy,
in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group
as such.” Of the five acts listed in Article Two the first three
are apparent within Palestine-Israel: “(a) Killing members of
the group; b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the
group; (c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated
to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part.”
Along with genocide, Article Three finds punishable, “(b) Conspiracy
to commit genocide; (c) Direct and public incitement to commit genocide”
[1] Obviously there will be arguments and rationales from the Israelis
about defence of their country and the fight against terrorism, but
the overall presentation of information coming largely from Jewish revisionist
scholarship is that if the above three parameters are applied to Israel,
then they are participating in genocide/ethnic cleansing. [2]
Even before the nakba the
Zionist plan included settlements placed intermittently within the Palestinian
population to prevent and block a contiguous Palestinian geographic
area. The nakba provided a focus in which over five hundred Palestinian
villages and towns were destroyed quickly and ‘efficiently’,
if terror, murder and expulsion can be considered ‘efficient’.
After the 1967 Six Day War colonial settlements became the norm again,
continuing the earlier Zionist plans to split the Palestinian areas
into non-functional territories surrounded by a Jewish state. Certainly
there have been incidents of killing, either in groups as with Tantura,
Jenin, Sabra, and Shatilla or within the ongoing IDF interventions during
either of the intifadas or as basic ongoing crime and punishment within
the daily lives of the occupied Palestinian territories.
To date this settlement pattern
has been successful for the Jewish state as the majority of Palestinians
reside in small non-contiguous areas, many cut off from their former
agricultural areas, water sources, cultural centres, and employment,
having to communicate on back roads threaded under and around roads
preserved for Jews only. The situation within these bantustan style
cantonments very deliberately inflicts “conditions of life calculated
to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part,”
with the Israeli voice expressing the idea that hopefully conditions
will be made so miserable that the Palestinians will “choose”
to leave. This ‘status quo’ will not remain; the pressures
are much too great. Gaza is essentially an immense outdoor prison camp;
the Westbank is divided up into three small areas, none of which have
any control over any aspect of what could be considered state-hood,
except when acting as proxies for the Israelis.
Guarding a series of prison-based
cantonments is not a viable means of achieving peace for the region,
nor of establishing a democratic state. While the situation with Iran
remains tenuous, the direction that Israel will take is also uncertain,
and while I am loathe to enter into conjecture about the future, an
Iranian ‘venture’ on the part of Israel or the U.S. could
open up the path to more severe and impulsive genocide/ethnic cleansing
of the Palestinian population.
While genocide/ethnic cleansing
is an illegal and morally repugnant manner to have a final outcome (especially
in consideration of the Jewish trauma from their own holocaust), the
path to the other two main solutions are also highly problematic, although
much more favourably arguable from a moral-legal perspective. Those
two aspects, first the “two state” outcome, secondly the
“democratic state for all the peoples” outcome, will require
enormous efforts by both sides to make them agreeable, and while not
everyone can be satisfied, the majority would hopefully improve the
lot of both groups such that peace and a healthy social-cultural-political
interaction could grow between the parties.
Yankee go home
The path would be made much
easier if one of the main protagonists would simply ‘butt out’.
For while there are two cultures, two identities trying to achieve a
peaceful home, it is compounded by a third group that is there only
for the fortune of political and geostrategic considerations –
the Americans, who really do not care about the Palestinians at all
and are only supportive of Israel for their grand strategy towards the
Middle East. To a lesser but still influential sector, the American
Christian right simply wants the Jews to succeed and fulfill Christian
prophecy so that they can come in afterwards and establish their own
Christian kingdom. A further complicating factor is the Jewish lobby,
most highly recognized under the acronym AIPAC, but extending into many
more organizations and operations that influence American politics.
Even with full and open ended approval of the Bush administration, the
Israelis have not progressed to a Palestinian final settlement as expressed
above, perhaps recognizing deep down the complete moral contradiction
that would have in light of their own history; or perhaps as they recognize
that the moral force behind the situation has turned against the use
of more explicit violence and relocation, they hesitate to do so unless
conditions become suddenly more catastrophic. One of my favourite refrains,
“yankee go home”, would not solve the situation but would
facilitate - given other appropriate conditions – a more equal
dialogue between the two identities.
