U.S. stymies Palestinian progress, reiterates “principle”

During Friday’s panel discussion covering the Obama performance on the Middle East, particularly concerning Palestine, Democracy Now co-host Juan Gonzalez pulled notes from the recent past U.S. president’s remarks on Palestine and compared a copy/paste in the current president’s Thursday speech at the U.S. State Department

Editing by Carolyn Bennett

Restating status quo

BUSH

“There should be an end to the occupation that began in 1967. …”

OBAMA

“We believe the borders of Israel and Palestine should be based on the 1967 lines with mutually agreed swaps, so that secure and recognized borders are established for both states.”  

BUSH

“[An] agreement must establish Palestine as a homeland for the Palestinian people, just as Israel is a homeland for the Jewish people.”

OBAMA

“[W]hile the core issues of the conflict must be negotiated, the basis of those negotiations is clear:  a viable Palestine, a secure Israel.” 

BUSH

“… [N]egotiations must ensure that Israel has secure, recognized and defensible borders. And they must ensure that the state of Palestine is viable, contiguous, sovereign and independent.”

OBAMA

“The Palestinian people must have the right to govern themselves and reach their full potential in a sovereign and contiguous state.”

On Friday’s Democracy Now panel, activists Norman Finkelstein and Noura Erakat set forth an unambiguous response to the U.S. government’s years-old mantra cast as “progressive principle,” showing up the U.S. Government’s continuing mission to keep the conflict going, stymie progress of the Palestinian people, and indeed to further weaken states, peoples and institutions of the greater Middle-East region.

Jerusalem

OBAMA

“… [W]hile the core issues of the conflict must be negotiated, the basis of those negotiations is clear:  a viable Palestine, a secure Israel. … These principles provide a foundation for negotiations.  Palestinians should know the territorial outlines of their state. Israelis should know that their basic security concerns will be met.  … [However] these steps alone will not resolve the conflict, because two wrenching and emotional issues will remain:  the future of Jerusalem and the fate of Palestinian refugees.”

Author, scholar NORMAN FINKELSTEIN:

“President Obama said that Jerusalem is a separate issue. He calls it an issue that remains but that is not the law.

“The International Court of Justice [at the UN] ruled that the whole of the West Bank, as they put it, comma, including Arab Jerusalem, is occupied Palestinian territory. If you say you want to return to the June 1967 border, how can you exclude Jerusalem?

Jerusalem has the exact same status under international law as the West Bank and Gaza.

In the words of the International Court, it is occupied Palestinian territory.

To talk about a Palestinian state without East Jerusalem is to talk about an Indian reservation or a Bantustan [Any of several all-black enclaves formerly in the Republic of South Africa that had a limited degree of self-government]. There cannot be a state without Jerusalem as its capital.

Entrenched partisan/sectarianism

tap dance, threaten, straw man, condescend

mischaracterize, camouflage consistent failure in U.S. leadership

Backpedal

OBAMA

“For the Palestinians, efforts to delegitimize Israel will end in failure. Symbolic actions to isolate Israel at the United Nations in September won’t create an independent state. Palestinian leaders will not achieve peace or prosperity if Hamas insists on a path of terror and rejection. Palestinians will never realize their independence by denying the right of Israel to exist.… Recognizing that negotiations need to begin with the issues of territory and security does not mean that it will be easy to come back to the table.…

… [T]he recent announcement of an agreement between Fatah and Hamas raises profound and legitimate questions for Israel:  How can one negotiate with a party that has shown itself unwilling to recognize your right to exist?  In the weeks and months to come, Palestinian leaders will have to provide a credible answer to that question….”

Attorney, activist NOURA ERAKAT:

“… That the U.S. has siphoned this discussion and isolated it, so that it created a tension between human rights, international law and politics, is precisely what has undermined the Palestinian platform to achieve any semblance of self-determination. … Returning to this multilateral platform, where might doesn’t equal right but there is a point of departure — and that point of departure is international law — is a positive step.…”

Capturing a relentlessly intentionally regressive status quo

Finkelstein:

In a resolution called ‘Peaceful Settlement of the Palestine Question,’ the United Nations every year in November outlines “the principles for resolving the conflict. We don’t need Mr. Obama to conjure up new principles any more than we needed President Bush to conjure them up. We have the platform or the basic principles based on international law. Those principles have been ratified every year not only by the UN General Assembly but also by all 22 members of the Arab League and by the 57 members of the Organization of the Islamic Conference.”

