EU funding criterion accused of ‘criminalising Palestinian resistance’
MEMO | February 4, 2020
The European Union has been criticised for caving-in to Israeli pressure following its adoption of a new funding criterion, which critics have warned is intended to criminalise Palestinian dissent. Fresh concerns were raised over terms added by the EU last year, which required Palestinian institutions to ensure that no beneficiaries of their projects or programmes are affiliated with groups listed as terrorist organisations by the bloc.
When the new criterion was introduced, the Palestinian Non-Governmental Organisations (PNGO) network rejected the terms in a letter signed by 134 Palestinian NGOs in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and Jerusalem two months ago. Although the EU defend its criterion, insisting that the new restrictions would not affect individuals and was aimed at political entities, the NGOs expressed concerns over the document’s ambiguity.
Palestinian institutions said that the new demands were not included in previous agreements with the EU, and that approving them would mean that they would be required to apply a political test on who was entitled to receive donor funds.
“The danger in agreeing to these terms lies in excluding the legitimate struggle of the Palestine people from its international legal framework and including it in the circle of terrorism,” said Muhsien Abu Ramadan, a leading Palestinian analyst, writer and former president of the PNGO network in the Gaza Strip.
Mustafa Barghouti, general secretary of the Palestinian National Initiative and a member of the Palestine Liberation Organisation, dismissed the new criterion: “Palestinian civil society institutions will not distinguish between one citizen and another because of their political opinions, race, religion or anything else.”
While the EU’s funding covers around 70 per cent of the projects in the Palestinian territories, it had not directly involved itself in any controversy over who receives the money. That task was left to accredited Palestinian NGOs.
This change in EU policy is believed to be a consequence of Israeli pressure, according to Al-Shabaka Policy Advisor Tariq Dana. “The latest EU move has been a result of constant Israeli pressure on the EU to refrain from funding many Palestinian organisations, especially those engaged in revealing and reporting on Israeli colonial practices, human rights violations and crimes,” explained Dana.
Israeli forces fire at Palestinian protesters in Hebron, West Bank on 30 January 2020 [Mamoun Wazwaz/Anadolu Agency]
The assistant professor at the Centre for Conflict and Humanitarian Studies at the Doha Institute of Graduate Studies believes that the new criterion has to be situated in “the context of ongoing Israeli colonisation” and is a new mechanism for controlling Palestinian lives. Defunding Palestinians NGOs has become a key goal for Israel in its attempt to supress dissenting voices, Dana claimed. Legitimate organisations which use international law to report human rights violations, such as Al-Haq and Addameer, are thought to be at risk of having donations cut.
Others are also in danger, such as the Bisan Centre for Research and Development, an organisation which implements projects in Area C. According to Dana, the centre “supports the steadfastness of local communities suffering from the Israeli military and settlers.” The director of Bisan Centre, Ubai Aboudi, is thought to have been arrested by Israel recently and is being held with neither charge nor trial in administrative detention.
Trump’s deal will go ahead, because there is no real PA opposition to it
By Lama Khater | MEMO | February 4, 2020
After Mahmoud Abbas’s speech about Donald Trump’s “deal of the century”, there was optimism that it would lead to something new on the ground from the PA. At the very least, that it would help to manage the relationship between the Palestinian factions.
Several days have now passed and nothing has happened to match the seriousness of the situation. Abbas’s speech at the Arab League summit in Cairo was weak, suggesting that we can expect more of the same tweaked slightly to suit the PA leader’s media performance. None of this has any impact on the political world, nor does it set the stage for action to face the risks arising from the deal if Israel starts to implement it unilaterally.
There is no point in threatening to cut off the security relationship with Israel while the PA prisons are still filled with young Palestinians on charges of forming cells to resist the occupation. Nor is there any point in announcing a boycott of America while the Director of the CIA was in Ramallah for a meeting with senior PA security officials Majed Faraj and Hussein Al-Sheikh.
