Bashar Al-Jaafari dan Persepsi AS soal Krisis Suriah
Bashar
al-Jaafari, wakil tetap Suriah di PBB saat menyikapi bantuan militer
Amerika Serikat kepada kelompok teroris di negaranya menandaskan,
"Bagaimana mungkin seseorang dalam satu waktu menjadi pemadam kebakaran
dan pemicu kebakaran?"
Bersamaan dengan penyelenggaraan
Konferensi Jenewa II di Swiss, Amerika Serikat dalam sebuah kebijakan
arogannya mengumumkan siap memberi bantuan militer kepada kelompok
teroris Suriah.
Al-Jaafari dalam wawancaranya dengan
televisi Suriah menekankan, mayoritas negara yang turut dalam Konferensi
Jenewa II dengan transparan menunjukkan rasa permusuhan mereka dengan
Damaskus. Sementara delegasi kubu Aliansi Nasional Anti Suriah menolak
seluruh solusi yang menguntungkan warga Suriah.
Menurut al-Jaafari, sebelum penyelenggaraan Konferensi Jenewa II, sidang
Dewan Kerjasama Teluk Persia (PGCC) pada 29 Desember 2013 di Kuwait
telah menyusun skenario konferensi Jenewa. Wakil tetap Suriah di PBB
menegaskan bahwa isu utama dokumen PGCC tersebut adalah komitmen Arab
Saudi dalam menggalang kerjasama dengan para pakar di bidang hukum guna
memperkokoh posisi kubu anti Suriah di luar negeri.
Konferensi Jenewa II menunjukkan bahwa sejumlah negara penyelenggara
tidak serius mencari solusi krisis Damaskus dan dengan kebijakan
politiknya hanya berusaha menggulingkan pemerintahan legal Bashar
al-Assad.
Dukungan militer pemerintah AS terhadap
kelompok teroris di Suriah bertepatan dengan penyelenggaraan Konferensi
Jenewa II membuktikan bahwa Washington tidak jujur dan hanya mengejar
kepentingan pribadi khususnya demi keuntungan Rezim Zionis Israel, yakni
penggulingan Bashar al-Assad. Patut dicatat bahwa Suriah tercatat
sebagai negara Arab satu-satunya yang gigih melawan Israel dan terdepan
dalam poros muqawama anti Zionis di kawasan.
Di sisi
lain, Rezim Zionis Israel menilai keberadaan pemerintahan Bashar
al-Assad di Suriah sebagai penghalang keberlanjutan pendudukan mereka.
Oleh karena itu, Tel Aviv tidak pernah lelah mendukung kelompok teroris
di Suriah dan menarik Amerika, Arab Saudi serta berbagai pihak lainnya
untuk mengamini kebijakannya.
Penolakan kubu Alinasi
Nasional Anti Suriah terhadap usulan pemerintah Suriah di Konferensi
Jenewa II terkait mendahulukan memerangi terorisme dan kekerasan di
negara ini ketimbang pembentukan pemerintahan transisi mengindikasikan
bahwa konferensi ini tidak efektif dalam menyelesaikan krisis di
Damaskus. Penolakan terhadap usulan pemerintah Suriah menunjukkan bahwa
kubu Aliansi Nasional Anti Suriah bergerak sesuai dengan kebijakan
Amerika, Arab Saudi dan Rezim Zionis Israel serta memanfaatkan kesulitan
warga Suriah untuk propaganda anti pemerintah Bashar al-Assad.
Sikat tunduk Aliansi Nasional Anti Suriah terhadap tuntutan
pendukungnya khususnya Amerika Serikat dan Arab Saudi membuat klaim kubu
ini sebagai wakil rakyat tidak mungkin terealisasi. Setiap bentuk
perubahan dan transformasi di Suriah jika berdasarkan tuntutan rakyat
maka sah dan legal, sementara kubu anti Suriah untuk pertama kalinya
muncul di Qatar dan warga Suriah tidak memiliki peran sama sekali dalam
kemunculan kubu ini.
Sebuah aliansi yang muncul dengan
dukungan pihak-pihak anti Bashar al-Assad tidak dapat mengaku sebagai
wakil rakyat Suriah. Adapun suara langsung rakyat Suriah menjadi rujukan
bagi legalitas setiap perubahan di negara ini. (IRIB Indonesia/MF)
Bandar Didepak Raja Abdullah dari Kancah Politik di Suriah?
Islam
Times- "Kami ingin memberitahu Anda bahwa ada beberapa perubahan yang
akan terjadi di Arab Saudi bulan Maret mendatang," kata Ford dan
mencatat, perubahan ini akan mencapai posisi Bandar Bin Sultan dan Saud
al-Faissal.
http://www.islamtimes.org/vdciypapzt1a5v2.k8ct.html
|
Bandar, Abdullah, Bush dan Rice
Raja Saudi Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz murka terhadap kinerja Bandar
atas Ketidakmampuan dan kegagalan kepala Intelijen kerajaan itu dalam
mengontrol situasi di Suriah, khususnya dalam mencegah tewasnya ribuan
Takfiri Saudi di negara itu, demikian sumber informasi mengungkapkan
pada Rabu, 22/01/14.
"Kemarahan Raja Saudi kepada Bandar meningkat setelah Menteri Dalam Negeri Mohammad bin Nayef bin Abdulaziz al-Saud melaporkan bahwa lebih dari 3.000 warga negara Saudi tewas dalam krisis panjang tiga tahun di Suriah," demikian sebuah sumber informasi dekat dengan raja Saudi dengan kondisi anonimitas melaporkan kepada FNA.
"Setelah mendengar laporan tersebut, Raja Saudi memanggil Bandar dan menyapanya dengan ucapan kemarahan," Saya tidak merasa optimis tentang penanganan Anda mengenai masalah regional sejak awal, dan kematian sejumlah besar warga negara Saudi (Takfiri di Suriah) sangat disesalkan," kata Raja kepada Bandar, menurut sumber itu.
Laporan sebelumnya mengatakan, Arab Saudi telah mengirim sekitar 20.000 sampai 30.000 Takfiri ke Suriah sejak tahun 2011 dan dipimpin langsung oleh Bandar bin Sultan.
Menurut beberapa sumber itu, Bandar bin Sultan sebelumnya dirawat dan menjalani operasi medis karena kondisinya sensitif. Meski saat ini kondisi Bandar pulih, namun dia tidak mampu memimpin para Takfiri Arab di Suriah secara langsung.
Sumber-sumber di Saudi juga mengatakan Bandar tidak hadir dalam beberapa pertemuan wajib mengenai politik dan menyerahkan kasus Suriah kepada Menteri Luar Negeri Saudi Saud al- Faissal.
Dalam sambutannya yang relevan pada hari Senin kemarin, Duta Besar AS untuk Suriah Robert Ford memerintahkan tokoh-tokoh oposisi dukungan asing untuk ambil bagian dalam konferensi Jenewa II dan mencatat, ada banyak perubahan dalam kebijakan Saudi mengenai krisis Suriah.
Pejabat di komite eksekutif dari Koalisi Nasional Suriah (SNC), Nidal Hamade, mengatakan, Ford menyerukan pertemuan darurat dengan para pejabat SNC di Turki, Istanbul dan menegaskan, utusan AS itu mengancam akan memotong dana bagi siapa saja yang tidak menghadiri pertemuan di Jenewa.
"Selain Ford, semua tokoh SNC yang menentang partisipasi dalam Konferensi Jeneva 2 mendukung pertemuan, yaitu Loay Safi, Anass al-Abdeh, Haitham al-Maleh, Burhan Ghalioun, Najeeb al-Ghadban dan Maher Noaimi," kata Hamade.
Dalam pertemuan tersebut, Ford mengatakan kepada SNC, pangeran Saudi Bandar Bin Sultan sedang berlibur panjang di Amerika Serikat karena sakit dan kelelahan psikologis", tambah Hamade mengutip seorang pejabat oposisi Suriah dekat dengan mantan Perdana Menteri Riyad Hijab.
"Kami ingin memberitahu Anda bahwa ada beberapa perubahan yang akan terjadi di Arab Saudi bulan Maret mendatang," kata Ford dan mencatat, perubahan ini akan mencapai posisi Bandar Bin Sultan dan Saud al-Faissal.
Duta Besar AS itu menambahkan, komite Saudi untuk Libanon dan Suriah (didukung oleh Abdulaziz Khoja, Abdulaziz Bin Abdullah al-Saud dan Muqren Bin Abdullah al-Saud) akan diaktifkan dan akan mengambil alih file Libanon dan Suriah dari Bandar.
Ford lebih lanjut mengatakan kepada tokoh-tokoh oposisi Suriah, rencana Bandar atas konflik Suriah yang dimasukkan pada tahun 2012 memiliki dampak bencana pada Suriah dan wilayah. Dan Ini membuat kuat al-Qaeda Suriah dan AS tidak bisa menghadapinya. Untuk itu, Anda harus pergi ke Jeneva 2, ini adalah kepentingan AS," tambahnya. [IT/Onh/Ass]
"Kemarahan Raja Saudi kepada Bandar meningkat setelah Menteri Dalam Negeri Mohammad bin Nayef bin Abdulaziz al-Saud melaporkan bahwa lebih dari 3.000 warga negara Saudi tewas dalam krisis panjang tiga tahun di Suriah," demikian sebuah sumber informasi dekat dengan raja Saudi dengan kondisi anonimitas melaporkan kepada FNA.
"Setelah mendengar laporan tersebut, Raja Saudi memanggil Bandar dan menyapanya dengan ucapan kemarahan," Saya tidak merasa optimis tentang penanganan Anda mengenai masalah regional sejak awal, dan kematian sejumlah besar warga negara Saudi (Takfiri di Suriah) sangat disesalkan," kata Raja kepada Bandar, menurut sumber itu.
Laporan sebelumnya mengatakan, Arab Saudi telah mengirim sekitar 20.000 sampai 30.000 Takfiri ke Suriah sejak tahun 2011 dan dipimpin langsung oleh Bandar bin Sultan.
Menurut beberapa sumber itu, Bandar bin Sultan sebelumnya dirawat dan menjalani operasi medis karena kondisinya sensitif. Meski saat ini kondisi Bandar pulih, namun dia tidak mampu memimpin para Takfiri Arab di Suriah secara langsung.
Sumber-sumber di Saudi juga mengatakan Bandar tidak hadir dalam beberapa pertemuan wajib mengenai politik dan menyerahkan kasus Suriah kepada Menteri Luar Negeri Saudi Saud al- Faissal.
Dalam sambutannya yang relevan pada hari Senin kemarin, Duta Besar AS untuk Suriah Robert Ford memerintahkan tokoh-tokoh oposisi dukungan asing untuk ambil bagian dalam konferensi Jenewa II dan mencatat, ada banyak perubahan dalam kebijakan Saudi mengenai krisis Suriah.
Pejabat di komite eksekutif dari Koalisi Nasional Suriah (SNC), Nidal Hamade, mengatakan, Ford menyerukan pertemuan darurat dengan para pejabat SNC di Turki, Istanbul dan menegaskan, utusan AS itu mengancam akan memotong dana bagi siapa saja yang tidak menghadiri pertemuan di Jenewa.
"Selain Ford, semua tokoh SNC yang menentang partisipasi dalam Konferensi Jeneva 2 mendukung pertemuan, yaitu Loay Safi, Anass al-Abdeh, Haitham al-Maleh, Burhan Ghalioun, Najeeb al-Ghadban dan Maher Noaimi," kata Hamade.
Dalam pertemuan tersebut, Ford mengatakan kepada SNC, pangeran Saudi Bandar Bin Sultan sedang berlibur panjang di Amerika Serikat karena sakit dan kelelahan psikologis", tambah Hamade mengutip seorang pejabat oposisi Suriah dekat dengan mantan Perdana Menteri Riyad Hijab.
"Kami ingin memberitahu Anda bahwa ada beberapa perubahan yang akan terjadi di Arab Saudi bulan Maret mendatang," kata Ford dan mencatat, perubahan ini akan mencapai posisi Bandar Bin Sultan dan Saud al-Faissal.
Duta Besar AS itu menambahkan, komite Saudi untuk Libanon dan Suriah (didukung oleh Abdulaziz Khoja, Abdulaziz Bin Abdullah al-Saud dan Muqren Bin Abdullah al-Saud) akan diaktifkan dan akan mengambil alih file Libanon dan Suriah dari Bandar.
Ford lebih lanjut mengatakan kepada tokoh-tokoh oposisi Suriah, rencana Bandar atas konflik Suriah yang dimasukkan pada tahun 2012 memiliki dampak bencana pada Suriah dan wilayah. Dan Ini membuat kuat al-Qaeda Suriah dan AS tidak bisa menghadapinya. Untuk itu, Anda harus pergi ke Jeneva 2, ini adalah kepentingan AS," tambahnya. [IT/Onh/Ass]
Ledakan Bom Terbaru di Beirut Bunuh 2 Orang
IslamTimes.
Menurut Kementerian Dalam Negeri Lebanon, ledakan itu terjadi pada hari
Senin (3/2/14) ketika seorang pelaku pemboman meledakkan dirinya di
dalam sebuah van yang telah digunakan untuk transportasi umum di daerah
Choueifat.
http://www.islamtimes.org/vdce7v8xpjh8ezi.rabj.html
Sebuah ledakan bom telah menghantam ibukota Libanon Beirut, menewaskan sedikitnya dua orang tewas.
Menurut Kementerian Dalam Negeri Lebanon, ledakan itu terjadi pada hari Senin (3/2/14) ketika seorang pelaku pemboman meledakkan dirinya di dalam sebuah van yang telah digunakan untuk transportasi umum di daerah Choueifat.
Belum ada kelompok yang mengaku bertanggung jawab atas ledakan itu.
Ledakan itu terjadi setelah serangan bom mobil hari Sabtu menewaskan sedikitnya lima orang di kota perbatasan Hermel di timur laut Lebanon.
Dewan Keamanan PBB mengeluarkan pernyataan pada hari yang sama, mendesak rakyat Lebanon untuk "melestarikan persatuan nasional dalam menghadapi upaya yang berusaha merusak stabilitas negara itu. "
Sekretaris Jenderal PBB Ban Ki -moon juga mengutuk dan mengecam serangan tersebut.
Beirut telah berulang kali menjadi sasaran serangan teroris serupa dalam beberapa bulan terakhir.(IT/TGM)
Menurut Kementerian Dalam Negeri Lebanon, ledakan itu terjadi pada hari Senin (3/2/14) ketika seorang pelaku pemboman meledakkan dirinya di dalam sebuah van yang telah digunakan untuk transportasi umum di daerah Choueifat.
