The continuing tragedy of Palestine

By S.P.SETH

Palestine remains the great tragedy of the post-World War 11 period. Israel continues to occupy their homeland over and above what was gifted to them in 1948 as their state by international power brokers.

Their destiny is currently being negotiated in “proximity” (indirect) talks with Israel, with George Mitchell, special US envoy to the Middle East, as a facilitator. It is hoped that this might eventually lead to direct talks between the two parties.

Whether this will lead to any worthwhile breakthrough is doubtful, considering the record so far following the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories since the 1967 Six-Day war.

Broadly, the Palestinians would want Israel to withdraw to the 1967 line as their national boundary. Besides, there is the question of the Palestinian refugees still languishing in makeshift camps, since after the creation of the state of Israel, and the status of East Jerusalem, now claimed by Israel as part of its eternal capital.

The Palestinians want their own sovereign state with East Jerusalem as its capital.

The Israeli position is to pilfer and annex the Palestinian territory through more and more settlements and thereby make it into a version of the apartheid-era South Africa.

The basic objective is to make Palestinian lives so miserable that more and more of them will be forced into leaving Palestine (like many of their ancestors did after the creation of Israel) to find refuge among Arab states. The rest of them and their territory will be carved out into dependent zones (Bantustans), accessible only through Israeli checkpoints and other control mechanism.

Realizing that a resolution of the Palestinian-Israeli conundrum is an essential step towards making a new beginning with other Muslim countries, the Obama administration is keen to promote a resolution of the vexed Palestinian-Israeli question.

But the problem is that, coddled so long by US administrations over many years, the Israeli governments have been in no mood to heed even moderate American advice of freezing Israeli settlements in West Bank and East Jerusalem to kick start the peace talks.

On the American side, the Israeli lobby has such strong hold over US politics that Tel Aviv felt so bold to announce the building of another 1600 units in East Jerusalem during a recent visit to Israel by the US Vice-President, Joe Biden. Such brazenness didn’t go well with the Obama administration, leading to some political tensions between the Netanyahu government and Washington.

Some commentators detect an emerging political space in the United States where some responsible policy makers, like Defense Secretary Robert Gates, and General David Petraeus, have highlighted the deleterious effects of Israeli-Palestinian conflict over US national security interests in the region. And they are both said to be Republicans.

General Petraeus reportedly told the US Congress that Arab-Israeli hostilities in Palestine allow the al-Qaeda and other militant groups to mobilise support by exploiting anger at perceived US favoritism for Israel.

However, as long as President Obama feels obliged to reassure Israel at every opportunity about US commitment to its security (as if the Palestinians are a threat to Israel), Washington’s credentials as an honest broker for the Palestinians will always be doubtful. For instance, President Barack Obama reportedly telephoned Netanyahu to reiterate America’s commitment to Israel’s security just before the “proximity” talks.

Indeed, if anybody needs assurance and commitment to their security, it is the Palestinian people, subjected to Israeli military incursions and attacks with such frequency. But they stand alone suffering Israeli aggression, with the world turning a blind eye.

Not only that, the Israelis even manage to portray themselves as victims, with the support of their powerful backers in the United States and Europe.

The reality, though, is, as put forth in a letter signed by 300 British academics and published in the Guardian newspaper about the time of the Israeli invasion of Gaza. It said:

“The massacres in Gaza are the latest phase of a war that Israel has been waging against the people of Palestine for more than 60 years. The goal of this war has never changed: to use overwhelming military power to eradicate the Palestinians as a political force, one capable of resisting Israel’s ongoing appropriation of their land and resources.”

The letter goes on, “Israel’s war against the Palestinians has turned Gaza and the West Bank into a pair of gigantic political prisons…”

Israel was created largely as a safe haven for European Jews who had continually suffered horrendous persecution wherever they lived in Europe. They were also subject to discrimination in the United States, sometimes bordering on hysteria.

The holocaust under Hitler was its worst manifestation.

Even during World War 11, when Jews were dispatched to concentration and death camps under Hitler, the allied governments were indifferent to their plight. Indeed, those fleeing such persecution were often received with hostility and put in detention camps.

Not surprisingly then that the United States and Europe welcomed the idea of a Jewish homeland in Palestine (anywhere but in their midst) to atone, as if, for their sufferings.

The idea of returning to their legendry original home, and the sense of belonging and security this engendered, was highly appealing to Jews all over the world.

The problem, though, was that the Palestinians who had lived in that land forever, weren’t considered worth consulting by all the external parties promoting the creation of a homeland for the Jews.

