Forty years dishonest brokering in Arab-Israeli-Palestinian
affairs
Excerpt, minor editing by Carolyn Bennett
Naseer Aruri’s thoughts on “the Oslo Accords and the new Intifada”
THE U.S. ENDEAVOR TO
IMPOSE ITS HEGEMONY ON THE MIDDLE EAST, which predates the 1967 [Six Day]
War, reflects the consensus of U.S politicians on all sides of the spectrum.
With the departure of the former colonial powers--the United Kingdom and
France--U.S. planners decided the Middle East would have to be recolonized by
the United States. In an era of decolonization, Arab nationalist ideas and concepts,
such as Arab unity, Arab socialism, nonalignment, return and restitution for
Palestinian refugees, and indeed Arab-Israeli parity, were considered anathema
in Washington and Tel Aviv.
For four decades, U.S. administrations were able to hold
tight to this consensus, but there were adaptations and stylistic changes along
the way, meant as a sort of cosmetic surgery to make the policy less objectionable to
conservative Arabs.
Oslo was the diplomatic equivalent of the military
destruction of Iraq.
THE ROLE OF THE U.S.
MEDIA BORDERS ON THAT OF AN INFORMATION OFFICE IN THE ISRAELI FOREIGN MINISTRY
AND THE U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT. They parrot the Israeli accusation that
Palestinian parents send their children to the street to throw stones and get
killed in order to score a propaganda victory.
Such racist attitudes are based on the premise that
Palestinians don't value human lives as do Israelis and Westerners-- a
well-known and well-documented phenomenon in Western discourse about Third World
societies challenging colonialism.
… [T]he accusation, moreover, assumes that … the Palestinian
people have no independent judgment or critical faculties.
This isn’t the first time that the U.S. media have
misunderstood the essence of a popular evolution among oppressed people. South Africans,
the Vietnamese, Central Americans, and African American activists in the 1960s
were portrayed as being driven by ‘external’ forces whenever they challenged
the oppressive status quo.
What the media fail to--or refuse to--understand is that all
these struggles and the popular discontent throughout the Arab world are really
a consequence of the efforts of the imperial powers and their regional
collaborators to restructure and rearrange the political systems of the region
to suit their interests.
 |
| Second Intifada Part of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict Image at Wikipedia |
THE PEOPLE ARE
ASSERTING THEIR LEGITIMATE RIGHT OF RESISTANCE. And they are paying an
exceedingly high price for it--with their lives and children’s lives, with
their homes and property, and with their livelihood.
As long as this Intifada continues, the old rules of the division
of labor between the PA, Israel, and the United States will be obsolete,
discredited, and illegitimate.
The Intifada has
penetrated the conscience of the Arab masses, the Islamic community, and
numerous constituencies around the world who came to recognize Israel’s acts as
… war crimes.
NASEER ARURI
Jerusalem-born Naseer Aruri is Chancellor Professor
(Emeritus) of Political Science at the University of Massachusetts
Dartmouth and author of Palestine
and the Palestinians: A Social and Political History (2006); Dishonest Broker: America's Role in Israel
and Palestine (2003); Palestinian Refugees: The
Right of Return (Editor, 2001); Revising Culture, Reinventing
Peace: The Influence of Edward W. Said (Co-editor, 2001); The
Obstruction of Peace: The U.S., Israel, and the Palestinians (1995); Occupation:
Israel Over Palestine (Editor, 1983).
Sources and notes
Interview with Naseer Aruri (speaking with ISR's ANTHONY
ARNOVE about the Oslo Accords and the new Intifada), International Socialist
Review Issue 15, December 2000-January 2001, Oslo: Cover for Territorial
Conquest
The Oslo Accords (officially, the Declaration of Principles
on Interim Self-Government Arrangements or Declaration of Principles) were declared
an attempt to resolve the ongoing Israeli–Palestinian conflict. The Oslo
Accords were a framework for the future relations between the two parties.
Since the start of the al-Aqsa Intifada ─ the Second
Intifada (Al-Aqsa Intifada or the Oslo War), the second Palestinian uprising, a
period of intensified Palestinian–Israeli violence beginning in late September
2000 and ending roughly in 2005 leaving an estimated death toll of 5,500
Palestinians, 1,100 Israelis and 64 foreigners) ─ the Oslo Accords have come
into increasing disfavor by Palestinians and Israelis.
Amid incessant violence, brutal occupation, and continuous
expansion of Israeli settlements, a report in late 2010 said, though there was
no official statement, the Palestinian Authority no longer considers itself bound
by the Oslo Accords. Wikipedia
Intifada: the act of
shaking off] (1985): uprising rebellion; specifically: an armed uprising of
Palestinians against Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Britannica
Image at Wikipedia
Second Intifada: Part of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict
Clockwise from above: A masked Palestinian militant, Palestinian children throwing rocks in Hebron, a soldier patrolling in front of the West Bank Barrier, aftermath of the Mercaz HaRav massacre, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Intifada
Bennett's books are available in New York State independent bookstores: Lift Bridge Bookshop: www.liftbridgebooks.com [Brockport, NY]; Sundance Books: http://www.sundancebooks.com/main.html [Geneseo, NY]; Mood Makers Books: www.moodmakersbooks.com [City of Rochester, NY]; Dog Ears Bookstore and Literary Arts Center: www.enlightenthedog.org/ [Buffalo, NY]; Burlingham Books – ‘Your Local Chapter’: http://burlinghambooks.com/ [Perry, NY 14530]; The Bookworm: http://www.eabookworm.com/ [East Aurora, NY] • See also: World Pulse: Global Issues through the eyes of Women: http://www.worldpulse.com/ http://www.worldpulse.com/pulsewire http://www.facebook.com/#!/bennetts2ndstudy
________________________________
No comments:
Post a Comment