Sham Peace Talks Resume

by Stephen Lendman

Why bother. Talks are doomed to fail. So did multiple previous rounds. Israel wants things its way. Demands masquerade as give and take.

According to one PLO official, "Israel will dodge, evade and propose unachievable demands to promote a conclusion that negotiations are futile, and so Israel will continue to steal lands as they are doing now."

It's hard imagining Palestinian officials agreeing to talks rigged to fail. Longtime Israeli collaborators do it willingly. It's for generous benefits they derive. Crime pays well. So does betrayal.

On August 14, US/Israeli orchestrators met with PA's Saeb Erekat and Fatah official Mohammed Shtayyeh. 

He's a technocrat. He's managing director of the Palestinian Economic Council for Development and Reconstruction (PECDAR). 

He's founding member of the Palestinian Development Fund. He's a former Palestinian public works and housing minister.

He's a founding Palestinian Institute for Regional Studies member. He's collaborating with Israel for personal self-interest.

Talks discussed guidelines and agenda issues. They did so despite Israel bombing Gaza. Warplanes fired missiles at multiple targets. Similar attacks happen often. Israel invents pretexts to do so. Innocent civilians die.

Talks continued despite Palestinian fishermen attacked at sea. They're at the same time as outrage over accelerated settlement construction.

Stealing Palestinian land's no olive branch. Nor is releasing 26 long held political prisoners. Their freedom's subject to restrictions. 

Some weren't allowed to go home. They're vulnerable to rearrest. In 2004, Yasser Arafat said "(t)here will be no peace until all Palestinian prisoners are released." Palestinian supporters today feel the same way.

Thousands of Bedouins await dispossession. Israeli courts spurned them. Israel wants land they own. It wants it for exclusive Jewish development.

In July, a Beersheba court rejected Bedouins' appeal. They urged delaying another court-ordered property demolition and dispossession ruling. 

It's their land. It doesn't matter. On August 15, efforts to displace them began. They're losing everything. Rogue states operate that way. Israel's one of the worst. 

One Sawah village resident spoke for others, saying:

"We requested that Israeli authorities give us a delay until we arrange to move into a neighborhood in the nearby village of Hurah which is being expanded, but they refused."

Jewish rights alone matter. Palestinians ones don't. Sham peace talks won't change things. Decades of occupation harshness continue.

Expecting this time's different reflects Einstein's definition of insanity. Expecting success after decades of failure explains it. Israel's worst government in history assures it.

Hardliners are all take and no give. US orchestrator John Kerry's two-faced. He's Israel's man at State. 

Publicly he's concerned about settlement expansions. At the same time, he doesn't think proceeding hampers talks.

Privately he's comfortable with build, build, built. He's been that way all along. In the Senate, he supported them for years. 

He said we knew "there was going to be a continuation of some building in certain places, and I think the Palestinians understand that."

Israel announced accelerated construction. Doing so reflects land grabbing writ large. It spurns equitable conflict resolution. 

It reveals longstanding Israeli business as usual. It shows contempt for rule of law principles. It makes justice a four-letter word.

It exposes Washington's true face. It's in lockstep with whatever Israel does. Palestinian rights don't matter. Talks won't change things.

It bears repeating. Kerry is Israel's man at State. He's in lockstep with its worst policies. His pro-Israel voting record is second to none. He's committed to maintaining a longstanding special relationship. Whatever Israel wants he's for.

He's always been that way. For sure he is now. He favors moving America's embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

Doing so is illegal. In 1947, the UN declared it an international city. It remains so today.

Kerry calls Jerusalem "Israel's indisputable capital." In 1999, he signed a letter criticizing Clinton for not moving America's embassy there. 

He ignored international law doing so. He's throwing Palestinians under the bus. He pretends otherwise. He supports continued occupation harshness.

On August 13, Robert Fisk headlined "Any other 'statesman' who negotiated peace like John Kerry would be treated as a thief."

"Has (he) no shame," he asked? "First he cuddles up to both Palestinians and Israelis and announces the renewal of a 'peace process which the Palestinians don't trust and the Israelis don't want."

