If genuine, the report published by an Israeli newspaper widely seen as Netanyahu’s mouthpiece offers a catastrophic vision of the Palestinians’ future, writes Jonathan Cook.
By Jonathan Cook
Jonathan-Cook.net
A report published this week by the Israel Hayom newspaper apparently leaking details of President Donald Trump’s “deal of the century” reads like the kind of peace plan that might be put together by an estate agent or car salesman.
But while the authenticity of the document is unproven and indeed contested, there are serious grounds for believing it paves the direction of any future declaration by the Trump administration.
Not least, it is a synthesis of most of the Israeli right’s ambitions for the creation of a Greater Israel, with a few sops to the Palestinians — most of them related to partially relieving Israel’s economic strangulation of the Palestinian economy.
This is exactly what Jared Kushner told us the “deal of the century” would look like in his preview last month.
Also significant is the outlet that published the leak: Israel Hayom. The Israeli newspaper is owned by Sheldon Adelson, a U.S. casino billionaire who is one of the Republican Party’s chief donors and was a major contributor to Trump’s presidential election campaign funds.
Adelson: Owns the paper. (East Coast Gambler via Flickr)
Adelson is also a stalwart ally of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. His newspaper has served as little more than a mouthpiece for Netanyahu’s ultra-nationalist governments over the past decade.
Netanyahu Leak?
Adelson and Israel Hayom have ready access to key figures in both the U.S. and Israeli administrations. And it has been widely reported that little of significance gets into print there unless it has first been approved by Netanyahu or its overseas owner.
The newspaper questioned the authenticity and credibility of the document, which has spread across social media platforms, even suggesting “it is quite possible the document is fake” and that the Israeli foreign ministry was looking into it.
The White House had already indicated that, after long delays, it intended to finally unveil the “deal of the century” next month, after the holy Muslim month of Ramadan finishes.
An unnamed White House official told the paper the leak was “speculative” and “inaccurate” – the kind of lackluster denial that might equally mean the report is, in fact, largely accurate.
If the document is genuine, Netanyahu looks to be the most likely culprit behind the leak. He has overseen the foreign ministry for years and Israel Hayomis widely referred to by Israelis as “Bibiton,” or Bibi’s newspaper, employing the prime minister’s nickname.
Testing the Waters
The alleged document, as published in Israel Hayom, would be catastrophically bad for the Palestinians. Assuming Netanyahu approved the document’s leaking, his motives might not be too difficult to discern.
On one view, leaking it might be an effective way for Netanyahu and the Trump administration to test the waters, to fly a trial balloon to see whether they dare publish the document as it is, or need to make modifications.
But another possibility is that Netanyahu may have concluded that there could be an unwelcome price in publicly achieving most of what he is already gaining by stealth – a price he may prefer to avoid for the time being.
Is the leak designed to foment pre-emptive opposition to the plan, both from within Israel and from the Palestinians and the Arab world, in the hope of stymieing its release?
The hope may be that the leak, and the reaction it elicits, forces Trump’s Middle East team to postpone yet again the plan’s publication, or even foils its release entirely.
Nonetheless, whether or not the “deal of the century” is unveiled soon, the leaked document – if true – offers a plausible glimpse into the Trump administration’s thinking.
Given that Trump’s Middle East team appear to have begun implementing the plan over the past 18 months even without its publication — from moving the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem to the recognition of Israel’s illegal annexation of the Syrian Golan Heights — the leak helps to shed light on how a U.S.-Israeli “resolution” of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is likely to unfold.
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo tours U.S. embassy in Jerusalem with U.S. Ambassador to Israel David Friedman, March 21, 2019. (State Department/Ron Przysucha via Flickr)
Annexing the West Bank
The proposed Palestinian entity would be named “New Palestine” — apparently taking a page out of the playbook of Tony Blair, Britain’s former prime minister who became the international community’s Middle East envoy from 2007 to 2015.
Back in the 1990s, Blair filleted his own political party, Labour, of its socialist heritage and then rebranded the resulting corporation-friendly party, a pale shadow of its former self, as “New Labour.”
The name “New Palestine” helpfully obscures the fact that this de-militarized entity would lack the features and powers normally associated with a state. According to the leak, New Palestine would exist on only a tiny fraction of historic Palestine.