The American-Israeli relationship
is a tenuous symbiotic one with the Israeli government relying heavily
on American military and financial subsidies along with the political
support. American aid, mostly in the form of military aid, is generally
calculated to be around the three billion dollar mark per year [3],
with much of that going into military research that is then exported
around the world. This constitutes one third of American foreign aid
and makes up about seven per cent of the Israeli annual budget and supports
an Israeli per capita income of twenty-six thousand eight hundred dollars
[4]. Going the other way, AIPAC exerts great pressure within the U.S.
electoral system with its ability to target legislators with financial
assistance or conversely with electoral challenges. Arguments swirl
around the two as to who has the most significant impact over the other,
but regardless of that, the reality for others is of a double-headed
monster threatening the countries and cultures of the Middle East.
I realize the likelihood
of the duo self-extracting themselves from this relationship is minimal,
making the chances of a successful resolution that is acceptable to
both sides equally unlikely. It would require a politician/statesman
of enormous personal presence – or maybe even enormous skills
at subterfuge to get around his or her compatriots – in order
to separate the two. However other peoples have resolved their problems,
not perfectly, but at least beginnings towards peace and reconciliation
have been made and the killings and subjugation of other peoples has
been significantly diminished.
Israel, by it sheer military
power, could readily prevail in the Middle East without U.S. support.
The Arab governments are not united behind Palestine and never have
been. Jordan has always played the geostrategic game to its advantage,
never being a vociferous voice against Israeli atrocities or occupation,
nor challenging or threatening in any way militarily. Saudi Arabia appears
much closer in its ties to the Americans than it to the Palestinians.
Egypt pursued and achieved peace with Israel, again with massive U.S.
foreign aid ($2 billion per year) under a non-democratic government.
Lebanon is so torn apart by its own internal factions that it will never
be a threat to Israel other than that Israel seems to want the territory
up to the Litani River, a mainly Shiite area mixed up with Palestinian
refugees, natural antagonists to Israeli desires. Syria has never seriously
threatened Israel and the recent incursion by Israeli jets, while still
not fully understood as to its full strategic significance, does indicate
an Israeli ability and readiness to intrude freely on their air space.
Without the U.S., Israel would be able to defend itself against any
regional challengers.
That would lead to the conclusion
that Israel derives moral support and perhaps even moral ‘diversion’
for its actions in Palestine, while the world in general foments about
the imperial hubris of the U.S. as it attacks various countries for
its own strategic interests (control of oil, containment of China and
Russia being foremost). The U.S. gains a military protégé
that is capable of supporting its strategic efforts under the guise
of a ‘war on terror’, provides intelligence information,
and may or may not accompany the U.S. on an attack on Iran. The combination
is lethal and in the short term makes a peaceful settlement in Israel-Palestine
remote at the present, but the effort still needs to be put forward
as to what that eventual outcome could be.
Two state or one state?
Regardless of the U.S. role, the two identities involved have several
levels of definition for what will eventually become of whatever form
of co-existence is imposed or chosen. Ethnic cleansing is still a possibility
as discussed above. The remaining solutions concern the central idea
of a two state or one state solution, with the two state solution carrying
within itself several possibilities. The one state solution is obviously
a singularity, but the internal workings of such a state could have
many possible permutations.
Canada’s CBC Radio
talk show “The Current” recently hosted two authors, Ali
Abunimah, a Palestinian refugee and American educated founder of The
Electronic Intifada, and Akiva Eldar, a Ha’aretz diplomatic affairs
correspondent. [5] The two duelled verbally about their respective ideas,
Abunimah favouring the single state, Eldar supporting the two state
idea.
Abunimah spoke first, arguing
that a government was needed that represented the population of 11 million
Arab and Jewish people, to provide “protection for all the communities”
with “equal rights”. His view of the current situation is
that of a reality “intertwined and inseparable on the ground.”