"Then Israel announces that it will build 1,200 new homes for Jews - and Jews only - on occupied Palestinian land." 

"And now Kerry tells the Palestinians - the weak and occupied Palestinians - that they are running out of time if they want a state of their own."

"Then came the ultimate lie: that the 'question of settlements' is 'best resolved by solving the problem of security and borders.' "

Doing so justifies lawless land grabbing. Millions worldwide condemn it. So do many Israelis.

Kerry "go(es) all out for 'peace.' " He does so on Israeli terms. "Cabined, cribbed (and) confined" Palestinians have to "shut up'' and accept them.

Kerry insists "hurry, hurry, hurry. Book your seats now, or it will be a full house," said Fisk. 'What price 'Palestine?' "

Over decades, Washington vetoed 39 Security Council resolutions criticizing Israel. In 2011, it blocked one condemning continued settlement construction. All other SC members supported it. So do over 90% of world community members.

At the time, US officials claimed resolution backing harmed peace prospects. How wasn't explained. Arab street reaction expressed outrage. It did so justifiably. America's position is untenable.

Palestinian political prisoner Marwan Barghouti calls Washington's one-sided Israeli support a crime against humanity. Bouthaina Shaaban condemned America's veto, saying:

"The importance of what is happening today in the Arab world is the fall of the colonial dimension of the official regime, which has ignored the crimes against humanity in Palestine…"

America's veto reflects "eternal shame for western 'democracies…' (L)ike tens of other(s), (it) contributed to the perpetuation of Israeli suppression of the Palestinian people, colonizing their land, expelling and condemning them to life in refugee camps."

MJ Rosenberg said:

"It is not hard to explain the Obama administration's decision to veto a resolution embodying positions that we support." 

"It is the power of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), which (lobbied) furiously for a US veto."

One-sided Israeli support is "why US standing in the Middle East will continue to deteriorate."

Akiva Eldar thanked Obama. He did so for showing "his true colors." He's "two-faced."

"The lame excuse that denunciation of construction in the settlements would harm 'the peace process' constitutes a victory of opportunism over morality," he said.

Yaron London said Israel's "relying on a sinking superpower that is abandoning its pretenses to lead the world…"

Haaretz editors said "Palestinians lost the vote, (but) achieved their goal: They exposed for all to see the international isolation of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's administration and embarrassed the US."

"The world's patience over continued construction in the settlements is wearing thin." Other observers agree. In time, it'll be entirely gone.

Peace prospects remain distant. One day Palestinians will be free. Occupation harshness can't last forever. What can't go on forever, won't. 

Hopefully time will resolve injustice. Some things are worth waiting for. Peace, equity and justice matter most. Patience brings its own reward. 

Edmond Burke said it "achieve(s) more than force." Rousseau called it "bitter, but its fruit is sweet." 

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. 

His new book is titled "Banker Occupation: Waging Financial War on Humanity."

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanII.html

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com. 

Listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network.

It airs Fridays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.

http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour 

http://www.dailycensored.com/sham-peace-talks-resume/

 

Source

Futile Peace Talks – Again. The Jewish State’s Bottom Line

 Jonathan Cook

There are many flies waiting to spoil the ointment of the Middle East peace talks, not least Israel’s recent announcement of a rash of settlement-building. That triggered an angry letter to Washington last week from the Palestinian leadership, though it seems Israel’s serial humiliation of Mahmoud Abbas before the two sides meet was not enough to persuade him to pull out.

However, as the parties meet today for their first round of proper negotiations, it is worth highlighting one major stumbling block that has barely registered with observers: the fifth of Israel’s population who are not Jews but Palestinians.

The difficulty posed to the peace process by this Palestinian minority was illustrated in the defining moment of the last notable effort to reach an agreement, initiated in Oslo two decades ago.

In 1993 Yitzhak Rabin, then prime minister, assembled a 15-person delegation for the signing ceremony with the Palestinians at the White House. The delegation was selected to suggest that all sectors of Israeli society favoured peace.