The Western countries, by now overwhelmed by the centuries’ old accumulative guilt of Jewish persecution, made more poignant by Hitler’s Holocaust, found in the creation of Israel a convenient solution to an age-old problem.

The creation of a Jewish homeland in Palestine had been the Zionist demand for many years. It was given some validity by the Balfour Declaration of 1917. Balfour was the British foreign secretary at the time.

What it all means is that the Jewish state of Israel was foisted on the Palestinian people. And it resulted in the expulsion of many of them to constitute a Palestinian Diaspora, refusing to accept the loss of their Palestinian identity.

With its preponderant military power and the occupation of more Palestinian territory following the 1967 war, Israel had hoped to create a fait accompli which the Palestinians would have no option but to accept.

But it hasn’t worked out like that, even though Israel was able to break Arab solidarity by signing peace treaties with Egypt and Jordan.

Even the Oslo agreement of 1993, leading Yasser Arafat’s PLO to recognize the state of Israel, did not break the logjam. The building of more and more Israeli settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem to encircle and dominate the Palestinian territory, and thus effectively negate the prospect of a new state of Palestine, made any real progress virtually impossible.

Even with its military power and support from the United States and much of Europe, Israel claims to feel insecure from the surrounding Arab world. Hence, it keeps making more and more demands on the Arabs and the world community for ironclad guarantees for its security, which is an excuse for stalling a political settlement.

A strong power like Israel should work to win the goodwill of the Palestinian people by withdrawing to its pre-1967 borders. Which will immediately unleash all the possibilities inherent in the situation where both sides desperately need peace.

Only a spectacular initiative like this will eventually work. And only Israel can do this because it has taken away so much and can afford to be reasonable.

In any case, nothing else is working and such an initiative might do the trick over a period of time.

It is hard to believe that the long-persecuted Jewish people will allow their state to dish out such horrendous treatment to the Palestinians, especially when they had no role in their persecution all through history.

Israel: Piracy on the High Seas

By S.P.SETH

Israel has created a hornet’s nest by landing its naval commandos’ on the peace flotilla carrying peace activists and supplies for the beleaguered Gaza Strip. The Israeli blockade of Gaza has caused untold sufferings on Gaza’s 1.5 million besieged people. In the process of raiding Mavi Marmara, its soldiers have killed nine and injured 30 civilians on board this ship.

Israel contends that its commandos acted in self-defense when pounced upon by the civilians on board with sticks, knives, metal rods and a few pistols snatched from the soldiers. Be that as it may, it was certainly a case of overkill on the part of professional naval commandos to use lethal force against civilians on a relief mission for Gaza’s beleaguered residents.

The flotilla was on high seas entitled to innocent passage under international law. Even by Israel’s own admission, the only firearms that peace activists might have used against its soldiers were those snatched from its commandos. Which would mean that these civilians didn’t come prepared for any armed confrontation. In the circumstances, they tried to improvise as best as they could when faced with lethal force. They weren’t anticipating that the Israelis would be so stupid as to stage, what looked like, piracy on the high seas, with hostages taken and cargo confiscated.

As one Australian columnist wrote in the Sydney Morning Herald, “The Israeli attack on the Gaza freedom flotilla was an act of lethal stupidity. Lethal for its victims, stupid for Israel...” Like the columnist, Mike Carlton, the flotilla’s peace volunteers too didn’t think that Israel would be that stupid. But arrogance breeds stupidity. With the unswerving support of the United States, Israel has come to believe that it is the real superpower, and it doesn’t need to follow international law. The United States has always saved it from its aggression, excesses and follies and it is quite confident that it will do the same now.

However, lately, there has been some minor change in the situation. First, of course, is Obama’s election as US President. He has been keen on a making a new start with the Islamic world, as articulated in his speech in Cairo, not long after he became the country’s President. But, unfortunately, there hasn’t been much headway in that direction. Israel has even managed to effectively veto Obama’s initiative to start the peace process between it and Palestine for a two state solution.

The fact of the matter is that Israel is not interested in an independent and sovereign state of Palestine. The charter of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud Party clearly rejects the idea of a separate Palestinian state. It says, “The government of Israel flatly rejects the establishment of a Palestinian Arab state…” Their only accommodation of Palestinian aspirations is that “they can run their lives freely in the framework of self-rule, but not as an independent and sovereign state.” And it elaborates, “Thus, for example, in matters of foreign affairs, security, immigration and ecology their activity shall be limited in accordance with imperatives of Israel’s existence, security and national needs.”