All illegal settlements in the West Bank would be annexed to Israel — satisfying a pledge Netanyahu made shortly before last month’s general election. If the territory annexed includes most of Area C, the 62 percent of the West Bank Israel was given temporary control over under the Oslo accords, and which the Israeli right urgently wants to annex, that would leave New Palestine nominally in charge of about 12 percent of historic Palestine.
Map showing Israeli settlements in the Palestinian Territories.
Or put another way, the Trump administration appears to be ready to give its blessing to a Greater Israel comprising 88 percent of the land stolen from Palestinians over the past seven decades.
But it is far worse than that. New Palestine would exist as a series of discrete cantons, or Bantustans, surrounded by a sea of Israeli settlements — now to be declared part of Israel. The entity would be chopped and diced in a way that is true of no other state in the world.
New Palestine would have no army, just a lightly armed police force. It would be able to act only as a series of disconnected municipalities.
In fact, it is hard to imagine how “New Palestine” would fundamentally change the current, dismal reality for Palestinians. They would be able to move between these cantons only using lengthy detours, bypass roads and tunnels. Much like now.
Glorified Municipalities
The only silver lining offered in the alleged document is a proposed bribe from the U.S., Europe, other developed states, though mostly financed by the oil-rich Gulf states, to salve their consciences for defrauding the Palestinians of their land and sovereignty.
These states will provide $30 billion over five years to help New Palestine set up and run its glorified municipalities. If that sounds like a lot of money, remember it is $8 billion less than the decade-long aid the U.S. is currently giving Israel to buy arms and fighter jets.
What happens to New Palestine after that five-year period is unclear in the document. But given that the 12 percent of historic Palestine awarded to the Palestinians is the region’s most resource-poor territory — stripped by Israel of water sources, economic coherence, and key exploitable resources like the West Bank’s quarries — it is hard not to see the entity sinking rather swimming after the initial influx of money dries up.
Even if the international community agrees to stump up more money, New Palestine would be entirely aid dependent in perpetuity.
The U.S. and others would be able to turn on and off the spigot based on the Palestinians’ “good behavior” — just as occurs now.
Palestinians would live permanently in fear of the repercussions for criticizing their prison warders. In keeping with his vow to make Mexico pay for the wall to be built along the southern U.S. border, Trump apparently wants the Palestinian entity to pay Israel to provide it with military security. In other words, much of that $30 billion in aid to the Palestinians would probably end up in the Israeli military’s pockets.
Bethlehem and West Bank. (Dennis Jarvis via Flickr)
Interestingly, the leaked report argues that oil-producing states, not the Palestinians, would be the “main beneficiaries” of the agreement. This hints at how the Trump deal is being sold to the Gulf states: as an opportunity for them to fully embrace Israel, its technology and military prowess, so that the Middle East can follow in the footsteps of Asia’s “tiger economies.”
Ethnic Cleansing in Jerusalem
Jerusalem is described as a “shared capital,” but the small print reads rather differently. Jerusalem would not be divided into a Palestinian east and an Israeli west, as most had envisaged. Instead, the city will be run by a unified Israeli-run municipality. Just as happens now.
The only meaningful concession to the Palestinians would be that Israelis would not be allowed to buy Palestinian homes, preventing — in theory, at least — a further takeover of East Jerusalem by Jewish settlers.
But given that in return Palestinians would not be allowed to buy Israeli homes, and that the Palestinian population in East Jerusalem already suffers massive housing shortages and that an Israeli municipality would have the power to decide where homes are built and for whom, it is easy to imagine that the current situation — of Israel exploiting planning controls to drive Palestinians out of Jerusalem — would simply continue.
Also, given that Palestinians in Jerusalem would be citizens of New Palestine, not Israel, those unable to find a home in Israeli-ruled Jerusalem would have no choice but to emigrate into the West Bank. That would be exactly the same form of bureaucratic ethnic cleansing that Palestinians in Jerusalem experience now.
Gaza Open to Sinai
Echoing recent comments from Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and Middle East adviser, the plan’s benefits for Palestinians all relate to potential economic dividends, not political ones.
Palestinians will be allowed to labor in Israel, as was the norm before Oslo — and presumably, as before, only in the most poorly paid and precarious jobs, on building sites and agricultural land.
A land corridor, doubtlessly overseen by Israeli military contractors the Palestinians must pay for, is supposed to connect Gaza to the West Bank. Confirming earlier reports of the Trump administration’s plans, Gaza would be opened up to the world, and an industrial zone and airport created in the neighboring territory of Sinai.
