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The Charade of Israeli-Palestinian Talks
It is hardly a secret that for 35 years the U.S. and Israel have stood virtually alone in opposition to a consensus on a political settlement that is close to universal.
Washington’s pathetic capitulation to Israel while pleading for a meaningless three-month freeze on settlement expansion–excluding Arab East Jerusalem–should go down as one of the most humiliating moments in U.S. diplomatic history.
In September the last settlement freeze ended, leading the Palestinians to cease direct talks with Israel. Now the Obama administration, desperate to lure Israel into a new freeze and thus revive the talks, is grasping at invisible straws–and lavishing gifts on a far-right Israeli government.
The gifts include $3 billion for fighter jets. The largesse also happens to be another taxpayer grant to the U.S. arms industry, which gains doubly from programs to expand the militarization of the Middle East.
U.S. arms manufacturers are subsidized not only to develop and produce advanced equipment for a state that is virtually part of the U.S. military-intelligence establishment but also to provide second-rate military equipment to the Gulf states–currently a precedent-breaking $60 billion arms sale to Saudi Arabia, which is a transaction that also recycles petrodollars to an ailing U.S. economy.
Israeli and U.S. high-tech civilian industries are closely integrated. It is small wonder that the most fervent support for Israeli actions comes from the business press and the Republican Party, the more extreme of the two business-oriented political parties. The pretext for the huge arms sales to Saudi Arabia is defense against the “Iranian threat.”
However, the Iranian threat is not military, as the Pentagon and U.S. intelligence have emphasized. Were Iran to develop a nuclear weapons capacity, the purpose would be deterrent–presumably to ward off a U.S.-Israeli attack.
The real threat, in Washington’s view, is that Iran is seeking to expand its influence in neighboring countries “stabilized” by U.S. invasion and occupation.
The official line is that the Arab states are pleading for U.S. military aid to defend themselves against Iran. True or false, the claim provides interesting insight into the reigning concept of democracy. Whatever the ruling dictatorships may prefer, Arabs in a recent Brookings poll rank the major threats to the region as Israel (88 percent), the United States (77 percent) and Iran (10 percent).
It is interesting that U.S. officials, as revealed in the just-released WikiLeaks cables, totally ignored Arab public opinion, keeping to the views of the reigning dictators.
The U.S. gifts to Israel also include diplomatic support, according to current reports. Washington pledges to veto any U.N. Security Council actions that might annoy Israel’s leaders and to drop any call for further extension of a settlement freeze.
Hence, by agreeing to the three-month pause, Israel will no longer be disturbed by the paymaster as it expands its criminal actions in the occupied territories.
That these actions are criminal has not been in doubt since late 1967, when Israel’s leading legal authority, international jurist Theodor Meron, advised the government that its plans to initiate settlements in the occupied territories violated the Fourth Geneva Convention, a core principle of international humanitarian law, established in 1949 to criminalize the horrors of the Nazi regime.
Meron’s conclusion was endorsed by Justice Minister Ya’akov Shimson Shapira, and shortly after by Defense Minister Moshe Dayan, writes historian Gershom Gorenberg in The Accidental Empire.
Dayan informed his fellow ministers, “We must consolidate our hold so that over time we will succeed in `digesting’ Judea and Samaria (the West Bank) and merging them with `little’ Israel,” meanwhile “dismember(ing) the territorial contiguity” of the West Bank, all under the usual pretense “that the step is necessary for military purposes.”
Dayan had no doubts, or qualms, about what he was recommending: “Settling Israelis in occupied territory contravenes, as is known, international conventions,” he observed. “But there is nothing essentially new in that.”
Dayan’s correct assumption was that the boss in Washington might object formally, but with a wink, and would continue to provide the decisive military, economic and diplomatic support for the criminal endeavors.
The criminality has been underscored by repeated Security Council resolutions, more recently by the International Court of Justice, with the basic agreement of U.S. Justice Thomas Buergenthal in a separate declaration. Israel’s actions also violate U.N. Security Council resolutions concerning Jerusalem. But everything is fine as long as Washington winks.