What more does the Trump administration and Israel want from the PA for it to maintain security cooperation? Regardless of how serious any political estrangement and boycott is, will Trump or Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu care about the insults and condemnation voiced by the PA against their plans? They know exactly what they want from the PA and they know that the authority will not give up its security role in the West Bank, where most of the effects of the deal will be felt. The PA is not only continuing its security role to please the US and Israel, which may result in its toppling, but also because this is in total alignment with Abbas’s approach, to which he still clings despite all that has happened. He still thinks that armed resistance to the Israeli occupation is “terrorism” and a future “State of Palestine” must be demilitarised. Does any sane person dream of a demilitarised state in a troubled world, believing it to be worthy of the efforts needed for its creation, and that it will be both viable and sustainable?
The details of the deal make it clear that the two-state solution is an illusion, and that there is no place for a Palestinian state inside historic Palestine or alongside Israel; the facts imposed on the ground by the occupation made this obvious many years ago. However, in exposing it clearly, Trump has put the ball firmly in the PA-Fatah court; the Fatah leadership is now required to take a progressive stand when its anger dies down. So far, it has done nothing in terms of internal reconciliation or ending the monopoly over Palestinian decision-making; it is not ready to back down from its catastrophic mistakes against the national cause and Palestinian people. Is it that hard to admit that the path followed by Fatah has led us to this position? If we concede that it was a political endeavour that was justified at the time, why do we continue to stick to it now in our current position, and make statements about ending security cooperation with Israel, which we know to be a lie?
With such hesitation, weakness and failure to implement even a single bold measure, what does the PA believe will prevent the deal from being implemented, especially as many of its stipulations already exist in practice? There is no doubt that the PA’s fruitless efforts will not stop this from happening, because what is needed at this moment are practical decisions that surprise the Israelis and go beyond formalities, public relations and speeches.
The move of the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem in May 2018 was a test to see what the Palestinian response would be to the deal when announced in full. The official response was muted, with no significant changes to security cooperation or anything like that. Israel and the US are now well aware that whatever they do, no red lines will be crossed, simply because the PA is so weak in enforcing them. We can expect the deal to be implemented, unilaterally or otherwise, following which the future will be more dangerous for the people of Palestine.
UAE, Israel officials conspiring against Iran at secret White House meeting
Press TV – February 5, 2020
The US, Israel and the UAE held a secret meeting at the White House to conspire against Iran, a report reveals.
According an Axios report on Tuesday, the secret meeting was held on December 17, 2019.
The sit-down, which involved a nonaggression pact between Abu Dhabi and Tel Aviv, was referred to as an attempt to forge closer ties between the two.
The Israeli team was led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s national security adviser, Meir Ben-Shabbat, and the UAE was represented by Yousef al-Otaiba, the country’s envoy to the US, who maintains close ties with Emirati Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed.
The American officials engaged in the process were national security adviser Robert O’Brien, his deputy, Victoria Coates, and US special envoy for Iran Brian Hook.
In a tweet on December 21, UAE Foreign Minister Abdullah bin Zayed pointed to what he called “Islam’s reformation,” adding that, “an Arab-Israeli alliance is taking shape in the Middle East.”
The tweet was responded by the Israeli premier a day later, urging Abu Dhabi to remain reticent over the matter for now.
“The UAE Foreign Minister, Abdullah bin Zayed, spoke about a new alliance in the Middle East: An Israeli-Arab alliance. … I can only say that this remark is the result of the ripening of many contacts and efforts, which at the moment, and I emphasize at the moment, would be best served by silence,” Netanyahu said at the start of a weekly cabinet meeting.
The UAE-Israel alliance comes as no surprise in the wake of the Muslim country’s support for the US so-called “peace” initiative between Israel and Palestinians, dubbed “deal of the century.”
Rejected by Palestinians and the world’s Muslim population, the deal recognizes Jerusalem al-Quds as the “undivided capital” of the Zionist regime.
It also amounts to violation of the fundamental rights of the Palestinians by disregarding UN resolutions and international law.
