I did not expect anything spectacular from President Obama’s speech today. Nor was I impressed with his words unsupported by actions in the direction of those words. But what amused me was the reaction of the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.
Calling the idea of borders based on the pre 1967 war “indefensible”. As if the Palestinians have any sort of military significance! against rock throwing, home cooked rocket lunching, humiliated population. Has Netanyahu forgotten the history of his own people that he should impose a similar kind of indignity against the Palestinians? Granted that the methods employed by the Palestinians are crude and barbaric at best, but let us be honest and look at the facts; These are a people who were displaced and denied their homeland. Why does that sound familiar? These where a people who were of the salt of the earth. Driven from their homes, denied their identity, and denied their dignity, murdered, slaughtered, children women and elderly alike. And I am not talking about the sematic people who follow the Judaic version of the Abrahamic laws; I am talking about the sematic people known as the Palestinians whom are also followers of the Abrahamic laws according to Jesus, Mohammad, and even Moses.
The world has known and acknowledged the plight of the Jewish Semites, but the world has learned very little of the plight of the Arab Semites at the hands of the Jewish Semites, who themselves have endured atrocities beyond imagination. Both people are of the sematic race, which makes me resent the western understanding of the word to mean exclusively the Jewish people, which is not true. Arabs are Semites and they should not be denied their blood heritage which is the same as that of the Jewish people.
Israel deserves the right to exist; there is no denying this fact. But this does not mean that the Palestinians should be denied their right to exist either.
What Netanyahu has made abundantly clear is that he, and his government, has absolutely no interest in peace.
Having said all of that, I am not someone who believes that the two-state solution is an ideal one. I believe in one unified country that is both Jewish and Palestinian. A secular state that does not discriminate against its population, living harmoniously as part of one united holy land. Jews, Christians, Arabs and atheists alike. All under the single umbrella of true secularism.
But let us face the reality; there is too much bad blood between the two peoples that such a notion is not possible. With the Israelis vying hard to create a distinctly Jewish state while treating Arab Israelis as though they were, not second, but third class citizens and with the Palestinians filled with rage and anger at the indignity they have endured for the past 60 years or so, the notion of a single unified state is a long way from now. For now, the two-state solution is the best… but just for now.
Just like the Israelis cannot be denied the right to exists, the Palestinians too deserve that right. It would seem to me that the Israelis and the USA have not yet learned the lesson of the Arab spring and continue to do things business as usual. This is a mistake and it will back fire on them drastically and violently.
And once more, the USA is doing nothing but throw words around, words without meaning… peace is a word that they use loosely without meaning it. If the USA had any interest in peace they would stop vetoing UN resolutions against Israel when the majority of the world is saying “enough”. If the USA had any interest in peace they would stop sending aid to a murderous and racist Israel. Until when will the USA continue to favor regimes that are corrupt and atrocious only to fit the US national interests even at the cost of other human beings? Has the USA learned nothing from its own history? Afghanistan, Vietnam, Iraq, Yaman, Bahrain, Egypt….
Israel, that stands accused, alongside of Hamas, of crimes against humanity. The USA is doing nothing significant to insure mutual peace. The USA is only making efforts to insure peace for one side; the Israeli side, and the “pesky” Palestinians be demand. That will not make peace but sow the seed of resentment. In essence, the USA is supporting a racist regime unwilling to attempt true peace. A regime that thinks itself superior to all. The kind of bigoted superiority complex usually found with such groups as the WASPS, the KKK, and the apartheid regime of South Africa. Way to go America, for you have learned nothing from your own history or the deaths of countless civil rights activists like Martin Luther king, to name one.
The main differences between the Israelis and the Palestine are that the Israelis are much.. much better equipped and have a home land, the Palestinians are poor, use rocks and home cooked rockets as weapons in the face of advanced modern tanks, jets, cruisers, missiles and a secure and stable nation that has robbed them (robed the Palestinians) of their dignity.
Israel now refuses to talk to the Palestinians because Hamas has elected to make peace with the Palestinian Authority. Israel wants to talk to the Palestinian authority alone, excluding Hamas. But making peace with just one faction is not going to make that peace last. Peace has to be made with ALL the Palestinian faction. Not just one. The fact that the Israelis do not want to do so only indicates their unwillingness to work for true peace.
There can be no peace without dialog, and yes the 1967 boarders are indefensible only as long as there is no peace. With peace there would be no need to defend these borders. With peace there would be no need for the illegal wall that has been built on Palestinian land for the convenience of Israel’s unilateral peace.
Somehow I do not think that Netanyahu is interested in peace with the Palestinians. His small mind is only interested in staying in power and not making a blunder that would make the settlers, whom have continue to violate international laws by taking more Palestinian lands by force, to vote against him…
By treating the local Palestinian population like animals rather than humans, the settlers have cast out the Palestinians from their own lands… they torch Palestinian agricultural lands... They beat and kill Palestinians and no one cares... not the media, not the Israeli government and certainly not the US government. And then when one very desperate Palestinian goes insane with violence and kills innocent settlers, children, women and the elderly, everyone immediately condemns them for their barbaric ways and excessive force is used to bring the perpetrator to “justice”. Yet everyone conveniently forgets the reason why this one man went insane with rage. Not to excuse his atrocious acts, but there is a reason why this man went on a rampage, and instead of treating the problem what do the Israelis do? They turn the event in to a reason to further humiliate the Palestinians and thus creating more resentment and giving more Palestinians a reason to lose their minds and their grip on reality and pursue a path of violence. This is a fact... This is not some ill concocted theory or view… THIS IS A FACT.
No... Netanyahu has no interest in peace and it is evident that AIPAC is far too powerful lobby for its own good. The problem now is that everyone is still holding on to old ideologies without noticing that world is changing and that these ideologies that they are clinging on to will prove to be disastrous.
A just peace for both Israel and Palestine must, inexorably, be made yesterday... Not now, not tomorrow, but yesterday… the people of both entities and the people of the entire region deserve nothing short of true and long lasting peace. Get it through your thick skull already Netanyahu.
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