6 May 2009

By Khalid Amayreh

Israel and her supporters are making rabid efforts to enhance the ugly image of the new Israeli government. That government, as we all know, is composed of manifestly fascist parties based on Jewish supremacy and racist disregard for the Palestinian people which has been on the receiving end of Zionist savagery and brutality for over sixty one years. 

This month, Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu and his thuggish Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman are going to try to convince the leaders of western countries that Palestinians don’t really need freedom and liberty and human rights and that, like all animals, all they need is bread and some other food supplements. 

Netanyahu, who is slated to visit Washington D.C.  later this month, is a great believer in the “power of the Jewish mind.” Hence, he thinks he will be able to convince President Obama that the most pressing priorities in occupied Palestine should be to achieve economic prosperity, not promote human rights, including the right to life, for the Palestinians. 

Netanyahu is a notorious prevaricator, a professional liar, and a master of vacuous sound-bites. He often says what he doesn’t mean and means what he doesn’t say. He thinks that  enhanced hasbara efforts by Israel would make the international community, particularly the US and Europe,  turn a blind eye to Israel’s frantic settlement expansion  in the West Bank as well as  ethnic cleansing against Palestinians in East Jerusalem. 

Netanyahu will speak extensively about the proverbial red herring, namely the so-called “Iranian threat,” and is likely to demand that the Obama administration undertake to “neutralize the Iranian threat” before Israel makes up its mind with regard to Palestinian statehood. 

Finally, Netanyahu is likely to speak vaguely about a prospective Palestinian state on “parts” of “ Judea and Samaria ” provided that all details pertaining to such an entity are subject to Israeli security considerations. 

As to Lieberman, he is probably going to present a more honest description of the new government. Indeed, unlike home-grown Israeli politicians, the former Moldovan immigrant is still insufficiently skilled in the hasbara art which explains his straightforward style with the media. 

In recent weeks, Netanyahu reportedly rebuked Lieberman for speaking to the international media as if he was speaking to his right-wing constituencies. 

This prompted Lieberman to hire a Public Relations consultant who has advised the foreign minister to speak vaguely on controversial subjects so that his words could be interpreted in many ways. 

Lieberman has also been advised to say that he supports the two-state solution “in principle.” 

However, it is amply clear that the phrase “in principle” encapsulates a huge amount of ill-will, deception and subterfuge on Israel ’s part. After all, Israel has really killed the possibility of establishing a genuine and viable Palestinian state on the West Bank. 

Hence, instead of facing the prospects of paying the price for the death of the two-state solution, e.g. by having to accept a unitary, democratic state on all mandatory Palestine, Israel will exhaustively strive to give the Palestinian a deformed and despicable small entity made up of hapless and miserable Bantustans and townships controlled by CIA-trained Gendarmes whose main task would be to guard Israeli colonies and torment and even kill Palestinians who might dare  to protest the liquidation of their national cause. 

Such an entity, which Palestinian Judenrates would be free to give the grandest of names, would effectively spell the liquidation of the Palestinian problem. This is at least what is being planned by Zionist circles in cooperation with western and some treacherous Arab regimes. 

I say such a scenario would spell the liquidation of the Palestinian cause because Israel would retain the bulk of East Jerusalem and force the weak Palestinian leadership in Ramallah to kiss the paramount Right of Return goodbye if only to demonstrate its good-will and desire for peace. 

Another gambit Netanyahu and Lieberman are likely to try to sell to the Americans and Europeans is the demand that the Palestinian Authority, probably including Hamas, recognize Israel as a state of the Jewish people. 

Fortunately, PA chairman Mahmoud Abbas seems to have finally discovered the strategic entrapment inherent in any Palestinian recognition of Israel as a Jewish state. 

Much of the world is still unsuspecting about this particular Israeli demand. Indeed, most political circles in Europe and North America are likely to think that the Israeli demand is logical, rational and innocuous. 

They are utterly ignorant of the implications, ramifications and repercussions of recognizing Israel as a “Jewish state” let alone “a state of the Jewish people.” 

For those who still don’t understand, let us be clear about this. 

Recognizing Israel as a Jewish state implies that Israel has the right to expel its non-Jewish citizens, particularly the 1.6-million Arab community. This may not happen immediately, but it could happen at some point in the future. 

Of course, Israeli leaders and spokespersons would argue that this is not what Israel wants to do and that Israel is a Jewish and democratic state. 

Well, this mantra of Israel being both a Jewish and democratic state is a big lie for a simple reason, namely that the “Jewishness” of Israel will always override whatever democratic façade  the Zionist entity could still claim to have. 

Hence, it is imperative that honest media around the world expose the Israeli deception in this regard.  First, because the Netanyahu government is only using the issue of “Jewishness of the state” as a stalling tactic aimed at throwing the ball onto the Palestinian court. And, second, because any Palestinian recognition of an exclusively Jewish state would perpetuate the deportation of millions of Palestinian refugees who had been unjustly uprooted from their ancestral homeland in order to fulfill Zionist ambitions.  

Unfortunately, this brazenly racist endeavor on the part of the Zionist state has not be sufficiently challenged by the international community which is continuing to deal rather lightly hypocritically  and even facetiously with this issue. 

This is why; Palestinians and their supporters are urged to expose the genocidal goals of Zionist efforts. 

Finally, it is important that the Obama administration demonstrate   to Netanyahu that the US is the United States of America, not the United States of Israel. 

Otherwise, Lieberman’s statements last week that America’s decisions with regard to Israel are controlled by Israel, ought to be vindicated. 

In short, the ball is in the Obama administration’s court, at least for the time being.