Washington has previously voiced support for closer ties between its allies in West Asia, namely the Israeli regime, United Arab Emirates, and Saudi Arabia.
As a senior White House official put it, “while the United States would certainly welcome expanding relationships between our critical allies and partners in the Middle East, we’re not going to detail private diplomatic conversations, nor do we have anything to announce.”
The PA will opt for losing Palestine if it means keeping its ‘authority’
By Ramona Wadi | MEMO | February 4, 2020
Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas continues to provide proof of his worthlessness when it comes to political decision-making. If the US “continues” with the so-called deal of the century, Abbas has threatened only the possibility of a full boycott.
The US “peace plan”, which enhances Israel’s strategies for forcibly displacing Palestinians and rendering them refugees while taking away their right to be recognised as such, is not enough for the PA to implement its threats, dependent as it is upon security coordination with the occupation for its existence and function. In May 2014, Abbas described security coordination with Israel as “sacred”, despite policy differences with the Israeli government.
This coordination facilitated the targeting of dissenting Palestinians and resistance activists. In 2014, security coordination with Israel during Operation Brother’s Keeper resulted in the re-arrest of 50 former Palestinian prisoners who had been released in the Gilad Shalit exchange deal. One of the most appalling security coordination deals involved the PA in the killing of Palestinian activist and writer Basel Al-Araj in March 2017.
Yet other logistics are dependent upon security coordination, including the movement of goods and people. The PA’s political existence depends upon security coordination, while the Palestinian people bear the brunt of the violence associated with its surveillance.
Abbas’s periodic threats to cease such coordination cannot be taken seriously. As far as quashing Palestinian political dissent and resistance, the agreement with Israel is the best that the coloniser and collaborator can get. In terms of political engagement, security coordination provides the PA with the much-needed funds to sustain its existence. The premise of state-building, albeit illusory, provides the backdrop for such funding to continue, as does the two-state compromise, also illusory.
The international community’s response to US President Donald Trump’s plan announced last week was not a complete rejection. Leaving just a slight possibility that the world might find common ground over the two-state designation by the US isolates the PA more than ever. Its constant bleating to the UN and the EU to salvage the two-state imposition upon which international consensus has been reached will not save the PA’s diplomatic endeavours now. As far as the international community is concerned, the PA is even more coerced into retaining security coordination. There is common ground between the US and the international community in this, despite the previous hype attempting to pit one side against the other for the sole purpose of extending the two-state diplomacy further.
Abbas will not be taken seriously this time (if he ever was). If anything, his empty threats will bring further ridicule upon the PA, exposing its lack of autonomy. While the dynamics of Trump’s plan are indeed a threat to the PA, especially when considering the previous action undertaken by the US to isolate it diplomatically, Abbas faces a greater threat to his power if security coordination is ended permanently. The bottom line is that the PA will risk losing what remains of Palestinian land in order to maintain the façade of its “authority. After all, it has developed a notorious reputation for granting concessions to the occupation, but it will not jeopardise the crumbs of power thrown to it by Israel and the international community.
PA: Waiting for the worst is not an option
By Omar Olimat | Addustour | February 4, 2020
After the American president announced his plan for peace, the PA categorically and justifiably rejected the deal due to its undeniable injustice against the Palestinians’ right to establish an independent state with East Jerusalem as its capital.
No one denies that the PA and other countries concerned with the Palestinian issue were completely aware of the plan’s details and implementation mechanisms, but the plan’s main points were not significantly different to what was leaked in the past two years. It does not stipulate East Jerusalem as the capital of Palestine, the return of the refugees, nor a sovereign state in a real sense.
Everyone was aware that any peace plan adopted by the current American administration, which would be welcomed by the Israeli right-wing, would not be in the interest of the Palestinians, and would give the Israelis what is not theirs. So, why did the Palestinian leadership wait for the official announcement of the details of the plan, to reject it and attempt to bring together the fragmented Arabs to reach a kind of collective rejection of it?