Erakat:

“[A]ny solution requires Obama not to map out and reiterate these same principles over and over. What the U.S. needs to do is to apply pressure to end the settlement expansion, to dismantle them, to dismantle the wall pursuant to the ICJ [International Court of Justice] decision, to hold Israel accountable for Operation Cast Lead, to remove Israel’s forces from the Jordan Valley. And then we can discuss these other matters on principle.”

Sources and notes

“Did Obama’s Mideast Speech Signal U.S. Shift on Israel-Palestine? Democracy Now! Roundtable” [on the panel Norman Finkelstein, author of several books on the Israel-Palestine conflict, including This Time We Went Too Far: Truth & Consequences of the Gaza Invasion; Noura Erakat, Palestinian human rights attorney, activist and adjunct professor of international human rights law in the Middle East at Georgetown University; legal advocacy coordinator for the Badil Center for Palestinian Refugee and Residency Rights and co-founder of Jadaliyya Ezine], May 20, 2011, http://www.democracynow.org/2011/5/20/did_obamas_mideast_speech_signal_us

“Remarks by the President on the Middle East and North Africa,” State Department, Office of the Press Secretary, Washington, D.C., Immediate Release May 19, 2011, The White House, http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2011/05/19/remarks-president-middle-east-and-north-africa

BADIL, http://www.badil.org/

Established in January 1998 based on recommendations issued by a series of popular refugee conferences in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, BADIL Resource Center for Palestinian Residency and Refugee Rights is an independent, community-based non-profit organization mandated to defend and promote the rights of Palestinian refugees and IDPs [internally displaced persons]. . BADIL is registered with the Palestinian Authority and is legally owned by the refugee community represented by a General Assembly composed of activists in Palestinian national institutions and refugee community organizations.

The vision, missions, programs and relationships of BADIL are defined by members’ Palestinian identity and the principles of international law — in particular international human rights law.

BADIL Membership, Networks & Coalitions

Consultative status with UN ECOSOC; framework partnership agreement with UNHCR;  member of the global Palestine Right-of-Return Coalition, al-Awda Right-to-Return Coalition (USA), BDS Campaign National Committee, HIC-Habitat International Coalition (Cairo); CRIN-Child Rights Information Network (UK); ICVA-International Council of Voluntary Agencies (Geneva); ICNP-International Coordinating Network on Palestine; OPGAI-Occupied Palestine and Syrian Golan Heights Advocacy Initiative; and PNGO-Palestinian NGO Network http://www.badil.org/en/about-badil; BADIL Resource Center for Palestinian Residency & Refugee Rights, Bethlehem, West Bank, Palestine

Noura Erakat

Legal Advocacy Coordinator for the Badil Center for Palestinian Refugee and Residency Rights, Noura Erakat is university professor, a Palestinian human rights attorney and activist. She has served as Legal Counsel for a Congressional Subcommittee in the U.S. House of Representatives, chaired by Ohio/U.S. Representative Dennis J. Kucinich. She has helped to initiate and organize several national formations including Arab Women Arising for Justice (AMWAJ) and the U.S. Palestinian Community Network (USPCN).

Erakat spent an academic semester in 2010 in Beirut, Lebanon where she worked with a human rights attorney on a several issues including administrative detention of Iraqi refugees. Her publications include ‘Litigating the Arab-Israeli Conflict: The Politicization of U.S. Federal Courts’ in the Berkeley Law Journal of Middle Eastern and Islamic Law and ‘Arabiya Made Invisible: Between the Marginalization of Agency and the Silencing of Dissent’ in a Syracuse Press anthology.

Erakat holds law and undergraduate degrees from the University of California-Berkeley and has  worked and studied in Israel and Palestine: she interned at Adalah: The Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, studied at Hebrew University, and volunteered in Palestinian refugee camps throughout the West Bank and Lebanon. She is also a published poet, photographer and playwright (her two plays include Pulse of the Intfada and Visiting Palestine), http://www.speakoutnow.org/userdata_display.php?modin=50&uid=194

Norman G. Finkelstein

Independent scholar Norman G. Finkelstein authored Beyond Chutzpah: On the misuse of anti-Semitism and the abuse of history ( 2005, expanded paperback edition, 2008); The Holocaust Industry: Reflections on the exploitation of Jewish suffering (2000, expanded paperback edition, 2003); Image and Reality of the Israel-Palestine Conflict (1995, expanded paperback edition, 2003); A Nation on Trial: The Goldhagen thesis and historical truth (with Ruth Bettina Birn) (1998); The Rise and Fall of Palestine: A personal account of the intifada years (1996); A Farewell to Israel: The coming break-up of American Zionism (2009)

For many years, Finkelstein taught political theory and the Israel-Palestine conflict. He holds a doctorate from the Princeton University Department of Politics, http://www.normanfinkelstein.com/biography/