Wall between Israel and Palestine, Anata, West Bank. (Dafna Kaplan via Flickr)
The land — its extent to be decided in negotiations — would be leased from Egypt.
Helpfully for Israel, as has previously been pointed out, such a move risks gradually encouraging Palestinians to view Sinai as the center of their lives rather than Gaza — another way to slowly ethnically cleanse them.
Meanwhile, the West Bank would be connected to Jordan by two border crossings — probably via land corridors through the Jordan Valley, which itself is to be annexed to Israel. Again, with Palestinians squeezed into disconnected cantons surrounded by Israeli territory, the assumption must be that over time many would seek a new life in Jordan.
Palestinian political prisoners would be released from Israeli jails to the authority of New Palestine over three years. But the plan says nothing about a right of return for millions of Palestinian refugees — descended from those who were expelled from their homes in the 1948 and 1967 wars.
Gun to Their Heads
Don Corleone-style, the Trump administrations appears ready to hold a gun to the head of the Palestinian leaderships to force them to sign up to the deal.
The U.S., the leaked report states, would cut off all money transfers to the Palestinians if they dissent, in an attempt to batter them into submission.
The alleged plan would demand that Hamas and Islamic Jihad disarm, handing their weapons over to Egypt. Should they reject the deal, the report says the U.S. would authorize Israel to “personally harm” the leadership — through extrajudicial assassinations that have long been a mainstay of Israeli policy towards the two groups.
Rather less credibly, the alleged document suggests that the White House is prepared to get tough with Israel too, cutting off U.S. aid if Israel fails to abide by the terms of the agreement.
Given that Israel has regularly broken the Oslo accords – and international law – without paying any serious penalty for doing so, it is easy to imagine that in practice the U.S. would find work-arounds to ensure Israel was not harmed for any violations of the deal.
U.S. Imprimatur
The alleged document has all the hallmarks of being the Trump plan, or at least a recent draft of it, because it sets out in black and white the reality Israel has been crafting for Palestinians over the past two decades.
It simply gives Israel’s mass theft of land and cantonization of the Palestinians an official U.S. imprimatur.
So, if it offers the Israeli right most of what it wants, what interest would Israel Hayom— Netanyahu’s mouthpiece — have in jeopardizing its success by leaking it?
A couple of reasons suggest themselves.
Israel is already achieving all these goals — stealing land, annexing the settlements, cementing its exclusive control over Jerusalem, putting pressure on the Palestinians to move off their land and into neighboring states — without formally declaring that this is its game plan.
It has been making great progress in all its aims without having to admit publicly that statehood for the Palestinians is an illusion. For Netanyahu, the question must be why go public with Israel’s over-arching vision when it can be achieved by stealth.
But even worse for Israel, once the Palestinians and the watching world understand that the current, catastrophic reality for Palestinians is as good as it is going to get, there is likely to be a backlash.
The Palestinian Authority could collapse, the Palestinian populace launch a new uprising, the so-called “Arab street” may be far less accepting of the plan than their rulers or Trump might hope, and solidarity activists in the West, including the boycott movement, would get a massive shot in the arm for their cause.
Equally, it would be impossible for Israel’s apologists to continue denying that Israel is carrying out what the late Israeli academic Baruch Kimmerling called “politicide” — the destruction of the Palestinians’ future, their right to self-determination and their integrity as a single people.
If this is Trump’s version of Middle East peace, he is playing a game of Russian roulette — and Netanyahu may be reluctant to let him pull the trigger.
Jonathan Cook is a freelance journalist based in Nazareth. He blogs at Jonathan Cook.net.
People have to be delude, naïve, and an idiot to thinking that any good thing could come from the such “deal of the Century” under Trump administration, that such deal would or could benefit Palestinian struggle for liberation. Under other administration, it was before unpractical, wrong and unequal rights granted to Palestinians side, but now, under Trump administration, and Kushner advising him , the so called ” deal of the century” will be more pernicious, evil and iniquitous deal of the century for the Palestinian quest, than ever before it was . Kushner is die hard Zionist and he seeking take advantage of his father in law president to grab a good deal for its Zionist benefits. The called “deal of the century” seems to be a deal that would legitimate and legalize the Zionist apartheid and ethnic cleansing, so that, any decent and fair person should support it.
