Israel sinks the peace process

By S.P.SETH

The hopes raised by the Obama Presidency for a resolution of the Palestinian question have been dashed. What started with his Cairo speech extending a hand to the Muslim world, and acknowledging the centrality of the Palestinian question, has now been relegated to the hard-to-tackle basket. The Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, openly acknowledged the US’s inability to initiate direct talks between the two sides, after Israeli refusal to freeze new construction activities in West Bank and east Jerusalem. The only way open now will be indirect talks through US channeling.

When Hillary Clinton said that the US was unable to bring about a settlement of the vexed question, she was in fact acknowledging that Israel and its US lobby has a veto on the issue. Since Israel is insistent on continuing its settlements in West Bank and east Jerusalem, any continuation of the talks (direct or indirect) have no meaning. After all, what the Palestinians rightly want is their own sovereignty in the occupied territories, lost since the 1967 six-day war.

But Israel is so arrogant that it refused a generous US package for a three-month freeze on new construction activity. The package included a $3 billion worth of military aid, including 20 F-35 fighter aircraft, and a commitment to veto anti-Israeli resolutions in the United Nations. Israel is so confident of having its way with the US that its government didn’t feel obliged or coerced into heeding the US request. This is a humiliating diplomatic setback for President Obama and his administration.

The Israeli veto on the US policy concerning Palestine continues because the Jewish lobby in the United States exercises tremendous political influence. In a profile of one such powerful Jewish magnate, Haim Saban, Connie Bruck wrote in The New Yorker, “…His greatest concern, he says, is to protect Israel, by strengthening the United States-Israel relationship.” And his formula to do this is to “make donations to political parties, establish think tanks, and control media outlets.” And Saban is doing all this, as are the Jewish lobbies.

On the role of the Jewish lobbies, Peter Beinart wrote in The New York Review of Books that, “…in the United States, groups like AIPAC and the Presidents’ Conference [Jewish organizations] patrol public discourse, scolding people who contradict their vision of Israel as a state in which all leaders cherish democracy and yearn for peace”

And what exactly is this vision, as articulated by Benjamin Netanyahu (now prime minister of Israel) in his 1993 book, “A Place among the Nations”. According to Beinhart again, based on Netanyahu’s book, “…he denies that there is such a thing as a Palestinian… And the effort ‘to gouge Judea and Samaria [the West Bank] out of Israel’ resembles Hitler’s bid to wrench the German-speaking ‘Sudeten district’ from Czechoslovakia in 1938.” Indeed, according to Netanyahu, Israel has already made big territorial concessions by abandoning its claim to Jordan.

Is it any surprise then that the Netanyahu government has sabotaged the peace talks? When his government (and it includes ministers even to the right of Netanyahu) is so self-righteous about Israel’s identity and territorial expanse, all the talk about peace and two-state formula is a chimera. And it will remain that as long as Israel has the US’ unstinted support.

Indeed, some thoughtful sympathizers of Israel do worry about its future from another perspective. In his New York Times column, Thomas Friedman sums up this perspective as one of a demographic nightmare for the Jewish state with its 2.5 million Palestinians in West Bank and another 1.5 million within Israel proper. In this situation of a single state entity (Israel), “Then the only question” according to the Hebrew University philosopher Moshe Halbertal, “will be what will be the nature of this one state—it will either be apartheid or Lebanon.” And with this, “We will be confronted by two horrors.”

But Netanyahu and his ilk are not deterred. They foresee another scenario that will solve forever the Palestinian question. The overwhelming view in Israel seems to be that the creeping process of settlements and annexation will force (with draconian laws and effective apartheid) many Palestinians into leaving their country for neighboring Arab states. And those left will have no choice but to live on Israeli terms. Which will essentially “solve” the Palestinian problem.

This is delusional, of course. The idea that the Israeli occupation of Palestine is somehow morally and politically justified, being the manifest destiny of Jewish people as the inheritors of some mythical past, is not only wrong but also highly dangerous. That the Palestinians will somehow disappear to make Israeli occupation legitimate has been a cardinal article of faith with Israeli leadership, particularly after the six-day war in 1967. But the Palestinians are still resisting after more than forty years. But the delusion persists that time, and American support and security guarantees, will eventually carry the day.

But this is a gross misreading of the situation. Indeed, if anything, time and legitimacy are on the Palestinian side because Israeli occupation will increasingly be seen for what it is—a gross abuse of human rights.

Professor David Shulman says in the New York Review of Books, “ Such abuse [of human rights] is the very stuff of the occupation—a daily reality exacerbated above all by the endless hunger for more land [by Israel] and the ever expanding settlement project…” And he adds, “ For decades now, the [Israeli] courts have allowed the settlement enterprise to proceed unimpeded by significant legal constraints, despite its evident criminal nature under international law…They have let rampant violence by settlers throughout the territories… go largely unpunished…”

The lack of strong international reaction to such rampant Israeli violence in the occupied territories has only encouraged Israel to continue on its course. Assured of US support, with Europe supinely following it, Israel has never felt the need to change its course.