Belum ada kelompok yang mengaku bertanggung jawab atas ledakan itu.
Ledakan itu terjadi setelah serangan bom mobil hari Sabtu menewaskan sedikitnya lima orang di kota perbatasan Hermel di timur laut Lebanon.
Dewan Keamanan PBB mengeluarkan pernyataan pada hari yang sama, mendesak rakyat Lebanon untuk "melestarikan persatuan nasional dalam menghadapi upaya yang berusaha merusak stabilitas negara itu. "
Sekretaris Jenderal PBB Ban Ki -moon juga mengutuk dan mengecam serangan tersebut.
Beirut telah berulang kali menjadi sasaran serangan teroris serupa dalam beberapa bulan terakhir.(IT/TGM)
Noam Chomsky: The one state/two state debate is irrelevant as Israel and the US consolidate Greater Israel
By Noam Chomsky, Mondoweiss and Chomsky.info – 24 Oct 2013
http://chomsky.info/articles/20131024.htm
http://chomsky.info/articles/20131024.htm
http://www.israeli-occupation.org/2013-10-26/noam-chomsky-the-one-state-two-state-debate-is-irrelevant/
Noam Chomsky
On July 13, former Shin Bet chief Yuval Diskin
issued a dire warning to the government of Israel: either it will reach some
kind of two-state settlement or there will be a “shift to a nearly inevitable
outcome of the one remaining reality — a state ‘from the sea to the river’.”
The near inevitable outcome, “one state for two nations,” will pose “an
immediate existential threat of the erasure of the identity of Israel as a
Jewish and democratic state,” soon with a Palestinian-Arab majority.
On similar grounds, in the latest issue of Britain’s leading journal of international
affairs, two prominent Middle East specialists, Clive Jones and Beverly
Milton-Edwards, write that “if Israel
wishes to be both Jewish and democratic,” it must embrace “the two-state
solution.”
It is easy to cite many other examples, but
unnecessary, because it is assumed almost universally that there are two
options for cis-Jordan: either two states — Palestinian and Jewish-democratic —
or one state “from the sea to the river.” Israeli commentators express concern
about the “demographic problem”: too many Palestinians in a Jewish state. Many
Palestinians and their advocates support the “one state solution,” anticipating
a civil rights, anti-Apartheid struggle that will lead to secular democracy.
Other analysts also consistently pose the options in similar terms.
The analysis is almost universal, but crucially
flawed. There is a third option, namely, the option that Israel is pursuing with constant US support. And
this third option is the only realistic alternative to the two-state settlement
that is backed by an overwhelming international consensus.
It makes sense, in my opinion, to contemplate a
future binational secular democracy in the former Palestine, from the sea to the river. For
what it’s worth, that is what I have advocated for 70 years. But I stress:
advocated. Advocacy, as distinct from mere proposal, requires sketching a path
from here to there. The forms of true advocacy have changed with shifting
circumstances. Since the mid-1970s, when Palestinian national rights became a
salient issue, the only form of advocacy has been in stages, the first being
the two-state settlement. No other path has been suggested that has even a
remote chance of success. Proposing a binational (“one state”) settlement
without moving on to advocacy in effect provides support for the third option,
the realistic one.
The third option, taking shape before our eyes,
is not obscure. Israel
is systematically extending plans that were sketched and initiated shortly
after the 1967 war, and institutionalized more fully with the access to power
of Menahem Begin’s Likud a decade later.
The first step is to create what Yonatan Mendel
calls “a disturbing new city” called “Jerusalem” but extending far beyond historic Jerusalem, incorporating dozens of Palestinian villages
and surrounding lands, and furthermore, designated as a Jewish City and the
capital of Israel.
All of this is in direct violation of explicit Security Council orders. A
corridor to the East of this new Greater Jerusalem incorporates the town of Ma’aleh Adumim, established in the 1970s but built
primarily after the 1993 Oslo Accords, with lands reaching virtually to Jericho, thus effectively bisecting the West
Bank. Corridors to the north incorporating the settler towns of
Ariel and Kedumim further divide what is to remain under some degree of
Palestinian control.
Meanwhile Israel
is incorporating the territory on the Israeli side of the illegal “separation
wall,” in reality an annexation wall, taking arable land and water resources
and many villages, strangling the town of Qalqilya,
and separating Palestinian villagers from their fields. In what Israel calls “the seam” between the wall and the
border, close to 10 percent of the West Bank,
anyone is permitted to enter, except Palestinians. Those who live in the region
have to go through a highly intricate bureaucratic procedure to gain temporary
entry. Exit, for example for medical care, is hampered in the same way. The
result, predictably, has been severe disruption of Palestinian lives, and
according to UN reports, a decrease of more than 80% in number of farmers who
routinely cultivate their lands and a decline of 60% in yield of olive trees,
among other harmful effects. The pretext for the wall was security, but that
means security for illegal Jewish settlers; about 85 per cent of the wall runs
through the occupied West Bank.
Israel
is also taking over the Jordan
Valley, thus fully
imprisoning the cantons that remain. Huge infrastructure projects link settlers
to Israel’s
urban centers, ensuring that they will see no Palestinians. Following a
traditional neocolonial model, a modern center remains for Palestinian elites,
in Ramallah, while the remainder mostly languishes.
To complete the separation of Greater Jerusalem
from remaining Palestinian cantons, Israel would have to take over the
E1 region. So far that has been barred by Washington,
and Israel
has been compelled to resort to subterfuges, like building a police station.
Obama is the first US
president to have imposed no limits on Israeli actions. It remains to be seen
whether he will permit Israel
to take over E1, perhaps with expressions of discontent and a wink of the eye
to make it clear that they are not seriously intended.
There are regular expulsions of Palestinians. In
the Jordan Valley alone the Palestinian population
has been reduced from 300,000 in 1967 to 60,000 today, and similar processes
are underway elsewhere. Following the “dunam after dunam” policies that go back
a century, each action is limited in scope so as not to arouse too much
international attention, but with a cumulative effect and intent that are quite
clear.
Furthermore, ever since the Oslo Accord declared
that Gaza and the West Bank
are an indivisible territorial unity, the US-Israel duo have been committed to
separating the two regions. One significant effect is to ensure that any
limited Palestinian entity will have no access to the outside world.
In the areas that Israel is taking over, the
Palestinian population is small and scattered, and is being reduced further by
regular expulsions. The result will be a Greater Israel with a substantial
Jewish majority. Under the third option, there will be no “demographic problem”
and no civil rights or anti-Apartheid struggle, nothing more than what already
exists within Israel’s recognized borders, where the mantra “Jewish and
democratic” is regularly intoned for the benefit of those who choose to
believe, oblivious to the inherent contradiction, which is far more than merely
symbolic.
Except in stages, the one-state option is an
illusion. It has no international support, and there is no reason why Israel
and its US sponsor would accept it, since they have a far preferable option,
the one they are now implementing; with impunity, thanks to US power.
The US and Israel call for negotiations
without preconditions. Commentary there and elsewhere in the West typically
claims that the Palestinians are imposing such preconditions, hampering the
“peace process.” In reality, the US-Israel insist upon crucial preconditions.
The first is that negotiations must be mediated by the United States,
which is not a neutral party but rather a participant in the conflict. It is as
if one were to propose that Sunni-Shiite conflicts in Iraq be mediated by Iran. Authentic negotiations would
be in the hands of some neutral state with a degree of international respect.
The second precondition is that illegal settlement expansion must be allowed to
continue, as it has done without a break during the 20 years of the Oslo
Accord; predictably, given the terms of the Accord.
In the early years of the occupation the US joined the
world in regarding the settlements as illegal, as confirmed by the UN Security
Council and the International Court of Justice. Since Reagan, their status has
been downgraded to “a barrier to peace.” Obama weakened the designation
further, to “not helpful to peace,” with gentle admonitions that are easily
dismissed. Obama’s extreme rejectionism did arouse some attention in February
2011, when he vetoed a Security Council resolution supporting official US policy,
ending of settlement expansion.
As long as these preconditions remain in force,
diplomacy is likely to remain at a standstill. With brief and rare exceptions,
that has been true since January 1976, when the US vetoed a Security Council
resolution, brought by Egypt, Jordan, and Syria, calling for a two-state
settlement on the internationally recognized border, the Green Line, with
guarantees for the security of all states within secure and recognized borders.
That is essentially the international consensus that is by now universal, with
the two usual exceptions – not just on Middle East
issues, incidentally. The consensus has been modified to include “minor and
mutual adjustments” on the Green Line, to borrow official US wording before it
had broken with the rest of the world.
The same is true of the negotiations that may
take place soon in Washington.
Given the preconditions, they are unlikely to achieve anything more than to
serve as a framework in which Israel
can carry forward its project of taking over whatever it finds valuable in the
West Bank and Syrian Golan Heights, annexed in violation of Security Council
orders, while maintaining the siege of Gaza.
And doing so throughout with the critical economic, military, diplomatic and
ideological support of the state running the negotiations. One can of course
hope for better, but it is hard to be optimistic.
Europe could
play a role in advancing the hopes for a peaceful diplomatic settlement, if it
were willing to pursue an independent path. The recent EU decision to exclude
West Bank settlements from any future deals with Israel might be a step in this
direction. US
policies are also not graven in stone, though they have deep strategic,
economic, and cultural roots. In the absence of such changes, there is every
reason to expect that the picture from the river to the sea will conform to the
third option. Palestinian rights and aspirations will be shelved, temporarily
at least.
If the Israel-Palestine conflict is not resolved,
a regional peace settlement is highly unlikely. That failure has far broader
implications — in particular, for what US
media call “the gravest threat to world peace,” echoing the pronouncements of
President Obama and most of the political class: namely, Iran’s nuclear
programs. The implications become clear when we consider the most obvious ways
to deal with the alleged threat, and their fate. It is useful, first, to
consider a few preliminary questions: Who regards the threat as of such cosmic
significance? And what is the perceived threat?
Answers are straightforward. The threat is
overwhelmingly a western obsession: the US and its allies. The non-aligned
countries, most of the world, have vigorously supported Iran’s right,
as a signer of the Non-proliferation Treaty, to enrich Uranium. In the Arab
world, Iran is generally
disliked, but not perceived as a threat; rather, it is the US and Israel that the population regards
as a threat, by very large margins, as consistently shown by polls.
In western discourse, it is commonly claimed that
the Arabs support the US
position regarding Iran,
but the reference is to the dictators, not the general population, who are
considered an irrelevant annoyance under prevailing democratic doctrine. Also
standard is reference to “the standoff between the international community and Iran,” to quote
from the current scholarly literature. Here the phrase “international
community” refers to the US
and whoever happens to go along with it; in this case, a small minority of the
international community, but many more if political stands are weighted by
power.
What then is the perceived threat? An
authoritative answer is given by US intelligence and the Pentagon in their
regular reviews of global security. They conclude that Iran is not a
military threat. It has low military expenditures even by the standards of the
region, and limited capacity to deploy force. Its strategic doctrine is
defensive, designed to resist attack. The intelligence community reports no
evidence that Iran is
developing nuclear weapons, but if it is, they conclude, that would be part of Iran’s
deterrence strategy.
It is hard to think of a country in the world
that needs a deterrent more than Iran. It has been tormented by the
West without respite ever since its parliamentary regime was overthrown by a
US-British military coup in 1953, first under the harsh and brutal regime of
the Shah, then under murderous attack by Saddam Hussein, with western support.
It was largely US
intervention that induced Iran
to capitulate; and shortly after, President George Bush I invited Iraqi nuclear
engineers to the US for
training in advanced weapons production, an extraordinary threat to Iran. Iraq soon became an enemy, but meanwhile Iran was
subjected to harsh sanctions, intensifying under US initiative to the present.
It constantly subjected to the threat of military attack by the US and Israel — in violation of the UN
Charter, if anyone cares.
It is, however, understandable that the US-Israel
would regard an Iranian deterrent as an intolerable threat. It would limit
their ability to control the region, by violence if they choose, as they often
have. That is the essence of the perceived Iranian threat.
That the clerical regime is a threat to its own
people is hardly in doubt, though regrettably it is hardly alone in that
regard. But it goes well beyond naiveté to believe that its internal repression
is much of a concern to the great powers.
Whatever one thinks of the threat, are there ways
to mitigate it? Quite a few, in fact. One of the most reasonable would be to
move towards establishing a nuclear weapons-free zone in the region, as
strongly advocated by the Non-aligned movement and particularly by the Arab
states, and indeed most of the world. The US and its allies voice formal
support, but have hardly been cooperative. That is once again clear right now.
Under NPT authority, an international conference was to have been held in Finland last
December to advance such plans. Israel
refused to attend, but to the surprise of many, in early November Iran announced
that it would take part, without conditions. The US
then announced that the conference was cancelled, repeating Israel’s
objections: that a conference is premature before regional security is
established. The Arab states, Russia,
and the European Parliament called for immediate renewal of the initiative, but
of course little is possible without the US.
Details are murky. Little documentary evidence is
available, and all of this has passed without inquiry. In particular, the US
press has not inquired, or in fact even published a single word on the most
reasonable and practical efforts to address what it reports as “the gravest
threat to world peace.”
It is quite clear, however, that Arab states and
others call for moves to eliminate weapons of mass destruction immediately, as
a step towards regional security; while the US and Israel, in contrast, reverse
the order, and demand regional security — meaning security for Israel — as a
prerequisite to eliminating such weapons. In the not-very-remote background is
the understanding that Israel has an advanced nuclear weapons system, alone in
the region; and is alone in refusing to join the NPT, along with India and
Pakistan, both of whom also benefit from US support for their nuclear arsenals.
The connection of Israel-Palestine conflict to
the alleged Iranian threat is therefore clear. As long as the US and Israel
persist in their rejectionist stance, blocking the international consensus on a
two-state settlement, there will be no regional security arrangements, hence no
moves towards a establishing a nuclear weapons-free zone and mitigating,
perhaps ending, what the US and Israel claim to be the gravest threat to peace,
at least to do so in the most obvious and far-reaching way.
