After two days in Washington last week, the peace talks will resume in Sharm el-Sheikh next week with American participation. The negotiations have become trilateral, and will be the first real test to the abilities of the Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, as the talks are her brainchild and so will be the outcome. In a speech regarding the foreign policy of the Obama administration, she spoke of ‘successes', and said that talking is easier than achieving, and also spoke about a policy of partnership and persuasion, and again it is the results that matter. Success is impossible, and anyone who says otherwise is fooling himself, or fooling the people. Benjamin Netanyahu does not want peace in the first place, and even if he did, he cannot offer anything that is required for success. In Washington, he spoke about reaching an agreement within a year, because the Americans said so, and added that the implementation will take place over ten years, i.e. there will be no implementation. In Israel, he said that he wants to reach a framework agreement within a year, however he said that this time implementation will take decades. In his speech in Washington, he referred to the “West Bank”, but when settlers and the Israeli right that he represents criticized him, he said that it was a slip of the tongue, although this is a clear lie that only Netanyahu can say, because he was reading a written speech. He now returned to talking about Judea and Samaria, i.e. a Jewish myth. The ten-month freeze that was placed on settlement activity will end on the 26th of this month. However, it was never truly frozen. We now hear that settlement will continue but without a declaration, but I say that the only thing that was not declared was that it was still ongoing, and my sources are Israeli such as Peace Now, which says that hundreds of housing units have been built. The Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman who resides in a settlement said through the Israeli Radio that settlement will resume actively, while the Minister of Strategic Affairs Dany Ayalon Moshe Yaalon said that settlement activity will continue everywhere (I think he means Jerusalem as well). Meanwhile, the Speaker of the Knesset Reuven "Rubi" Rivlin insists on resuming settlement; He is from Likud. I hope that the reader will understand that I am using the word resume or resumption as mentioned by the extremist war criminals above, because settlement was never truly suspended. The best representatives of the government in Israel and of what it wants or does not want are the extremist Likudniks in the United States, and Abraham Foxman. He is the head of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) which has now become an Anti-Muslim centre in New York league. He attacked the administration for being ‘tough' on Israel, while the gang members attacked the oil lobby and Saudi Arabia, although they are themselves a lobby that goes against America and its people, and that works for the interests of a state of thieves they call Israel. They also attacked Hillary Clinton who called in 1998 for the establishment of a Palestinian state, before this became the declared policy of the U.S government, and attacked the State Department staff that knows that Israel harms U.S interests around the world. Even the word ‘orientalist' has become an accusation in the state department. This is not to mention that these extremists are waging a campaign against academicians and peace activists, who include many Jews in their ranks, because they are trying to delegitimize Israel for its crimes against the Palestinians. All the above can be summed up by the fact that Netanyahu is like the reluctant hunting dog in that he does not want peace, nor can he make peace even if he wants to. On the other hand, there is Mahmoud Abbas, who is different from Netanyahu in that he wants peace, but who is similar to him in that he cannot achieve it. I am not a diplomat and hence would not choose ornate words to say that Abu Mazen chose the negotiations because the Arab countries forfeited the Palestinian cause, while their official stance is to let Abu Mazen do as he can. Nor do I exonerate the Palestinians from blame, because their divisions have facilitate the task for those who want to abandon them. With this and that, Abu Mazen is facing opposition from within Fatah, and from many other resistance factions, specifically Hamas. In addition to being like all Palestinians, he is also negotiating without an Arab cover, and without any Palestinian enthusiasm for negotiations, not to mention their divisions. In such a situation, I go beyond the issue of the futile negotiations to think about alternatives. There is the option of declaring a Palestinian state unilaterally, or the Palestinian negotiator returning to calling for one state; a third intifada can be started, or a Palestinian civil war, or another invasion of the Gaza Strip, or, or, or... All these possibilities are valid, but none will lead to peace. (I apologize to the readers for the above, which is a description of the fact of the matter, and I say to them: Happy Eid). [email protected]
