Tag Archives: Deal of the Century

First Reactions to the Farce of the Century

28 Jan

Rodrigo Craviero Supplemental Interview Questions

 

Q: What kind of comments would you add?

 

The release of Trump’s plan seems to have generated far less interest and enthusiasm, except on Netanyahu’s, and likely majority opinion in Israel, than I expected. It may be too soon to be confident that this first impression will turn out to be accurate. What seems clear from the timing and mode of release is that the Trump/Kushner plan is intended to help Netanyahu prevail in the upcoming Israeli elections, and will also be useful to Trump with respect to Evangelical and hard-core Jewish support in the presidential election in November. There is some reason to believe, whether knowingly or not, the plan, and the pre-release one sidedness was designed to ensure a Palestinian rejection, allowing Israel to embrace the plan and claim to seek peace, as well as go forward with unilateral moves such as annexing the Jordan Valley.

 

Q: How do you see also fact return of Palestinian refugees will be impossible, as Netanyahu told, and Jerusalem will continue indivisible?

 

The failure to address the issue of Palestinian refugees in a responsible manner is both a deficiency in the proposal, and a tragic humanitarian evasion. Palestinian refugee population, estimated at over five million, have long languished in a variety of refugee camps, without rights or decent life conditions. There can be no peace as long as this situation persists.

 

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On the Eve of the Release of Trump’s ‘Deal of the Century

27 Jan

On the Eve of the Release of Trump’s ‘Deal of the Century

 

[ Based on CORREIO BRAZILIENSE, Jan. 28, 2020, Interview by Rodrigo Craveiro on Trump’s ‘Deal of the Century’]

1– Why are Palestinian leaders rejecting to talk with president Trump about this new peace plan?

Trump made so many important controversial and major concessions to Israel on issues that prior pro-Israeli US presidents refused to do. These unilateral giveaways included moving the US Embassy to Jerusalem in defiance of UN agreement to resolve this issue by negotiations between the parties; assert that the establishment of settlements on Occupied Palestine were legal despite the near universal agreement that all settlements are unlawful if established on Occupied Palestine; recognize Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights, which Israel acquired by force in the 1967 War and by unanimous  Security Council Resolution 242 was ordered to withdraw from. In effect, it became obvious to even the most weak Palestinian leadership that such a one-sided approach to resolving the conflict was totally unacceptable to the Palestinian people, and had no credible claim to be seeking a genuine compromise. What was known through leaks prior to the release of Trump’s plan confirms this impression, and explains why even the Palestinian Authority is reluctant to give any credibility whatsoever to this diplomatic charade being orchestrated by the White House..

2– Do you believe the peace plan has failed on delivery? Why?

For the reasons given, the peace plan is substantially an imposed Israeli victory, not in any reasonable way the basis for reaching a political compromise. In this regard, it is  manifestly unacceptable to the Palestinian people even if economic incentives for political surrender are being offered. If such a plan were to be imposed by force it would not bring peace, but harden the existing harsh, apartheid regime by which Israel controls Palestinian resistance activity and collectively punishes the Palestinian people as a whole. To call such a plan ‘a deal,’ much less ‘the deal of the century’ is outrageous. Better to be known as ‘the farce of the century.

 

3– What are the main criticism by you of this new peace plan?

It is unfair to the Palestinian people and completely ignores their fundamental rights, and overlooks the historical reality of Palestine having been a predominantly Arab country for centuries. As explained, what is offered is one-sided, and promises the Palestinian people a better life materially in exchange for abandoning their political agenda, and legal entitlements. Instead it is asking the Palestinians to accept a position of permanent victimization on a larger, but similar scale to the realities faced by the people of Gaza since the Israeli ‘disengagement’ plan of 2005 was implemented. That Sharon plan for Gaza involved complete border control and total vulnerability to Israel’s frequent uses of force. The Trump proposed deal amount to the Gazaization of all of Occupied Palestine, and that is not an acceptable vision of Palestine’s future.

4– Do you think this new peace plan was built to make concessions to israeli instead of Palestinian people?

 

There seems to me to be no doubt that inducing the Palestinians to reject the Trump initiative should have been anticipated, but whether that was the idea from the outset, is hard to tell. If the Israelis accept the Trump Plan as the basis for negotiations, the Palestinian refusal would be portrayed as rejecting an opportunity for peace, and an opting for war and terrorism. Along this line of reasoning the whole diplomatic fuss is nothing more than a public relations scheme to help Israel gain respect in international public opinion.