Sign the frigging agreement!! Let Israel build their temple and bring down their bad ass god. We all know how much the desert god of war loves sheep blood and the smell of burning flesh. Wake up people! Remember these imbeciles think they are fulfilling ancient prophecies…..The sh*t show paradigm on this planet will not end until Israel gets it’s as* cleaned out of the mixed multitude who run most of the planet…..Then maybe we can have a little peace and quiet…..
How would that be advanced by signing such an agreement?
Would that not advance for what you claim to abhor?
Sounds unworkable
Well the reason her masjesty trump was elected is making isreal great again. So no surprises here.
It should also be stressed how horrible the oppression of the ppor jews is and how vicitimized they are. Jews are the moral leaders of the planet and masters at running concentration camps to exterminate their palestinian enemies. This is GD’s will.
I have thought, since reading about Kushner, that a plan was hatched to get Trump into the WH years ago. Kushners are friends of Netanyahu for years, Trump has been high profile for years in US and from NY. Jared wooed Ivanka–why not? both are rich–get Trump on board and Jared is none the wiser, basically an agent for Bibi. Adelson’s money backs this, Trump has bully pulpit and US Evangelicals think Israel is “chosen”. Time is ripe for their plan with Trump in WH. Certainly Jared has no credentials for what he does. No way to prove, but…
Yes, we seem to have very little info about zionist election support for Trump, despite the extensive evidence for HRC. Maybe Israelgate 2016 involved both Dems and Reps.
Sorry to tell you this but the Palestinians have earned much less then they are being offered here. Catastrophic is the result of their unwillingness to compromise for the past 70 years. They have to understand that the deal that they get today is better than the deal they will get tomorrow, which will be better than the deal they get the day after tomorrow or they will continue with their intransigence.
Now I see why you made an irrational and obscene reply to the comment below: you are a zionist tyrant with no concern for human rights. Lets hope that you are in Israel when the worst happens, as a result of your fascist buddies’ “unwillingness to compromise for the past 70 years.” Frankly, I hope that you and they are not given an opportunity to compromise.
The old Zionist ploy, blame the victim. They are nothing, the Chosen People are everything. It’s all their fault we’ve created the world’s only explicitly racist state after ethnically cleansing the country of its Palestinian Untermenschen and reducing those who remain to tenth rate helots on the margins of survival. They should be profoundly grateful that we offer to toss them the odd symbolic crumb to appease goy opinion whilst stealing what little remains to them.
Like the Jews in 1933 – they need to stop complaining and realise that things will be worse for them tomorrow and worse the day after that. Those Jews should just stop whining and suck it up.
Great comment mark!! Turnabout is fair play!
Hello Everyone, Interesting that Israel continues moving to the “enviable position” of being the next country to be ended by fir,e nuclear fire. Score another for the Right Wing around the globe. Never have they had as much influence in the past as they do now. Right Wing now translates to evil incarnate wherever they have a large influence or rule a country.
Really, you think the right wing are our saviours? How lucky we are. Or perhaps you forgot to mention why you don’t think Israel could get nuked? Your response is of far lower quality.
Showing your true colors, Zio?
amereeka and izreel – built and born on ignorance and aggression – plus ca change
Until that article was published, I held the belief that the “Deal of the Century” didn’t actually exist and was just a term used by Kushner and Trump in the same way the Republicans didn’t actually have a real plan for health care to replace ObamaCare during his second term. Now it appears that what has been unveiled is the geopolitical equivalent of the disastrous RyanCare – let’s call it “The Deal of the New American Century” or the “Clean Break From Anti-Fascism.”
To me this ‘Leaked Document’ which appeared in Adelson’s Israel Hayom is a foundational block towards building a narrative to where the Palestinians will be hemmed into a difficult corner for themselves to get out of. In other words make the Palestinians look as though they will bite the gracious Israeli/American hand that feeds them. The only thing Americans will hear is the 30 billion dollars and, that Israel relinquished to the Palestinians on behalf of a two state solution. The MSM will be sure to omit any details which will show to just how disingenuous this Plan of Jared’s really is. In the end the aim of Adelson’s efforts will be sold as ‘well at least we Israeli’s tried’ and the lack of forever gratitude by the Palestinians will be the narrative.
Trump is a natural ally of Israeli Nazis.
Didn’t Trump want to work with Russia?
And who pushed Russia gate and pushed Trump to the right against peace?
With Russia
And pull us out of wars in Afghanistan and Syria?
And into a coup in Venezuela?