The Palestinian Authority is not that weak, and it has several cards that it could have thrown onto the table before the formal announcement of the plan. If it was unable to stand up to the US administration, it at least could have hindered the wording regarding some of the critical issues in the plan and left it to future negotiations to determine the future of East Jerusalem and the refugees.
Levelheadedness and balance are requirements, and no one would think to hold the PA responsible for the deal that included the deliberate killing of international laws and hundreds of UN resolutions that support the right of the Palestinian people to establish their state, as well as a clear bias in favour of the occupation state. However, reality indicates that sitting and waiting for the worst is not a feasible option, but rather, complete suicide, given the leaked details of the plan in coincidence with total American support of Netanyahu, even if by slaying the concept of peace between the Palestinians and the Israelis.
The PA was fully aware of what the deal would stipulate, of the environment in which it lives today, and the fragmented Arab reality, as some countries are drowning in chaos and protests, while others are suffering under the impact of harsh economic conditions, and others have their visions and strategies. The PA and other Palestinian factions must better prepare themselves to confront the liquidation of the Palestinian cause.
There is still time, and the war of words and statements will not restore the Palestinians’ rights. Moreover, Israel is determined to immediately state the implementation of what was comprised in the plan, so steps must be taken to ensure that the ball is returned to the Israeli and American court. Perhaps the first of these steps is to return to the status of an occupied state to hold Israeli legally and internationally responsible, whether it likes it or not.
This article first appeared in Arabic in Addustour on 3 February 2020
Land in eastern Gaza declared a disaster zone due to Israel use of herbicides
MEMO | February 4, 2020
The Palestinian Ministry of Agriculture declared arable lands in eastern Gaza to be a disaster zone on Monday, after the Israeli army repeatedly sprayed the area with chemical herbicides.
Despite a year-long break from such practices, the Israeli authorities confirmed on 22 January that they have resumed unannounced the spraying of herbicides along the fence along the nominal border of the Gaza Strip, Haaretz has reported. It was said by the Ministry of Defence to be necessary “based on security needs… but solely [takes place] within Israel territory.”
However, an investigative report by Forensic Architecture, a research agency based at Goldsmiths, University of London, found that “aerial spraying by commercial crop-dusters flying on the Israeli side of the border mobilised the wind to carry chemicals into the Gaza Strip, at damaging concentrations.”
Analysis of first-hand videos from fields close to the border fence revealed Israeli armed forces using smoke from a burning tyre to confirm the westerly direction of the wind, ensuring that the chemicals landed in the Gaza Strip.
The Israeli army said it has acted under the country’s “Plant Protection Law”, which enforces regulations on plant protection and the monitoring and prevention of diseases. Officials thus claim that spraying practices at the Gazan border are identical to those used across the country.
However, such use of chemicals between 2014 and 2018 damaged 14,000 acres of land in Gaza, destroying all the crops grown there. The latest spraying has damaged an estimated 2,000 acres of land so far, the Palestinian Ministry of Agriculture reported.
According to the Guardian, no Palestinians have ever received compensation for the damage caused by the spraying of chemicals by the Israelis, despite a petition from human rights groups in Haifa and Gaza. In contrast, farmers in the Israeli agricultural town Nahal Oz allegedly received compensation in 2015 after suing the authorities for the loss of crops.
Forensic Architecture reported that herbicide spraying predominantly takes place during key harvest periods, targeting spring and summer crops, with Glyphosate the most commonly used chemical. However, Glyphosate was declared “carcinogenic in humans” by the World Health Organisation’s Cancer Research Agency in March 2015. The chemical has since been ruled safe for use by various US and European safety agencies, although several environmental groups have opposed this ruling.
The UN Information System on the Question of Palestine (UNISPAL) noted concerns over the ability to predict where, and in what concentration, toxic chemicals will land. In a report to the General Assembly in September 2019, it was said that as “damage cannot be reasonably predicted by the army… such herbicides should not be used in such close proximity to the fence.”