It should be noted that along with Britain, the US has a special responsibility to
devote its efforts to establishing a Middle East NWFZ. When attempting to
provide a thin legal cover for their invasion of Iraq, the two aggressors appealed
to UNSCR 687 of 1991, claiming that Saddam violated the demand to end his
nuclear weapons programs. The Resolution also has another paragraph, calling
for “steps towards the goal of establishing in the Middle East a zone free from
weapons of mass destruction…”, obligating the US and UK even more than others
to undertake this initiative seriously.
These comments naturally only scratch the
surface, and leave out many urgent topics, among them the horrifying descent of
Syria into suicide and
ominous developments in Egypt,
which are sure to have a regional impact. And indeed a lot more. This is how
some of the core issues appear, to me at least.
Noam Chomsky is Institute Professor
Emeritus at the MIT Department of Linguistics and Philosophy. He is the author
of numerous best-selling political works, including recently Hopes
and Prospects and Making the Future.
Noam Chomsky is also a member of the IOA
Advisory Board.
- See more at:
http://www.israeli-occupation.org/2013-10-26/noam-chomsky-the-one-state-two-state-debate-is-irrelevant/#sthash.6zXtA1Ah.dpuf
By Noam Chomsky, Mondoweiss and Chomsky.info – 24 Oct 2013
http://chomsky.info/articles/20131024.htm
On July 13, former Shin Bet chief Yuval Diskin issued a dire warning
to the government of Israel: either it will reach some kind of two-state
settlement or there will be a “shift to a nearly inevitable outcome of
the one remaining reality — a state ‘from the sea to the river’.” The
near inevitable outcome, “one state for two nations,” will pose “an
immediate existential threat of the erasure of the identity of Israel as
a Jewish and democratic state,” soon with a Palestinian-Arab majority.
On similar grounds, in the latest issue of Britain’s leading journal of international affairs, two prominent Middle East specialists, Clive Jones and Beverly Milton-Edwards, write that “if Israel wishes to be both Jewish and democratic,” it must embrace “the two-state solution.”
It is easy to cite many other examples, but unnecessary, because it is assumed almost universally that there are two options for cis-Jordan: either two states — Palestinian and Jewish-democratic — or one state “from the sea to the river.” Israeli commentators express concern about the “demographic problem”: too many Palestinians in a Jewish state. Many Palestinians and their advocates support the “one state solution,” anticipating a civil rights, anti-Apartheid struggle that will lead to secular democracy. Other analysts also consistently pose the options in similar terms.
The analysis is almost universal, but crucially flawed. There is a third option, namely, the option that Israel is pursuing with constant US support. And this third option is the only realistic alternative to the two-state settlement that is backed by an overwhelming international consensus.
It makes sense, in my opinion, to contemplate a future binational secular democracy in the former Palestine, from the sea to the river. For what it’s worth, that is what I have advocated for 70 years. But I stress: advocated. Advocacy, as distinct from mere proposal, requires sketching a path from here to there. The forms of true advocacy have changed with shifting circumstances. Since the mid-1970s, when Palestinian national rights became a salient issue, the only form of advocacy has been in stages, the first being the two-state settlement. No other path has been suggested that has even a remote chance of success. Proposing a binational (“one state”) settlement without moving on to advocacy in effect provides support for the third option, the realistic one.
The third option, taking shape before our eyes, is not obscure. Israel is systematically extending plans that were sketched and initiated shortly after the 1967 war, and institutionalized more fully with the access to power of Menahem Begin’s Likud a decade later.
The first step is to create what Yonatan Mendel calls “a disturbing new city” called “Jerusalem” but extending far beyond historic Jerusalem, incorporating dozens of Palestinian villages and surrounding lands, and furthermore, designated as a Jewish City and the capital of Israel. All of this is in direct violation of explicit Security Council orders. A corridor to the East of this new Greater Jerusalem incorporates the town of Ma’aleh Adumim, established in the 1970s but built primarily after the 1993 Oslo Accords, with lands reaching virtually to Jericho, thus effectively bisecting the West Bank. Corridors to the north incorporating the settler towns of Ariel and Kedumim further divide what is to remain under some degree of Palestinian control.
Meanwhile Israel is incorporating the territory on the Israeli side of the illegal “separation wall,” in reality an annexation wall, taking arable land and water resources and many villages, strangling the town of Qalqilya, and separating Palestinian villagers from their fields. In what Israel calls “the seam” between the wall and the border, close to 10 percent of the West Bank, anyone is permitted to enter, except Palestinians. Those who live in the region have to go through a highly intricate bureaucratic procedure to gain temporary entry. Exit, for example for medical care, is hampered in the same way. The result, predictably, has been severe disruption of Palestinian lives, and according to UN reports, a decrease of more than 80% in number of farmers who routinely cultivate their lands and a decline of 60% in yield of olive trees, among other harmful effects. The pretext for the wall was security, but that means security for illegal Jewish settlers; about 85 per cent of the wall runs through the occupied West Bank.
Israel is also taking over the Jordan Valley, thus fully imprisoning the cantons that remain. Huge infrastructure projects link settlers to Israel’s urban centers, ensuring that they will see no Palestinians. Following a traditional neocolonial model, a modern center remains for Palestinian elites, in Ramallah, while the remainder mostly languishes.
To complete the separation of Greater Jerusalem from remaining Palestinian cantons, Israel would have to take over the E1 region. So far that has been barred by Washington, and Israel has been compelled to resort to subterfuges, like building a police station. Obama is the first US president to have imposed no limits on Israeli actions. It remains to be seen whether he will permit Israel to take over E1, perhaps with expressions of discontent and a wink of the eye to make it clear that they are not seriously intended.
There are regular expulsions of Palestinians. In the Jordan Valley alone the Palestinian population has been reduced from 300,000 in 1967 to 60,000 today, and similar processes are underway elsewhere. Following the “dunam after dunam” policies that go back a century, each action is limited in scope so as not to arouse too much international attention, but with a cumulative effect and intent that are quite clear.
Furthermore, ever since the Oslo Accord declared that Gaza and the West Bank are an indivisible territorial unity, the US-Israel duo have been committed to separating the two regions. One significant effect is to ensure that any limited Palestinian entity will have no access to the outside world.
In the areas that Israel is taking over, the Palestinian population is small and scattered, and is being reduced further by regular expulsions. The result will be a Greater Israel with a substantial Jewish majority. Under the third option, there will be no “demographic problem” and no civil rights or anti-Apartheid struggle, nothing more than what already exists within Israel’s recognized borders, where the mantra “Jewish and democratic” is regularly intoned for the benefit of those who choose to believe, oblivious to the inherent contradiction, which is far more than merely symbolic.
Except in stages, the one-state option is an illusion. It has no international support, and there is no reason why Israel and its US sponsor would accept it, since they have a far preferable option, the one they are now implementing; with impunity, thanks to US power.
The US and Israel call for negotiations without preconditions. Commentary there and elsewhere in the West typically claims that the Palestinians are imposing such preconditions, hampering the “peace process.” In reality, the US-Israel insist upon crucial preconditions. The first is that negotiations must be mediated by the United States, which is not a neutral party but rather a participant in the conflict. It is as if one were to propose that Sunni-Shiite conflicts in Iraq be mediated by Iran. Authentic negotiations would be in the hands of some neutral state with a degree of international respect. The second precondition is that illegal settlement expansion must be allowed to continue, as it has done without a break during the 20 years of the Oslo Accord; predictably, given the terms of the Accord.
In the early years of the occupation the US joined the world in regarding the settlements as illegal, as confirmed by the UN Security Council and the International Court of Justice. Since Reagan, their status has been downgraded to “a barrier to peace.” Obama weakened the designation further, to “not helpful to peace,” with gentle admonitions that are easily dismissed. Obama’s extreme rejectionism did arouse some attention in February 2011, when he vetoed a Security Council resolution supporting official US policy, ending of settlement expansion.
As long as these preconditions remain in force, diplomacy is likely to remain at a standstill. With brief and rare exceptions, that has been true since January 1976, when the US vetoed a Security Council resolution, brought by Egypt, Jordan, and Syria, calling for a two-state settlement on the internationally recognized border, the Green Line, with guarantees for the security of all states within secure and recognized borders. That is essentially the international consensus that is by now universal, with the two usual exceptions – not just on Middle East issues, incidentally. The consensus has been modified to include “minor and mutual adjustments” on the Green Line, to borrow official US wording before it had broken with the rest of the world.
The same is true of the negotiations that may take place soon in Washington. Given the preconditions, they are unlikely to achieve anything more than to serve as a framework in which Israel can carry forward its project of taking over whatever it finds valuable in the West Bank and Syrian Golan Heights, annexed in violation of Security Council orders, while maintaining the siege of Gaza. And doing so throughout with the critical economic, military, diplomatic and ideological support of the state running the negotiations. One can of course hope for better, but it is hard to be optimistic.
Europe could play a role in advancing the hopes for a peaceful diplomatic settlement, if it were willing to pursue an independent path. The recent EU decision to exclude West Bank settlements from any future deals with Israel might be a step in this direction. US policies are also not graven in stone, though they have deep strategic, economic, and cultural roots. In the absence of such changes, there is every reason to expect that the picture from the river to the sea will conform to the third option. Palestinian rights and aspirations will be shelved, temporarily at least.
If the Israel-Palestine conflict is not resolved, a regional peace settlement is highly unlikely. That failure has far broader implications — in particular, for what US media call “the gravest threat to world peace,” echoing the pronouncements of President Obama and most of the political class: namely, Iran’s nuclear programs. The implications become clear when we consider the most obvious ways to deal with the alleged threat, and their fate. It is useful, first, to consider a few preliminary questions: Who regards the threat as of such cosmic significance? And what is the perceived threat?
Answers are straightforward. The threat is overwhelmingly a western obsession: the US and its allies. The non-aligned countries, most of the world, have vigorously supported Iran’s right, as a signer of the Non-proliferation Treaty, to enrich Uranium. In the Arab world, Iran is generally disliked, but not perceived as a threat; rather, it is the US and Israel that the population regards as a threat, by very large margins, as consistently shown by polls.
In western discourse, it is commonly claimed that the Arabs support the US position regarding Iran, but the reference is to the dictators, not the general population, who are considered an irrelevant annoyance under prevailing democratic doctrine. Also standard is reference to “the standoff between the international community and Iran,” to quote from the current scholarly literature. Here the phrase “international community” refers to the US and whoever happens to go along with it; in this case, a small minority of the international community, but many more if political stands are weighted by power.
What then is the perceived threat? An authoritative answer is given by US intelligence and the Pentagon in their regular reviews of global security. They conclude that Iran is not a military threat. It has low military expenditures even by the standards of the region, and limited capacity to deploy force. Its strategic doctrine is defensive, designed to resist attack. The intelligence community reports no evidence that Iran is developing nuclear weapons, but if it is, they conclude, that would be part of Iran’s deterrence strategy.
It is hard to think of a country in the world that needs a deterrent more than Iran. It has been tormented by the West without respite ever since its parliamentary regime was overthrown by a US-British military coup in 1953, first under the harsh and brutal regime of the Shah, then under murderous attack by Saddam Hussein, with western support. It was largely US intervention that induced Iran to capitulate; and shortly after, President George Bush I invited Iraqi nuclear engineers to the US for training in advanced weapons production, an extraordinary threat to Iran. Iraq soon became an enemy, but meanwhile Iran was subjected to harsh sanctions, intensifying under US initiative to the present. It constantly subjected to the threat of military attack by the US and Israel — in violation of the UN Charter, if anyone cares.
It is, however, understandable that the US-Israel would regard an Iranian deterrent as an intolerable threat. It would limit their ability to control the region, by violence if they choose, as they often have. That is the essence of the perceived Iranian threat.
That the clerical regime is a threat to its own people is hardly in doubt, though regrettably it is hardly alone in that regard. But it goes well beyond naiveté to believe that its internal repression is much of a concern to the great powers.
Whatever one thinks of the threat, are there ways to mitigate it? Quite a few, in fact. One of the most reasonable would be to move towards establishing a nuclear weapons-free zone in the region, as strongly advocated by the Non-aligned movement and particularly by the Arab states, and indeed most of the world. The US and its allies voice formal support, but have hardly been cooperative. That is once again clear right now. Under NPT authority, an international conference was to have been held in Finland last December to advance such plans. Israel refused to attend, but to the surprise of many, in early November Iran announced that it would take part, without conditions. The US then announced that the conference was cancelled, repeating Israel’s objections: that a conference is premature before regional security is established. The Arab states, Russia, and the European Parliament called for immediate renewal of the initiative, but of course little is possible without the US.
Details are murky. Little documentary evidence is available, and all of this has passed without inquiry. In particular, the US press has not inquired, or in fact even published a single word on the most reasonable and practical efforts to address what it reports as “the gravest threat to world peace.”
It is quite clear, however, that Arab states and others call for moves to eliminate weapons of mass destruction immediately, as a step towards regional security; while the US and Israel, in contrast, reverse the order, and demand regional security — meaning security for Israel — as a prerequisite to eliminating such weapons. In the not-very-remote background is the understanding that Israel has an advanced nuclear weapons system, alone in the region; and is alone in refusing to join the NPT, along with India and Pakistan, both of whom also benefit from US support for their nuclear arsenals.
The connection of Israel-Palestine conflict to the alleged Iranian threat is therefore clear. As long as the US and Israel persist in their rejectionist stance, blocking the international consensus on a two-state settlement, there will be no regional security arrangements, hence no moves towards a establishing a nuclear weapons-free zone and mitigating, perhaps ending, what the US and Israel claim to be the gravest threat to peace, at least to do so in the most obvious and far-reaching way.
It should be noted that along with Britain, the US has a special responsibility to devote its efforts to establishing a Middle East NWFZ. When attempting to provide a thin legal cover for their invasion of Iraq, the two aggressors appealed to UNSCR 687 of 1991, claiming that Saddam violated the demand to end his nuclear weapons programs. The Resolution also has another paragraph, calling for “steps towards the goal of establishing in the Middle East a zone free from weapons of mass destruction…”, obligating the US and UK even more than others to undertake this initiative seriously.
These comments naturally only scratch the surface, and leave out many urgent topics, among them the horrifying descent of Syria into suicide and ominous developments in Egypt, which are sure to have a regional impact. And indeed a lot more. This is how some of the core issues appear, to me at least.
Noam Chomsky is Institute Professor Emeritus at the MIT Department of Linguistics and Philosophy. He is the author of numerous best-selling political works, including recently Hopes and Prospects and Making the Future. Noam Chomsky is also a member of the IOA Advisory Board.