Even so called progressives are pushing war against Venezuela
Cenk Uygur Keeps Trying To Out-Maddow Maddow
https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2019/05/09/cenk-uygur-keeps-trying-to-out-maddow-maddow/
The so called leaked “Deal of the Century” is Trump’s business model for the World? The model is, that the US dictates what we allow you to get, or else you DIE! Take it or leave it? Unless you agree to your own surrender, on our terms, you will suffer the consequences of Regime change chaos, Trade Wars & economic sanctions & tariffs to starve your people to comply or Military attacks & threats? Trump has shown the World America’s disgusting, zero sum game mentality & the World is now saying NO! We are prepared to fight back & fight against your Imperial tyranny? This ridiculous, Middle East plan to convince Palestinians to be American Indians in a American modelled Reservation or a US- Zionist Concentration Camp, will never be implemented, it’s DOA? But that’s so Trumpian isn’t it? Put out the tweets & threats to gauge the opinions first, then do it anyway? Lay the groundwork to surrender? But just as Iran, Russia, Nth Korea, Venezuela & China & others are now flipping America the bird & will never agree to surrendering their own Sovereignty & interests to a despotic, dying American Empire that’s heading into the Hegemonic sunset, these Countries are now openly defying the Global tyrant & bully saying “is that all you’re got”?? So Trump, the new Hitler, is trying to take on the World with economic & Military threats, bullying behaviour & trying to dictate the Worlds terms of surrender to the new US Nazi Empire? Good luck with that? Trump’s weaponisation of the US dollar & banking system is accelerating moves away from this domination? America hasn’t won any major Military conflict since WW2 despite its bloated Military budgets so Russia, China, Iran & Nth Korea aren’t intimidated by the empty threats & sabre rattling US bulls***? And America’s hybrid Warfare on multiple fronts & in multiple Countries in a lunatic Imperial overreach fails to recognise that this overreach has historical precedent with Rome’s collapse as a sign of a Empires decline & its own demise! In a GOT’s quote, the World says, with a united voice & in defiance to America, the God of Death, we will never surrender to you & die today!
a sobering analysis of the leaked terrifying Deal of the Century, jonathan cook. your guess that it’s quite real and will act to give what’s been afoot for decades an official stamp by the US seems right. to me.
of course the authors at mondoweiss are speaking about kushner’s deal to come just after ramadan, there’s a brief video of a few palestinians responding to it, no surprises as to what they say.
‘Palestinian FM calls for EU sanctions to halt US-Israeli peace plan’, May 10, 2019
Maliki spoke with Mondoweiss after addressing informal UN Security Council talks on Israeli settlements Thursday that were attended by US Middle East peace negotiator Jason Greenblatt, who is set to release the US peace proposal next month.
At that meeting, Maliki said Washington’s so-called “Deal of the Century” was tantamount to Palestinians raising a white flag. Palestinian sovereignty was not for sale, regardless of how much money on offer, he added.
“This is not a peace plan but rather conditions for surrender,” Maliki said as the US’s Middle East peace negotiator, Greenblatt, listened on. “And there is no amount of money that can make it acceptable.”
The Palestinians have dismissed US efforts since Trump decided in 2017 to move the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and declare Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.
The Palestinians want a state in the West Bank, east Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip, all territory captured by Israel in 1967.
In his address, Greenblatt did not use the phrase “two-state solution”, a bedrock of Israeli-Palestinian talks for decades. Envoys from other members of the 15-nation body voiced support for the creation of a Palestinian state.”
https://mondoweiss.net/2019/05/palestinian-sanctions-israeli/
‘Jared Kushner’s ignorant incitement against Palestinians, may 9 (well, lies, not just ignorance)
https://mondoweiss.net/2019/05/kushners-incitement-palestinians/
Say it with me, Apartheid.
Amen Neal. I find it very perplexing how we could see the obviousness of apartheid in South Africa, but none dare say the word when it comes to Israel. Separation of church and state, and equal rights for all under the law, are core foundational principles for the USA. Yet our government seeks to make Israel an exception. It makes absolutely no sense to any thinking person, and yet we saw our elected representatives jump up and applaud again and again like puppets on a string when Bibi came to speak to congress. As the great “W” would say, never “misunderestimate” the power of money to dampen rational thought.
I was reading with interest, until I came across a reference to the Persian Gulf as the Gulf. So I stopped.
If you can’t even respect a nation, be it Iranian or another, and insult them with this stupid attempt to change the name to please the littoral Sunni terrorists lining the Persian Gulf, then you can go fcuk yourselves.
