Obama's Disgrace at Israeli Hands Leaves Palestinians No Choice
"All
that remains for the Palestinians is to internationalize their national cause by
referring it to the U.N. Security Council and if necessary, the General
Assembly, on the subject of U.N. recognition of their state based unambiguously
on the 1967 borders."
Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu delivers a speech to a joint session of the U.S. Congress, during which he was interrupted for applause over 30 times. Netanyahu rejected the use of Israel's 1967 borders as a basis for talks with the Palestinians.
Not content with flatly and arrogantly
opposing the idea of creating a Palestinian state based on the 1967 borders suggested
with great caution by U.S. President Obama, Binyamin Netanyahu fired on all
cylinders in Washington to compel him to retract his statement. Both AIPAC, the
powerful Jewish-American lobby, and the at-least-as-powerful U.S. Congress, rose
up against him. Pro-Israelis have inflicted a stinging rebuke to the U.S. president.
Both institutions have unreservedly supported the “road map” on the
Palestinian issue that the Israeli leader defended in his speech to AIPAC, and which
is the result of provocations against the Palestinians, the White House and the
international community.
First at the AIPAC forum and then
his speech to a joint session of the U.S. Congress which gave him numerous “standing
ovations,” Binyamin Netanyahu pounded a string of “nyets" that will irrevocably
seal the peace talks that have already stalled. Nyet to the short term
creation of a Palestinian state; nyet to the 1967 borders; nyet to
negotiations on the division of Jerusalem; nyet to ending settlement
construction in the occupied territories; nyet to the destruction of those
already built; and nyet to final negotiations with the Palestinian
Authority which would include representatives of Hamas. The enthusiastic endorsement
of those nyets by AIPAC and the U.S. Congress force Barack Obama,
already campaigning for the presidential election, to renounce his attempts to
relaunch the peace process and overrule proposals he has advanced to assist the
Palestinian side.
It’s a certainty that Barack
Obama’s optimistic forecast to provide for the establishment of a Palestinian
state near the end of 2011 will not materialize. For as accommodating as Mahmoud
Abbas is, the Palestinians will not return to the negotiation table under the conditions
imposed by the Israeli prime minister. Particularly since they now know that Obama
can not and will not put pressure on Israel to force a revision of the “road
map” unveiled by their prime minister.
All that remains for the Palestinians
is to internationalize their national cause by referring it to the U.N. Security
Council and if necessary, the General Assembly, on the subject of U.N. recognition
of their state based unambiguously on the 1967 borders. It's an approach that has
the merit of elevating the Palestinian-Israeli conflict outside the exclusive
arena of the American administration. Essentially, it's up to the Palestinians
to free themselves from an American tutelage that ultimately works only in the
best interests of the Zionist state. A strong signal of this conviction on the
part of Abbas and the Authority he leads is the reconciliation reached between
Fatah and Hamas, ignoring threats from Netanyahu’s cabinet with respect to their
rapprochement and similar pressures exerted on them by Obama and his administration
for them to abandon it.
Abbas’ Palestinian Authority
and a segment of international opinion were naive enough to believe that Obama would
manage to move the lines of the Palestinian-Israeli issue in the direction of a
just and equitable solution. And some of his statements and proposals created a
momentary illusion. This has been quickly dissipated by his successive
capitulations to the arrogant warnings and injunctions by leaders of the
Zionist state, supported and relayed by unconditional Israel's allies in
America, which Obama cannot challenge because he's positioning himself to do
battle in 2012.
