Is there anything new to be
taken from Kerry’s frenzied and failed effort to broker a deal between
Netanyahu and Abbas? Maybe not really “new”, but definitive, clear as clear can
be.
Israel’s ruling circles are
dead set against a Palestinian state. They don’t want it because they are bent
on continued colonial expansion in the occupied territories. The strategic goal
of the ultra Right, which exerts powerful pressure on Israeli government
policy, is to take over all of so-called “biblical Israel”, to drive
Palestinians out, to create a permanent Jewish majority by any means necessary.
The government of the United
States, even when its interests come into collision with Israeli policy, is
fully committed to preserving its huge military and economic investment in
Israel as its strongest ally in the Middle East. Moreover, persistent lobbying,
political funding and media bias have sustained a narrative in which criticism
of Israel is treated as unpatriotic or anti-Semitic. That has begun to change,
notably within the Jewish community, but it remains a major obstacle to a
substantive shift in US policy.
Once and for all, the Kerry
mission proved that the United States can’t and won’t “solve” the
Israeli/Palestine conflict.
So what now? Is there a different way to go toward ending
the occupation?
To begin with, the
Palestinians are fully justified in disregarding the Israeli ultimatum
“forbidding” reconciliation and elections to establish unified leadership and
representation for Palestine. They have every right and reason to advance their
cause within the UN and to muster support internationally for an end to the
occupation. In fact, the status quo can’t be changed without unremitting
worldwide condemnation of the occupation.
Netanyahu’s cohorts try in
vain to censor the word that keeps cropping up: “apartheid”. It was spoken
years ago by Jimmy Carter when he warned that the settlers were creating “facts
on the ground” that would block any future agreement. It was spoken by Bishop
Tutu and now, despite a forced and half-hearted apology, by John Kerry. Tom
Friedman and other longtime partisans of Israel have warned that the movement
for “Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions” is amassing support as a growing
challenge to the occupation.
The picture can change when a
majority of Israelis reject colonial rule over Palestine as shameful and
unsustainable, incompatible with a democratic Israel. The days when colonialism
was accepted, even advertised as benevolent, are over.
New avenues to reconciliation,
justice and peace may be found once a broader base in international support
replaces the exclusive, unbalanced and futile US brokered “peace process”. In
any case, experience old and new proves that ultra nationalism and religious
fundamentalism – whether Jewish, Muslim, or Christian — yields only isolation,
tragedy and ultimate despair.