When Rabin was asked why he had not included a single Palestinian, he waved aside the question: “We are going to sign a peace treaty between Jewish Israel and the PLO.”

Rabin believed his own Palestinian citizens should be represented not by their government but by the adversary across the table. The mood 20 years on is unchanged. The Palestinian minority is still viewed as a fifth column, one a Jewish state would be better off without.

Significantly, it was a matter relating to Israel’s Palestinian citizens that nearly scuppered the start of these talks. Israeli cabinet ministers revolted at a precondition from Abbas that the release of long-term political prisoners should include a handful of inmates from Israel’s Palestinian minority.

Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, won a majority in the cabinet only after agreeing to postpone freeing this group until an unspecified time.

Similarly, previous experience suggests there will be an eruption of outrage should Netanyahu’s promised referendum on an agreement depend for its outcome — given the likely split between Israeli Jews — on the votes of Palestinian citizens. A senior minister, Silvan Shalom, has already indicated that only Israeli Jews should decide.

But Israel’s Palestinian minority will be thrust into the heart of the negotiations much before that.

Last weekend Netanyahu picked at one of the Israeli right’s favourite sores, denouncing reported comments from Abbas that no Israeli should be allowed to remain inside a future Palestinian state. Why, asks the right, should Israelis — meaning the settlers — be expelled from a Palestinian state while Israel is left with a large and growing Palestinian population inside its borders?

A possible solution promulgated by Netanyahu’s ally Avigdor Lieberman would redraw the borders to expel as many Palestinian citizens as possible in exchange for the settlements. There is a practical flaw, however: a land swap would rid Israel only of those Palestinians living near the West Bank.

Netanyahu prefers another option. He has required of the Palestinian Authority that it recognise Israel as a Jewish state. This condition will take centre stage at the talks.

Leaders of the Palestinian minority in Israel are intensively lobbying the PA to reject the demand. According to a recent report by the International Crisis Group, Palestinian officials are still undecided. Some fear the PA may agree to recognition if it clears the way to an agreement.

Why does this matter to Israel? In the event there is a deal on Palestinian statehood, Israel will wake up the next morning to an intensified campaign for equal rights from the Palestinian minority. In such circumstances, Israel will not be able to plead “security” to justify continuing systematic discrimination.

The Palestinian minority’s first demand for equality is not in doubt: a right of return allowing their relatives in exile to join them inside Israel similar to the current Law of Return, which allows any Jew in the world instantly to become a citizen.

The stakes are high: without the Law of Return, Israel’s Jewishness is finished; with it, Israel’s trumpeted democracy is exposed as hollow.

Netanyahu is acutely sensitive to these dangers. Recognition of Israel’s Jewishness would pull the rug from under the minority’s equality campaign. If you don’t want to live in a Jewish state, Netanyahu will tell Palestinian citizens, go live in Palestine. That is what Mahmoud Abbas, your leader, agreed.

Netanyahu’s visceral contempt for the rights of the Palestinian minority was alluded to in a recent parliamentary debate. When an Arab MP commented, “We were here before you and will remain [here] after you”, an indignant Netanyahu broke protocol to interrupt: “The first part isn’t true, and the second won’t be.”

Recent government moves suggest that his latter observation may not be simply an idle boast but a carefully crafted threat. Israel is preparing to expel tens of thousands of Bedouin citizens from their homes in the Negev into urban reservations as part of a forced relocation plan. This ethnic cleansing campaign sets a dangerous precedent, hinting at what may lie ahead for Israel’s other Palestinian communities.

The minority has taken to the streets in the most widespread internal Palestinian protests seen since the eruption of the second intifada. Israeli police have responded with extreme brutality, using levels of violence that would never be contemplated against Jewish demonstrators.

At the same time, Netanyahu’s government has introduced legislation to raise the threshold for parties seeking entry to the Knesset. The main victims will be the three small Arab parties represented there. The law’s aim, analysts note, is to engineer an Arab-free Knesset, guaranteeing the right’s continuing and unchallengeable domination.