But this could change. Because: the US might not be able to bail out Israel economically, politically and militarily with its waning power. In an emerging multipolar world, Israel will find it increasingly difficult to influence all the levers of international power. And if the Arab countries were to energize on behalf of the Palestinians, with greater leeway in a multipolar world, Israel will find itself increasingly isolated internationally.

It might, therefore, be in Israel’s interest to accommodate the Palestinians while it still remains the strongest regional power in the Middle East. But to expect this is to credit Israel with greater sagacity than it has shown so far.

Note: This article was first printed in Daily Times

WikiLeaks Julian Assange: a hero or a villain?

By S.P.SETH

WikiLeaks will, most likely, end up as a dreaded word in the annals of diplomatic history. Nothing like this has happened before on such a scale. The disclosure of these American diplomatic cables, with comments on personalities, politics and policies of countries doing business with the United States, provides a rare insight into global politics, albeit with an American bias.

The Australian founder of the WikiLeaks, Julian Assange, is regarded either as a hero or a monstrous villain (depending on one’s viewpoint) for upsetting the staid diplomatic applecart by blowing the whistle. The Americans—across the political spectrum--- are baying for his blood for baring their diplomatic cupboard for all and sundry to see. And believe me it is not a pretty sight.

Coincidentally or otherwise, he is up against warrants for his arrest on charges of raping two Swedish women while in Sweden, where he had set up his WikiLeaks offices; hoping that he would have a more empathetic establishment in that country. Even the Interpol was alerted to his alleged crime.

The British have now got him and he is in their lock up. He will now face proceedings for extradition to Sweden

Indeed, earlier charges against him on this count had been dropped in Sweden for want of evidence. The question then is: why was the rape charge been raked up again? It certainly seems too fortuitous to be taken at face value.

It is true that Asange had sexual encounters with the women in question, and he has reportedly admitted it. But this was consensual. The only disputed element is whether or not he used protection under Swedish law. It is all a murky area, having become so entangled with the WikiLeaks affair. Assange contends that he is being framed to shut him up.

The question then is: Are the Swedish authorities doing the US’ dirty work? There are no easy answers to this. But in view of the fortuitous nature of the two (rape charges, and the WikiLeaks), the suspicion is likely to persist.

At the same time, the US has been busy pressuring internet servers to deny WikiLeaks its links. Some of the prominent ones have already done it. The US is also examining all its legal books to nab him on spying, treason, terrorism and whatever else they can throw at him.

Why are the US and its partners so exercised over something they always claim to favor and espouse all over the world? Which is: transparency and freedom to disseminate information. When WikiLeaks decided to exercise this right, all hell broke loose led by the country (USA) in the forefront of spreading democracy.

The US response has been three-fold. First, Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, blasted the disclosure and dissemination of US cables not only for the damage it is doing to the United States but for the world too. She described it as an “attack on the international community.”

At the second level, the US Attorney General is examining US laws to throw the book at Julian Assange and his WikiLealks organization to snuff them out for all times--- a Herculean and probably impossible talk in today’s internet world, even in the country of its origin. Third, and the most sober response has come from the US Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates.

He disagreed with those who described “the impact of these releases on our foreign policy…as a meltdown, as a game-changer, and so on.” In his view, “those descriptions are fairly significantly overwrought.”

He said that the US’ relations with rest of the world were not based on whether it was good at keeping secrets. Elaborating, he said, “Some governments deal with us because they fear us, some because they respect us, most because they need us.” And, he maintained, “We are still essentially… the indispensable nation.”

Gates didn’t deny that the dumping of such information was embarrassing and awkward. But, in his view, its consequences for US foreign policy will be “fairly modest.”

Why then is the US establishment generally so “overwrought”, to use Gates words in another context? Or is this a case of good cop and bad cop routine within the US establishment, with Gates trying to underplay the damage? Whatever it is, Julian Assange and his WikiLeaks have exposed the netherworld of diplomatic interaction where politics and perceived national interests trump everything else.

In the meantime all the governments in the world, that have featured in the leaked cables, are trying to deal with it by denying their unsavory contents or pretending to ignore them. Not surprisingly then, the Pakistani Government too has denied and dismissed the contents of the cables relating to its nuclear policy and the risks from it, as well as the perceived involvement of ISI with the Taliban.

Here in Australia, the former prime minister (now foreign minister), Kevin Rudd, has come out as a “control freak” full of self-importance, and hence lacking in diplomatic skills. Rudd is trying to deal with it by the usual bravado of not caring for it. At the same time, Australian Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, slammed her countryman for the illegal act of dumping all those cables, without any reference to the law(s) Assange was breaching. Again, this is not unusual because Australia is prone to follow the United States unthinkingly.

Julian Assange might have to pay a heavy personal price for his audacity (President Barack Obama’s famous word), but he has let the proverbial cat among the pigeons to unfold the high drama of international diplomacy.