However, even with Obama’s limited and, so far, ineffective, initiative to involve Israel in a dialogue with the softer (Fatah) version of the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank, there is virtually no forward movement. The Hamas in Gaza is, of course, is excluded from any such proposed peace dialogue, as it has been dubbed a terrorist organization.

The irony is that President Obama, even with his extremely cautious advocacy of a peace dialogue, has come to be regarded by many Israelis, and some in the Israeli government, as anti-Semite and pro-Arab. Therefore, even though President Obama, like other US Presidents before him, is always assuring Israel of US commitment to its security, he is somehow not considered in the same league as his predecessors. From the viewpoint of Israel’s paranoia, this is an important negative change for them.

Another important change, lately, has been a gradual shift in Turkey’s policy in regard to the Gaza issue. In fact, a Turkish charity has played a leading role in organizing the “peace flotilla”. Turkey is a long-standing member of the Western alliance, and has been a close friend of Israel. Indeed, it was going to take part in joint military exercises along with Israel and Greece; now shelved by Turkey because of the killings of its citizens by Israeli commandos. Turkey copped all the nine fatalities (one of the nine killed was an American citizen of Turkish descent) in the Israeli raid on the flotilla. Turkish-Israeli relationship, strained already over Palestine, is now gravely damaged after the killings of its citizens on Mavi Marmara.

Turkey has been considered by the United States over the years as a model Muslim majority state worthy of emulation by other Islamic countries. But with the Turkish-Israeli relationship in a free fall, the United States finds itself in a terrible quandary, having to tread delicately between its two close allies. The US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, has said that the Gaza blockade is unsustainable and that an investigation into the flottila tragedy is warranted. It is a change of sorts for the United States, though not with much content in the absence of a concrete follow up plan and concerted pressure on Israel.

Israel lives in a world of its own as an eternal victim, even when it is the perpetrator. Anyone and everyone critical of the state of Israel is either anti-Semite, an enemy of Israel or a terrorist. By this definition, all its Arab neighbors are actual or potential enemies. In this sense, Israel has a security problem, unlike any other country. Which entitles them to special security provisions, like the possession of nuclear weapons as well as the occupation and settlement of neighboring Arab territories from where the security threat might arise.

From Israel’s viewpoint, the occupation of Palestine is, therefore, not only an imperative historical necessity because it was part of the Biblical Israel of 2000 years ago, but it is also a security imperative to keep the Biblical land safe. By this logic of forward defense, Israel might soon be laying claim to other Arab lands as part of its ongoing sacred mission. Israel, therefore, can’t understand why so many people in the world just get stuck with such peripheral issues, like the blockade of Gaza.

This is the crux of the problem. Israel has a larger than life image. The eternal victim wants to create an eternal kingdom with no known dangers lurking around. This is a state of mind and not ground-based reality. How it will eventually work, nobody can tell. But, in the meantime, it is incumbent to keep the pressure on for the lifting of Gaza blockade, as well as for a comprehensive settlement of the Palestinian issue.

Israel: Piracy on the High Seas

By S.P.SETH

Israel has created a hornet’s nest by landing its naval commandos’ on the peace flotilla carrying peace activists and supplies for the beleaguered Gaza Strip. The Israeli blockade of Gaza has caused untold sufferings on Gaza’s 1.5 million besieged people. In the process of raiding Mavi Marmara, its soldiers have killed nine and injured 30 civilians on board this ship.

Israel contends that its commandos acted in self-defense when pounced upon by the civilians on board with sticks, knives, metal rods and a few pistols snatched from the soldiers. Be that as it may, it was certainly a case of overkill on the part of professional naval commandos to use lethal force against civilians on a relief mission for Gaza’s beleaguered residents.

The flotilla was on high seas entitled to innocent passage under international law. Even by Israel’s own admission, the only firearms that peace activists might have used against its soldiers were those snatched from its commandos. Which would mean that these civilians didn’t come prepared for any armed confrontation. In the circumstances, they tried to improvise as best as they could when faced with lethal force. They weren’t anticipating that the Israelis would be so stupid as to stage, what looked like, piracy on the high seas, with hostages taken and cargo confiscated.

As one Australian columnist wrote in the Sydney Morning Herald, “The Israeli attack on the Gaza freedom flotilla was an act of lethal stupidity. Lethal for its victims, stupid for Israel...” Like the columnist, Mike Carlton, the flotilla’s peace volunteers too didn’t think that Israel would be that stupid. But arrogance breeds stupidity. With the unswerving support of the United States, Israel has come to believe that it is the real superpower, and it doesn’t need to follow international law. The United States has always saved it from its aggression, excesses and follies and it is quite confident that it will do the same now.

