Issues behind the US-Israel Truce
The current tussle between the US and Israel over the Israeli announcement of its plan to expand Jewish settlements in East Jerusalem, at a time when the US Vice President was visiting that country to help restart peace talks between Israel and Palestine, calls to mind the nefarious state of affairs in the Palestinian territories forcibly occupied by Israel. The affront to Vice President Joseph Biden and the US, which has always stood by Israel in all international forums, has been universally condemned. The incident smacked of the tail trying to wag the dog, or an ‘infant terrible’ jeering at his own parents. Prime Minister Netanyahu has acknowledged the faux pas in the timing of the announcement, but has conspicuously said nothing about the substance of the announcement – adding 1600 housing units to a settlement in a Palestinian territory.
The state of affairs in the Palestinian territories occupied by Israel is graphically portrayed in his book ‘Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid’ by former President, Jimmy Carter, a Nobel Peace Prize winner, the architect of Camp David accords, with a personal interest in the holy land (being a bible teacher), and whose knowledge of its people and problems is based on personal observations during numerous visits to that area.
In an op-ed piece carried on December 8, 2006, by the Los Angeles Times and some other papers, he deplores the fact that while the issue of Palestine is intensely debated in Israel itself and almost all other countries, it is regarded as a taboo by the US media. He explains, “For the last 30 years, I have witnessed and experienced the severe restrains on any free and balanced discussion of the facts. This reluctance to criticize any policies of the Israeli government is because of the extraordinary lobbying efforts of the American-Israel Political Action Committee (AIPAC) and the absence of any significant contrary voices.”
Prof. John Mearsheimer of Chicago University and Stephen Walt of Harvard University in their combined research paper on ‘The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy’ have recorded their finding in the following words: “The centerpiece of US Middle East Policy is the intimate relationship with Israel …the US commitment to Israel is due primarily to the activities of the Israel lobby.”
A UN-sponsored group called the Alliance of Civilization, comprising 19 eminent academics, intellectuals and prominent officials from as many countries, had to find ways to bridge the growing divide between Muslim and Western societies. Their consensus was that the conflict over Israel and the Palestinian territories was the central driver in global tensions. While the Jewish lobbies have been playing up Huntington’s thesis on the inevitability of a clash of civilization, this UN report challenges its validity and recommends, inter alia, that the international community prepare a white paper to analyze the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and convene an international conference to reinvigorate the Middle East peace process lying dormant for several years.
A survey by the prestigious PEW Center, a few years back, had found that Muslim opinions about the West had worsened drastically with the Israel-Palestinian issue having become the principal fault line in the World.
Mr. Carter too pleads, like the UN report, for the renewal of the peace process and the roadmap. A high-minded and scrupulous person, Carter has been consistent in advocating the settlement of all disputes through dialogues and abhors the route of war, which has already proved to be counterproductive in Iraq, Afghanistan and Lebanon.
“The current US policy”, he wrote in his best-selling earlier work ‘Our Endangered Values’, “is threatening the effectiveness of international agreements that have been laboriously negotiated by almost all previous Presidents.” He contends that the policy of preemptive war negates international laws that we have pledged to honor. The Iraq war may have reduced the imminent threat to Israel but it is serving as an incentive to potential anti-US Jehadists by providing them with a cause. He deplores in the above-mentioned book that the US, which used to be seen as an ideal society and state in the Muslim countries, is now touching lowest levels of popularity. A few years back, approval ratings were a mere 2 percent in Egypt, 4% in Saudi Arabia, 11 percent in Morocco, 14 percent in the UAE and 15% in Jordan.
The last two chapters of his book on Palestine carry the crux of his message. In chapter 16 “The Wall as a Prison.” he contends that, in their search for security against suicide bombers’ infiltrations, Israeli leaders “are imposing a system of partial withdrawal, encapsulation, and apartheid on Muslim and Christian citizens of the occupied territories.” In July 2004, the International Court of Justice determined that “the Israeli government’s construction of the segregation wall in the occupied Palestine West Bank was illegal”.
Responding to the objections on his use of the term ‘apartheid’ to describe the Israeli treatment of the Palestinians in their own land, Mr. Carter explained in an interview with CBS: “It is based on a minority of Israelis occupying, confiscating and colonizing land that belongs to the Palestinians. When Israel does occupy this territory deep within the West Bank and connects 200 or so settlements to each other with a road and prohibits the Palestinians from using that road - in many cases even crossing the road - this perpetrates even worse instances of apartheid than we witnessed in South Africa.”
Perhaps it is not generally known that two separate road networks exist in the West Bank: one for the exclusive use of Jewish settlers, and the other for Palestinian natives. Palestinians are not allowed to drive their own cars in much of the West Bank while the Jewish settlers come and go freely in their own cars without having to pause at roadblocks that hold up the natives.
Persons of Palestinian origin are routinely barred from entering or residing in the West Bank; but Israeli and non-Israeli Jews can come and go and even live in that area at their will. Although one-fifth of the population of Israel comprises Palestinians, Israel is called the state of the Jewish people.
Mr. Carter identifies the following two hurdles standing in the way of durable peace in the Middle East:
“1. Some Israelis believe they have the right to confiscate and colonize Palestinian land and try to justify the sustained subjugation and persecution of increasingly hopeless and aggravated Palestinians: and
“2. Some Palestinians react by honoring suicide bombers as martyrs to be rewarded in heaven and consider the killing of Israelis as victories.”
For an abiding solution of the problem, he has the following suggestions to make:
a. The security of Israel must be guaranteed by all Arab and other neighbors.
b. Israel must acknowledge its permanent legal boundary as laid down in UN resolution #242 and its borders must be those that prevailed from its inception to the war in 1967.
c. The sovereignty of all Middle East nations and the sanctity of international borders must be honored.
Carter mentions two interrelated factors that have contributed to the perpetuation of violence and regional upheaval: “The condoning of illegal Israeli
actions from a submissive White House and US Congress during recent years, and the deference with which other international leaders permit this unofficial policy in the Middle East to prevail.” The US has exercised over 40 times its veto power in the UN almost always in support of Israel!
There is just no existential threat to Israel. The combined military strength of the Arab states is not even a patch on the might of Israel. The Arabs have already abandoned the path of war and aspire now for a solution through dialogue. Internally, the Palestinian people can merely cause a nuisance like the incidents of catharses by stone-throwing youth, or the crude rockets launched by frustrated young men of Gaza. Yet, Israel cannot change the geography of the area. It has to live in the middle of Arab lands.
A major and genuine policy shift in favor of peace and friendship over domination and occupation and the pursuit of Zionist dreams is a sine quo non for the solution of the Middle East problem and for harmonious relations with the Muslim world as envisaged by the Obama administration.
- arifhussaini@hotmail.com