Back in Washington, the Republican super-hawks are even more fervent in their support for Israeli crimes. Eric Cantor, the new majority leader in the House of Representatives, “has floated a novel solution to protect aid for Israel from the current foreign aid backlash,” Glenn Kessler reports in The Washington Post: “giving the Jewish state its own funding account, thus removing it from funds for the rest of the world.”
The issue of settlement expansion is simply a diversion. The real issue is the existence of the settlements and related infrastructure developments. These have been carefully designed so that Israel has already taken over more than 40 percent of the occupied West Bank, including suburbs of Jerusalem and Tel Aviv; the arable land; and the primary water sources of the region, all on the Israeli side of the Separation Wall–in reality an annexation wall.
Since 1967, Israel has vastly expanded the borders of Jerusalem in violation of Security Council orders and despite universal international objection (including the U.S., at least formally).
The focus on settlement expansion, and Washington’s groveling, are not the only farcical elements of the current negotiations. The very structure is a charade. The U.S. is portrayed as an “honest broker” seeking to mediate between two recalcitrant adversaries. But serious negotiations would be conducted by some neutral party, with the U.S. and Israel on one side, and the world on the other.
It is hardly a secret that for 35 years the U.S. and Israel have stood virtually alone in opposition to a consensus on a political settlement that is close to universal, including the Arab states, the Organization of the Islamic Conference (including Iran), and all other relevant parties.
With brief and rare departures, the two rejectionist states have preferred illegal expansion to security. Unless Washington’s stand changes, political settlement is effectively barred. And expansion, with its reverberations throughout the region and the world, continues.
© The New York Times Syndicate
ABOUT THIS AUTHOR
Noam Chomsky is Institute Professor & Professor of Linguistics (Emeritus) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the author of dozens of books on U.S. foreign policy. He writes a monthly column for The New York Times News Service/Syndicate.
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Reader Comments
Chomsly’s final solution hits its usual dead end.
Either the Palestinian Authority sees potential value and gain in an outcome fashioned through peace talks or they don’t. If negotiations aren’t a vehicle for ending expansion of settlements, what is? Armed struggle? Cyclical “asymetrical” warfare and reprisal?
Failure to engage through the imposition of preconditions only guarantees further settlement expansion and violence..
It used to be said of Arafat that he never missed an opportunity to miss an opportunity.
Attempting to negotiate an outcome by refusing to negotiate at all falls into that category of failed strategic gambits. Friends of the Palestinan people shouldn’t be cheerleading such self-defeating obstinancy..
Lou
Posted by Lou Nayman on Dec 2, 2010 at 7:43 AM
Really nice topic for me.
Mojoblast
Posted by hallen madona on Dec 4, 2010 at 4:39 AM
Louaft,
Seeing the potential value of “peace talks” is indeed the problem. While most people agree that negotiation is the most beneficial way to resolve the crisis, the problem is that both parties must perceive some gain from negotiation versus war. The party that can get everything it wants by force does not want or need negotiation. Israel has a monopoly on overwhelming force. It takes what it wants, and even when it “negotiates,” it really dictates rather than negotiates in good faith, using the inevitable rejection of such dictation as further excuse for more war.
Combined with the cover provided by the United States over all these years (including for illegal settlement-building in the occupied territories), this has created a mindset in many Israelis that war is easier than negotiation (your “dead end”). The question is how to turn around this Israeli mindset of obstinancy towards a just and viable peace (i.e. should the methods be violent or non-violent).
Contrary to the narrative fed to us by the US MSM, most Palestinians have engaged in non-violent methods of resistance to the Zionist Project since the early 1900’s to no avail. See the discussion following the article entitled “Reading Ghandi in Budrus” on this website at:
http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/discuss/6529/#63358
While this has led some Palestinians to the conclusion that violence is the only answer, others have decided that international pressure similar to that brought upon apartheid South Africa might be more effective. Many “friends of peace” have supported just such a method (BDS). See Neve Gordon:
“It is therefore clear to me that the only way to counter the apartheid trend in Israel is through massive international pressure. The words and condemnations from the Obama administration and the European Union have yielded no results, not even a settlement freeze, let alone a decision to withdraw from the occupied territories. I consequently have decided to support the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement that was launched by Palestinian activists in July 2005 and has since garnered widespread support around the globe. The objective is to ensure that Israel respects its obligations under international law and that Palestinians are granted the right to self-determination.”