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First Israel-Bolivia diplomatic meeting since 2009
MEMO | February 4, 2020
Israel’s Ambassador to the United Nations, Danny Danon, met with his Bolivian counterpart, Ruben Suarez, in an official meeting, which is the first of its kind since Bolivia cut ties with Israel in 2009, according to Hebrew media.
Yedioth Ahronoth reported on Monday that the meeting took place last week at the United Nations headquarters in New York.
According to the newspaper, the two ambassadors discussed setting up an embassy for Bolivia in Israel, strengthening cooperation in the fields of water technology and agriculture, and permitting Israeli tourists to revisit the South American country.
Danon invited Suarez to visit Israel as part of a planned visit by a delegation of UN ambassadors next April.
In November 2019, Bolivia announced the resumption of its relations with Israel after cutting diplomatic ties in light of the Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip (27 December 2008 – 28 January 2009), reported the newspaper.
According to the same source, the relations between the two countries were resumed following the end of Evo Morales’s presidential term (January 2006 – November 2019), “ who was known for his hostility towards Israel, and the arrival of a transitional pro-US government.”
The newspaper said that the recent appointment of Suarez as Bolivia’s representative to the United Nations “will boost Israeli moves at the United Nations.”
The newspaper also considered Suarez’s predecessor Sacha Lorenti to have “anti-Israel” stands.
Israel pushing for ties with Morocco in exchange for US recognition of its rule over Western Sahara
MEMO | February 4, 2020
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has reportedly been discussing a three-way agreement that would see the United States recognise Moroccan sovereignty over the Western Sahara in exchange for having Rabat take steps to normalise ties with Tel Aviv, Israeli broadcaster Channel 13 reported.
Netanyahu has been trying in recent months to make the US promote his plan, as it will raise the chances for him getting a high-profile public visit to Morocco as well as being a major diplomatic achievement for Morocco’s King, Mohammed VI.
In addition, the report claimed, US President Donald Trump can gloat of having advanced ties between Israel and an Arab state, should the deal go through.
However, the spread of sovereignty of Morocco on Western Sahara was a deal always strongly opposed by former national security adviser John Bolton.
Following Bolton’s departure in September, Netanyahu reportedly began raising the matter again with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.
It’s been more than 40 years since Morocco claimed sovereignty over Western Sahara, after it occupied large swathes of the area in 1975 as Spain withdrew from the area and later annexed the territories in a move not recognised internationally.
According to the publication, contacts between the two countries intensified after a secret meeting between Netanyahu and the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Morocco Nasser Burita during the UN General Assembly in September 2018.
That meeting was the result of a back channel established between Bourita and Netanyahu’s national security adviser, Meir Ben-Shabbat, reported Arutz Sheva.
It also reported that Netanyahu wanted to reach an agreement before the April elections of 2019, but the plan was dismissed after the media got information about the secret visit of Ben-Shabbat to Morocco.
Though the countries have no formal relations, Morocco has long maintained informal but close intelligence ties with Israel and Israelis are allowed to visit there.
Last week, Morocco received three Israeli reconnaissance drones as part of $48 million arms deal, to counter extremist groups and fight rebel movements in the Western Sahara, French website Intelligence Online reported.
Trump Green Lights Greater Israel
Palestinians lose again
By Philip Giraldi • Unz Review • February 4, 2020
Many interested parties have already weighed in on President Donald Trump’s “Deal of the Century.” Even though it sounds like a phrase that a used car dealer would use, the “Deal” is dead serious in that it effectively denies to the Palestinians in perpetuum any political entity that has attributes of genuine sovereignty. Israel, which has just postponed a vote to immediately annex some of its illegal settlements on the West Bank with the blessing of the White House, will completely surround the fragmented Palestinian holdings by virtue of the annexation of the entire Jordan River Valley. It is the Zionist dream of a Greater “Eretz” Israel from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea finally achieved. The empty shell swiss-cheese-like completely disarmed state of Palestine will have no authority over its borders and airspace, no means to defend itself and no right to manage its own water resources.