- See more at:
http://www.israeli-occupation.org/2013-10-26/noam-chomsky-the-one-state-two-state-debate-is-irrelevant/#sthash.6zXtA1Ah.dpufhttp://chomsky.info/articles/20131024.htm
Noam Chomsky
On similar grounds, in the latest issue of Britain’s leading journal of international affairs, two prominent Middle East specialists, Clive Jones and Beverly Milton-Edwards, write that “if Israel wishes to be both Jewish and democratic,” it must embrace “the two-state solution.”
It is easy to cite many other examples, but unnecessary, because it is assumed almost universally that there are two options for cis-Jordan: either two states — Palestinian and Jewish-democratic — or one state “from the sea to the river.” Israeli commentators express concern about the “demographic problem”: too many Palestinians in a Jewish state. Many Palestinians and their advocates support the “one state solution,” anticipating a civil rights, anti-Apartheid struggle that will lead to secular democracy. Other analysts also consistently pose the options in similar terms.
The analysis is almost universal, but crucially flawed. There is a third option, namely, the option that Israel is pursuing with constant US support. And this third option is the only realistic alternative to the two-state settlement that is backed by an overwhelming international consensus.
It makes sense, in my opinion, to contemplate a future binational secular democracy in the former Palestine, from the sea to the river. For what it’s worth, that is what I have advocated for 70 years. But I stress: advocated. Advocacy, as distinct from mere proposal, requires sketching a path from here to there. The forms of true advocacy have changed with shifting circumstances. Since the mid-1970s, when Palestinian national rights became a salient issue, the only form of advocacy has been in stages, the first being the two-state settlement. No other path has been suggested that has even a remote chance of success. Proposing a binational (“one state”) settlement without moving on to advocacy in effect provides support for the third option, the realistic one.
The third option, taking shape before our eyes, is not obscure. Israel is systematically extending plans that were sketched and initiated shortly after the 1967 war, and institutionalized more fully with the access to power of Menahem Begin’s Likud a decade later.
The first step is to create what Yonatan Mendel calls “a disturbing new city” called “Jerusalem” but extending far beyond historic Jerusalem, incorporating dozens of Palestinian villages and surrounding lands, and furthermore, designated as a Jewish City and the capital of Israel. All of this is in direct violation of explicit Security Council orders. A corridor to the East of this new Greater Jerusalem incorporates the town of Ma’aleh Adumim, established in the 1970s but built primarily after the 1993 Oslo Accords, with lands reaching virtually to Jericho, thus effectively bisecting the West Bank. Corridors to the north incorporating the settler towns of Ariel and Kedumim further divide what is to remain under some degree of Palestinian control.
Meanwhile Israel is incorporating the territory on the Israeli side of the illegal “separation wall,” in reality an annexation wall, taking arable land and water resources and many villages, strangling the town of Qalqilya, and separating Palestinian villagers from their fields. In what Israel calls “the seam” between the wall and the border, close to 10 percent of the West Bank, anyone is permitted to enter, except Palestinians. Those who live in the region have to go through a highly intricate bureaucratic procedure to gain temporary entry. Exit, for example for medical care, is hampered in the same way. The result, predictably, has been severe disruption of Palestinian lives, and according to UN reports, a decrease of more than 80% in number of farmers who routinely cultivate their lands and a decline of 60% in yield of olive trees, among other harmful effects. The pretext for the wall was security, but that means security for illegal Jewish settlers; about 85 per cent of the wall runs through the occupied West Bank.
Israel is also taking over the Jordan Valley, thus fully imprisoning the cantons that remain. Huge infrastructure projects link settlers to Israel’s urban centers, ensuring that they will see no Palestinians. Following a traditional neocolonial model, a modern center remains for Palestinian elites, in Ramallah, while the remainder mostly languishes.
To complete the separation of Greater Jerusalem from remaining Palestinian cantons, Israel would have to take over the E1 region. So far that has been barred by Washington, and Israel has been compelled to resort to subterfuges, like building a police station. Obama is the first US president to have imposed no limits on Israeli actions. It remains to be seen whether he will permit Israel to take over E1, perhaps with expressions of discontent and a wink of the eye to make it clear that they are not seriously intended.
There are regular expulsions of Palestinians. In the Jordan Valley alone the Palestinian population has been reduced from 300,000 in 1967 to 60,000 today, and similar processes are underway elsewhere. Following the “dunam after dunam” policies that go back a century, each action is limited in scope so as not to arouse too much international attention, but with a cumulative effect and intent that are quite clear.
Furthermore, ever since the Oslo Accord declared that Gaza and the West Bank are an indivisible territorial unity, the US-Israel duo have been committed to separating the two regions. One significant effect is to ensure that any limited Palestinian entity will have no access to the outside world.
In the areas that Israel is taking over, the Palestinian population is small and scattered, and is being reduced further by regular expulsions. The result will be a Greater Israel with a substantial Jewish majority. Under the third option, there will be no “demographic problem” and no civil rights or anti-Apartheid struggle, nothing more than what already exists within Israel’s recognized borders, where the mantra “Jewish and democratic” is regularly intoned for the benefit of those who choose to believe, oblivious to the inherent contradiction, which is far more than merely symbolic.
Except in stages, the one-state option is an illusion. It has no international support, and there is no reason why Israel and its US sponsor would accept it, since they have a far preferable option, the one they are now implementing; with impunity, thanks to US power.
The US and Israel call for negotiations without preconditions. Commentary there and elsewhere in the West typically claims that the Palestinians are imposing such preconditions, hampering the “peace process.” In reality, the US-Israel insist upon crucial preconditions. The first is that negotiations must be mediated by the United States, which is not a neutral party but rather a participant in the conflict. It is as if one were to propose that Sunni-Shiite conflicts in Iraq be mediated by Iran. Authentic negotiations would be in the hands of some neutral state with a degree of international respect. The second precondition is that illegal settlement expansion must be allowed to continue, as it has done without a break during the 20 years of the Oslo Accord; predictably, given the terms of the Accord.
In the early years of the occupation the US joined the world in regarding the settlements as illegal, as confirmed by the UN Security Council and the International Court of Justice. Since Reagan, their status has been downgraded to “a barrier to peace.” Obama weakened the designation further, to “not helpful to peace,” with gentle admonitions that are easily dismissed. Obama’s extreme rejectionism did arouse some attention in February 2011, when he vetoed a Security Council resolution supporting official US policy, ending of settlement expansion.
As long as these preconditions remain in force, diplomacy is likely to remain at a standstill. With brief and rare exceptions, that has been true since January 1976, when the US vetoed a Security Council resolution, brought by Egypt, Jordan, and Syria, calling for a two-state settlement on the internationally recognized border, the Green Line, with guarantees for the security of all states within secure and recognized borders. That is essentially the international consensus that is by now universal, with the two usual exceptions – not just on Middle East issues, incidentally. The consensus has been modified to include “minor and mutual adjustments” on the Green Line, to borrow official US wording before it had broken with the rest of the world.
The same is true of the negotiations that may take place soon in Washington. Given the preconditions, they are unlikely to achieve anything more than to serve as a framework in which Israel can carry forward its project of taking over whatever it finds valuable in the West Bank and Syrian Golan Heights, annexed in violation of Security Council orders, while maintaining the siege of Gaza. And doing so throughout with the critical economic, military, diplomatic and ideological support of the state running the negotiations. One can of course hope for better, but it is hard to be optimistic.
Europe could play a role in advancing the hopes for a peaceful diplomatic settlement, if it were willing to pursue an independent path. The recent EU decision to exclude West Bank settlements from any future deals with Israel might be a step in this direction. US policies are also not graven in stone, though they have deep strategic, economic, and cultural roots. In the absence of such changes, there is every reason to expect that the picture from the river to the sea will conform to the third option. Palestinian rights and aspirations will be shelved, temporarily at least.
If the Israel-Palestine conflict is not resolved, a regional peace settlement is highly unlikely. That failure has far broader implications — in particular, for what US media call “the gravest threat to world peace,” echoing the pronouncements of President Obama and most of the political class: namely, Iran’s nuclear programs. The implications become clear when we consider the most obvious ways to deal with the alleged threat, and their fate. It is useful, first, to consider a few preliminary questions: Who regards the threat as of such cosmic significance? And what is the perceived threat?
Answers are straightforward. The threat is overwhelmingly a western obsession: the US and its allies. The non-aligned countries, most of the world, have vigorously supported Iran’s right, as a signer of the Non-proliferation Treaty, to enrich Uranium. In the Arab world, Iran is generally disliked, but not perceived as a threat; rather, it is the US and Israel that the population regards as a threat, by very large margins, as consistently shown by polls.
In western discourse, it is commonly claimed that the Arabs support the US position regarding Iran, but the reference is to the dictators, not the general population, who are considered an irrelevant annoyance under prevailing democratic doctrine. Also standard is reference to “the standoff between the international community and Iran,” to quote from the current scholarly literature. Here the phrase “international community” refers to the US and whoever happens to go along with it; in this case, a small minority of the international community, but many more if political stands are weighted by power.
What then is the perceived threat? An authoritative answer is given by US intelligence and the Pentagon in their regular reviews of global security. They conclude that Iran is not a military threat. It has low military expenditures even by the standards of the region, and limited capacity to deploy force. Its strategic doctrine is defensive, designed to resist attack. The intelligence community reports no evidence that Iran is developing nuclear weapons, but if it is, they conclude, that would be part of Iran’s deterrence strategy.
It is hard to think of a country in the world that needs a deterrent more than Iran. It has been tormented by the West without respite ever since its parliamentary regime was overthrown by a US-British military coup in 1953, first under the harsh and brutal regime of the Shah, then under murderous attack by Saddam Hussein, with western support. It was largely US intervention that induced Iran to capitulate; and shortly after, President George Bush I invited Iraqi nuclear engineers to the US for training in advanced weapons production, an extraordinary threat to Iran. Iraq soon became an enemy, but meanwhile Iran was subjected to harsh sanctions, intensifying under US initiative to the present. It constantly subjected to the threat of military attack by the US and Israel — in violation of the UN Charter, if anyone cares.
It is, however, understandable that the US-Israel would regard an Iranian deterrent as an intolerable threat. It would limit their ability to control the region, by violence if they choose, as they often have. That is the essence of the perceived Iranian threat.
That the clerical regime is a threat to its own people is hardly in doubt, though regrettably it is hardly alone in that regard. But it goes well beyond naiveté to believe that its internal repression is much of a concern to the great powers.
Whatever one thinks of the threat, are there ways to mitigate it? Quite a few, in fact. One of the most reasonable would be to move towards establishing a nuclear weapons-free zone in the region, as strongly advocated by the Non-aligned movement and particularly by the Arab states, and indeed most of the world. The US and its allies voice formal support, but have hardly been cooperative. That is once again clear right now. Under NPT authority, an international conference was to have been held in Finland last December to advance such plans. Israel refused to attend, but to the surprise of many, in early November Iran announced that it would take part, without conditions. The US then announced that the conference was cancelled, repeating Israel’s objections: that a conference is premature before regional security is established. The Arab states, Russia, and the European Parliament called for immediate renewal of the initiative, but of course little is possible without the US.
Details are murky. Little documentary evidence is available, and all of this has passed without inquiry. In particular, the US press has not inquired, or in fact even published a single word on the most reasonable and practical efforts to address what it reports as “the gravest threat to world peace.”
It is quite clear, however, that Arab states and others call for moves to eliminate weapons of mass destruction immediately, as a step towards regional security; while the US and Israel, in contrast, reverse the order, and demand regional security — meaning security for Israel — as a prerequisite to eliminating such weapons. In the not-very-remote background is the understanding that Israel has an advanced nuclear weapons system, alone in the region; and is alone in refusing to join the NPT, along with India and Pakistan, both of whom also benefit from US support for their nuclear arsenals.
The connection of Israel-Palestine conflict to the alleged Iranian threat is therefore clear. As long as the US and Israel persist in their rejectionist stance, blocking the international consensus on a two-state settlement, there will be no regional security arrangements, hence no moves towards a establishing a nuclear weapons-free zone and mitigating, perhaps ending, what the US and Israel claim to be the gravest threat to peace, at least to do so in the most obvious and far-reaching way.
It should be noted that along with Britain, the US has a special responsibility to devote its efforts to establishing a Middle East NWFZ. When attempting to provide a thin legal cover for their invasion of Iraq, the two aggressors appealed to UNSCR 687 of 1991, claiming that Saddam violated the demand to end his nuclear weapons programs. The Resolution also has another paragraph, calling for “steps towards the goal of establishing in the Middle East a zone free from weapons of mass destruction…”, obligating the US and UK even more than others to undertake this initiative seriously.
These comments naturally only scratch the surface, and leave out many urgent topics, among them the horrifying descent of Syria into suicide and ominous developments in Egypt, which are sure to have a regional impact. And indeed a lot more. This is how some of the core issues appear, to me at least.
Noam Chomsky is Institute Professor Emeritus at the MIT Department of Linguistics and Philosophy. He is the author of numerous best-selling political works, including recently Hopes and Prospects and Making the Future. Noam Chomsky is also a member of the IOA Advisory Board.
Noam Chomsky: The one state/two state debate is irrelevant as Israel and the US consolidate Greater Israel
By Noam Chomsky, Mondoweiss and Chomsky.info – 24 Oct 2013
http://chomsky.info/articles/20131024.htm
On July 13, former Shin Bet chief Yuval Diskin issued a dire warning
to the government of Israel: either it will reach some kind of two-state
settlement or there will be a “shift to a nearly inevitable outcome of
the one remaining reality — a state ‘from the sea to the river’.” The
near inevitable outcome, “one state for two nations,” will pose “an
immediate existential threat of the erasure of the identity of Israel as
a Jewish and democratic state,” soon with a Palestinian-Arab majority.
On similar grounds, in the latest issue of Britain’s leading journal of international affairs, two prominent Middle East specialists, Clive Jones and Beverly Milton-Edwards, write that “if Israel wishes to be both Jewish and democratic,” it must embrace “the two-state solution.”
It is easy to cite many other examples, but unnecessary, because it is assumed almost universally that there are two options for cis-Jordan: either two states — Palestinian and Jewish-democratic — or one state “from the sea to the river.” Israeli commentators express concern about the “demographic problem”: too many Palestinians in a Jewish state. Many Palestinians and their advocates support the “one state solution,” anticipating a civil rights, anti-Apartheid struggle that will lead to secular democracy. Other analysts also consistently pose the options in similar terms.
