Palestine Peace Brokers

[Xxxx Xxxxx Xxxxxx <xxxxxxxx@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

http://www.ptimes.com/

Palestine Peace Brokers

Shahid Bolsen, Palestine Times, Nov 2000

There is a misleading, and thus extremely important, concept
being affirmed in both the summit at Sharm el-Sheikh in Egypt and the American
media coverage of it. Indeed, this concept has prevailed throughout the
past seven years of the so-called Peace Process, and it has even affected
the way Muslims themselves view the situation in Palestine and the manner
by which they seek to address it.

Simply stated, this concept holds that Israel?s relationship
with the Palestinians is essentially only a matter of concern for the Israelis,
the Palestinians (grudgingly) and the Americans, to the exclusion of the
rest of the world.

The diversion that this misconception has created is one
of the greatest achievements of the Peace Process: that Israel and the
United States have proactively engaged the Palestinians in an effort to
bring about a peaceful settlement to the ongoing Middle East crisis is
thoroughly accepted by the American majority. Indeed, this view has been
so successfully propagated that every foreign policy pundit and regional
analyst interviewed on the major networks, CNN and Fox news have all been
asked at some point in the last two weeks, ?if the current clashes mean
the end of the Peace Process, then what else is there?? Clearly assuming,
or at least proposing, that there have been, and are, no alternative approaches
to a resolution of the conflict and that the Oslo Peace Process is the
exclusive avenue for a settlement.

This misrepresentation has actually made it possible,
for instance, for the American-sponsored ?emergency? summit at Sharm el-Sheikh
to be portrayed as a genuine effort, as President Clinton said, ?to end
the current violence.? ?Ending the violence,? however, has only proven
to be a complicated matter for the Americans and Israelis. The United Nations
did not perceive it as terrifically perplexing when they demanded in Security
Council resolution 1322 that Israel halt its firing against civilians.
The respected Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Network (EMHRN), the International
Federation of Human Rights (FIDH) and the International Committee of Jurists
(ICJ) did not find the matter of ?ending
the violence? particularly complex when they unanimously
called upon Israel to ?cease forthwith the use of illegal ammunition and
heavy weapons, including helicopters with guided missiles, against civilians.?

Human Rights Watch, perhaps the best known human rights
watchdog in the world, was able to conclude with remarkable clarity, if
some understatement, that Israel ?showed a troubling proclivity? to unleash
deadly force against largely unarmed Palestinians, of whom at least half
the victims have been
under the age of 18.

So, it is safe to say that a summit by the Israelis, the
Palestinians and the Americans to discuss ways of bringing the violence
to a halt was, essentially, a means by which Israel and the United States
could avoid addressing the obvious solution: forcing Israel to adhere to
the consensus of the international
community, which recognized the inconvenient fact that
Israel alone has been the aggressor.

The summit, also, of course, was the only possible way
to extract from Yasser Arafat a commitment to stop Palestinian violence,
which is implicitly an acceptance of the U.S. and Israeli position that
there has been Palestinian violence, as opposed to legitimate Palestinian
self-defence and resistance.

But this has been the pattern, and this is why the Peace
Process must be presented as the only possible avenue for settlement, because
it is the only way to remove the Palestinian situation from the international
forum into a forum controlled by Israel and the United States. In other
words, it is the only forum
through which the co-agendas of the U.S. and Israel can
be realized.

Not only is there an alternative avenue by which a resolution
could potentially be reached, it can be argued that the Peace Process itself
exists precisely to divert attention away from that alternative.

A good example of this diversion is readily available
in the current crisis, which has been reported as being in essence a battle
over Jerusalem. We are told that both sides claim a right to sovereignty
over the Holy City; it is Holy to both sides; both sides want it as their
capital, so on and so on.

During the Camp David negotiations, and indeed, ever since
then, we have been continuously informed that the ?sticking point? to a
final settlement was the status of Jerusalem. More often than not, we have
been told that Yasser Arafat refused to accept the generous Israeli offer
of a shared capital in the
ancient city. What is not reported, because the discussion
must always be kept within the controlled U.S.-Israel-Arafat framework,
is that ?sharing? Jerusalem is not an offer that Ehud Barak, or any Israeli
leader, is authorized to make. The United Nations, the agreed-upon arbiter
of International Law, has stated with satisfying bluntness that Israel?s
claim to Jerusalem as its capital was ?invalid? (UN Security Council resolution
252), and censured Israel for trying to alter the independent status of
Jerusalem (267), and flatly called Israel?s claim to Jerusalem ?null and
void? (476). Israel?s refusal to accept the edicts of the international
community, through the alchemy of the Peace Process, becomes the Palestinians
refusal to accept Israeli compromise. In short, no one has accepted Israel?s
claim to Jerusalem at all; small wonder then that the only two countries
which have accepted Israel?s claim would be the only two countries involved
in the negotiations.

The tunnel-vision through which Americans?including Muslim
Americans?are made to view the situation in Palestine concentrates upon
the role of the U.S. as the central ?peace broker? in the region and has
tended to mould any approach to activism to fit within the narrow context
of the Peace Process.

The right of the United States to effectively hold the
world at bay to determine the fate of the indigenous people of Palestine
is not challenged.

Two things should be recognized at this point; one, because
of perceived national interests in the Middle East, voter pressure is unlikely
to impact policy; and two, these perceived interests utterly disqualify
the United States from participation in any negotiations.

While we must recognize that the position of the international
community may have less to do with genuine sympathy for the Palestinians
and more to do with their comparative lack of strategic interest in the
Middle East (as the world?s biggest energy consumer and owner of the largest
oil companies in the
world, the U.S. certainly has more at stake), nevertheless,
for the time being, it would be in the Palestinians? interest to emphasize
the internationalization of their cause.

It is less important that the American public become sympathetic
with the Palestinians and more important that they become aware of the
extent to which the U.S. is out of step with the rest of the planet, including,
of course, the world?s more than one and a half billion Muslims.
 
 

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Xxxx Xxxxx Xxxxxx
PhD Student
Department of Political Science
SUNY at Albany
Nelson A. Rockefeller College
135 Western Ave.; Milne 102
Albany, NY 12222