Resolving the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict
By Abdul Jabbar, PhD
Professor, Middle Eastern Studies
City College of San Francisco
California
It is our moral obligation to bring an immediate end to the death and destruction that Israeli government has been inflicting on the Palestinians in Gaza for several months. On December 27, more than 200 Palestinians were killed (mostly civilians, including
women and children) and hundreds injured in Israeli attacks. On Dec. 28, Israel
struck again, pushing up the death toll to 280 -- the highest one-day fatalities in
decades. Israel claims, and our heavily biased mainstream media seems to acquiesce, that
the attacks are in retaliation to the Hamas rocket attacks on Israel.
Even though the rocket attacks are to be deplored, rarely have they resulted in any Israeli loss of life. Instead of addressing the underlying causes of Palestinians' frustration and their reduction to less-than-human status by Israeli blockade of food, water, fuel,
medicine, electricity, and other basic necessities of life, Israel ends up killing hundreds of Palestinians and injuring many more on a regular basis, thus escalating the cycle of violence. During a blockade of the kind that Gaza has been subjected to for so long --
an act condemned by various Human Rights organizations and the United Nations -- one wonders what the Israelis and the US government expect the Gazans to do. They
are being killed directly by Israeli bombing attacks and indirectly on a daily basis through the blockade. Many times, even the UN relief agencies carrying life-saving drugs were prevented from entering Gaza. Under such dire conditions, to awaken the sleeping world, the militants fire rockets on Israel, which, logic dictates, they should not do, but there is nothing logical about the situation. Hamas won the elections in 2006 and should have been allowed to form the Palestinian government, but Israel and the US did not accept the
Palestinian people's verdict.
According to the shocking revelation by David Rose in his "Vanity Fair" article "The Gaza Bombshell" (April 2008), "President Bush, Condoleezza Rice, and Deputy National-Security Adviser Elliott Abrams backed an armed force under Fatah strongman
Muhammad Dahlan, touching off a bloody civil war in Gaza." Now is it logical for a democratic country like the United States -- that claims to be committed to democracy to the Middle East-- to resort to such anti-democratic and destabilizing tactics?
Israel and the US government base their boycott of Hamas on the highly questionable accusation that Hamas is a terrorist organization. Hamas provides social services, medical care, educational facilities, and similar basic needs for the Palestinians. One wing of Hamas is militant and launches attacks against Israel to resist the Israeli illegal occupation of West Bank and Gaza in violation of UN Resolution 242.
Contrary to Israeli and US government claims that Hamas is out to destroy Israel, the Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Hanieh has repeatedly said that Hamas is willing to live in peace with Israel according to the pre-war 1967 borders. Most neutral scholars and observers who want a peaceful solution to this longest lasting and menacing problem believe that Israel finds one excuse or another to go on occupying Palestine.
Once again the US and Israeli position seem indefensible logically. Israel's defense has been guaranteed by the US. Shouldn't we be talking about the Palestinians' defense. Israel already exists and is a super power with more than 300 nuclear bombs. Isn't it ridiculous to ask Hamas to recognize Israel's right to exist? Shouldn't it be simultaneous, mutual recognition of both sides by both?
Now, about the difficult task of solving this explosive problem, our responsibility and our accomplice status become evident with the knowledge that Israel is carrying out its acts with our F-16s, Apache helicopters, and other US arsenal. As the very first step, to bring Israel into compliance with international law, we should give Israel a choice: Either withdraw to the pre-1967 border in compliance with the UN Resolution 242 or lose our financial and diplomatic support. There can be no justification for our continued funding of Israeli aggression to the tune of billions of dollars worth of US money. That money is direly needed here at home to alleviate the sufferings of millions of Americans who have been made homeless and left without jobs as a result of the economic crisis.
This simple step by the US government will work miracles to bring peace and undo most of the damage done by our morally, politically, and economically wrong policies in the Middle East. With the illegal invasion of Iraq and death and destruction we have inflicted on Iraqi people who only wished to be our friends, is there any doubt that our leaders have caused America to sink to the lowest possible esteem in the world and made our lives unsafe here and abroad by their indefensible, immoral, and friend-into-foe
transforming policies? President Bush could still do something positive before he leaves office. President-elect Obama and his team can waste no time to start repairing the damage done by America to itself and the world. A simple step like the one I have suggested will go a long way toward winning the hearts and minds of billions of people all across the globe and ending terrorism against the United States. Just imagine our
government launching a major campaign for peace, starting with ending the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. That could be a turning point in world history. True security for Israel lies in living at peace with Palestinians and the neighboring countries. The goal is achievable because, according to various polls (including some that are mentioned
in Jimmy Carter's book "Palestine Peace Not Apartheid"), over 64 percent Israelis and over 90 percent Palestinians want to live in peace with each other in two neighboring, sovereign states. The only country in the world that can help push the two parties to that goal is the United States. And the time is NOW.
If the current US President or the President-elect fails to take this desperately needed step, it is the duty of every American to get involved with the process to rescue our country from the clutches of war-crazed and oil-driven policies that have literally brought us to the brink of disaster. We can no longer take the easy way out by saying that we are not the politicians and that we personally aren't doing anything wrong. We ARE doing something grievously wrong by remaining silent in the face of atrocities being carried on with our money and our weaponry to pursue illegal policies that can bring nothing but disaster all around the world. We need to remember that Israeli illegal occupation of
Palestine has been going on since 1967 and has resulted in thousands of avoidable deaths, injuries, dislocations, and similar atrocities.