The analysis is almost universal, but crucially flawed. There is a third option, namely, the option that Israel is pursuing with constant US support. And this third option is the only realistic alternative to the two-state settlement that is backed by an overwhelming international consensus.
It makes sense, in my opinion, to contemplate a future binational secular democracy in the former Palestine, from the sea to the river. For what it’s worth, that is what I have advocated for 70 years. But I stress: advocated. Advocacy, as distinct from mere proposal, requires sketching a path from here to there. The forms of true advocacy have changed with shifting circumstances. Since the mid-1970s, when Palestinian national rights became a salient issue, the only form of advocacy has been in stages, the first being the two-state settlement. No other path has been suggested that has even a remote chance of success. Proposing a binational (“one state”) settlement without moving on to advocacy in effect provides support for the third option, the realistic one.
The third option, taking shape before our eyes, is not obscure. Israel is systematically extending plans that were sketched and initiated shortly after the 1967 war, and institutionalized more fully with the access to power of Menahem Begin’s Likud a decade later.
The first step is to create what Yonatan Mendel calls “a disturbing new city” called “Jerusalem” but extending far beyond historic Jerusalem, incorporating dozens of Palestinian villages and surrounding lands, and furthermore, designated as a Jewish City and the capital of Israel. All of this is in direct violation of explicit Security Council orders. A corridor to the East of this new Greater Jerusalem incorporates the town of Ma’aleh Adumim, established in the 1970s but built primarily after the 1993 Oslo Accords, with lands reaching virtually to Jericho, thus effectively bisecting the West Bank. Corridors to the north incorporating the settler towns of Ariel and Kedumim further divide what is to remain under some degree of Palestinian control.
Meanwhile Israel is incorporating the territory on the Israeli side of the illegal “separation wall,” in reality an annexation wall, taking arable land and water resources and many villages, strangling the town of Qalqilya, and separating Palestinian villagers from their fields. In what Israel calls “the seam” between the wall and the border, close to 10 percent of the West Bank, anyone is permitted to enter, except Palestinians. Those who live in the region have to go through a highly intricate bureaucratic procedure to gain temporary entry. Exit, for example for medical care, is hampered in the same way. The result, predictably, has been severe disruption of Palestinian lives, and according to UN reports, a decrease of more than 80% in number of farmers who routinely cultivate their lands and a decline of 60% in yield of olive trees, among other harmful effects. The pretext for the wall was security, but that means security for illegal Jewish settlers; about 85 per cent of the wall runs through the occupied West Bank.
Israel is also taking over the Jordan Valley, thus fully imprisoning the cantons that remain. Huge infrastructure projects link settlers to Israel’s urban centers, ensuring that they will see no Palestinians. Following a traditional neocolonial model, a modern center remains for Palestinian elites, in Ramallah, while the remainder mostly languishes.
To complete the separation of Greater Jerusalem from remaining Palestinian cantons, Israel would have to take over the E1 region. So far that has been barred by Washington, and Israel has been compelled to resort to subterfuges, like building a police station. Obama is the first US president to have imposed no limits on Israeli actions. It remains to be seen whether he will permit Israel to take over E1, perhaps with expressions of discontent and a wink of the eye to make it clear that they are not seriously intended.
There are regular expulsions of Palestinians. In the Jordan Valley alone the Palestinian population has been reduced from 300,000 in 1967 to 60,000 today, and similar processes are underway elsewhere. Following the “dunam after dunam” policies that go back a century, each action is limited in scope so as not to arouse too much international attention, but with a cumulative effect and intent that are quite clear.
Furthermore, ever since the Oslo Accord declared that Gaza and the West Bank are an indivisible territorial unity, the US-Israel duo have been committed to separating the two regions. One significant effect is to ensure that any limited Palestinian entity will have no access to the outside world.
In the areas that Israel is taking over, the Palestinian population is small and scattered, and is being reduced further by regular expulsions. The result will be a Greater Israel with a substantial Jewish majority. Under the third option, there will be no “demographic problem” and no civil rights or anti-Apartheid struggle, nothing more than what already exists within Israel’s recognized borders, where the mantra “Jewish and democratic” is regularly intoned for the benefit of those who choose to believe, oblivious to the inherent contradiction, which is far more than merely symbolic.
Except in stages, the one-state option is an illusion. It has no international support, and there is no reason why Israel and its US sponsor would accept it, since they have a far preferable option, the one they are now implementing; with impunity, thanks to US power.
The US and Israel call for negotiations without preconditions. Commentary there and elsewhere in the West typically claims that the Palestinians are imposing such preconditions, hampering the “peace process.” In reality, the US-Israel insist upon crucial preconditions. The first is that negotiations must be mediated by the United States, which is not a neutral party but rather a participant in the conflict. It is as if one were to propose that Sunni-Shiite conflicts in Iraq be mediated by Iran. Authentic negotiations would be in the hands of some neutral state with a degree of international respect. The second precondition is that illegal settlement expansion must be allowed to continue, as it has done without a break during the 20 years of the Oslo Accord; predictably, given the terms of the Accord.
In the early years of the occupation the US joined the world in regarding the settlements as illegal, as confirmed by the UN Security Council and the International Court of Justice. Since Reagan, their status has been downgraded to “a barrier to peace.” Obama weakened the designation further, to “not helpful to peace,” with gentle admonitions that are easily dismissed. Obama’s extreme rejectionism did arouse some attention in February 2011, when he vetoed a Security Council resolution supporting official US policy, ending of settlement expansion.
As long as these preconditions remain in force, diplomacy is likely to remain at a standstill. With brief and rare exceptions, that has been true since January 1976, when the US vetoed a Security Council resolution, brought by Egypt, Jordan, and Syria, calling for a two-state settlement on the internationally recognized border, the Green Line, with guarantees for the security of all states within secure and recognized borders. That is essentially the international consensus that is by now universal, with the two usual exceptions – not just on Middle East issues, incidentally. The consensus has been modified to include “minor and mutual adjustments” on the Green Line, to borrow official US wording before it had broken with the rest of the world.
The same is true of the negotiations that may take place soon in Washington. Given the preconditions, they are unlikely to achieve anything more than to serve as a framework in which Israel can carry forward its project of taking over whatever it finds valuable in the West Bank and Syrian Golan Heights, annexed in violation of Security Council orders, while maintaining the siege of Gaza. And doing so throughout with the critical economic, military, diplomatic and ideological support of the state running the negotiations. One can of course hope for better, but it is hard to be optimistic.
Europe could play a role in advancing the hopes for a peaceful diplomatic settlement, if it were willing to pursue an independent path. The recent EU decision to exclude West Bank settlements from any future deals with Israel might be a step in this direction. US policies are also not graven in stone, though they have deep strategic, economic, and cultural roots. In the absence of such changes, there is every reason to expect that the picture from the river to the sea will conform to the third option. Palestinian rights and aspirations will be shelved, temporarily at least.
If the Israel-Palestine conflict is not resolved, a regional peace settlement is highly unlikely. That failure has far broader implications — in particular, for what US media call “the gravest threat to world peace,” echoing the pronouncements of President Obama and most of the political class: namely, Iran’s nuclear programs. The implications become clear when we consider the most obvious ways to deal with the alleged threat, and their fate. It is useful, first, to consider a few preliminary questions: Who regards the threat as of such cosmic significance? And what is the perceived threat?
Answers are straightforward. The threat is overwhelmingly a western obsession: the US and its allies. The non-aligned countries, most of the world, have vigorously supported Iran’s right, as a signer of the Non-proliferation Treaty, to enrich Uranium. In the Arab world, Iran is generally disliked, but not perceived as a threat; rather, it is the US and Israel that the population regards as a threat, by very large margins, as consistently shown by polls.
In western discourse, it is commonly claimed that the Arabs support the US position regarding Iran, but the reference is to the dictators, not the general population, who are considered an irrelevant annoyance under prevailing democratic doctrine. Also standard is reference to “the standoff between the international community and Iran,” to quote from the current scholarly literature. Here the phrase “international community” refers to the US and whoever happens to go along with it; in this case, a small minority of the international community, but many more if political stands are weighted by power.
What then is the perceived threat? An authoritative answer is given by US intelligence and the Pentagon in their regular reviews of global security. They conclude that Iran is not a military threat. It has low military expenditures even by the standards of the region, and limited capacity to deploy force. Its strategic doctrine is defensive, designed to resist attack. The intelligence community reports no evidence that Iran is developing nuclear weapons, but if it is, they conclude, that would be part of Iran’s deterrence strategy.
It is hard to think of a country in the world that needs a deterrent more than Iran. It has been tormented by the West without respite ever since its parliamentary regime was overthrown by a US-British military coup in 1953, first under the harsh and brutal regime of the Shah, then under murderous attack by Saddam Hussein, with western support. It was largely US intervention that induced Iran to capitulate; and shortly after, President George Bush I invited Iraqi nuclear engineers to the US for training in advanced weapons production, an extraordinary threat to Iran. Iraq soon became an enemy, but meanwhile Iran was subjected to harsh sanctions, intensifying under US initiative to the present. It constantly subjected to the threat of military attack by the US and Israel — in violation of the UN Charter, if anyone cares.
It is, however, understandable that the US-Israel would regard an Iranian deterrent as an intolerable threat. It would limit their ability to control the region, by violence if they choose, as they often have. That is the essence of the perceived Iranian threat.
That the clerical regime is a threat to its own people is hardly in doubt, though regrettably it is hardly alone in that regard. But it goes well beyond naiveté to believe that its internal repression is much of a concern to the great powers.
Whatever one thinks of the threat, are there ways to mitigate it? Quite a few, in fact. One of the most reasonable would be to move towards establishing a nuclear weapons-free zone in the region, as strongly advocated by the Non-aligned movement and particularly by the Arab states, and indeed most of the world. The US and its allies voice formal support, but have hardly been cooperative. That is once again clear right now. Under NPT authority, an international conference was to have been held in Finland last December to advance such plans. Israel refused to attend, but to the surprise of many, in early November Iran announced that it would take part, without conditions. The US then announced that the conference was cancelled, repeating Israel’s objections: that a conference is premature before regional security is established. The Arab states, Russia, and the European Parliament called for immediate renewal of the initiative, but of course little is possible without the US.
Details are murky. Little documentary evidence is available, and all of this has passed without inquiry. In particular, the US press has not inquired, or in fact even published a single word on the most reasonable and practical efforts to address what it reports as “the gravest threat to world peace.”
It is quite clear, however, that Arab states and others call for moves to eliminate weapons of mass destruction immediately, as a step towards regional security; while the US and Israel, in contrast, reverse the order, and demand regional security — meaning security for Israel — as a prerequisite to eliminating such weapons. In the not-very-remote background is the understanding that Israel has an advanced nuclear weapons system, alone in the region; and is alone in refusing to join the NPT, along with India and Pakistan, both of whom also benefit from US support for their nuclear arsenals.
The connection of Israel-Palestine conflict to the alleged Iranian threat is therefore clear. As long as the US and Israel persist in their rejectionist stance, blocking the international consensus on a two-state settlement, there will be no regional security arrangements, hence no moves towards a establishing a nuclear weapons-free zone and mitigating, perhaps ending, what the US and Israel claim to be the gravest threat to peace, at least to do so in the most obvious and far-reaching way.
It should be noted that along with Britain, the US has a special responsibility to devote its efforts to establishing a Middle East NWFZ. When attempting to provide a thin legal cover for their invasion of Iraq, the two aggressors appealed to UNSCR 687 of 1991, claiming that Saddam violated the demand to end his nuclear weapons programs. The Resolution also has another paragraph, calling for “steps towards the goal of establishing in the Middle East a zone free from weapons of mass destruction…”, obligating the US and UK even more than others to undertake this initiative seriously.
These comments naturally only scratch the surface, and leave out many urgent topics, among them the horrifying descent of Syria into suicide and ominous developments in Egypt, which are sure to have a regional impact. And indeed a lot more. This is how some of the core issues appear, to me at least.
Noam Chomsky is Institute Professor Emeritus at the MIT Department of Linguistics and Philosophy. He is the author of numerous best-selling political works, including recently Hopes and Prospects and Making the Future. Noam Chomsky is also a member of the IOA Advisory Board.
- See more at:
http://www.israeli-occupation.org/2013-10-26/noam-chomsky-the-one-state-two-state-debate-is-irrelevant/#sthash.6zXtA1Ah.dpufhttp://chomsky.info/articles/20131024.htm
Noam Chomsky
On similar grounds, in the latest issue of Britain’s leading journal of international affairs, two prominent Middle East specialists, Clive Jones and Beverly Milton-Edwards, write that “if Israel wishes to be both Jewish and democratic,” it must embrace “the two-state solution.”
It is easy to cite many other examples, but unnecessary, because it is assumed almost universally that there are two options for cis-Jordan: either two states — Palestinian and Jewish-democratic — or one state “from the sea to the river.” Israeli commentators express concern about the “demographic problem”: too many Palestinians in a Jewish state. Many Palestinians and their advocates support the “one state solution,” anticipating a civil rights, anti-Apartheid struggle that will lead to secular democracy. Other analysts also consistently pose the options in similar terms.
The analysis is almost universal, but crucially flawed. There is a third option, namely, the option that Israel is pursuing with constant US support. And this third option is the only realistic alternative to the two-state settlement that is backed by an overwhelming international consensus.
It makes sense, in my opinion, to contemplate a future binational secular democracy in the former Palestine, from the sea to the river. For what it’s worth, that is what I have advocated for 70 years. But I stress: advocated. Advocacy, as distinct from mere proposal, requires sketching a path from here to there. The forms of true advocacy have changed with shifting circumstances. Since the mid-1970s, when Palestinian national rights became a salient issue, the only form of advocacy has been in stages, the first being the two-state settlement. No other path has been suggested that has even a remote chance of success. Proposing a binational (“one state”) settlement without moving on to advocacy in effect provides support for the third option, the realistic one.
The third option, taking shape before our eyes, is not obscure. Israel is systematically extending plans that were sketched and initiated shortly after the 1967 war, and institutionalized more fully with the access to power of Menahem Begin’s Likud a decade later.
The first step is to create what Yonatan Mendel calls “a disturbing new city” called “Jerusalem” but extending far beyond historic Jerusalem, incorporating dozens of Palestinian villages and surrounding lands, and furthermore, designated as a Jewish City and the capital of Israel. All of this is in direct violation of explicit Security Council orders. A corridor to the East of this new Greater Jerusalem incorporates the town of Ma’aleh Adumim, established in the 1970s but built primarily after the 1993 Oslo Accords, with lands reaching virtually to Jericho, thus effectively bisecting the West Bank. Corridors to the north incorporating the settler towns of Ariel and Kedumim further divide what is to remain under some degree of Palestinian control.
