{"id":42154,"date":"2014-04-28T12:00:42","date_gmt":"2014-04-28T11:00:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=42154"},"modified":"2015-05-05T21:35:04","modified_gmt":"2015-05-05T20:35:04","slug":"tolerating-israels-land-grabs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2014\/04\/tolerating-israels-land-grabs\/","title":{"rendered":"Tolerating Israel\u2019s Land Grabs"},"content":{"rendered":"

Secretary of State John Kerry\u2019s\u00a0Israeli-Palestinian peace talks have reached their predictable\u00a0collapse, but the U.S. news media still shies away from blaming\u00a0Israeli intransigence and expansionism \u2013 nor advocating stern action against the land grabs.<\/em><\/p>\n

In 1988, Yasser Arafat declared independence for Palestine based upon the notion of two states living in peace in historic Palestine. The border between those two states was to be set roughly at the armistice line established at the end of the 1967 Arab-Israeli war. The Palestinian state\u2019s capital was to be located in East Jerusalem.<\/p>\n

That was 26 years ago. Finally, on April 14, 2014, the editorial board of the New York Times decided that Arafat was correct and the \u201cprinciples\u201d that \u201cmust undergird a two-state solution\u201d are those he had proposed. Of course, the board did so without ever referencing the great Palestinian leader.<\/p>\n

Not only did the Times declare the 1967 border and a shared capital at Jerusalem necessary and valid, but it called on the U.S. government to do the same: \u201cIt is time for the administration to lay down the principles \u2026 should the Israelis and the Palestinians ever decide to make peace.\u201d<\/p>\n

Before anyone gets too excited over this seeming miracle on Eighth Avenue (where the paper is headquartered), it should be noted that the Times\u2019 editorial board made this pronouncement at a point when its fulfillment was impossible. And the editorial board knew this was the case:<\/p>\n

\u201cThe pointless arguing over who brought the Israeli-Palestinian peace talks to the brink of collapse is in full swing. The United States is still working to salvage the negotiations, but there is scant sign
\nof serious purpose. \u2026 President Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry should move on and devote their attention to other major international challenges like Ukraine.\u201d<\/p>\n

Having reached this point in the editorial board\u2019s text, one starts to suspect that the board is being disingenuous. First of all, why is it \u201cpointless\u201d to discuss the reason these talks are collapsing? Secretary of State Kerry\u2019s explanation (the famous \u201cpoof\u201d heard around the world), made before Congress, lays blame right where it has always belonged \u2014 with Israeli acts of sabotage of those very principles the Times now espouses. Why does the Times say that stating this increasingly obvious fact is \u201cpointless\u201d?<\/p>\n

It is also interesting that the editorial board suggests in what direction the subject should be changed \u2014 toward the \u201cmajor international challenge\u201d of Ukraine. I am not sure the board thought this suggestion through. After all, what is the core Western complaint about happenings in Ukraine? It is the Russian land grab in the Crimea as well as the alleged threat of more such moves in eastern Ukraine.<\/p>\n

Yet just how different is Russian behavior in this regard from that of Israel in the West Bank and Golan Heights? Obviously the Times\u2019 editors do not think it is \u201cpointless\u201d to discuss land grabs when the Russians do it. It is only pointless when the Israelis do it.<\/p>\n

The editorial board also surrounds its declaration of principles with an archaic effort to present Israel and the Palestinians as equally at fault. It is not only the Israelis who have decided against making peace, it is both the \u201cIsraelis and Palestinians.\u201d It is not just \u201cthe obstinacy of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu\u201d that is a problem. That \u201cobstinacy\u201d has to be coupled with \u201cresistance from the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas.\u201d<\/p>\n

It is not just Israel which is unwilling to \u201cmove on to core issues,\u201d it is \u201cthe two sides\u201d that are unwilling. This insistence on dualism is an illusion hiding the fact that the two sides are not at all equal and, with the exception of the red-herring issue of Palestinian recognition of Israel as a Jewish state, 99 percent of the obstinacy and all the resistance has been on one side \u2014 the Israeli side.<\/p>\n

The Times\u2019 editorial board has the same problem as the Obama administration: they both know the truth but are unwilling to do something about it. They both know the problem is that the Israeli government is not interested in genuine peace (actually, has never been interested in it).<\/p>\n

Israel is only interested in continuing its conquest of Palestinian land. And thanks to the West, most particularly the United States, Israel has the military wherewithal to ignore not only the Palestinian protests but also those of the rest of the world.<\/p>\n

Both the U.S. government and the U.S. \u201cnewspaper of record\u201d refuse to act on their knowledge of Israel\u2019s history of sabotage and call for punitive action against a nation that is hurting U.S. national interests in an important part of the world.<\/p>\n

Their main concern is to avoid a confrontation with Zionist lobbyists and Times\u2019 advertisers whose devotion to Israel is wholly uncritical. This appears to still be the most favored position even though standing firm over negotiations with Iran has proved the Zionists are not omnipotent.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s that old two steps forward, one step backward shuffle: heading in the right direction while ensuring we never reach the proper destination.<\/p>\n

_________________________<\/p>\n

Lawrence Davidson is a history professor at West Chester University in Pennsylvania. He is the author of<\/em> Foreign Policy Inc.: Privatizing America\u2019s National Interest<\/a>;<\/em>\u3000<\/em>America\u2019s Palestine: Popular and Official Perceptions from Balfour to Israeli Statehood<\/a>; and Islamic Fundamentalism<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 consortiumnews.com<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Join the BDS-BOYCOTT, DIVESTMENT, SANCTIONS <\/em><\/strong><\/span>campaign to protest the Israeli barbaric siege of Gaza, illegal occupation of the Palestine nation\u2019s territory, the apartheid wall, its inhuman and degrading treatment of the Palestinian people, and the more than 7,000 Palestinian men, women, elderly and children arbitrarily locked up in Israeli prisons.<\/p>\n

DON’T BUY<\/strong> PRODUCTS WHOSE<\/strong> BARCODE<\/strong> STARTS WITH<\/strong> 729<\/strong>, which indicates that it is produced in Israel.\u00a0\u00a0 DO YOUR PART! MAKE A DIFFERENCE!<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

7 2 9: BOYCOTT FOR JUSTICE!<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Secretary of State John Kerry\u2019s Israeli-Palestinian peace talks have reached their predictable collapse, but the U.S. news media still shies away from blaming Israeli intransigence and expansionism \u2013 nor advocating stern action against the land grabs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-42154","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-palestine-israel-gaza-genocide"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42154","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42154"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42154\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42154"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42154"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42154"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}