However, lately, there has been some minor change in the situation. First, of course, is Obama’s election as US President. He has been keen on a making a new start with the Islamic world, as articulated in his speech in Cairo, not long after he became the country’s President. But, unfortunately, there hasn’t been much headway in that direction. Israel has even managed to effectively veto Obama’s initiative to start the peace process between it and Palestine for a two state solution.

The fact of the matter is that Israel is not interested in an independent and sovereign state of Palestine. The charter of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud Party clearly rejects the idea of a separate Palestinian state. It says, “The government of Israel flatly rejects the establishment of a Palestinian Arab state…” Their only accommodation of Palestinian aspirations is that “they can run their lives freely in the framework of self-rule, but not as an independent and sovereign state.” And it elaborates, “Thus, for example, in matters of foreign affairs, security, immigration and ecology their activity shall be limited in accordance with imperatives of Israel’s existence, security and national needs.”

However, even with Obama’s limited and, so far, ineffective, initiative to involve Israel in a dialogue with the softer (Fatah) version of the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank, there is virtually no forward movement. The Hamas in Gaza is, of course, is excluded from any such proposed peace dialogue, as it has been dubbed a terrorist organization.

The irony is that President Obama, even with his extremely cautious advocacy of a peace dialogue, has come to be regarded by many Israelis, and some in the Israeli government, as anti-Semite and pro-Arab. Therefore, even though President Obama, like other US Presidents before him, is always assuring Israel of US commitment to its security, he is somehow not considered in the same league as his predecessors. From the viewpoint of Israel’s paranoia, this is an important negative change for them.

Another important change, lately, has been a gradual shift in Turkey’s policy in regard to the Gaza issue. In fact, a Turkish charity has played a leading role in organizing the “peace flotilla”. Turkey is a long-standing member of the Western alliance, and has been a close friend of Israel. Indeed, it was going to take part in joint military exercises along with Israel and Greece; now shelved by Turkey because of the killings of its citizens by Israeli commandos. Turkey copped all the nine fatalities (one of the nine killed was an American citizen of Turkish descent) in the Israeli raid on the flotilla. Turkish-Israeli relationship, strained already over Palestine, is now gravely damaged after the killings of its citizens on Mavi Marmara.

Turkey has been considered by the United States over the years as a model Muslim majority state worthy of emulation by other Islamic countries. But with the Turkish-Israeli relationship in a free fall, the United States finds itself in a terrible quandary, having to tread delicately between its two close allies. The US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, has said that the Gaza blockade is unsustainable and that an investigation into the flottila tragedy is warranted. It is a change of sorts for the United States, though not with much content in the absence of a concrete follow up plan and concerted pressure on Israel.

Israel lives in a world of its own as an eternal victim, even when it is the perpetrator. Anyone and everyone critical of the state of Israel is either anti-Semite, an enemy of Israel or a terrorist. By this definition, all its Arab neighbors are actual or potential enemies. In this sense, Israel has a security problem, unlike any other country. Which entitles them to special security provisions, like the possession of nuclear weapons as well as the occupation and settlement of neighboring Arab territories from where the security threat might arise.

From Israel’s viewpoint, the occupation of Palestine is, therefore, not only an imperative historical necessity because it was part of the Biblical Israel of 2000 years ago, but it is also a security imperative to keep the Biblical land safe. By this logic of forward defense, Israel might soon be laying claim to other Arab lands as part of its ongoing sacred mission. Israel, therefore, can’t understand why so many people in the world just get stuck with such peripheral issues, like the blockade of Gaza.

This is the crux of the problem. Israel has a larger than life image. The eternal victim wants to create an eternal kingdom with no known dangers lurking around. This is a state of mind and not ground-based reality. How it will eventually work, nobody can tell. But, in the meantime, it is incumbent to keep the pressure on for the lifting of Gaza blockade, as well as for a comprehensive settlement of the Palestinian issue.

Afghanistan: US-Karzai marriage of convenience

By S.P.SETH

The US relationship with President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan has taken a full turn from berating to smooching—politically speaking. Not long ago President Obama visited Karzai in Kabul to tell him some home truths about the sorry state of his country under his leadership. Obama wanted Karzai to lift his game.

Around that time, a number of American high functionaries had expressed their impatience with the lack of governance and the widespread prevalence of corruption in Afghanistan; with his own brother, as governor of Kandahar, involved in all sorts of shady deals. Who will forget the reported undignified yelling at one time between Karzai, US Vice-President, Joe Biden, and Richard Holbrooke, Obama’s special envoy to Afghanistan. And the US ambassador, Karl Eikenberry, described Karzai as “not an adequate strategic partner.”