 

The Trump plan seems designed to declare a victory disguised as a diplomatic accommodation, trading Palestinian political defeat for some promised promise of improved living standards. Having struggled for more than a century to keep their Palestinian homeland from being completely taken over by Israel, there is no reason that their defeat can be ratified by accepting such a humiliating outcome to their long struggle. The Trump plan will fail, and deserves this fate. It is unjust and wrongly neglects Palestinian rights under international law.

 

A final observation—in the post-colonial era a mobilized people will not give up their insistence on exercising their right of self-determination, which can be argued to create a legal foundation for Palestinian claims of statehood without any need for negotiations. If Israel is viewed, despite the historical complexity of its background and the Jewish claim of biblical entitlement, as a settler colonial state, then a Palestinian right of secession exists at least with respect to that part of Palestine occupied since 1967.

 

 

 

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What Comes After Bahrain?

6 Jul

Is there an ‘After’ After the Kushner show in Bahrain?

 

 

[Prefatory Note: The interview below was published by Tasmin New Agency on July 2, 2019, conducted by Mohammad Hassani. The text below has been somewhat modified.]

Q1: Bahrain hosted the so-called “Peace to Prosperity” conference to discuss what the US has described as the economic part of President Donald Trump’s “deal of the century”, a plan which aims to consign the Palestinian cause to oblivion. The Palestinian leadership boycotted the meeting on June 25 and 26 in Manama, leading critics to question the credibility of the event. In your opinion, what goals are the US and Israel pursuing by holding the conference? Would they reach their goals?

 

The ‘workshop’ in Bahrain should never have been evaluated without considering the overall approach taken by the Trump presidency to Israel and Palestine. The relationship to Israel pre-Trump had been one of leaning toward Israel while purporting to be ‘an honest broker,’ a thinly disguised partisanship. Since Trump became president the U.S. has dispensed with thin disguise, and become the avowed

partner of Israel and adversary of Palestinian goals. It manifested this shift in several concrete unprovoked policy shifts that were deliberately punitive toward the Palestinians. Such behavior was a strange prelude to a proclaimed ‘diplomatic’ initiative hyperbolically called ‘the deal of the century.’ Washington’s behavior clearly signaled an end to diplomacy based on agreement and consent of the parties, substituting coercion on behalf of the favored party and seeking submission by its adversary.

 

From such a perspective it should be understood that the purpose of ‘Peace to Prosperity’ is neither peace nor prosperity, but securing an Israeli ‘victory’ and a Palestinian surrender with respect to the political agenda of achieving basic national rights, especially the right of self-determination. Thus, the Manama meeting is a success to the extent it made the proposed bargain of economic normalization in exchange for political defeat seem of material benefit to the governments of the region and had some attraction for the Palestinian Authority and segments of the Palestinian people. The reactions to the event seem very subdued suggesting that the Kushner/Trump initiative has had very little, if any, political impact so far. The secondary objective is one of public relations, being able to blame the anticipated failure to achieve ‘the deal of the century’ on the Palestinians. I fear the Western mainstream media will lend some support to this outrageous claim, which confuses the rejection of American ultimatum, preceded by a series of pro-Israel policy moves (Jerusalem, settlements, UNRWA funding, closing the PLO information office Washington, endorsing Golan and West Bank annexations) hostile to the Palestinians as signaling this Trump shift from pro-Israeli partisanship of the Obama era to pro-Israeli coercive diplomacy currently practices by Washington.

 

Against this background, it is disingenuous for Israeli apologists such as Dershowitz and others to urge the Palestinians to listen with an open mind to what the Trump ‘peace initiative’ is proposing. To lend legitimacy to such coercive diplomacy would be a sign of weakness and an expression of illegitimacy by representatives of the Palestinian people. It would have been seen as an expression of Palestinian hopelessness. Instead, if their refusal to participate in such a macabre charade is linked to the resistance struggle in Gaza embodied in the Great March of Return, it is a moment for those of us in solidarity with the Palestinian struggle to lend greater support to nonviolent initiatives, including the BDS campaign.

Q2: Some analysts say that the Trump administration’s focus on an economic plan, led by his son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner, is a strategic mistake that could stymie the peace negotiations even before they begin. What is your assessment of the US approach to the conflict and the future of the plan? Is it practical at all?