Meanwhile Israel is incorporating the territory on the Israeli side of the illegal “separation wall,” in reality an annexation wall, taking arable land and water resources and many villages, strangling the town of Qalqilya, and separating Palestinian villagers from their fields. In what Israel calls “the seam” between the wall and the border, close to 10 percent of the West Bank, anyone is permitted to enter, except Palestinians. Those who live in the region have to go through a highly intricate bureaucratic procedure to gain temporary entry. Exit, for example for medical care, is hampered in the same way. The result, predictably, has been severe disruption of Palestinian lives, and according to UN reports, a decrease of more than 80% in number of farmers who routinely cultivate their lands and a decline of 60% in yield of olive trees, among other harmful effects. The pretext for the wall was security, but that means security for illegal Jewish settlers; about 85 per cent of the wall runs through the occupied West Bank.
Israel is also taking over the Jordan Valley, thus fully imprisoning the cantons that remain. Huge infrastructure projects link settlers to Israel’s urban centers, ensuring that they will see no Palestinians. Following a traditional neocolonial model, a modern center remains for Palestinian elites, in Ramallah, while the remainder mostly languishes.
To complete the separation of Greater Jerusalem from remaining Palestinian cantons, Israel would have to take over the E1 region. So far that has been barred by Washington, and Israel has been compelled to resort to subterfuges, like building a police station. Obama is the first US president to have imposed no limits on Israeli actions. It remains to be seen whether he will permit Israel to take over E1, perhaps with expressions of discontent and a wink of the eye to make it clear that they are not seriously intended.
There are regular expulsions of Palestinians. In the Jordan Valley alone the Palestinian population has been reduced from 300,000 in 1967 to 60,000 today, and similar processes are underway elsewhere. Following the “dunam after dunam” policies that go back a century, each action is limited in scope so as not to arouse too much international attention, but with a cumulative effect and intent that are quite clear.
Furthermore, ever since the Oslo Accord declared that Gaza and the West Bank are an indivisible territorial unity, the US-Israel duo have been committed to separating the two regions. One significant effect is to ensure that any limited Palestinian entity will have no access to the outside world.
In the areas that Israel is taking over, the Palestinian population is small and scattered, and is being reduced further by regular expulsions. The result will be a Greater Israel with a substantial Jewish majority. Under the third option, there will be no “demographic problem” and no civil rights or anti-Apartheid struggle, nothing more than what already exists within Israel’s recognized borders, where the mantra “Jewish and democratic” is regularly intoned for the benefit of those who choose to believe, oblivious to the inherent contradiction, which is far more than merely symbolic.
Except in stages, the one-state option is an illusion. It has no international support, and there is no reason why Israel and its US sponsor would accept it, since they have a far preferable option, the one they are now implementing; with impunity, thanks to US power.
The US and Israel call for negotiations without preconditions. Commentary there and elsewhere in the West typically claims that the Palestinians are imposing such preconditions, hampering the “peace process.” In reality, the US-Israel insist upon crucial preconditions. The first is that negotiations must be mediated by the United States, which is not a neutral party but rather a participant in the conflict. It is as if one were to propose that Sunni-Shiite conflicts in Iraq be mediated by Iran. Authentic negotiations would be in the hands of some neutral state with a degree of international respect. The second precondition is that illegal settlement expansion must be allowed to continue, as it has done without a break during the 20 years of the Oslo Accord; predictably, given the terms of the Accord.
In the early years of the occupation the US joined the world in regarding the settlements as illegal, as confirmed by the UN Security Council and the International Court of Justice. Since Reagan, their status has been downgraded to “a barrier to peace.” Obama weakened the designation further, to “not helpful to peace,” with gentle admonitions that are easily dismissed. Obama’s extreme rejectionism did arouse some attention in February 2011, when he vetoed a Security Council resolution supporting official US policy, ending of settlement expansion.
As long as these preconditions remain in force, diplomacy is likely to remain at a standstill. With brief and rare exceptions, that has been true since January 1976, when the US vetoed a Security Council resolution, brought by Egypt, Jordan, and Syria, calling for a two-state settlement on the internationally recognized border, the Green Line, with guarantees for the security of all states within secure and recognized borders. That is essentially the international consensus that is by now universal, with the two usual exceptions – not just on Middle East issues, incidentally. The consensus has been modified to include “minor and mutual adjustments” on the Green Line, to borrow official US wording before it had broken with the rest of the world.
The same is true of the negotiations that may take place soon in Washington. Given the preconditions, they are unlikely to achieve anything more than to serve as a framework in which Israel can carry forward its project of taking over whatever it finds valuable in the West Bank and Syrian Golan Heights, annexed in violation of Security Council orders, while maintaining the siege of Gaza. And doing so throughout with the critical economic, military, diplomatic and ideological support of the state running the negotiations. One can of course hope for better, but it is hard to be optimistic.
Europe could play a role in advancing the hopes for a peaceful diplomatic settlement, if it were willing to pursue an independent path. The recent EU decision to exclude West Bank settlements from any future deals with Israel might be a step in this direction. US policies are also not graven in stone, though they have deep strategic, economic, and cultural roots. In the absence of such changes, there is every reason to expect that the picture from the river to the sea will conform to the third option. Palestinian rights and aspirations will be shelved, temporarily at least.
If the Israel-Palestine conflict is not resolved, a regional peace settlement is highly unlikely. That failure has far broader implications — in particular, for what US media call “the gravest threat to world peace,” echoing the pronouncements of President Obama and most of the political class: namely, Iran’s nuclear programs. The implications become clear when we consider the most obvious ways to deal with the alleged threat, and their fate. It is useful, first, to consider a few preliminary questions: Who regards the threat as of such cosmic significance? And what is the perceived threat?
Answers are straightforward. The threat is overwhelmingly a western obsession: the US and its allies. The non-aligned countries, most of the world, have vigorously supported Iran’s right, as a signer of the Non-proliferation Treaty, to enrich Uranium. In the Arab world, Iran is generally disliked, but not perceived as a threat; rather, it is the US and Israel that the population regards as a threat, by very large margins, as consistently shown by polls.
In western discourse, it is commonly claimed that the Arabs support the US position regarding Iran, but the reference is to the dictators, not the general population, who are considered an irrelevant annoyance under prevailing democratic doctrine. Also standard is reference to “the standoff between the international community and Iran,” to quote from the current scholarly literature. Here the phrase “international community” refers to the US and whoever happens to go along with it; in this case, a small minority of the international community, but many more if political stands are weighted by power.
What then is the perceived threat? An authoritative answer is given by US intelligence and the Pentagon in their regular reviews of global security. They conclude that Iran is not a military threat. It has low military expenditures even by the standards of the region, and limited capacity to deploy force. Its strategic doctrine is defensive, designed to resist attack. The intelligence community reports no evidence that Iran is developing nuclear weapons, but if it is, they conclude, that would be part of Iran’s deterrence strategy.
It is hard to think of a country in the world that needs a deterrent more than Iran. It has been tormented by the West without respite ever since its parliamentary regime was overthrown by a US-British military coup in 1953, first under the harsh and brutal regime of the Shah, then under murderous attack by Saddam Hussein, with western support. It was largely US intervention that induced Iran to capitulate; and shortly after, President George Bush I invited Iraqi nuclear engineers to the US for training in advanced weapons production, an extraordinary threat to Iran. Iraq soon became an enemy, but meanwhile Iran was subjected to harsh sanctions, intensifying under US initiative to the present. It constantly subjected to the threat of military attack by the US and Israel — in violation of the UN Charter, if anyone cares.
It is, however, understandable that the US-Israel would regard an Iranian deterrent as an intolerable threat. It would limit their ability to control the region, by violence if they choose, as they often have. That is the essence of the perceived Iranian threat.
That the clerical regime is a threat to its own people is hardly in doubt, though regrettably it is hardly alone in that regard. But it goes well beyond naiveté to believe that its internal repression is much of a concern to the great powers.
Whatever one thinks of the threat, are there ways to mitigate it? Quite a few, in fact. One of the most reasonable would be to move towards establishing a nuclear weapons-free zone in the region, as strongly advocated by the Non-aligned movement and particularly by the Arab states, and indeed most of the world. The US and its allies voice formal support, but have hardly been cooperative. That is once again clear right now. Under NPT authority, an international conference was to have been held in Finland last December to advance such plans. Israel refused to attend, but to the surprise of many, in early November Iran announced that it would take part, without conditions. The US then announced that the conference was cancelled, repeating Israel’s objections: that a conference is premature before regional security is established. The Arab states, Russia, and the European Parliament called for immediate renewal of the initiative, but of course little is possible without the US.
Details are murky. Little documentary evidence is available, and all of this has passed without inquiry. In particular, the US press has not inquired, or in fact even published a single word on the most reasonable and practical efforts to address what it reports as “the gravest threat to world peace.”
It is quite clear, however, that Arab states and others call for moves to eliminate weapons of mass destruction immediately, as a step towards regional security; while the US and Israel, in contrast, reverse the order, and demand regional security — meaning security for Israel — as a prerequisite to eliminating such weapons. In the not-very-remote background is the understanding that Israel has an advanced nuclear weapons system, alone in the region; and is alone in refusing to join the NPT, along with India and Pakistan, both of whom also benefit from US support for their nuclear arsenals.
The connection of Israel-Palestine conflict to the alleged Iranian threat is therefore clear. As long as the US and Israel persist in their rejectionist stance, blocking the international consensus on a two-state settlement, there will be no regional security arrangements, hence no moves towards a establishing a nuclear weapons-free zone and mitigating, perhaps ending, what the US and Israel claim to be the gravest threat to peace, at least to do so in the most obvious and far-reaching way.
It should be noted that along with Britain, the US has a special responsibility to devote its efforts to establishing a Middle East NWFZ. When attempting to provide a thin legal cover for their invasion of Iraq, the two aggressors appealed to UNSCR 687 of 1991, claiming that Saddam violated the demand to end his nuclear weapons programs. The Resolution also has another paragraph, calling for “steps towards the goal of establishing in the Middle East a zone free from weapons of mass destruction…”, obligating the US and UK even more than others to undertake this initiative seriously.
These comments naturally only scratch the surface, and leave out many urgent topics, among them the horrifying descent of Syria into suicide and ominous developments in Egypt, which are sure to have a regional impact. And indeed a lot more. This is how some of the core issues appear, to me at least.
Noam Chomsky is Institute Professor Emeritus at the MIT Department of Linguistics and Philosophy. He is the author of numerous best-selling political works, including recently Hopes and Prospects and Making the Future. Noam Chomsky is also a member of the IOA Advisory Board.
‘Palestinian liberation incomplete without the liberation of all’–a statement on the siege of Yarmouk
A
Palestinian woman protests in Ramallah in solidarity with the
Palestinian Yarmouk refugee camp in Syria. (Photo: Nasser Nasser/AP)
Note: This statement, originally published on Sixteen Minutes to Palestine, is a response to the posting from Cornell SJP on the situation in Yarmouk camp in Syria.
This is not meant as a comprehensive statement on the conflict in
Syria. It is also not our intention to cast aspersions on or vilify
Cornell SJP but to respond to the content of their statement. If you
would like to add your name to this statement, either as an individual,
or as an SJP chapter, please email jareea@gmail.com with the name as it should appear.
All of us have seen the horrifying pictures coming out of Yarmouk
refugee camp. Each of us holds our sisters, our brothers, our nieces and
nephews, our seedos a little tighter as we struggle to see
what can be done for Palestinians who are literally starving to death.
Many of those killed by the Assad regime in the past three years were
Palestinians, some carrying cameras to document the regime’s brutality,
some delivering aid to besieged Syrians, some carrying a weapon while
fighting for freedom and dignity, and some sitting quietly in their
homes when a TNT barrel fell through their roof. Yarmouk was home to
over 100,000 Palestinians. Suffice it to say that there are those in
Yarmouk who support the armed resistance, those who don’t, and those who
simply want to live, all of them wish to return to their homes in
Palestine.
[Note: as contrarily common sense to the above statement: Why Assad to be blame, but the al qaeda and others foreign militants get in Syria and make warriors against Assad Government..??]
Why must Palestinians take a position on the conflict in Syria
considering BOTH sides – not just the Assad regime – is guilty of war
crimes? And how can one be so foolish to equate “the Syrian people” and
“the armed resistance” as if they are one and the same? “As solidarity activists, and more importantly, as human beings, we stand with the downtrodden, the abject, and the oppressed.”
I think the true wrong position and raised the wars is the Opposition side who rebelled with supported by the foreign militias such al Nusra and al Qaeda who weaponized by Saudi Arabia-Israel-USA and ally against Assad Government
Yet we also know that ultimately Palestinian liberation is incomplete
without the liberation of all oppressed people, whether their
oppression comes from occupation and settler-colonialism or a repressive
regime from within.
We therefore stand in solidarity not only with the Palestinians of
Yarmouk, but also with the people of Syria, fighting for freedom and a
better future for their children. We totally reject holding the armed
resistance responsible for the crimes the Assad regime has committed
against the people of Yarmouk and the people of Syria. The government of
Syria has the responsibility to protect innocent civilians and allow
vital aid to reach those in need. We condemn the Assad regime’s siege on
Yarmouk in the strongest terms. To abrogate any of the regime’s
responsibility for their own actions is outrageous.
We will not attempt to speak for the people of Yarmouk or Syria, or
continue the cynical use of these people as pawns, either in war or in
debate. As solidarity activists, and more importantly, as human beings,
we stand with the downtrodden, the abject, and the oppressed.