But all that was supposedly forgotten and washed off when Karzai paid a state visit to the United States in May. He was accorded all the due state honors, met President Obama for a long conversation, this time as a friend and a partner, and without any kind of chastisement for not doing a good job.

The US ambassador, Eikenberry, had a metamorphosis of sorts when he suddenly found that that “the United States and the Afghan governments have never been better aligned and had such seriousness of purpose in trying to reach our common objectives.” And he described Karzai as “the elected President of Afghanistan …[and] I highly respect [him] in that capacity.” Reflecting President Obama’s revised estimation of his Afghan guest, the White House spokesman, Robert Gibbs, praised Karzai as “our partner in this battle against al Qaeda and their extremist allies.”

The question then is: what made the Obama administration to revise its view of Karzai in a matter of few months from an “inadequate strategic partner” to a committed “partner in this battle against al Qaeda…” Obviously, having created Karzai, they didn’t want to dump him unceremoniously. If needed, though, it wouldn’t have been all that difficult. But finding a replacement for Karzai would have been difficult. For better or worse, he has become the public face of the US’ Afghanistan policy.

Besides, since the US is keen to start withdrawing its troops from Afghanistan by the middle of next year, there isn’t much time to groom some one else for the job.

In the meantime, Karzai has some cards up his sleeves. And he can make things pretty messy for the United States, especially with the presidential elections due in 2012. Karzai is lousy at the governance of his country but smart at the Afghan game (tribal, ethnic and sectarian) of playing one against the other.

When the American pressure started on him to lift his game of governance, he clearly gave an indication of what he might be up to if pressed too hard. He blamed the electoral fraud in presidential elections on foreigners, like the United Nation representatives. He meant that they wanted to appoint some henchman in place of the ‘popular and authentic representative’ of the Afghan people like Hamid Karzai.

He threatened that he might join the Taliban-led insurgency to make it a “national resistance” movement against foreign occupation. And he indicated that he might veto the planned US-led military invasion of Kandahar to flush out the Taliban from their stronghold. As it happens, Karzai’s brother is the governor of Kandahar and is known for all sorts of double-dealings.

At the time of the US-led military operations against the Taliban-held town of Marjah, there was a strong whiff of victory as the Taliban retreated. But this was a deceptive outcome as the Taliban returned to effectively run the town as they had done before. General Stanley McChrystal’s promise of securing the population and providing them effective and honest administration was nowhere in sight. The people of the area were as scared or complicit with the Taliban as they were before.

After Marjah, the presumed successful outcome of the forthcoming Kandahar operations was supposed to put Taliban out of business. In this heady atmosphere, Karzai didn’t seem fundamentally important. Describing the upcoming assault on Kandahar as “the cornerstone of our surge effort and the key to shifting the momentum’’, Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, didn’t think that Karzai could really complicate things, if he wanted to. According to him, “We can make these governors [like Karzai’s brother in Kandahar] and presidents [like Karzai] do what we want...”

But the wily Karzai was planning to hold a jirga of tribal chiefs (starting soon) to discuss how best to integrate the Taliban into his administration. Whether or not this would have reached the actual point of the Taliban entering the Karzai administration, is besides the point. The US didn’t want to conceive the possibility. It would have been like handing power on a platter to the Taliban. The US wasn’t keen on it unless the Taliban renounced violence, and respected the Afghan constitution. Which is a non-starter.

In the midst all this, there was some rethink in Washington about Karzai’s relative importance in the US scheme of things. And this was judged to be pretty high. Which led him to be invited to Washington and accorded all the pomp and ceremony. Karzai now is once again the US buddy—at least on surface.

And he is quite happy because the US didn’t call off his bluster of playing the Taliban card. He wouldn’t last long with the Taliban who have always regarded him as an American puppet. The Americans knew that Karzai’s threats were mere bluster but they didn’t want to find out because he was their only visible Afghan face.

And what has Karzai got in return? He seems to have been assured that the United States will not leave him and Afghanistan high and dry (even after they start withdrawing their troops in summer next year) and will continue to provide assistance with training and equipping his security forces (including police). He seems to have been also assured that Western aid for building Afghanistan’s economy and infrastructure will continue over an extended period of time.

Above all, the Americans will get off his back for the time being pressuring him to get rid of corruption and lift his game generally. For the Americans, having made him feel wanted and assured, they will not have to watch him threatening to fraternize with the Taliban, even as they carry out the operations against them in Kandahar.

But this new façade is a marriage of convenience and will not last. In other words, there is no respite for the Afghan people with all the protagonists and antagonists engaged in their power games.