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Bennett's books 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]; The Book Den, Ltd.: BookDenLtd@frontiernet.net [Danville, NY]; Talking Leaves Books-Elmwood: talking.leaves.elmwood@gmail.com [Buffalo, NY]; Book House of Stuyvesant Plaza: http://www.bhny.com/ [Albany, 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]; LONGS’ Cards and Books: http://longscardsandbooks.com/ [Penn Yan, NY]
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Four more years’ YWC cliché, E. coli”

Re-reporting, editing, comment by Carolyn Bennett

“Yes we can” brings you the same ole pandering, purposely clueless, precedent-keeping status quo
The citizens can judge if they will

Only a fool believes — or an astute person is unprincipled enough to peddle such nonsense — that regulation off shores jobs and destroys financial sectors, sustains polluted air and unclean water and tainted or otherwise unsafe food.

Public protections have been grossly inadequate in the past several years, Public Citizen’s Robert Weissman wrote in mid January. Under-regulation and corporate disregard of safety rules have resulted in multiple salmonella and E. coli outbreaks, a flood of lead-tainted toys, a massive and environmentally devastating oil spill, deadly mine disasters and the collapse of our economy — costing eight million U.S. jobs.

“We need to focus most urgently on fixing these problems and others,” Weissman says, not cutting back, conducting internal reviews, creating red tape, and further burdening agencies already overworked and under-resourced.

President Barack Obama’s January opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal “adopts business and right-wing think-tank talking points about the harms of regulation and urges ‘balance’ in achieving the right amount of regulation. This, Weissman says, “is the wrong way to think about regulation, and it is the wrong direction for the American people.

Markets cannot function without proper regulation. That means businesses cannot function without proper regulation.

We do not need a ‘balance’ between regulation and the free market. We need effective regulations that foster the right types of markets.”

The current U.S. president in a long line of presidents is deliberately, calculatedly, clueless, pandering to corporate while pushing broad sectors of the American people [the country, its union, its institutions] more deeply into danger, despair and disaffection.

In this year’s State of the Union address, amidst much pandering and the usual pathetic platitudes and clichés (not a syllable on employment/unemployment, poor/poverty, environmental health), the U.S. president self-identifies as the cunningly clueless figure most people by now know him to be. Like his presidential predecessors (now members of his cabinet and inner circle) who “felt your pain” and sold you out, subliminally telling you “you’re on your own,” the president said — as if you did not know — “The competition for jobs is real.” How astute is that? And —

“None of us can predict with certainty what the next big industry will be or where the new jobs will come from.” This is a leader without vision — a regressive in a requisite era of “progress.”

Is the choir this Sunday singing “four more years” of this “yes-we-can”?

Somehow, I doubt it.



Sources and notes
Public Citizen President Robert Weissman wrote on January 18, 2011, “Obama’s new approach to regulation is misguided” Instead of fewer, “we need stronger controls over big business, ” Statement of Robert Weissman, President, Public Citizen, January 18, 2011,
http://www.citizen.org/pressroom/pressroomredirect.cfm?ID=3258

“Unprecedented bailouts, Outlandish bonuses, Token regulation, Too big to fail getting even bigger, The global economy sacrificed to feed a boundless greed,” these, according to Public Citizen, are the destroyers of quality — a quality of life the Same Ole Washington barons persist in imposing on people’s lives.

Public Citizen for nearly four decades has championed citizen interests before Congress, the executive branch agencies and the courts. The group has successfully challenged abusive practices of the pharmaceutical, nuclear and automobile industries; and has led the charge against undemocratic trade agreements that advance the interests of mega-corporations at the expense of citizens worldwide. Public Citizen is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization with two offices in Washington, D.C., and Austin, Texas, https://www.citizen.org/Page.aspx?pid=2306

Remarks by the President in State of Union Address, the White House, Office of the Press Secretary, For Immediate Release January 25, 2011, United States Capitol, Washington, D.C., http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2011/01/25/remarks-president-state-union-address

Also: CounterSpin, January 28-February 3, 2011, “Laila El-Haddad on Palestine Papers [and] Robert Weissman on Obama and Big Business,” http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=4241


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Bennett's books 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]; The Book Den, Ltd.: BookDenLtd@frontiernet.net [Danville, NY]; Talking Leaves Books-Elmwood: talking.leaves.elmwood@gmail.com [Buffalo, NY]; Book House of Stuyvesant Plaza: http://www.bhny.com/ [Albany, 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]; LONGS’ Cards and Books: http://longscardsandbooks.com/ [Penn Yan, NY]
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