Eldar started by saying the
situation had “nothing to do with religion” but with “national
and personal identity” and insisted the one state solution was
“not doable”. He continued saying that “most Palestinians
I know” support him and “after one hundred years of animosity,
we need a good divorce lawyer.” “If we wait any longer,”
he said, “we’ll find ourselves in a one state and it’s
going to be hell.”
Abunimah, by far the stronger
and more eloquent of the two speakers, insisted “We’re already
in a one state solution, there’s a fallacy that we have two separate
states or entities. The fact that the Israeli government alone decides
whether people in Gaza eat or drink, have light or darkness, is a clear
indication that there is one government.” He continued his argument
along ethnic lines, saying “Right now it is a purely sectarian
state, a Jewish sectarian state where just as in Northern Ireland you
had a sectarian Protestant state and they’ve found there that
total victory of one side or the other was impossible….The only
solution was power sharing, and if you think a one state solution in
Palestine-Israel is impossible, go to Belfast” where the shared
government “between Sinn Fein and the Democratic Unionist Party…is
the political equivalent of a Hamas-Likud coalition.” Current
events, he stated, are “leading to the destruction of both peoples.
It’s time for something new.”
Eldar argued that Israeli-Arabs
did not want to leave the Israeli state if given the choice to move
to the occupied territories, to which Abunimah replied, “Of course
Palestinian citizens of Israel don’t want to leave, why should
they? It’s their country, they were born there, but what they
are agitating for is….converting Israel from an ethnic Jewish
state which gives special and better rights to Jews into a democracy
of all its citizens.”
When Eldar started to discuss
the Jewish settlers in the occupied territories, Abunimah had to interrupt
to get him to agree that one had to include the settlers in Jerusalem
in the total. Eldar argued that by removing 50-70 000 of the settlers
that a two state situation could be accomplished. Abunimah’s counter
argument derided both these aspects, “First of all, how can you
exclude Jerusalem? Jerusalem is at the centre of this conflict….he
is saying only ten to twelve per cent, fifty to seventy thousand, would
leave. A Palestinian state with half a million settlers implanted in
the middle of it is a bantustan as in the South African model and that’s
why the Camp David accords failed, it wasn’t because of this myth
that Arafat rejected a generous offer, it was because Palestinians understood
that what they were being offered is a South African style Bantustan.”
Arguing that while Israel “is increasingly being recognized as
an apartheid state…the solution…is not more partition and
apartheid, it is to start to bring the people together in a situation
where they have equal rights and protections.”
Eldar’s response, “is
a one state solution doable? Israel is a democracy…” became
entangled in both participants trying to over talk each other, with
clarity returning when Eldar argued that the “right of return”
was “another non-starter”. Abunimah riposted quite vociferously,
“What is a non-starter for you, it seems Akiva, with all due respect,
is anything that approaches equality among all human beings regardless.”
The show host, Anna Maria
Tremonti, closed off by asking, “What do you do? What happens?”
When the two began overtaking each other, Abunimah again grabbed the
lead, talking pointedly at Eldar’s phrase that it is “just
the bottom line is different.” Abunimah responded, “The
bottom line is equality and whether you can live with it and it sounds
to me like you’re not ready but what we are talking about is the
equality between Israel as a superpower and Gaza which Israel cuts electricity
and water off from, that’s not equality.”
“That’s wrong,”
agreed Eldar.
“That’s a bantustan,”
Abunimah added a qualification.
“A one state solution
is a non-starter because most of the Israelis will not accept it so
we are wasting our time discussing it,” Eldar continued.
“Most Israelis don’t
accept a two state solution….”
“No that’s not
true…”
…and the bell rang to end the round.
Lords of the Land
From this radio discussion, the weight of common sense argument and
clarity of argument would have to ride in Abunimah’s favour, and
it prompted me to go buy both author’s most recent books to see
how their positions were represented within.