Until freedom,
Individuals, Students and Alumni
Neda Kit, Rutgers SJP
Mohannad Rachid, Loyola University of Chicago SJP
Tarek M. Khalil, University of Illinois at Chicago SJP Alum
Bekah Wolf, University of California, Hastings College of the Law
Dina Sayed-Ahmad, Rutgers SJP
Ahmad Aburas, Rutgers SJP
Noran Elzarka, Drew SJP
Hoda Mitwally, CUNY Law SJP
Ephrain Hussain, Montclaire State University
Shiyam Galyon, University of Texas at Austin PSC Alum
Baha Abusharara, University of Illinois at Chicago SJP
Toufic Haddad, School of Oriental and African Studies
Wael Alasady, Portland State University
George Kadifa, alum of SJP UC Berkeley
Rasha El Endari, University of Toronto
Daniela Jorge, Steinbeis University
Sherry Wolf
Mohannad Rachid, Loyola University of Chicago SJP
Tarek M. Khalil, University of Illinois at Chicago SJP Alum
Bekah Wolf, University of California, Hastings College of the Law
Dina Sayed-Ahmad, Rutgers SJP
Ahmad Aburas, Rutgers SJP
Noran Elzarka, Drew SJP
Hoda Mitwally, CUNY Law SJP
Ephrain Hussain, Montclaire State University
Shiyam Galyon, University of Texas at Austin PSC Alum
Baha Abusharara, University of Illinois at Chicago SJP
Toufic Haddad, School of Oriental and African Studies
Wael Alasady, Portland State University
George Kadifa, alum of SJP UC Berkeley
Rasha El Endari, University of Toronto
Daniela Jorge, Steinbeis University
Sherry Wolf
SJP Chapters
SJP Ryerson
Rutgers-Newark SJP
Loyola University of Chicago SJP
Drew University SJP
University of Illinois at Chicago SJP
Students Against Israeli Apartheid- University of Toronto (Mississauga)
Rutgers-Newark SJP
Loyola University of Chicago SJP
Drew University SJP
University of Illinois at Chicago SJP
Students Against Israeli Apartheid- University of Toronto (Mississauga)
Others
MENA Solidarity Network-US
Salim Salamah-Yarmouk, Syria
Salim Salamah-Yarmouk, Syria
Comments
A few thoughts, if I may:
“We totally reject holding the armed resistance responsible for the crimes the Assad regime has committed against the people of Yarmouk and the people of Syria”
But this goes against basic facts we know about the nature of the Syrian oppositional forces which have committed massive crimes against the people of Syria. Why is there no outrage about this?
Why must Palestinians take a position on the conflict in Syria considering BOTH sides – not just the Assad regime – is guilty of war crimes? And how can one be so foolish to equate “the Syrian people” and “the armed resistance” as if they are one and the same?
“As solidarity activists, and more importantly, as human beings, we stand with the downtrodden, the abject, and the oppressed.”
Does this include those in the Alawite community and other Syrian cities that have been massacred by oppositional forces? Why is that not included in your statement?
And for that matter, why is a Palestinian group (and individuals) based in the US, mind you, taking an official position on a civil war in another country in the first place — a civil war which, by any legitimate analysis, has been shown to have much foreign involvement on BOTH sides, whether from Israel, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Russia, or Iran?
This statement lacks any nuance regarding the Syrian conflict, and seems to be emotional and reactionary, with no reference to facts on the ground, except the same mantra “Assad is evil, Assad is evil, Assad is evil.” I think many of us can agree how repressive and genocidal the Assad regime has been, but to remove any responsibility from the armed opposition which has committed grave crimes is irresponsible.
Thank you.
“We totally reject holding the armed resistance responsible for the crimes the Assad regime has committed against the people of Yarmouk and the people of Syria”
But this goes against basic facts we know about the nature of the Syrian oppositional forces which have committed massive crimes against the people of Syria. Why is there no outrage about this?
Why must Palestinians take a position on the conflict in Syria considering BOTH sides – not just the Assad regime – is guilty of war crimes? And how can one be so foolish to equate “the Syrian people” and “the armed resistance” as if they are one and the same?
“As solidarity activists, and more importantly, as human beings, we stand with the downtrodden, the abject, and the oppressed.”
Does this include those in the Alawite community and other Syrian cities that have been massacred by oppositional forces? Why is that not included in your statement?
And for that matter, why is a Palestinian group (and individuals) based in the US, mind you, taking an official position on a civil war in another country in the first place — a civil war which, by any legitimate analysis, has been shown to have much foreign involvement on BOTH sides, whether from Israel, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Russia, or Iran?
This statement lacks any nuance regarding the Syrian conflict, and seems to be emotional and reactionary, with no reference to facts on the ground, except the same mantra “Assad is evil, Assad is evil, Assad is evil.” I think many of us can agree how repressive and genocidal the Assad regime has been, but to remove any responsibility from the armed opposition which has committed grave crimes is irresponsible.
Thank you.
-
First, there is no debate that the majority and the bulk of war crimes committed in Syria is disproportionately committed by the Assad regime. Secondly, where is your evidence of mass genocide and massacre of Alawites by “opposition fighters?” I will not argue the fact that some elements of the armed resistance have committed crimes, however one must distinguish between the Al-Qaeda affiliated extremist fighting groups inside Syria and the mainstream rebels (FSA, etc). The Al-Qaeda affiliated fighters are not representative of the Syrian people nor the Syrian revolution, and there is evidence to point that they may actually be working with the Assad regime. Furthermore, the Syrian people who stood up valiantly against this brutal regime, peacefully demonstrating and organizing, bearing the brunt of shells, missiles, torture and aerial bombardment, do not deserve to be discredited for the actions of a few battalions.
And as for your point about the oppressed and downtrodden Alawites massacred in villages and cities across Syria by opposition fighters….again, I ask for your evidence on this, and secondly, I’d like to point out that Alawites were (and continue to be) the privileged class under the Assad regime. They have not faced the same brutality and military campaigns of the Assad regime as their other fellow Syrians.
And this Palestinian group is taking a position on this issue (FINALLY) out of principle. There is clearly a good and a bad side, each with their savory and unsavory elements, in this conflict. One must not think that the Palestinian cause is the most important struggle of the people in this world, and for the Palestinian cause to succeed, one must build allyship and support other peoples’ struggles out of principle. Secondly, I would argue that the Assad regime is also receiving far more foreign aid and involvement that the revolutionary side.
And finally, “Assad is evil, Assad is evil, Assad is evil.” It is true. We are not removing responsibility from the armed opposition groups for the crimes they’ve committed, but we cannot view Assad and these armed opposition groups as equals. They are not balanced. For one, the Assad regime is a government tasked with protecting its people. We are simply demanding the departure of the Assad regime, as every Syrian knows that a better Syria, a democratic Syria for Syrians, will not be achieved until Assad gives up his grip on power.
Israel: Where Soccer Fans Boo Their Own Players When They Score
Supporters of Beitar Jerusalem hold a banner reading “Beitar will always remain pure.” (Reuters/Stringer)
“It’s not racism. They just shouldn’t be here.”
Not even in the earliest days of Jackie Robinson’s 1947 historic debut with the Brooklyn Dodgers did Brooklyn’s white fans walk out after number 42 stole a base or hit a home run. The Brooklyn faithful’s love of “Dem Bums” trumped any racism that simmered in the stands. What does it say that sixty-six years later, Israeli fans of the soccer club Beitar Jerusalem have not evolved to postwar-Brooklyn standards of human decency?
Earlier this season, Beitar Jersulam broke their own version of the “color line” by signing the first two Muslim players in team history: Zaur Sadayev and Dzhabrail Kadiyev. Predictably, Beitar’s supporters were madder than the NRA in a school zone. Boos have rained down on Sadayev and Kadiyev every time they’ve taken the field or touched the ball. Several members of a team fan club flew a banner that read, “Beitar is pure forever.” Two others attempted to burn down the team offices. This pales, however, next to what happened when Sadayev scored his first goal for the team last week. After the striker found glory, hundreds of Beitar Jerusalem fans simply stood up and walked out. Even by soccer standards, where racism on the pitch is a continual plague, this organized nature of the action was shocking.
As one 19-year-old fan told The Independent, “The reaction to the Muslim players being here is not racist. But the club’s existence is under threat. Beitar is a symbol for the whole country.” Another said, “It’s not racism, they just shouldn’t be here…. Beitar Jerusalem has always been a clean club, but now it’s being destroyed—many of the other players are thinking of leaving because of the Muslim players being here,”
Moshe Zimmermann, a sports historian at Hebrew University, told The New York Times that he sees something darker at work in the soccer stands than just hooligans taking fandom too far: “People in Israel usually try to locate Beitar Jerusalem as some kind of the more extreme fringe; this is a way to overcome the embarrassment. The fact is that the Israeli society on the whole is getting more racist, or at least more ethnocentric, and this is an expression.”
If we accept Zimmerman’s statement as true, that Beitar holds a mirror up to the entire country, then its actions in recent years become all the more frightening. Last March after a game, hundreds of Beitar supporters flooded a shopping mall in West Jerusalem, brutally assaulting a group of Palestinian custodians while chanting “Death to the Arabs.” Mohammed Yusef, one of the cleaners who was part of cleaning service, described it as “a mass lynching attempt.” The next day’s headline in Haaretz says as much: “Hundreds of Beitar Jerusalem fans beat up Arab workers in mall; no arrests.”
While Beitar has been given a great deal of leeway by authorities when carrying out acts of intimidation, it has also become somewhat of an international embarrassment. Last year, Dan Ephron of Newsweek wrote about the team with the sub-headline, “Jerusalem’s favorite football team has hiring policies reminiscent of Apartheid and Jim Crow.” The article, which has nary a quote from any Palestinians, does cite an Israeli soccer writer named Yoav Borowitz. Ephron writes:
Borowitz likens Beitar to the white-only rugby teams of South Africa during the apartheid era, a comparison most Israelis would find repugnant. In a recent blog post, Borowitz vowed to no longer cover Beitar and called on other journalists to do the same. “A soccer club that’s unwilling to sign Arabs belongs in the trash bin of history,” he wrote. “I myself have written more than a few articles about Beitar.… I won’t do it anymore.”The international news of Beitar fans now shunning their own goal-scoring players also comes at a very unwelcome time for Israeli soccer. Israel is the host of the 2013 Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) Under-21 Championship this June. The decision, however, has already been subject to constant protest including the occupation of UEFA’s offices, Palestinian-rights protesters storming the pitch during games and the formation of an organization called “Red Card Israeli Racism.”
Israel’s repression of the Palestinian national soccer team, including the imprisonment and assassination of players and the shelling of the team’s office in last fall’s bombing of Gaza, has also stirred not only activists but players and even FIFA to action. In 2010, even UEFA President Michel Platini threatened Israel with expulsion from FIFA if it continued to undermine soccer in Palestine. Platini said, “Israel must choose between allowing Palestinian sport to continue and prosper or be forced to face the consequences for their behaviour.” What maddens people is that by holding the Under-21s in Israel, it actually seems like the country is being rewarded.
The great power of sport historically is that it has provided space for marginalized people to find a voice, as well as a setting for all of us to discover our common humanity through play. What does it say about Israel in the twenty-first century that a team like Beitar Jerusalem can not only survive but thrive? What does it say that Israel still gets to host the UEFA Under-21 championships despite interfering with Palestinian efforts to field a team? What does it say that sports are now enmeshed in the political conflicts in the region? If nothing else, it tells us that not even sports can provide escape, respite or a safe haven from the pressures of occupation. It also tells us that seeking justice on the playing field and in the soccer stands in Israel is also about seeking justice for the Palestinian people and no cultural arena can be exempt from this process. I know what side Jackie Robinson would be on, and it wouldn’t be with the so-called fans who hate the ethnicity of a player more than they love a goal for their team.
What does a Cornell science development have to do with the Israeli occupation? Read Adam Hudson’s take.
Lebanon: Some Women Slip Through Cracks of Domestic Violence Law
We
have to talk on an anecdotal basis because data is hard to come about,
but with any conflict, with any emergency setting, we know that
gender-based violence is generally a consequence. (Photo: Haitham
Mousawi).
Domestic violence has found itself in the past year regularly in Lebanese headlines, as the tragic stories of Roula Yacoub and, more recently, Fatima al-Nashar, have stirred public opinion in support of a draft law which would criminalize domestic violence.
But while the bill is hailed by many women’s rights activists as a decisive step, some of the most vulnerable women in the country are still desperately exposed to abuse with little to no legal recourse.
Although the law, which still hasn’t been voted on by parliament, would extend to all victims of domestic abuse on Lebanese soil, access to judicial or police protection remains far too often a taboo and potentially life-threatening for many women belonging to marginalized communities, including Palestinian and Syrian refugees.
H., a 30-year-old Syrian woman who fled the conflict in 2013, said her husband had become increasingly violent since their arrival in Lebanon, hitting her and breaking furniture in the one-room apartment they share with their six children. “If the house is unintentionally messy, if dinner is not ready or if one of the children is not properly dressed, he says I am failing my responsibilities as a woman,” the former hairdresser said.
A., a 29-year-old Palestinian refugee from Lebanon, faced a similar situation. Her husband used to beat her and have extramarital affairs, and her family showed little understanding to her plight.
“I used to go back to my parents’ house often, but every time I would go they would send me back,” she recalled. “My father used to defend my husband, man to man, because of our children. He would shut me up.”
“I wanted to kill myself,” A. added, saying that she attempted suicide four years ago because of her failing relationship with her husband.
For many women, even thinking about contacting the police is out of question, both due to its social unacceptability and practical implications. Far too often, domestic violence is perceived as a private matter, or even dismissed as a joke.
A counselor who has worked with H. since December said that although she considers H.’s situation to be potentially fatal, the Syrian woman has refused to be referred to a lawyer. According to this counselor, many women decline to press charges against their abuser.
“If I go to the police station and my husband goes to jail, who can provide for my family?” H. asked rhetorically. Since coming to Lebanon, her children have not been enrolled in school, making it impossible for her to work and gain some financial independence from her husband.
Even though A. has been working with a psychologist and a counselor for almost a year to resolve her family issues and become better informed of her rights, she still doesn’t see security forces as an option for her.
“I wouldn’t go to the police station. If I went, they would say it’s a personal matter,” she said. She added that she would prefer to go through a legal process with a lawyer, but only if an NGO was at her side. This feeling of helplessness is intensified for refugee women, who feel that they are less entitled to protection than their Lebanese peers. “In general, Syrians in Lebanon do not have rights. And if you are a woman on top of that ...” H. trailed off.
Buthaina Saad, who coordinates the violence against women program for Palestinian refugee rights NGO Najdeh, agreed.
“The same level of domestic violence applies for Palestinian and Lebanese women, as well as all Arab women,” she said. “But what’s different is that Lebanese women may have more courage to ask for their rights because they are in their country.”
“Being a woman refugee is in itself marginalization and violence,” Saad added.
“Even if this law comes into effect, there’s always this access problem for Palestinian refugees, and particularly women and girls always being a particularly vulnerable group within the existing vulnerability of the Palestinian refugees,” UNRWA gender protection coordinator Helene Skaardal told Al-Akhbar.