 

The Trump/Kushner ‘plan’ is not looking toward genuine diplomatic negotiations. It is trying to impose a one-sided Israeli victory, and treat the conflict as resolved. This overlooks the robustness of Palestinian resistance, dramatized by the Great March of Return in Gaza, and by the growing global solidarity movement, as featuring the BDS (Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions) Campaign. It should be appreciated that such a campaign managed over time delegitimized South Africa’s apartheid regime to such an extent that it collapsed. Such a soft power Palestinian victory can still be expected if this combination of resistance, solidarity, and patience persist in a manner that imposes sufficient costs on Israel for its reliance on an apartheid structure to achieve its ‘security’ at the expense of Palestinian basic rights. The hope of most activists is that Israeli leaders and citizens will recalculate their interests so as to accept a political compromise based on the equality of rights of the two peoples coexisting with mutual respect in historic Palestine. Remember that all of the anti-colonial victories of the 20th century were achieved by the weakerside militarily and geopolitically.

Q3: Israeli occupation forces have killed 84 Palestinians during the first half of 2019, including eight women and 19 children, according to local media reports. On Friday, Israeli forces once again opened fire on Palestinians taking part in the peaceful “Great March of Return” protests, along the separation fence between the besieged Gaza Strip and occupied territories. According to media reports, more than 270 people, including 52 children, have been killed since the demonstrations began in March 2018. Most of the dead and the thousands wounded were unarmed civilians against whom Israel was using excessive force. Why has the international community, particularly the Western mainstream media, made a muted response to the Tel Aviv regime’s crimes against Palestinians so far?

Israel reliance on excessive force and collective punishment to deal with the Great March of Return, and its grievances and lawful demands, should be treated as violations of international humanitarian law of a severity that amounts to crimes against humanity. It is a shocking reflection of media bias that it accords massive attention to human rights violations in Turkey of a relatively lesser character, while ignoring and even rationalizing much more serious violations by Israel. Although Western liberals have counseled Palestinians to rely on nonviolence in their opposition to Israel, such reliance as in the Great March has been consistently met with brutal force by Israel and by virtual silence in the world media, by the governments of the world, and even by the United Nations. It is a case of geopolitics eclipsing moral and legal accountability exposing the lack of political

will to protect the innocent and vulnerable from abuse by the vindictive and militarily powerful.

 

The growing movement of global solidarity as reinforced by Palestinian acts of resistance to apartheid structures of oppression is the sole basis for a peaceful future for both peoples, Palestinians and Israeli Jews.

 

 

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Decoding the Pipes/Trump/Kushner  ‘Deal of the Century”

11 Sep

Decoding the Pipes/Trump/Kushner  ‘Deal of the Century”

 

You didn’t have to be a ‘never Trump’ loyalist to have qualms about proposing to bring peace to Palestinians and Jews by creating conditions that would produce ‘The Deal of the Century.’ And let’s be fair, if the game of nations is now played according to the rules of Madison Avenue, the phrase was a winner despite being a loser if evaluated from a problem-solving perspective. Even in the present degraded political atmosphere, to bet on an advertising slogan as a substitute for healing ideas may be a good formula for ensuring a large audience for a reality TV episode, but it is a cruel evasion when it comes to addressing the daily ordeal of the Palestinian people consigned to the victimization associated with living under the Israeli apartheid state.

 

What may be worse than Trump’s bombastic boasts is that here there seems to be a malevolent logic that underpins this mad proposal that springs from the ultra-Zionist imagination of Daniel Pipes. It was Pipes months ago, using the Middle East Forum as his ideational vehicle, issued a call for what he named ‘a victory caucus.’ Pipes, an intelligent and trained scholar, reasoned that the Oslo diplomatic track had failed badly as a means for ending the conflict via negotiations. He coupled this conclusion with the historical assertion that prolonged conflicts between ethnic antagonists rarely end by compromise or accommodation. They end with the victory on one side, and the acceptance of defeat by the other side.

 

So the trick, as Pipes came to believe, is to convince the Palestinians to accept the writing on the wall and acknowledge to themselves and the world that they have lost the battle to prevent the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine or to bring into existence a sovereign state of their own. Pipes argues that an objective look at the diplomatic and military relation of forces in Palestine and the Middle East confirms this assessment of the political outcome even without factoring in the unwavering geopolitical support of the United States that provides unconditional support to Israel’s priorities with respect to the Palestinians.

