Palestinians Disqualify U.S. As Peace Broker
01 February 2013
By Nicola Nasser**
The "unbreakable alliance," which will be confirmed by
the upcoming visit of President Barak Obama to Israel
, will disqualify the United States as an honest
broker of peace in the Arab Israeli conflict in
Palestine , a Palestinian veteran peace negotiator
says.
This "unbreakable alliance" will doom whatever hopes
remain during Obama's visit for the revival of the
U.S. - sponsored deadlocked "peace process," on the
resumption of which depends the very survival of
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' leadership, and
explains as well the Palestinian frustration, low
expectations, unenthusiastic welcome and the absence
of celebrations for their most cherished among world
celebrities, in a stark contrast to the euphoria that
is sweeping Israel in waiting for what the U.S. and
Israeli officials are describing as an "historic"
visit.
On February 19, the Israeli Prime Minister's Office
released the official blue, red and white logo that
will be on all documents and signs during Obama's
visit late in March. The logo shows the words
"Unbreakable Alliance" written in English and Hebrew
under a combined Israeli and U.S. flags.
During his visit, Obama will become the first ever
serving U.S. president to receive Israel's
presidential medal to honor the fact that he has
"established the closest working military and
intelligence relationship with Israel in the country's
history: Joint exercises and training, increased
security assistance every year, unprecedented advanced
technology transfers, doubling of funding for Israel's
missile defense system, and assistance in funding for
the Iron Dome system," according to Steven L. Spiegel
in Huffington Post late last year.
Speaking exclusively to RFI Hanan Ashrawi, the
Palestinian veteran peace negotiator and member of the
executive committee of the Palestine Liberation
Organization (PLO), Israel's partner in signing the
defunct Oslo peace accords, said the first term
Obama administration "have just managed to buy more
time for Israel" to "create facts on the (Israeli
occupied Palestinian) ground."
"Our experience has been really tragic with this
American administration," which "started with such
high hopes and tremendous promises," but "they backed
down so quickly it was incredible," she added, to
conclude: "The U.S. has disqualified itself as a peace
broker."
Therefore, "there are no plans to celebrate" Obama's
visit to Ramallah, because "they haven't forgotten the
part he played" in aborting the PLO's efforts in 2011
to win the United Nations' recognition of Palestine
statehood as a full member and in opposing its UN
recognition as a non member observer state the next
year, according to Shlomi Eldar in Al-Monitor on
February 14. Still, to make a bad situation worse,
Obama will convey the same message to Abbas during his
upcoming visit, because "our position has not changed"
neither to Palestinian statehood nor to Palestinian
national reconciliation according to U.S. State
Department spokeswoman Olivia Nuland on February 19.
Obama will visit on the backdrop of a two year old
simmering Palestinian U.S. political crisis, which
potentially could explode in the aftermath of his
visit.
The U.S. subscription to the UN recognition of
Palestinian statehood would establish irrevocably the
prerequisite to make or break the only viable "two
state solution" for the almost century old conflict,
because it would confirm the 1967 borders as the basis
for such a solution and, consequently, will for sure
defuse the time bomb of the Israeli illegal settlement
enterprise in the Palestinian occupied territories and
pave the way for the resumption of negotiations.
However neither Obama nor the U.S. is forthcoming and
they continue to "manage" the conflict instead of
seriously seeking to solve it.
Earlier this month, Israel in an unprecedented move
boycotted the UN Human Rights Council because a year
long investigation by the council produced a report
urging that "Israel must, in compliance with article
49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, cease all
settlement activities without preconditions. It must
immediately initiate a process of withdrawal of all
settlers from the OPT (occupied Palestinian
territories)." The report stated that about 250
settlements were established in the Israeli occupied
Palestinian West Bank where 520,000 settlers live now,
which the report said could be subject to prosecution
as possible war crimes.
Recently, Yacov Ben Efrat, the General Secretary of
the Israeli DAAM Party, wrote in Challenge Magazine
that when Obama arrives in the Israel occupied
Palestinian territories "he will see that his policy
of appeasing the Israeli right has nearly killed the
Palestinian (self- ruled) Authority" economically as
well as politically, to conclude: "Having already
experienced the Oslo accords, the Palestinians have
already seen how the temporary becomes permanent, and
there is no way they will accept this."
"It's plain and simple: Either the settlements or
peace ... even Obama won't get us abandon this
principle," PLO chief negotiator Saeb Erekat was
quoted as saying on February 14.
Should Obama decide to act accordingly, he may
reinforce the "unbreakable alliance" with Israel to
his convenience, from a Palestinian perspective.
Otherwise, any initiative by Obama to resume the
Palestinian Israeli peace talks during his upcoming
visit to the region will be doomed as a non starter.
On this February 19, author Marvin Kalb wrote (http://www.brookings.edu/blogs):
"Instead of opening his Mid-East diplomacy with a
cutting critique of Israel's cantankerous settlements
policy, often considered the third rail of Israeli
politics,
instead of allowing, even encouraging, a
discomfiting coolness in Israeli-American relations,
the Israelis and the Palestinians might be engaging in
serious, face-to-face negotiations on a peace treaty
by this time."
Releasing a $ 700 million of U.S. blocked Palestinian
aid, using U.S. good offices to make Arab donors honor
their pledges to them or convincing Israel to release
the tax and customs revenue it collects on their
behalf are not the kind of U.S. "carrots" that would
open a breakthrough.
* Nicola Nasser is a veteran Arab journalist based
in Bir Zeit, West Bank of the Israeli-occupied
Palestinian territories. * nassernicola@ymail.com
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