Your bookmark is now removed.
Too sensitive, Expat:when much news involves other Gulfs, they too are just “the Gulf.”
The mind-set we’re witnessing here comes down to the same psychological malaise we now attribute to assholes through the centuries. We could get up quite a list of these, I’m sure. Essential is the attributes of the psychopath, although psychopath is too abstract a term to get really into the rottenness of what some humans are capable of. The term assholes, similarly, is too abstract.
The essential formula = person/nation X is superior and this superiority grants the right to control and overpower. A kind of self-complacent sickness grows morbidly all over the personality. The person exhibiting this disease is incapable of understanding where the other person, protesting, is coming from. Incapable of assessing history, or battles over ancient issues, of giving ground in any way whatever to what others are feeling. Incapable of ordinary empathy and humanness.
Additional to here, as with Palestine, we see the mind-set functioning with North Korea and elsewhere. The automatic assumption with North Korea is, by giving the kindness of our attention, North Korea should entirely capitulate to our demands. What they have actually been saying we have not heard. We had no time to hear it, because we didn’t agree in the slightest about denuclearizing that peninsula.
The mind-set includes application of a demonized imagery (color of skin, slant of eyes, headgear fashion, whatever), which colors everything toward ridicule and self-superiority.
The battle to resist this narco-solipsism, also, continues on and on through the centuries.
One thing we can say is that whoever crafted the document (whether Adelson, Netanyahoo or their sock puppet Trump) thinks that he is King of the World and has the right and power to determine the fate of everyone on the planet. It’s probably the same guy who thought he had the right to gift the Golan Heights to Israel a few weeks ago, and who is actively trying to implement simultaneous policies that completely choke and destroy the entire economies of both Iran and Venezuela. The resulting deaths are of no consequence to a leader claiming god-like powers. Hillary is pissed only because that self-styled demi-god is not her.
Yes, our US tyrants never have humanitarian goals, which would require much study, sympathy, and carefully designed foreign aid. In our unregulated market economy only the scammer bullies rise to power, and their foreign policy is only to take sides and bomb the other side. Not surprising that their domestic policy is evermore fascist.
Judging from the 30 billion my so called government has given Israel over the next 8 or 10 years I’d say that spoiling of the man child “Benny the Blade” by the other man child VINY — village idiot of New York is says it all. One Mafioso stroking the other.
Time to wake up kids this love affair is going to end up very badly for the U.S.!
Where the hell if JJ Angleton when I need someone to horse whip!
I like many aspects of the plan. If Israel behaved as any other nation at war with a hostile territory, Israel would have annexed the territory and expelled the belligerents long ago. Israel as the victor of war acquired all the land of the Golan and West Bank in a defensive war that has never been officially declared to be over. The “Palestinians” really never want(ed) peace. They deserve nothing. Their leaders use their own people to become rich. Look at the multi-millionares that rule the PLO/PA/Fatah and Hamas that are 15 years into their 4 year term. Those that criticise Israel and say nothing about the reality of the PA and Hamas are hypocritical fools. Those that criticise Israel as non-democratic are ignorant. Israel just had a democratic election where all could vote and participate. Democracy is majority rule, look it up. Israel is 75% Jewish. The people of Gaza and the West Bank would be better off if their greedy governments collapsed and were under Israeli democracy where they would have a vote and a voice.
You’ve got to love this ‘territory acquired in a defensive war’ Hasbara. Leaving aside the ridiculous claim that 1967 was in any way a defensive war, riddle me this: If the next Israeli aggression against Lebanon goes horribly wrong you would be fine with Hezbollah forces occupying Galilee, and annexing it to Lebanon? Expelling its population and moving in settlers from Iran? All’s fair in love in love & ethnic cleansing I guess.
In fact international law is pretty damn clear about the obligations of occupying powers.
1) You are responsible for the socioeconomic wellbeing of the occupied population
2) No population transfers or pillaging of resources
3) GET THE H&LL OUT
KA, you’re bringing back memories from my high school English lit class when we read about the chief piggies in Animal Farm.
“Israeli democracy”
The problem with your sort of logic is that you are expecting Arabs and Palestinians in particular to honour an ‘agreement’ imposed upon them by force.
It doesn’t work that way, the ‘agreement’ will change nothing. But force, exerted by the victims will. With the victimised party being, potentially, much more numerous and more powerful, all this will ensure is that the killings will continue until the Palestinian side prevails-is that what Israelis want? And do they believe that the insurance policy that US Imperialism provides will last forever?
