Terms of Surrender

Tuesday, August 31, 2010 9:24 PM

Clarity and perspective are sorely lacking in the ballyhooed, face-to-face peace talks between Tel Aviv and the Palestinians set to get underway this week. The two sides have headed for the White House once again, this time to endure the empty rhetoric of Barack Obama. It is a continuation of the Oslo "peace process" scam which kicked off in the aftermath of the first Gulf War against Iraq in 1991. At that time, the Palestinians were represented by PLO chairman Yasser Arafat of the Fatah faction. Bill Clinton presided over the proceedings for eight years, before finally throwing up his hands and blaming everything on Arafat. 


Today, Fatah is still at the table, now under the leadership of President Mahmoud Abbas, Arafat's hand-picked successor. Right away, we have a problem, because Mahmoud Abbas is no longer the legitimate President of the Palestinian Authority. He is simply hanging onto the title and the accompanying perks, at the urging of Washington, in the wake of losing an election to Hamas in 2006. But let's overlook that minor issue, negotiating with a nonentity. This spectacle has many layers.


There is a much bigger problem. It is a question of reality. The only thing that will be negotiated in these talks will be the terms of surrender. Palestine has been conquered, subjugated and occupied. Will the terms of surrender be harsh or magnanimous? That is the question. What will Tel Aviv and Washington offer the vanquished as an incentive to put this matter to rest? The Palestinians are defenseless and virtually powerless. They have no cards to play, nothing to negotiate with. Under Abbas, they do not even offer token resistance to military occupation, because resistance would be futile and suicidal, as Hamas found out in Gaza.


Events have made it perfectly clear that no official in power in America or Europe is going to lift a finger to protect the Palestinians--or the Lebanese and Syrians, for that matter. They can be slaughtered with impunity whenever the exigencies of Pax Israeliana require it. Perfidious Albion, which made this whole nightmare possible to start with, has long ago washed it hands and assumed the pose of a bemused bystander. 


I bracket Tel Aviv and Washington together because they are acting in concert. Washington has enabled the Zionist takeover of Palestine from day one, going all the way back to 1917, when Woodrow Wilson sat in the Oval Office, and took the sage advice of Louis D. Brandeis to enter World War I so as to save England from near-certain defeat. First by chicanery and then with force of arms, Palestine was conquered. Under the framework of the triumphant British Empire, a steady flow of Jewish immigration to Palestine commenced in the aftermath of World War I. Prior to that, Palestine was 90% Arab and a sleepy, peaceful outpost of the Ottoman Empire.


Faced with a scrap of paper known as the Balfour Declaration, the Arabs were disenfranchised and negated by Whitehall. Later, the indigenous population of Palestine was ethnically cleansed and driven out (1948), with the remainder left to live as second class citizens, and/or under military occupation (1967) on the West Bank. In addition, a chunk of Syria was formally annexed and a beautiful swath of south Lebanon is occupied as well. 


The historical record will demonstrate to anyone who examines it that what is called Israel--the pre-1967 internationally recognized Israel--is conquered and occupied territory. The native inhabitants were pushed out. Russian and east European Zionists pushed themselves in. The Zionists established a beachhead in Palestine using the British imperialists as “useful idiots” in the aftermath of World War I. Then they conquered a good slice of Palestine in the aftermath of World War II, and dumped the hapless Brits overboard. Through intimidation, bribery and propaganda, the Zionists then succeeded in getting the UN and the major powers, led by Washington and Moscow, to recognize this neocolonial enterprise in a post-colonial world.


To quote from my book The Unauthorized World Situation Report (2005) with respect to the creation of Israel: “This fait accompli is not the result of natural historical developments in the Middle East in the aftermath of World War II, as is commonly assumed. It is the sole result of Zionist influence in power centers outside the Middle East going back to 1917.”


In the long aftermath of the 1967 war, first under the Labor Party and now under the leadership of Likud, the Zionists are continuing to digest the rest of Palestine. They have made the Palestinians helots in their own land, while the EU and Washington either watch uncritically from the sidelines or actively assist the project. The Zionists must feel that they have the situation well in hand. They do. Why should they change tactics now? The incentive is to keep going. There is nothing to stop them.

 

The stated premise of the "peace process" orchestrated by Washington and its foreign policy establishment is the so-called two-state solution. One state for the intractable Palestinians and one for the valiant Israelis, our allies in the "war on terror". It sounds good if one knows nothing about the history of the conflict. Or if one is in denial about the history of the conflict.


The distinctions between a "two-state" as opposed to a "one-state" solution are awfully confusing. Fact. The Zionists control all of Palestine. Fact. In whatever agreement that may eventually be forthcoming from the parties at the table, the Zionists will remain in control of all of Palestine, including the West Bank, no matter if that arrangement is labeled a two-state or a one-state solution. At best, the two-state solution offers the Palestinians a semblance of autonomy in a remnant of a remnant of historical Palestine on the West Bank. It will not be a state, as heretofore understood by rational men. It will be a rump state, a kind of appendage, a bantustan


A one-state solution would be substantially the same thing, although it is routinely assumed that "the Israelis" would be forced to grant true equal rights to the Palestinians under such a setup, thereby dooming "the Jewish state" in the process. But why on earth would the Jews do that, when they have succeeded in occupying all of Palestine and making it into a de facto one-state with themselves in sovereign control?  In any case, rest assured that no one in America or Europe is going to stop Tel Aviv from doing whatever it decides to do under either scenario. The tail has been wagging the dog for a very long time.


Since there is a national election every two years in Ex America, the Mideast "peace process" under the aegis of Washington is hopeless. The Israel Lobby is in the saddle, and every politician in Washington knows it, including Barack Obama. At this moment in time, most especially Barack Obama. Of course, the boys in Tel Aviv know it, too. The question of Palestinian war refugees from 1948, the crux of the conflict, is not even on the table insofar as Tel Aviv is concerned. The party line of the Israel Lobby is, that ain't our problem. Likewise, the great conman himself, PM Netanyahu, has proclaimed in no uncertain terms that the status of Jerusalem is non-negotiable. In fine, how can anyone take this charade seriously?


Update link: RT [Russian Television] “US is Israel’s partner in crime,

not a referee” [YouTube video]


Update link II: Retiring Senator Barry Goldwater says [in 1986 interview] that Israel Lobby is way too powerful.