Within the territory granted to Palestinians by Trump there will remain Israeli settler enclaves guarded by soldiers and police. Israel will have total control over the entire West Bank. Millions of Palestinians under its control will de facto be stateless people without basic civil rights whose land will be stolen by settlers. They will be unable to travel even within their “state,” forced to pass through checkpoints, arrested and imprisoned for speech harming “public order” and jailed through indefinite “administrative detentions” without any charges or trial.
Gaza will be completely disarmed and connected to the West Bank by a tunnel controlled by Israel. Presumably, the Mediterranean will continue to be a restricted area for Gazan fishermen, patrolled by the Israeli navy with the offshore oil and gas reserves exploited by Israeli companies. In return for their complete surrender, the Palestinians will be required to express gratitude for being able to survive as helots in what will be largely an open-air outdoor prison. If they behave well, they may or may not get money doled out by Trump to Israel for distribution to the Palestinians as long as they keep quiet and smile as they writhe under the Israeli thumb.
One of the more interesting features of the Deal is that Trump insists that the Palestinians will have East Jerusalem as their capital while at the same time confirming that an undivided Jerusalem will be under total Israeli control. If one looks at the map provided by the White House when the Deal was unveiled, it appears that a piece of East Jerusalem is indeed shown as part of the Palestinian land. But obviously, even though it will have that area technically as its capital it will have no sovereignty over it. It is a detail that is clearly unsustainable and may in fact be a complete fiction designed to demonstrate how magnanimous Israel and the United States are in giving the Palestinians a “state.”
Trump’s one-sided Deal was crafted around Israeli interests, not those of the United States and without any input whatsoever from the Palestinians themselves. The team pulled together by presidential son-in-law Jared Kushner consisted of Orthodox Jews and they worked closely with U.S. Ambassador (sic) David Friedman, whose time in Israel has consisted mostly of being an apologist for Netanyahu, excusing accelerated Israeli settlement building as well as the weekly shooting party along the fence line in Gaza. Immediately after Trump and Netanyahu announced the outline of the Deal in Washington, Friedman stated that the Israeli government was at that point free to begin the annexation of any or all of the illegal settlements.
The sad part of what we see unfolding in front of our eyes is that the United States, long an enabler of Israel, is now openly a partner in Israeli war crimes. The Fourth Geneva Convention, adopted in 1949, was intended to protect civilians in time of war. It clearly states that occupying a territory obtained by war and colonizing it with your own people is a war crime. Germany’s demand for lebensraum for German colonists during the lead up to the Second World War and its defining the Slavs who would be displaced as Untermenschen was the crime that motivated the drafters of the Convention. Does that sound familiar? The words are probably somewhat similar in Yiddish.
Most of the mainstream media commentary on the Deal is neutral or even mildly critical, observing inter alia that it is a gift to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who was at the podium and beaming alongside Trump. If the boost from the White House succeeds in getting Bibi reelected, Trump will expect payback big time in 2020 through the Israel Lobby’s influence over Jewish voters and from the generosity of Jewish billionaire donors named Sheldon Adelson, Paul Singer and Bernard Marcus.
That Trump has betrayed U.S. interests repeatedly in the Middle East and has also flipped on his pledge to remove American soldiers from its “loser wars,” makes him a disgrace as president, though he will likely be re-elected as the voters have been fed a steady diet of propaganda both by the mainstream media and government on Israel. That just might be because Jews are vastly over-represented both in the media and in the choke points in government that deal with the Middle East and foreign policy in general. Even liberal Jews who are critical of Israeli oppression of the Palestinians tend to rally round-the-flag at election time and vote for the candidate perceived as being “strongest” on Israel. One notes with interest that while Senator Bernie Sanders roundly condemned the Deal, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi saw “some areas of common ground here” in it. She would, wouldn’t she? And I am sure Senator Chuck Schumer, the self-proclaimed protector of Israel in the Senate, is secretly delighted.