Akiva Eldar’s most
recent work, co-authored with Idith Zertal, is Lords of the Land –
The War Over Israel’s Settlements in the Occupied Territories,
1967-2007 (Nation Books, New York, 2005, 2007). Eldar takes a very negative
view of the settlement process that he examines within the years indicated
within the title. He recognizes them as being illegal, with his chapter
that discusses the issue “analyzes the legalization [legitimation?]
of the basic illegality of the civilian Jewish presence in the occupied
territories.” Further, while arguing over the legality perspective
he ironically supports Abunimah’s contention that there is already
only one state, that by “Imposing Israeli judicial authority on
the territories, and in thus expanding the authority of the Israeli
courts beyond the boundaries of the State of Israel, the army in effect
annexed the territories.” Because the inhabitants had no other
recourse, they were “coerced….to recognize, whether they
wanted to or not, this legal annexation and the authority of the Israeli
judiciary system over them.” In full contradiction to what he
tried to say to Abunimah on “The Current” he concludes,
“This single act also rendered the state of Israel and the territories
a single [emphasis added] judiciary-political entity, blurring the borders
of June 4, 1967.” The actions of the courts “eventually
afforded the highest legal and moral seal of approval to Israel’s
ruthless occupation in the territories.” At least for my way of
thinking, he is in agreement with Abunimah, that there currently is
only one state, “intertwined and inseparable,” legally,
politically, and geographically.
For the most part, the book
is an excellent guide to a standard political style history of the development
of the settlements. To their credit the authors find the process both
legally and morally reprehensible. Their view of the future, should
the settlement patterns continue, “will lead Israel along a sure
path to more disputes, more hatred, and more bereavement.” Consistent
with the interview, Israel is seen as a democratic state. Eldar’s
two state solution, whether supported by Zertal or not, supports for
the Palestinians the “non-starter” of not recognizing the
settlements that are effectively annexing Arab Jerusalem, and another
“non-starter” the denial of the right of return to Palestinian
refugees and diaspora.
A two state solution has
many permutations, from the prison-like to the relatively autonomous.
If the current situation were stabilized ‘unilaterally’
there would still be much division and separation, with minimal access
to other areas, and minimal control of access and egress. Some voices
have considered a Jordanian partner to help ‘govern’ the
bantustans, a form of governance that would be fraught with difficulty,
and still provide only a nominal autonomy – without independence
– and a nominal democracy – the kind imposed by an external
controlling power.
The wall, presented as a
defence against terrorists, and as a boundary to enclose settlements
within Israel, may be presented unilaterally as a new boundary between
Palestinians and Israelis. But as best described by Roger Lieberman
a graduate student at Rutgers University, a unilateral declaration of
the wall as a boundary creates a situation where “The economic
havoc wreaked by the Wall and hundreds of checkpoints is seen by many
hawkish Zionists as the most “practical” means of carrying
out ethnic cleansing.” That perspective is compared to the Golan
Heights where “depopulation, colonization, and annexation –
is what a substantial and dangerous segment of the Israeli body politic
(along with its enablers in America) has long had in mind for the West
Bank.” According to Lieberman the Golan Heights serves as a demonstration
as to the efficacy of “how Israeli unilateralism effectively erased
a substantial Arab community in the Levant without many people in the
outside world taking notice and protesting.”[6] The wall, and
a two state outcome based on it, would not provide a long-term stable
structure. The added complication of the Gaza Strip and how it would
fit into the arrangement seriously compromises any two state solution
at this level.
The most advanced and probably
only truly viable acceptable form of a two state solution would be the
withdrawal of the Jewish people to the green line, including the areas
of East Jerusalem they have annexed and the diplomatic-legal unification
with Gaza Strip. The return of the Jordan Valley to Palestinian control
would be a good part of this arrangement. While Israel cries ‘fear’
for its security, Jordan has proven consistently that it has no true
aggressive stance towards Israel and has been very accommodating in
maintaining a peaceful neutrality with its Jewish neighbour. While all
this in itself represents a major concession on the part of the Palestinians
in consideration of the land occupied and destroyed in the nakba and
its aftermath, it could present a ‘realpolitik’ outcome
to the current situation.