Netanyahu, it seems, doubts he can rely on the PA either to supply him with the political surrender he needs from the peace process or to recognise his state’s Jewishness. Instead he is bypassing Abbas to protect against the threat posed by his Palestinian citizens’ demand for equality.

Jonathan Cook won the Martha Gellhorn Special Prize for Journalism. His latest books are “Israel and the Clash of Civilisations: Iraq, Iran and the Plan to Remake the Middle East” (Pluto Press) and “Disappearing Palestine: Israel’s Experiments in Human Despair” (Zed Books).  His new website is www.jonathan-cook.net.

 Source

Monsoon Wedding director Mira Nair boycotts Israel film festival

Mira Nair (Wikimedia Commons)

by Ali Abunimah

Mira Nair, the internationally-acclaimed director of Salaam Bombay! and Monsoon Wedding, has refused an invitation to take her latest film to Israel, citing the Palestinian call for cultural boycott.

In a series of tweets today, Nair made the following statement:

 I was just invited to Israel as a guest of honor at the Haifa International Film Festival with “The Reluctant Fundamentalist.” I will not be going to Israel at this time. I will go to Israel when the walls come down. I will go to Israel when occupation is gone. I will go to Israel when the state does not privilege one religion over another. I will go to Israel when Apartheid is over. I will go to Israel, soon. I stand with the [Palestinian Campaign] for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) and the larger Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) Movement.

 Official trailer of The Reluctant Fundamentalist

Mira Nair’s tweets

on Twitter

I was just invited to Israel as a guest of honor at the Haifa International Film Festival with “The Reluctant Fundamentalist.” (1/5)
— Mira Nair (@MiraPagliNair) July 19, 2013

on Twitter

I will not be going to Israel at this time. I will go to Israel when the walls come down. I will go to Israel when occupation is gone. (2/5)
— Mira Nair (@MiraPagliNair) July 19, 2013

on Twitter

I will go to Israel when the state does not privilege one religion over another. I will go to Israel when Apartheid is over. (3/5)
— Mira Nair (@MiraPagliNair) July 19, 2013

on Twitter

I will go to Israel, soon. (4/5)
— Mira Nair (@MiraPagliNair) July 19, 2013

on Twitter

I stand w/ Palestine for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) & the larger Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) Mov't. (5/5)
— Mira Nair (@MiraPagliNair) July 19, 2013

Source

History of the Theft of Palestine and the Jewish Invention of Modern Terrorism

By Mohamed Khodr

They, the Jews, were the first to use terrorism in recorded history and are responsible for inventing terrorism in modern history in Palestine, the Middle East.

According to terrorismresearch.com :
“The earliest known organization that exhibited aspects of a modern terrorist organization was the Zealots of Judea. Known to the Romans as SICARII,, or dagger-men , they carried on an underground campaign of assassination of Roman occupation forces, as well as any Jews they felt had collaborated with the Romans”.

In the 20^th Century it was the Jewish terrorist groups the Irgun, led by future Prime Minister and Nobel Peace Prize winner Menachem Begin, and the Stern Gang led by Yitzhak Shamir, another future Israeli Prime Minister that introduced terrorism in Palestine, the Middle East, and Europe.

“The IZL [Irgun] and Stern groups inaugurated a reign of terror in the Palestine Jewish community. Teachers were beaten up for speaking against them, adults were shot for not letting their children join them. By gangster methods, beatings, window smashing, and widespread robberies, the terrorists intimidated the population and exacted a heavy tribute”.
(also lists several Jewish terrorist acts)

–Guardian, “Early Zionist Terrorist Gangs”

Photos of the Wanted Terrorists Menachem Begin on the left and Yitzhak Shamir on the right by British police.

Menachem Begin, Wanted photo as leader of terrorist group, the Irgun. 

Future Prime Minister of Israel and Nobel Peace Prize winner. Rewarding

the terrorists, only if they are Jews.

Among the terrorist acts first introduced in the Middle East by Jewish Terrorist Groups and Israel are:

First use of car and truck bombs to kill civilians in open areas.

