At IPS, on peace vs. settlements
My piece at IPS today is titled Can Final Peace Deal Overcome Settlements Roadblock?
I've also archived it here.
Tell me (courteously, as always) what you think...
I really do wonder how a person as gifted and bright as yourself can indulge in such self-delusion, if that is what this is.
However, some seasoned analysts of Israeli-Arab negotiations argue that the main focus for Obama and all others who seek a fair and durable peace in the region should now be not the settlement-building issue, but to start - and win speedy completion of - the negotiation for a final peace agreement (FPA).
Seasoned analysts are those who have allowed the four decades long occupation of the small part(s) of Palestine left to the Palestinians to continue.
From that perspective, any further prolongation of the fruitless tussle over the settlements can be seen both as a huge time-waster and as a growing drain on Obama's political capital domestically and internationally.
What can one say? Clearly the concern is for Obama, not the Palestinians and the continuing rape of their land. Clearly the train is leaving the station on the final expropriation of all of Palestine and there is a growing lack of patience with those who oppose such a program. They are "wasting time".
These analysts point out that any FPA will necessarily include a demarcation of the final borders between Israel and the future Palestinian state.
The occupation by Israel of all of what was once Palestine has been de facto the case for more than four decades. It must end now, and not be pushed into the future, with Israel building more and more of its monstrous "facts on the ground" each minute.
If one cannot "instantly transform" four decades of silence and acquiesence to an illegal occupation into clear and plain opposition to it, what in the world makes you think that such an "instant transformation" can happen in the future? This is the Israeli road to annexation via procrastination.
Perhaps it is the same hope for "change you can believe in", mocked along every dimension with each passing day, that is being indulged here? Or propagandized?
It is time to admit that you have made a dreadful mistake in judgment, if it was not a purposeful "mistake", in backing Barack the 800 Million Dollar Man Obama.
You have no right to scuttle the demands of the Palestinians for justice just in order to save face. And certainly no right to join with Obama's patrons in actively selling them out.
I am just a poor human myself of course and as liable as you or anyone else to transform situations that appal me into something other than what they are. Perhaps it is only because I do not rub shoulders with the "in" crowd as you do that reality sticks out like a sore thumb to me, whereas you are able to see it nicely manicured and attractive, ready to raise a glass in toast to, at the FPA. Along with a delicious piece of pie, in the sky, when we die.
Is there some reason that IPS does not translate your articles into Arabic? Their lead story today is about the Latin American response to the Honduran situation. It seems to me that IPS' audience would be better served leading its Arabic section with opinion pieces about the Middle East.