When there was a tentative
agreement reached in 1993, many Palestinians thought, “that this
unprecedented historic compromise, though bitter, was necessary. Those
who rejected the creation of a state limited to the Westbank and Gaza
Strip…were relegated to the margins of the Palestinian movement.[7]”
That the Israeli government was only interested in investing in more
time to settle more territory became apparent not too much later.
It is the “enablers
in America” combined with the ongoing perception of all options
being “non-starters” that makes this argument academic today,
yet at the same time essential. For while there are many non-starters,
and many negative enablers, possibilities do exist and need to be kept
up front where the moral and legal weight of the rest of the world can
perhaps impose some form of saner view on the situation.
One Country
Ali Abunimah’s book,
One Country – A Bold Proposal to End the Israeli-Palestinian Impasse
is consistent with his arguments on “The Current”. Before
discussing the one state outcome, he provides a well-written precis
of events leading from the nakba to the present. It is readily accessible,
combining anecdotal material with a clearly delineated sequence of events.
Throughout it all he remains consistent with his message of democratic
and human rights principles for all people. There is not really too
much force behind his arguments until later in the book: his arguments
are rational and academically sound, but seem to be just that, academic
in the face of the real situation on the ground. But then he enters
his discussion on South African apartheid and quickly demonstrates that
this is more than purely an academic argument, that if the situation
in South Africa - very similar to the one in Israel, from the warring
occupiers fighting against the British and then trying to dominate and
exclude the indigenous population – can be changed so dramatically,
then there is a very real possibility that the same could happen in
Israel-Palestine.
Abunimah begins this section
with several recognizable arguments: first that the Africans and Arabs
are seen as uncivilized peoples whose resistance to domination is irrational
and motivated by hatred (the White Man’s Burden again); secondly,
the Zionist and Afrikaners “responded to resistance” by
“rhetorically reversing the colonial relationship, claiming that
they…were the true indigenous people; and that neither the Afrikaner
nor Zionist would have gained control “without the benefit of
British power, which crushed and deligitimized indigenous resistance
on their behalf.”
Abunimah defines two points
of time in which the academic argument could become a viable reality.
First is the “hope held out by South Africa…that when Israelis
and Palestinians finally do conclude that separation is unachievable,
there is an example of an alternative to perpetual conflict.”
Similarly, when “Israelis and Palestinians commit themselves to
full equality, there is no rationale for separate states.” Abunimah
outlines several points as to how the unified government could sort
out its binational, democratic, equal rights self. Hamas, much to the
consternation of many, receives support as being the best group to lead
any Palestinian identity within a unified state partly as they “have
shown little inclination to implement far-reaching social changes along
religious lines,” and have genuinely acted at the democratic people’s
level, “while remaining remarkably open to peaceful coexistence
with Israelis.”
The one state solution, while
enviable as presented in the manner done by Abunimah, is far from being
a timely proposal. As with South Africa, the two combatants would need
to arrive at similar positions of recognizing that ongoing violence
will do neither side any good. There are obviously huge obstacles, ranging
from American involvement to the current insistence on the part of the
Israelis that the Palestinians are terrorists, their state is fully
democratic, and that their conquest of the land is a god given right.
It will take some time, some significant about face in political ideology,
to realize any stable outcome within Palestine-Israel.
There is a way forward
Current prospects are dim
for any actual settled, peaceful outcome in which human rights and democracy
are basic to whatever the final arrangement would be. Still in a state
of tension, magnified by American threats and occupations elsewhere
in the Middle East, no settlement is likely to be found soon. There
are three over-riding possible outcomes to the Israeli-Palestine problem:
bantustan style cantonments; a two state solution of some kind; or a
one state solution of some form.
The status quo may deteriorate
further into the unacceptable and repugnant form of prison-like cantonments.
There may be an imposed ‘agreement’ based on the current
wall outlines and the current settlement patterns in the West Bank and
Jerusalem, with Gaza complicating that arrangement. How does one reintegrate
a ‘hostile entity’ of ones own creation into a Palestinian
‘autonomous’ territory? A withdrawal to the Green Line would
more than likely prove acceptable to the majority of Palestinians, reluctantly,
bitterly, perhaps necessary.