See:
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/08/20-10
We cannot lecture the dispossesed about non-violence without offering them (and supporting) non-violent alternatives. If people are truly opposed to violence as a means of resistance, supporting non-violent methods (such as BDS) are best first steps towards getting to a just and fair negotiated settlement that most people rightly seek.
Posted by Imran on Dec 6, 2010 at 10:48 AM
Probably the moment when Israeli will be holden even by those her traditional allies,the self called members of “the free world”,as a pariah state and a real danger for the world due to her nuclear weapon,fanatcism,way to solve problems with lobbies,corruption ,is more and more closer.The media support,which spread years of lies about Israel the little country which shared the same values with the Western nations and even defend the West against the “threats “put by Islam,is forced to use now lie slogans that already don’t impress anyone.The lies about Goldstone report,the lie about the killing of 9 aider in international waters motivates that the victims attacked the innocent Israeli soldiers,the Gaza siege,the permanent steal of Palestinian land done together with the tricky pretense on their will for “peace talk”.And beyond all these the insolent effort of a country with more than 200 nuclear heads to oush all the world through a daily liar propaganda ,to attack Iran because many Arabs “leaders”(namely those puppets manipulated by US) see,along with Israel Iran as the big problem for world.Of course 88% of Arabs people which see Israel as the bigger threat for peace (and 77% ,the leader of the “free world US) don’t matter.
Posted by sherban on Dec 12, 2010 at 11:23 PM
Mr. Chomsky’s analysis regarding the charade that is the Middle East “peace process” hits its usual home run, yet again. See MJ Rosenberg’s article in the Huffington Post entitled “Palestinian Papers: What the Al Jazeera Blockbuster Means.”
“Al Jazeera’s stunning revelations about Israeli-Palestinian negotiations have different meanings for Israelis, Americans and for Palestinians.
“The bottom line is that, despite the assurances it gave to the Palestinian people that it was driving a hard bargain with the Israelis, the Palestinian Authority accepted Israe’ls position on every key point: borders, Jerusalem, settlements, refugees.
“On no major issue did the PA hold the line. None.
“The Palestinians offered Israel everything Israel wants and Israel still said ‘no’ with the backing of the United States.
“So what does it mean?
For Palestinians, it means that the Palestinian Authority understands that with the United States solidly backing every Israeli position no matter how extreme, the only thing it can do is negotiate for crumbs. It never told the Palestinian people that; pretending to be standing firm when, crushed by the combined weight of Israel and the US, it was unable to represent them in any serious way. Its credibility is in tatters, although it is hard not to have sympathy for the PA. What can it really do when it, not Israel, has no negotiating partner and, on top of it, America sits on its face like a thousand pound gorilla?
“For Israelis, they can be reassured (if they are on the right) that they have a government that intends never to give up anything. The settlements are all safe, even mega-settlement Ariel, smack dab in the middle of the West Bank. All of Jerusalem will be theirs. Above all, they need not worry about negotiations because Israel is not really negotiating. It is playing at negotiating.
“The Israeli left learns nothing new here except that the Netanyahu government has no interest in peace on any terms and that more wars are inevitable. It needs to bring this government down and elect one expressly dedicated to ending the occupation. (Yes, that could take years).
“As for Americans, we learn, as if we didn’t know, that due to the pressure of AIPAC, we simply lie about the whole conflict. We pretend that the Palestinians still need to make concessions for peace when there are none left to make. No matter what the provocation—the brutal attack on Gaza flotilla, the blockading of Gaza, Israel’s lies about the Goldstone Report, the land grabs in Jerusalem, the shootings of innocent Palestinians, the monstrous behavior of settlers—we are silent UNLESS we can enthusiastically endorse Israel’s position. We are not an honest broker. We are no broker at all. Worst of all, we know (the Al Jazeera papers show us) that we are endorsing Israeli positions that are lies.”
See:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mj-rosenberg/
what-the-al-jazeera-block_b_812951.html
Posted by Imran on Jan 24, 2011 at 10:32 AM
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