 

With this understanding, the policy puzzle to solve for Pipes then becomes two-fold: how to convince the U.S. Government to shift from its failed promotional effort to negotiate a solution to one of helping Netanyahu’s Israel successfully impose one, and beyond this, how to exert enough additional pressure on the Palestinian situation on the ground and internationally so that their leaders will face reality and surrender their political claims once and for all, and be content with what would then be offered to them—a pledge of economic improvement in their circumstances.

 

On reflection, it does not seem so surprising that such extreme supporters of Israel as the trio of Kushner, Friedman, and Greenblatt are receptive to such an approach, and might have moved in a similar direction even without the Pipes contribution that provides a coherent rationalization. Consider the steps taken by the U.S. government over the course of the past eight months and a pattern emerges that seems to be only compressible as seeking the implementation of the Victory Caucus proposal:

Moving the American Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, attacking the UN –including withdrawing from the Human Rights Council because of its anti-Israeli bias, freezing and then cutting off essential financial aid to the UNRWA operations in Gaza and the West Bank, closing the PLO office in Washington, turning a blind eye to Israel’s crimes against humanity committed in response to the Great March of Return at the Gaza fence, threatening the International Criminal Court, and giving tacit blessing to the accelerated expansion of unlawful Israeli settlements (already surpassing 600,000 settlers). There is no other way to read this series of provocative maneuvers other than as a series of signals to the Palestinian people, and most of all to their leaders, to grasp the futility of their suffering, which will intensify more and more if they do not act sensibly, and submit to whatever Israel proposes so as to complete the Zionist Project of dominating the whole of historic Palestine, the biblical rendering of ‘the promised land’ of Jewish entitlement.

 

To call this kind of coercive diplomacy on an already oppressed people ‘a deal’ is a linguistic travesty. It is more a bullying ploy than a deal, which implies the semblance of a meeting of minds. It is what I have called in this and other contexts a ‘geopolitical crime’ that deserves punishment and international condemnation, not careful consideration given to a serious effort to bring peace to the two peoples. In the future such an initiative is likely to be known as ‘the attempted ultimate crime of the century.’

 

Putting aside sentiments of distaste for the immorality and unlawfulness of this Pipes/Trump/Kushner approach, it is important to ask the awkward question, ‘will it work?’ Given the struggles and suffering endured by the Palestinian people over the course of more than a century, it seems that the Pipes Victory Caucus, like the Trump ‘deal,’ will face scornful repudiation, likely accompanied by dramatic renewals of Palestinian resistance as complement by more militant expressions of global solidarity activities. If we take account of the heroic persistence of the Great March at the Gaza border, despite the repeated atrocities committed by IDF defenders of Israel, and of the increasing worldwide support of the BDS Campaign, it seems reasonable to conclude that the deal of the century has been rejected even before it has been revealed with all its shabby window dressing, including ideas of redrawn boundaries with neighboring countries, permanently fragmenting the Palestinian people beyond the darkest imaginings. If, a big if, the Trump trio of ‘Israel, First’ advisors is at all smart this is a deal whose detailed nature will never be revealed for public scrutiny, and whose anticipated rejection will be hidden behind a PR avalanche of denunciations of Palestinian rejectionism as responsible of killing Trump’s plan for peace.

 

Underneath this attempt to make the Palestinians drink such a toxic brew is a flawed reading of the flow of history in our time. The sun has set on colonialism, and no matter how much geopolitical muscle is applied, this reality cannot be overcome. This kind of geopolitical crime will doubtless intensify Palestinian suffering while it also strengthens Palestinian resolve. In these kind of decolonizing struggles it is shifts in the soft powerbalances that most often produces change, and not the tilting of the geopolitical scales or dominance on the battlefield. People, not states and their armed forces, are the movers and shakers of our era, with governments left on the sidelines to weep over the outcome. The European colonial powers learned this the hard way in a series of bloody wars, which they lost despite their military superiority. The United States, despite its experiences in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan has yet to grasp the limits of military power in the post-colonial world, and so it keeps inventing weapons, tactics, and doctrine without learning this indispensable lesson in the shifting nature of power.

 

True, Oslo diplomacy was a failure that worked to the political benefit of Israel, and was rightly abandoned. But the Trump response to this failure amount to the criminalization of diplomacy that violates the most basic precepts of international law, as spelled out in the UN Charter. It amounts to waging an aggressive war against a vulnerable and helpless people. If the UN and the leading governments watch this dismal spectacle in stony silence it can only be fervently hoped that the peoples of the world will recognize the need for radical reform to avoid a catastrophic future, not just for the Palestinians, but for all of humanity.

 

 

 

 

  

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