The one state solution, from
an academic human rights – democratic argument is most strongly
and effectively argued by Abunimah and has the examples of Ireland (as
in the radio discussion) and South Africa (as well-defined in his book)
to work with. Obviously, from the way this presentation is worded, I,
at the moment, favour Abunimah’s one state solution as the most
significant humanitarian, egalitarian, and democratic manner into which
the situation would hopefully evolve. It will not be an easy road to
follow for either side as both have their internal factions to deal
with as well as having external geopolitical interests imposing themselves
upon the area. There are also many, many areas – religion, right
of return for both groups, education, social structures and support,
national and regional governance to name a few - that would need significant
discussion and cooperation to facilitate a one state rapprochement.
While chances at the moment seem highly improbable, the goal, the vision,
the possibility needs to be maintained, for its own end, and also to
guard against the bleak view of seeing only a prison landscape. A better
world is possible and while it may be well over the horizon at the moment,
the hope for it needs to be maintained.
[1] Adopted by Resolution 260 (III) A of the United Nations General
Assembly on 9 December 1948. http://www.un.org/Depts/dpa/prev_genocide/convention.htm
[2] Rather than footnote
all this information, the sources I have read include the following
books - see among others:
· Abunimah, Ali. One
Country
· Baroud, Ramzy. The
Second Palestinian Intifada
· Bucaille, Laetitia.
Growing up Palestinian
· Cook, Jonathan.
Blood and Religion
· Derek, Gregory.
The Colonial Present
· Eldar, Akiva and
Zertal, Idith. Lords of the Land
· Haddad, Toufic and
Honig-Parnass. Tikva. Between the Lines
· Mishal, Shaul and
Sela, Avraham. The Palestinian Hamas
· Pappe, Ilan. The
Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine
· Pappe, Ilan. A History
of Modern Palestine, Second Edition
· Pappe, Ilan, Ed.
The Israel/Palestine Question
· Rabkin, Yakov M.
A Threat From Within
· Reinhart, Tanya.
Israel/Palestine
· Reinhart, Tanya.
The Road Map to Nowhere.
· Simons, Geoff. The
Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine
· Sorkin, Michael,
Ed. Against the Wall
Many internet sites are also
sources of information for anyone wishing to research more information
on the Israel-Palestine question.
[3] Many web sources support this figure while providing a breakdown
of the details, including:
· Zunes, Stephen. “The Strategic Functions of U.S. Aid
to Israel.” http://www.wrmea.com/html/us_aid_to_israel.htm
· Francis, David R.
“Economist Tallies Selling Cost of Israel to US.”
www.csmonitor.com/2002/1209/p16s01.html
· de Rooij Paul. “U.S.
Aid to Israel – Feeding the Cuckoo.” Counterpunch, November
16, 2002.
http://www.counterpunch.org/rooij1116.html
· Frida Berrigan and
William D Hartung. “Israel's star-spangled arsenal”, Asia
Times Online, July 28, 2006.
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/HG28Ak03.html
[4] 18 October, 2007.
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/
the-world-factbook/geos/is.html#Econ
[5] “One-State for
Israel-Palestine,” September 24, 2007. http://www.cbc.ca/thecurrent/2007/200709/20070924.html
[6] Lieberman, Roger. “Annapolis and the Mandate of Heaven”.
Palestine Chronicle, October 24, 2007. http://www.palestinechronicle.com/story-10240735218.htm
[7] Abunimah, Ali. One Country – A Bold Proposal to End the Israeli-Palestinian
Impasse. Metropolitan Books, Henry Holt and Company. New York, 2006.
p. 11-12.
Jim Miles is a Canadian educator and a regular contributor/columnist
of opinion pieces and book reviews to Palestine Chronicles. His interest
in this topic stems originally from an environmental perspective, which
encompasses the militarization and economic subjugation of the global
community and its commodification by corporate governance and by the
American government.
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