A GOOD PIECE
By Eric Margolis
"....The result was the same kind of tired, stale Mideast political kabuki that has dragged on for the past decade: platitudes about peace, cheery handshakes, and talks about talks about talks.
All involved knew that this was political theater designed to beguile American voters into believing progress was being made in the eternal Mideast mess....
America’s media dutifully reported the Washington talks with the same unquestioning solemnity and deference that the old Soviet media used to report Communist Party congresses.....
There are now 500,000 Jewish and non-Jewish Russian settlers on the West Bank in 121 settlements connected by special security roads off limits to Arabs. Much of the West Bank’s best farmland and underground water has been expropriated by Israel. Jewish Jerusalem keeps expanding into the West Bank through huge, fortified apartment buildings while Arabs in East Jerusalem are being steadily squeezed out, often with the help of tax deductible donations by American Zionist groups....
Watching “negotiations’ between four American client states – Israel, Egypt, Jordan and the Palestinian Authority – who receive billions in US payments is beyond even acid Mideast cynicism. Egypt and Jordan, both close allies of Israel, have cooperated in the repression of the Palestinian movement Hamas. Neither wants to see a Palestinian state....
But Hamas is also the legitimate voice of Palestinians, having been elected in a proper democratic election in 2006, the Arab world’s only honest vote since Algeria’s 1991 election that was subsequently quashed by the military, with French and US backing.
However extreme, Hamas is largely free of the endemic corruption infecting Mahmoud Abbas’ Palestinian Authority, which most Arabs regard as a bunch of Israeli and American stooges and yes-men. The Palestinian Authority certainly does not speak for most Palestinians.....
....Candidate Obama in fact promised AIPAC never to pressure Israel into a peace deal it did not want, a pledge he is keeping.
But no pressure on Israel by Washington to trade land for peace means no real peace, no matter what sweetheart deal Abbas signs....
By Eric Margolis
"....The result was the same kind of tired, stale Mideast political kabuki that has dragged on for the past decade: platitudes about peace, cheery handshakes, and talks about talks about talks.
All involved knew that this was political theater designed to beguile American voters into believing progress was being made in the eternal Mideast mess....
America’s media dutifully reported the Washington talks with the same unquestioning solemnity and deference that the old Soviet media used to report Communist Party congresses.....
There are now 500,000 Jewish and non-Jewish Russian settlers on the West Bank in 121 settlements connected by special security roads off limits to Arabs. Much of the West Bank’s best farmland and underground water has been expropriated by Israel. Jewish Jerusalem keeps expanding into the West Bank through huge, fortified apartment buildings while Arabs in East Jerusalem are being steadily squeezed out, often with the help of tax deductible donations by American Zionist groups....
Watching “negotiations’ between four American client states – Israel, Egypt, Jordan and the Palestinian Authority – who receive billions in US payments is beyond even acid Mideast cynicism. Egypt and Jordan, both close allies of Israel, have cooperated in the repression of the Palestinian movement Hamas. Neither wants to see a Palestinian state....
But Hamas is also the legitimate voice of Palestinians, having been elected in a proper democratic election in 2006, the Arab world’s only honest vote since Algeria’s 1991 election that was subsequently quashed by the military, with French and US backing.
However extreme, Hamas is largely free of the endemic corruption infecting Mahmoud Abbas’ Palestinian Authority, which most Arabs regard as a bunch of Israeli and American stooges and yes-men. The Palestinian Authority certainly does not speak for most Palestinians.....
....Candidate Obama in fact promised AIPAC never to pressure Israel into a peace deal it did not want, a pledge he is keeping.
But no pressure on Israel by Washington to trade land for peace means no real peace, no matter what sweetheart deal Abbas signs....
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