In the rather less restrained alternative media, there is much banter about how the Deal is little more than a sweeping annexation plan that is really Apartheid by another name. That in itself is a bit of a fudge as the reality in Palestine is far worse than South African Apartheid ever was. Some braver individuals have observed how the United States is controlled by Israel in terms of its engagement in the Middle East, but the language used to describe the situation really misses the point. The United States vis-à-vis Israel is not controlled by Israel per se but rather by subversion from within, Jewish billionaires having bought both major political parties and a Jewish dominated media spouting nonsense about the “only democracy in the Middle East” and “America’s best friend and ally.” Israel is neither a democracy nor a friend. And the American Jews and their allies the Christian Zionists who are full time promoters of the Israel myth are little more than traitors to the United States and everything it once upon a time stood for.
The Palestinians have already rejected the Deal, but their refusal to participate will be seen by Trump and Israel as an insult, or at least it will be spun that way. Trump has already warned that his proposal is the Palestinians’ “last chance” and his United Nations Ambassador Kelly Craft has advised Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas not to raise the issue at all with the world body. Unwillingness to embrace it will provide a good opportunity to really lower the hammer on the Arabs. The map provided by Trump shows a cluster of Bantustans surrounded by Israel soldiers and police who historically have regarded nominally Palestinian areas as a free fire zone. When violence erupts, which it will, the largely unarmed Arabs will be slaughtered and David Friedman, Donald Trump and Bibi Netanyahu will all conveniently blame it on the Palestinians as it was the Israelis who “wanted peace” and the only obstacle remaining was and is the obduracy of the Palestinians. If only they had accepted the Deal, the outcome would have been different the contrived narrative will go.
Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is inform@cnionline.org.
Crisis and opportunity: The ‘Deal of the Century’ challenge for Palestinians
By Ramzy Baroud | MEMO | February 3, 2020
After several postponements, US President, Donald Trump, has finally revealed the details of his Middle East plan, dubbed ‘Deal of the Century’, in a press conference in Washington on January 28.
Standing triumphantly beside Trump, Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, must have surely understood that the timing of the announcement, only a few weeks before Israel’s third general elections in one year, was tailored especially to fit the embattled Israeli leader’s domestic agenda.
Consisting of 80 pages, 50 of which are entirely dedicated to the plan’s economic component, the document was a rehash of previous Israeli proposals that have been rejected by Palestinians and Arab governments for failing to meet the minimum standards of justice, equality and human rights.
Former Palestinian negotiator, Saeb Erekat, contended in an interview that the plan is not even American, but an Israeli one.
“What you heard last night from Trump is what I heard from Netanyahu and his negotiating team in 2011-2012,” Erekat said. “I can assure you that the US team did not make a single word or comma in this program. I have the protocols and I am willing to reveal to you what we have been offered. This is the plan of Netanyahu and the settler council.”
It was no surprise, then, to read the reaction of Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas, who assigned Trump’s plan to the “dustbin of history”.
As expected, Trump has granted Netanyahu everything that he and Israel ever wanted. The American vision for Middle East ‘peace’ does not demand the uprooting of a single illegal Jewish settlement and recognizes Jerusalem as Israel’s ‘undivided’ capital. It speaks of a conditioned and disfigured Palestinian state that can only be achieved based on vague expectations; it wholly rejects the Right of Return for Palestinian refugees, and fails to mention the word ‘occupation’ even once.
Obviously, only Israel benefits from the US plan; the Zionist discourse, predicated on maximum territorial gains with minimal Palestinian presence, has finally prevailed. Every Israeli request has been met, to the last one. Meanwhile, Palestinians received nothing, aside from the promise of chasing another mirage of a Palestinian state that has no territorial continuity and no true sovereignty.
Palestinian concerns continue to be ignored, as Palestinian rights have been ignored for many years, even during the heyday of the ‘peace process’, in the early and mid-1990s. At the time, all fundamental issues had been relegated to the ‘final status negotiations’, which have never taken place.
The ‘Deal of the Century’ merely validated the status quo ante as envisioned and unilaterally carried out by Israel.