First to use a car bomb to blow up a building:  King David Hotel in Jerusalem

First to assassinate a U.N. Official:  Count Folke Bernadotte serving as a Peace Mediator between Jews and Arabs.  Killed in 1948 by the Stern (Yitzhak Shamir) terrorist group in Jerusalem.

First to assassinate a foreign government official, Lord Moyne, British Minister to the Middle East in 1944 in Cairo.  Killed by the Stern Gang.

First to use letter bombs sent to British officials in London after failed terrorist bombs and assassination plans. In 1947, 20 letter bombs were sent to leading figures in Britain including Lord Ernest Bevin, UK Foreign Minister, and Anthony Eden, his Tory predecessor

First to Hijack a civilian airliner in December 1954 forcing it to land in Tel Aviv.  Israel kept the passengers and crew hostage for several days.

First deliberate shooting down of a civilian airliner, Libyan, by Israeli jet fighters in February 1973 under direct orders of P.M. Golda Meir killing all 107 passengers and the entire French crew.

In 1968, Israeli commanders blew up 13 civilian airliners in Beirut airport Lebanon.


In Noam Chomsky’s must read article; “International Terrorism: Image and Reality” he quotes Yitzhak Shamir on his view on what we call “terrorism”.He writes:

“In 1943, current Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir wrote an article entitled “Terror” for the journal of the terrorist organization he headed (Lehi) in which he
proposed to:

“Dismiss all the ‘phobia’ and babble against terror with simple,
obvious arguments.” “Neither Jewish morality nor Jewish tradition can be
used to disallow terror as a means of war,” he wrote, and “We are very far
from any moral hesitations when concerned with the national struggle.”
“First and foremost, terror is for us a part of the political war
appropriate for the circumstances of today, and its task is a major one: it
demonstrates in the clearest language, heard throughout the world including
by our unfortunate brethren outside the gates of this country, our war
against the occupier.”

These Zionist terrorists including David Ben Gurion, Ze’ev Jabotinsky, Chaim Weizman, Shimon Peres, Yitzhak Rabin, Ariel Sharon, and including Benjamin Netanyahu, learned and adopted the terror tactics of the French Revolution of the 1790’s imposed by the blood thirsty leader Maximilien Robespierre who initiated a “Reign of Terror” (that’s the origin of the word “terrorism”) upon the French people for the slightest of infractions perceived as a threat to the revolution, even for calling a man and woman, Monsieur and Madame respectively.  He would round up men, owmen, and children and have them beheaded.

Robespierre spoke of a revolution based on VIRTUE and he proclaimed that in order to establish such in the French Republic he famously said:

“Virtue without Terror is Powerless”.

Such is the case in the rogue state of Israel that proclaims democracy, equality, respect for human rights, the “most moral army in the world”, and of high virtue.

But like Robespierre, in Israel, these valued virtues are imposed by the gun, by TERROR upon the imprisoned, occupied, tortured, besieged, and routinely imprisoned and murdered Palestinian population in the Occupied Territories.

To the early Zionists, Israeli leaders, and the powerful Jewish Zionists that dominate western governments DEATH AND TERROR are the OPIUM of their rule.

Hypocrisy and justification of terrorism prompted Albert Einstein and several prominent Jewish Americans to write a Letter to New York Times on December 4, 1948 opposing Menachem Begin’s visit to the U.S. and accusing him and his party of “Fascism”

Einstein called the Begin’s Irgun “a terrorist right wing, chauvinistic organization” that stood for,” ultranationalism, religious mysticism, and racial superiority”.  He added that his movement, the Irgun, amounted to “a Fascist party for whom terrorism (against Jews, Arabs, and the British) and misrepresentation are means and a “leader state” is the goal”.

TheBritish Videobelow shows how the Zionist terrorist groups, the Irgun and Stern, invented modern terroristic methods into the Middle East.   The most important terrorist act the Irgun committed was the car bombing of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem that served as the British headquarters killing 91 people and injuring 46.  Many terrorist groups from then on adopted the method of car bombs to attack people and facilities they deemed as enemies.

Jewish terrorists introduced to the world a new tactic and means of terrorism.

