Opinion Editorials, January 2012

No Hope in the Israeli-Controlled U.S.,

Palestinians Must Seek  a Different Strategy to Restore their Rights

By Khalid Amayreh

PIC, Al-Jazeerah, CCUN, January 18, 2012

The PLO and its daughter, the Palestinian Authority (PA), had been saying rather ad nauseam that they wouldn't resume moribund "peace talks" with Israel until the Zionist regime froze settlement expansion in the West Bank and occupied East Jerusalem.

However, it seems PLO/PA officials have utterly failed to keep their vows in this regard as evident from the two recent Israeli-Palestinian meetings in Amman. Halima has returned to her old habit, as the Arab adage goes.

Needless to say, the failure of the PA to keep up its promises creates a real problem of trust and credibility for the Palestinian leadership. It shows the PA cannot be really trusted to stand up to Israeli ambitions to arrogate more and more lebensraum for the criminal entity. It also shows that the PA cannot be entrusted to safeguard Palestinian rights from the rapacity and covetousness of Zionism, a movement that has all the hallmarks of German Nazism.

In addition to sending a negative message to the Palestinian people, namely that the PA gives up so easily on its declared constants by giving in to Zionist insolence and arrogance of power, the PA consent to resume peace talks with Israel, even under a third-party umbrella, vindicates, in a certain sense, the Israeli stance.


Israel, especially, the extreme right-wing circles which rule the Zionist state, argued on many occasions that the Palestinian leadership, no matter what it says publicly, would eventually submit to Israeli conditions and dictates.

Indeed, Netanyahu, Lieberman and the rest of the terrorist-thugs who make up the bulk of the Israeli political establishment can now look their critics in the eyes and tell them "Didn't we tell you they would return"?.

Some PA officials might allude to "extenuating circumstances" here and there such as claiming, rightly or wrongly, that they had to respond positively to the kind invitation from the King of Jordan and also prove to the international community, including the Quartet for Middle East peace that Israel, not the Palestinians, was the one impeding progress.

Well, it is really difficult to give whatever hopes King Abdullah may still harbor for a just and dignified peace deal that would end the Arab-Israeli conflict. The King, after all, has been arguing rather convincingly that Israel doesn't want peace and that the two-state solution has already become unrealistic if not outright impossible.

I know that courtesy is a timeless Arab and Palestinian tradition. But courtesy is one thing and the betrayal of one's people and just cause is quite another.

No one under the sun should expect the Palestinians to display courtesy at the expense of their inalienable rights, including the right to freedom from the clutches of Zionism and recovery of the Al-Aqsa Mosque, the first Qibla (direction to which Muslim turn their faces during prayers) and third holiest shrine in Islam.

Besides, it is amply clear that the Jordanian regime has vested interests to keep the imaginary peace train moving, irrespective of the solid fact that the proverbial train never left its presumed station.

Some might argue that maintaining the hope for peace alive is innocuous. But this is not exactly true. In the final analysis it must be understood that under this false rubric, more Palestinian land is stolen, more Jewish colonies are built and more oppression, dispossession and ethnic cleansing are being carried out.

If so, we firmly believe that the Palestinian leadership shouldn't be part and parcel of a process of betrayal and deception targeting our thoroughly tormented people.

Moreover, many ordinary Palestinians are asking legitimate questions and voicing legitimate fears. For example, how can Palestinians pin their hopes and aspirations on mediocre politicians who adopt an "uncompromising" stance in the morning only to abandon it in the evening in favor of a new posture? Has the confrontation with Israel been reduced to public relations posturing.? And, really, how can the Palestinian people realistically expect the likes of Mahmoud Abbas and Sa'eb Erikat to hold a firm stance on such paramount issues as Jerusalem , the refugees and borders when they can't even maintain a procedural stand like linking the resumption of talks with Israel to freezing settlement expansion?

More to the point, it is time the Palestinian Authority delivered itself from the huge illusion related to U.S. role in the so-called peace process.

We argued repeatedly on these pages that the United States , whose policies and politics are tightly controlled by pro-Israeli pressure groups, consistently played a negative role in the enduring conflict.


The US could have resolved the conflict fifty years ago, had it decided to use its resolve, will and power. However, consecutive American administrations chose to keep the conflict going for selfish American interests.

Today, the U.S. has neither the willingness nor the ability to convince or force Israel to pay the price for what would be an internationally-accepted peace deal between the Palestinian Authority and Israel , e.g. the establishment of a viable Palestinian state, on 100% of the territories occupied in 1967 as well as enabling millions of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and villages in what is now Israel.

This year is an elections year in America and politicians, especially presidential hopefuls, vie with each other to please and appease Israel. It is the highlight of the season of political prostitution in America, a season that allows ignoramuses like Newt Gingrich to claim that the Palestinians are an invented people!!!

As to President Obama, it is probably self-defeating, to put it mildly, to give him the benefit of the doubt should he succeed in wining a second term in the White House.

The man is simply too cowardly, too reluctant, too insecure and too unprincipled to face Jewish pressure groups.

There are those who argue convincingly that Obama suffers a real inferiority complex and that he is an ultimate appeaser, especially when it comes to challenging Israel's firsters at Capitol Hill.

What is important is that the Palestinian leadership, in cooperation with new Arab leaderships that are not subservient to the White House, ought to stop chasing the American mirage. We have done that so much and for too long and the result has been a gigantic disaster for the Palestinian cause and other Arab causes.

So let us ask ourselves the following questions:

Can this or any other administration force Israel to give up the occupation and return to the lines of the 4th of June, 1967? We would be fools if we answered this question in the affirmative?

Does any American administration, present or prospective, have the audacity to confront the Jewish lobby which tightly controls Congress and the media and have tens of millions of evangelical Americans at its beck and call? Perhaps if we succeed in bringing Eisenhower back to life?

One more question. With the Israeli Jewish society constantly drifting to religious Talmudic fascism as well as secular jingoism, is it likely that a moderate and peace-minded Israeli government will appear in the foreseeable future and agree to give up the entirety of the West Bank and East Jerusalem . Perhaps in the dreams?

We have to be honest with ourselves, because if we are not, no one will be honest with us.

I am not a prophet of doom and gloom. But at the same time, we must not allow ourselves to liquidate our just cause under the false rubric of keeping the hope for peace alive.

In short, we must seek a different strategy to restore our rights.

Opinions expressed in various sections are the sole responsibility of their authors and they may not represent Al-Jazeerah & ccun.org.

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