Thanks for admitting the utterly foolish and racist view of the average American Jew, versus the better ones I know. Please go back a few millennia and start over, keeping principles first. I wondered who persuaded the Nazis that you were hopelessly selfish. ‘Twas you.
“Those that criticise Israel as non-democratic are ignorant.”
Your comment is either knowingly false or delusional. More and more people are waking up to the reality of what Israel is.
pissrael is a dictatorship run by satanyahu dictator for life who will never leave office until he is dead
An extremely one-sided view, KA Epps, which may be excusable as the naivete of a young adult immersed in the propaganda of the tribe, but you must consider the errors:
1. Israel was never the “victor” in a “defensive war” but stole all of its land and attacked those who wanted it back, stealing more land. Why hide from the most obvious fact about Israel? It is undeniable, and hiding from it is self-serving.
2. Democracy without minority rights is a form of dictatorship. Israel does not have minority rights for Palestinians, and attacks the territories of the victims of its ongoing crimes. Are you willing to incorporate enough Palestinians that Israel will be 75% Palestinian, as it was before Israel began stealing land, and force the Jews there to live under that kind of “democracy”? No, so the argument is self-serving.
3. The nature of government of the Palestinians results entirely from the zionist land thefts and attacks and conspiracies to control them. Obviously it is not what they would choose if they were not the victims of Israel; that is blaming the victim. There is no basis for such conclusions, which are again entirely self-serving.
One can sympathize with a young person trying to see the virtue of their own tribe by learning its narrative, but it never accords with history and the facts. By the late high school years or college, we must seek to understand the faults of the tribes in which we find ourselves, or we allow the tribal tyrants to control and abuse us all our lives for their own gain. So it is in every tribe, not only the Israelis or the Jews elsewhere.
Those who truly care for justice must set right the wrongs of their own tribe. Otherwise they reject the teachings of the tribe.
I’m sure you “like the plan”, just like Nuttyyahoo does. It gives him everything and the current Shabbos Goy in the White House rubber stamps everything he wants just as all the other 30 Shekel Whores there have done in the past. Juden Uber Alles. All the rest of humanity are just animals put on the earth to serve the Chosen People. Typical Zionist ploy – blame the victims. Look what those terrible Arabs have made us do to them! Israel has stolen the land and expelled the inhabitants, though apparently that’s news to you. Committing atrocities of a Nazi character on a Nazi scale in a carefully preplanned campaign of mass murder, ethnic cleansing, and denial of human rights on a colossal scale. 1967 was a continuation of Zionist aggression, long in the planning, to steal the remaining 22% of Palestine and Arab East Jerusalem the Zionists had been unable to steal in 1948. The Zionist have never wanted peace. If they did, they could have had it on very favourable terms to themselves any time over many decades. They want everything that doesn’t belong to them, then they want more. The only reason Lebanon isn’t still occupied by the Zionists and covered with their filthy thieving illegal settlements is because Hezbollah drove them out in a 20 year campaign. That is the only language Zionists understand. But of course, anybody who objects to Zionist mass murder and ethnic cleansing is a “terrorist.” Hamas (created by Israel) won a democratic election in 2006. This was promptly ignored so the corrupt quisling stooge Abbas could remain in power serving Zionist interests. Even such a corrupt and contemptible individual as Abbas could never agree to such a sell out. Israel is the only openly racist Apartheid state on the planet, a rogue terrorist regime. Apartheid South Africa (to which Apartheid Israel sold atomic bombs) was “democratic” for white people. Israel is 75% Jewish because almost all its rightful inhabitants were brutally expelled (those who weren’t simply murdered) by Jew terror gangs with the connivance of British imperialism. If you really believe that Nuttyyahoo and the Nazi filth currently ruling the Holy Land would ever give “a vote and a voice” to the inmates of their Gaza Auschwitz, you are even more stupid and mendacious than you sound.
Thank you for your excellent comment,for you have spoken from the bottom of my soul and heart and deserves to be applauded!
KA Epps, I agree with your last comment.
“The people of Gaza and the West Bank would be better off if their greedy governments collapsed and were under Israeli democracy where they would have a vote and a voice.”
Judeo-centric laws and policies would still exist but the rights of non-Jews would create pressures to create a state where all people are treated equally. Kind of like freeing the slaves, which put our democracy heading toward greater equality. Only it would happen much faster.