Billions of people around the world demand the immediate end to Israel’s brutal terroristic and murderous occupation of the Palestinian Territories, currently comprising only 12% of their original homeland.  The Palestinians in 1988 recognized Israel and agreed to surrender the 78% of Palestine Israel forcibly stole from them in 1948 – 1949, , prior to the 1967 war and total occupation of Palestine.  Israel as expected refused this recognition as it refused the 2002 Arab Peace Plan agreed to by all Arab States that they will establish peace and normal relations with Israel in exchange for Israel’s total withdrawal from occupied Palestinian Land, East Jerusalem, the Syrian Golan Heights, and Lebanese land.

Israel has been demanding such a peace proposal for decades and when it was offered it rejected it out of hand and demanded the U.S. do the same which of course it complied.

Former U.N. General Secretary Kofi Annan said:

“The whole world is demanding that Israel withdraw from occupied Palestinian territories. I don’t think the whole world… can be wrong.”

Rather than more words on the creation of Israel and the resulting ethnic cleansing, multiple massacres, destruction of 500 Palestinian villages and much more, it is more effective to provide images, videos, and films to convey the message.

I urge and ask you to please watch the following three Videos for their vital message and enormous educational value.

The First Video is entitled:  “Occupation 101″, an excellent overview of the history and issue of the Theft of Palestine.   If you only can watch just one video on the issue please watch this one although the third video on peace and propaganda is vitally important to understand how the U.S. Media covers the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, or as is usually the case it does not at all, after all the Jewish owned and run media can’t afford to shoot itself in its Zionist kosher funded foot.

This second video was made by the famed Australian journalist John Pilger entitled “Palestine Is Still the Issue”  Extremely worthy of your time.

This third Video showcases and highlights the extreme bias of the U.S. media while covering the Palestinian issue.   One only needs to search the internet to discover that the founders, owners, CEO’s, Presidents, Executive Producers in the media are primarily Jewish and thus nothing else can be expected of this Zionist driven media.

To highlight the racist inhumanity of Israel and its over 500,000 illegal Jewish settlers in East Jerusalem and the Occupied Territories please watch this brief VIDEO on the routine practice of Jewish settlements, always being built on top of hills overlooking Palestinian villages. dumping their sewage onto the villages and polluting their water.   This sewage has led to high rates or diarrheal diseases that many times leads to death in vulnerable infants and young children.  It’s not enough for these animals to cut off the food, fresh water, medicines, fuel, school supplies and other necessary items for a normal life they add their sewage and waste insult to the injury of living under Israel’s military boots, boots that the American taxpayer funded without his/her knowledge.

Would any nation get away with such malignant inhumanity and treatment of others?  No, but this is Israel, with America’s blind backing it can poop on anyone and get away with it.

Drop off Sewage from illegal Settlements filling the town, villages, homes, and streets of the brutally occupied Palestinians.

Do America still want to ask: “Why do they Hate Us”

America is hated around the world due to its militaristic foreign policy but most of all for its blind check blanket unquestioned support of Israel, a rogue Apartheid nation born out of terrorism and lives by terrorism usingAmerican tax funded weapons and imposing its political will on the uninformed hapless nation of America.

Americans must cry out loud and often to Congress and Israel:

“You will not kill, torture, and occupy Palestine in Our Name”.

There is no life without water and the Jewish settlements deliberately steal and divert 90% of the West Bank water to them, their swimming pools, and using sprinklers to water their lawns while Palestinians are limited by Israel to a small amount of water per family available once a week.

A form of life threatening terrorism.

To control and ration water to

subjugate and dehumanize an entire

civilian populations is a war crime.

Dying of thirst met with a silent world.

Below on the Right Jewish Settlers turning off Water to Palestinians to water sprinkle their lawns.  The Israeli Government approves of this practice, after all “let the Palestinians die of thirst they’re subhuman gentiles much like the Americans the rest of the world.







From Israel’s own press:

Settlers cut Palestinian water supply to  fill swimming pool

Elon Moreh reroutes pipe carrying drinking water to neighboring Palestinian village to small pool; water drains back to village’s pipe system.

Source