That said, Trump’s plan will fail to resolve the conflict. Worse, it will exacerbate it even further, for Israel now has a blank check to speed up its colonial venture, to entrench its military occupation and to further oppress Palestinians, who will certainly continue to resist.
As for the economic component of the plan, history has proven that there can be no economic prosperity under military occupation. Netanyahu, and others before him, tried such dubious methods, of ‘economic peace’ and such, and all have miserably failed.
Time and again, the UN has made it clear that it follows a different political trajectory than that followed by Washington, and that all US decisions regarding the status of Jerusalem, the illegal settlements and the Golan Heights, are null and void. Only international law matters, as none of Trump’s actions in recent years have succeeded in significantly altering Arab and international consensus on the rights of the Palestinians.
As for the status of – and Palestinian rights in their occupied city – East Jerusalem, rebranding a few neighborhoods – Kafr Aqab, the eastern part of Shuafat and Abu Dis – as al-Quds, or East Jerusalem, is an old Israeli plan that has already failed in the past. The late Palestinian leader, Yasser Arafat, had enough political sagacity to reject it, and neither Abbas nor any other Palestinian official would dare compromise on the historic and legal Palestinian rights in the city.
The Palestinian leadership cannot be absolved from its responsibility towards the Palestinian people, and its unmitigated failure to develop a comprehensive national strategy.
Immediately after Trump announced his plan, Abbas called on all Palestinian factions, including his rivals in the Hamas movement, to unite and to develop a common strategy to counter the ‘Deal of the Century’.
Knowing that the US-Israeli plot was imminent, why did Abbas wait this long to call for a common strategy?
National unity among Palestinians should never be used as a bargaining chip as a scare tactic, or as a last resort option aimed at validating ineffectual Abbas in the eyes of his people.
The PA is now facing an existential crisis. Its very formation in 1994 was meant to marginalize the more democratically-encompassing Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO).
According to the new American diktats, the PA has already outlasted its usefulness.
As for Israel, the PA is only needed to maintain ‘security coordination’ with the Israeli army, which essentially means ensuring the safety of the illegal and armed Jewish settlers in occupied Palestine.
While unity among Palestinian parties is an overriding demand, Abbas’ PA cannot expect to maintain this ridiculous balancing act: expecting true and lasting national unity while still diligently serving the role expected of him by Israel and its allies.
While Trump’s sham ‘plan’ does not fundamentally alter US foreign policy in Israel and Palestine – as US bias towards Israel preceded Trump by decades – it has definitely ended the so-called ‘peace process’ charade, which divided the Palestinians into ‘moderate’ and ‘extremist’ camps.
Now, all Palestinians have become ‘extremists’ from Washington’s viewpoint, all equally shunned and marginalized.
Abbas would be terribly mistaken if he thinks that the old political discourse can be saved, which was, oddly enough, written in Washington.
The problem with the Palestinian leadership is that, despite its frequent protestations and angry condemnations, it is yet to take independent initiatives or operate outside the American-Israeli paradigm.
And this is the Palestinian leadership’s greatest challenge at this stage. Will it move forward with a Palestinian-centric strategy or persist in the same place, regurgitating old language and reminiscing of the good old days?
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UK Researchers: Tax Food to Reduce Climate Change
I doubt these professors have anything to fear from a food tax
By Eric Worrall | Watts Up With That? | November 19, 2016
A group of researchers in Oxford University, England have suggested that imposing a massive tax on carbon intensive foods – specifically protein rich foods like meat and dairy – could help combat climate change. […]
This proposal, from a group of people who have probably never missed a meal in their lives, is totally obscene. High income countries often have a lot of poor people who would be hard hit by increases in the price of food.
Needlessly exacerbating the risk poor people don’t get enough to eat, especially children and pregnant mothers, who are especially vulnerable to adverse health impacts from lack of protein in their diet – if this ghastly proposal is ever implemented, future generations will look upon it as a crime against humanity. – Read full article
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