I suspect the Arabs would have to contend with the likes of you given your comments before the last one, but that is OK. People change as would your descendants.
Yet apparently Palestinians in Israel are not granted minority rights, and would not be permitted to become a majority, so it would not serve them at all. The freeing of slaves by the UK and the US was motivated by a sense of justice; it did not create that.
“These states will provide $30 billion over five years to help New Palestine set up and run its glorified municipalities. If that sounds like a lot of money, remember it is $8 billion less than the decade-long aid the U.S. is currently giving Israel to buy arms and fighter jets.”
You can already envision the slick Zio spokesman on CNN telling Wolf IDF Blitzer in a confident tone, “The Palestinians were offered $30 billion and they turned it down…” as Wolf IDF Blitzer nods his head.
Because America petrodollars can buy ANYTHING, even a people’s freedom, well-being and right to self-determination.
Typical American approach to everything: make ’em a “deal they can’t refuse,” then blame them when we “are forced” to exterminate them like cockroaches for their “own good.”
“The Islamic Resistance Movement began more than thirty years ago at an historical moment in time which it knew to be fraught with absolute peril for their people. The founders of this national liberation struggle examined the overwhelming military capabilities of Israel, fostered by its global superpower sponsor, the United States […] resistance was not a lifestyle choice or a revolutionary pose. It was existential necessity, just as it is now.
“Everything Hamas predicted then has come to pass. Here, a generation later, it should take no comfort reminding the world that they were right in their analysis. Israel has grown only stronger and more rapacious, more intransigent and murderous in its deeds. Its “democracy” did not save it from becoming a racist, apartheid state presiding over a military occupation of millions of Palestinians. Israel’s policy of creating “facts on the ground”– that is, the illegal settlement project – has transitioned from a de facto expulsion and annexation policy into a de jure one, as its prime minister calls for the removal of Palestinians and the annexation of the West Bank, and the American president and congress pre-emptively applaud the crime-to-be. The Golan Heights–sovereign territory of another nation– is now Israel’s by force, cynically annexed, while Syria struggles in the throes of war. And Jerusalem (al Quds) is ringed by new, fortified suburbs and restricted highways demolishing Palestinian neighborhoods and cutting off their city from them. America now calls Jerusalem Israel’s capital–in direct violation of international law. Since 1967, successive U.S. administrations have told Palestinians to trust in their good faith as brokers of a just peace. This has been a lie, as Hamas anticipated then, America was running cover, a stalling tactic, for the slow-motion destruction of Palestinian national aspirations. Tragically, tens of thousands of Palestinians have been killed and maimed and many more imprisoned by Israeli state violence since Hamas began. The international community has done little to stop the monstrous crime unfolding.
“[…] the U.S. administration through its craven spokesman Jason Greenblatt, a Zionist real estate lawyer from New York, charged with shepherding the ‘peace process’ for the President as the Special Representative for International Negotiations, heaps insult upon injury, twisting history and recent events in a grotesque parody of a policy statement, adopting the Likud Party platform as the publicly declared U.S. position. None of us should be surprised by the falsifications in the Trump Administration’s official pronouncements. It has proven itself, after all, to be a presidency built on lying. Yet only the most gullible American readers could possibly believe its juvenile ‘blame Hamas’ refrain […]”
“To the Greenblatts and Trumps and their Zionist choir, no amount of campaign sloganeering in puerile public statements can rewrite the palpable facts of Israeli aggression and its deadly occupation or recast Hamas from a lawful indigenous defense force into a mercenary political outlier. Nor can the soon to come US ‘deal of the century’ entice millions of Palestinians to surrender an age-old history and tradition to the cheap ring of a common real estate cash box.”
The Enemy is Not Resistance
By Stanley L. Cohen
https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/05/10/the-enemy-is-not-resistance/
Here is an article that compares how major U.S. newspapers cover news items regarding both Palestine and Israel:
https://viableopposition.blogspot.com/2019/04/the-pro-israel-skew-in-american.html
The pro-Israel narrative has become so firmly entrenched in the American mainstream media that it is almost impossible for news consumers to discern the truth about the situation in Israel and Palestine. This has greatly benefitted Washington which has made it abundantly clear that it sides with Israel in this fifty year-old conflict.
Disgusting. I know that the religious types believe that their sky pilot will bring about justice but I haven’t seen it. If the Jews think that this will win them any friends, they’re more delusional than I thought.