Skaardal cited lack of mobility, economic limitations, and lack of legal knowledge as some of the main factors impeding many women, whether Palestinian, Syrian, or Lebanese, from seeking help.
The neighboring conflict has exacerbated issues of gender-based violence for many Syrian women, as the anxieties of life as refugees tend to lead to higher levels of domestic violence. In January, the United Nations revealed that it had helped 38,000 people dealing with sexual assault and gender-based violence inside Syria in 2013.
“Gender-based violence has become a new hidden dimension of the Syrian conflict,” Skaardal said, who noted that domestic violence could be a “negative coping mechanism” for some in dire economic or social situations.
“We have to talk on an anecdotal basis because data is hard to come about, but with any conflict, with any emergency setting, we know that gender-based violence is generally a consequence – a consequence that is often extremely hidden.”
KAFA, an NGO focusing on gender-based violence, estimates than one woman dies every month on average in Lebanon because of domestic violence. Lebanon is home to around four million people.
KAFA Communication Coordinator Maya Ammar told Al-Akhbar that the organization has started training Lebanon’s Internal Security Forces to deal with victims of violence and offer them advice and protection.
Before this partnership, Ammar said, “there was very little awareness in the ISF [of issues surrounding domestic violence], just like in the rest of Lebanese society.”
Whilst the domestic violence bill that so many women desperately need languishes in parliament, many women need even more protection than this law could ever provide.
“I feel like my life is a cassette that keeps repeating itself,” H. said. “I want to live a human life.”
But while the bill is hailed by many women’s rights activists as a decisive step, some of the most vulnerable women in the country are still desperately exposed to abuse with little to no legal recourse.
Although the law, which still hasn’t been voted on by parliament, would extend to all victims of domestic abuse on Lebanese soil, access to judicial or police protection remains far too often a taboo and potentially life-threatening for many women belonging to marginalized communities, including Palestinian and Syrian refugees.
H., a 30-year-old Syrian woman who fled the conflict in 2013, said her husband had become increasingly violent since their arrival in Lebanon, hitting her and breaking furniture in the one-room apartment they share with their six children. “If the house is unintentionally messy, if dinner is not ready or if one of the children is not properly dressed, he says I am failing my responsibilities as a woman,” the former hairdresser said.
A., a 29-year-old Palestinian refugee from Lebanon, faced a similar situation. Her husband used to beat her and have extramarital affairs, and her family showed little understanding to her plight.
“I used to go back to my parents’ house often, but every time I would go they would send me back,” she recalled. “My father used to defend my husband, man to man, because of our children. He would shut me up.”
“I wanted to kill myself,” A. added, saying that she attempted suicide four years ago because of her failing relationship with her husband.
For many women, even thinking about contacting the police is out of question, both due to its social unacceptability and practical implications. Far too often, domestic violence is perceived as a private matter, or even dismissed as a joke.
A counselor who has worked with H. since December said that although she considers H.’s situation to be potentially fatal, the Syrian woman has refused to be referred to a lawyer. According to this counselor, many women decline to press charges against their abuser.
“If I go to the police station and my husband goes to jail, who can provide for my family?” H. asked rhetorically. Since coming to Lebanon, her children have not been enrolled in school, making it impossible for her to work and gain some financial independence from her husband.
Even though A. has been working with a psychologist and a counselor for almost a year to resolve her family issues and become better informed of her rights, she still doesn’t see security forces as an option for her.
“I wouldn’t go to the police station. If I went, they would say it’s a personal matter,” she said. She added that she would prefer to go through a legal process with a lawyer, but only if an NGO was at her side. This feeling of helplessness is intensified for refugee women, who feel that they are less entitled to protection than their Lebanese peers. “In general, Syrians in Lebanon do not have rights. And if you are a woman on top of that ...” H. trailed off.
Buthaina Saad, who coordinates the violence against women program for Palestinian refugee rights NGO Najdeh, agreed.
“The same level of domestic violence applies for Palestinian and Lebanese women, as well as all Arab women,” she said. “But what’s different is that Lebanese women may have more courage to ask for their rights because they are in their country.”
“Being a woman refugee is in itself marginalization and violence,” Saad added.
“Even if this law comes into effect, there’s always this access problem for Palestinian refugees, and particularly women and girls always being a particularly vulnerable group within the existing vulnerability of the Palestinian refugees,” UNRWA gender protection coordinator Helene Skaardal told Al-Akhbar.
Skaardal cited lack of mobility, economic limitations, and lack of legal knowledge as some of the main factors impeding many women, whether Palestinian, Syrian, or Lebanese, from seeking help.
The neighboring conflict has exacerbated issues of gender-based violence for many Syrian women, as the anxieties of life as refugees tend to lead to higher levels of domestic violence. In January, the United Nations revealed that it had helped 38,000 people dealing with sexual assault and gender-based violence inside Syria in 2013.
“Gender-based violence has become a new hidden dimension of the Syrian conflict,” Skaardal said, who noted that domestic violence could be a “negative coping mechanism” for some in dire economic or social situations.
“We have to talk on an anecdotal basis because data is hard to come about, but with any conflict, with any emergency setting, we know that gender-based violence is generally a consequence – a consequence that is often extremely hidden.”
KAFA, an NGO focusing on gender-based violence, estimates than one woman dies every month on average in Lebanon because of domestic violence. Lebanon is home to around four million people.
KAFA Communication Coordinator Maya Ammar told Al-Akhbar that the organization has started training Lebanon’s Internal Security Forces to deal with victims of violence and offer them advice and protection.
Before this partnership, Ammar said, “there was very little awareness in the ISF [of issues surrounding domestic violence], just like in the rest of Lebanese society.”
Whilst the domestic violence bill that so many women desperately need languishes in parliament, many women need even more protection than this law could ever provide.
“I feel like my life is a cassette that keeps repeating itself,” H. said. “I want to live a human life.”
Tuesday, December 17, 2013 1:10 PM
Prince Turki al-Faisal meets Israeli officials in Monaco
Prince Turki Al-Faisal, former
head of the Saudi secret services and formerly Saudi ambassador to the United States
A meeting have taken place
between a member of the Saudi royal family and Israeli officials in Monaco, Israeli
media report.
The Sunday meeting took place at the World Policy
Conference in Monaco, where
Prince Turki Al-Faisal, the former head of the Saudi secret services and
formerly Saudi ambassador to the United States,
met Member of Knesset Meir Sheetrit (Hatnua) and formerly Israel’s
ambassador to the US Itamar Rabinovich.
According to the Tuesday report by Maariv
newspaper, the Saudi prince publicly shook hands with Rabinovich and held a
discussion with MK Sheetrit.
The report said that Sheetrit invited the Saudi
prince to address the Israeli Knesset, to which the prince replied that this
would not be beneficial as long as Israel did not accept the Arab
peace initiative. He called on Israel
to accept the initiative so that details of its implementation can then be
discussed.
The point is important that Saudi Arabia was considered as the leading state
in confronting Egypt’s
effort to come closer to Israel
in 1970s.
The Arab Peace Initiative, unveiled in 2002 by
Saudi Arabia, says that 22 Arab countries will normalize ties with Israel in
return for an Israeli withdrawal to the indefensible and narrow 1949 armistice
line and Israeli acceptance of the "Right of Return" for millions of
descendants of Arabs who fled pre-Israeli occupation, effectively bringing an
end to the Zionist state.
It was recently revived when Qatar’s Prime
Minister indicated that he supported a peace agreement between Israel and the
Palestinian Authority that would be defined by the June 4, 1967 borders, but at
the same time backed proposals for a "comparable and mutual agreed minor
swap of the land" between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, to reflect
the realities of the burgeoning communities on the ground. However,
Palestinians and other Arab nations have ruled out any talks with Israel over
land possession.
Maariv further reported that Prince Turki
al-Faisal lauded the efforts being made by Secretary of State John Kerry in
promoting peace talks but, in a hint of criticism against the administration in
Washington, said that Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and acting Palestinian
Authority Chief Mahmoud Abbas need patronage from a responsible third party and
expressed doubts that US President Barack Obama could be that responsible
party.
The Saudi prince also related to the nuclear
agreement recently signed between the West and Iran and said that the military
option must remain on the table and must also be included within the broader
framework of discussions on a nuclear-free zone in the Middle East.
NTJ/BA
- See more at:
http://en.alalam.ir/news/1545412#sthash.TG4ysvvM.dpuf
Israel's Livni, Saudi Prince Turki bin Faisal meet in Munich
Sunday, February 02, 2014 1:33
PM
Israel’s so-called Justice Minister
Tzipi Livni (R) and Saudi Prince Turki bin Faisal.
The Israeli regime’s so-called
Justice Minister Tzipi Livni and Saudi Prince Turki bin Faisal have held talks
on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference in Germany about
the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, a report says.
The Saudi prince, the former ambassador to Washington who also headed his government’s intelligence
apparatus, is thought to be an emissary in the eyes of Western diplomats given
his intimate familiarity with Riyadh’s
foreign policymakers, Israel Radio reported on Sunday.
Turki and Livni discussed the Saudi peace initiative.
Introduced in 2002 under the auspices of the Arab League, the proposal entails
full normalization between Israel
and the surrounding Arab countries in exchange for a withdrawal to the 1967
lines.
Despite the attempts, made by Saudi Arabia to approach the Arab nations with
the Israeli regime, Arabs especially Palestinians observe any move towards Middle East peace as doomed to failure.
According to Israel Radio, Turki told Livni that
the House of Saud was pleased she was named as head of the negotiating team in
talks with the Palestinians since it would “ensure that [Prime Minister
Binyamin] Netanyahu would not be so difficult.”
Livni responded that she viewed the Arab
initiative as “very positive,” adding that the Israeli leadership “believes
that the price of not reaching an agreement is steeper than reaching an
agreement.”
According to Israel Radio, the so-called justice
minister added that while Israel
won’t be enamored with every single aspect of the framework agreement being
drafted by US Secretary of State John Kerry, “Israel can live with it.”
Acting Chief of Palestinian Authority Mahmoud
Abbas has recently warned that without East al-Quds as the capital of the
future Palestinian state, there will be no peace with Israeli regime.
In June 2013, leaders of the Boycott, Divestment
and Sanctions (BDS) movement to boycott Israel opposed any peace talks,
even if they include a long-demanded freeze of illegal Israeli settlements on
Palestinian land.
NTJ/HH
http://en.alalam.ir/news/1561710-
See more at:
http://en.alalam.ir/news/1561710#sthash.TwsKZwcu.dpuf
Deadly Hermel attack claimed by al-Nusra Front
Lebanese
emergency personnel are seen at the site of a car bomb explosion
targeting a petrol station in eastern Lebanon's town of Hermel on
February 1, 2014, which left at least four people dead and tens wounded,
the army said. (Photo: AFP)
Updated on Sunday at 11:45 am: A car bomb killed at least four
people on Saturday evening near a gas station in eastern Lebanon's town
of Hermel, according to caretaker Interior Minister Marwan Charbel.
The Al-Nusra Front in Lebanon, a group named after al-Qaeda's Syrian
affiliate, claimed the attack on Twitter, saying it was a suicide
bombing in response to Hezbollah's involvement in Syria.
"At least four people were killed and more than 15 wounded, two or
three of them in critical condition," caretaker Interior Minister Marwan
Charbel told al-Manar television station.
A security source told Reuters that, besides the three dead
bystanders and the dead bomber, 28 other people had been wounded in the
blast, which took place around 6:00 pm.
The proximity of the explosion to the al-Aytam gas station had
sparked a huge blaze that hindered the arrival of emergency services,
according to statements by a security source to NNA.
Security forces later closed off the area and firefighters managed to extinguish the blaze.
Lebanon's National News Agency (NNA) cited witnesses who said the
perpetrator entered the gas station and asked to buy fuel before
detonating the bomb, leaving a meter-deep hole in the ground and setting
the station and nearby cars on fire.
According to the Lebanese National News Agency, the blast was also in
proximity of a school hosting orphans. The al-Mabarrat school confirmed
that none of their resident students were hurt
Caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati condemned the attack.
"Once again, the hands of treason target a Lebanese region and claim the lives of innocent citizens," he said.
Charbel, told Reuters by phone that the situation in Lebanon was "unstable and getting worse every day."
"This matter is very, very dangerous," he said. "It is bigger than the security apparatus."
Syrian Information Minister Omran al-Zohbi, speaking on satellite
television channel Al-Mayadeen, said "this terrorist attack, like those
before it, only benefits the Israeli enemy".
The United Nations Security Council issued a statement condemning the
"terrorist attack" and calling for the perpetrators to be brought to
justice.
Council members also appealed to all Lebanese people "to preserve
national unity in the face of attempts to undermine the country's
stability" and for all parties to refrain from any involvement in the
Syrian crisis.
In a separate statement the UN secretary general's spokesman Martin
Nesirky said Ban Ki-moon also strongly condemned the car bombing and
extended his condolences to the bereaved.
"The recent escalation in acts of terrorism and violence in Lebanon
is of grave concern," he said, adding that Ban called on all players,
including the army and security forces, "to confront such unacceptable
and indiscriminate actions and to safeguard their country's security and
stability".
Tensions surfaced elsewhere in Lebanon after the explosion.
Residents of al-Labweh blocked the road to Ersal in protest of the
recent explosion late on Saturday. While in Beirut, a hand grenade was
thrown at the al-Manar's headquarters that same evening, according to a
report by al-Mayadeen television channel.
Lebanon has witnessed multiple major car bomb attacks since July
2013. The country has seen almost a deadly bombing per week in January,
with two explosions in Beirut's southern suburb of Haret Hreik.
A car bomb had previously hit Hermel on January 16, killing six and
injuring 40. These previous attacks had also been claimed by the Lebanon
branch of al-Nusra Front.
(Al-Akhbar, AFP, Reuters)
|
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| Local Editor | ||||
http://www.almanar.com.lb/english/adetails.php?eid=133604&cid=23&fromval=1&frid=23&seccatid=18&s1=1
The
Israeli occupation army established a field hospital on the Golan
Heights to treat the Syrian injured militants who belong to the
terrorist group
 s in Syria.
These groups have treated over 700 of their injured militants in that hospitals, according to Israeli media outlets.
The Zionist army prevented the media
outlets from broadcasting the activities of the field hospital yet
allowed the Second Channel to prepare a report about it in order to
promote the "humane Israeli step towards the Syrians."
The report mainly focused on the Israeli
intentions behind treating the militants, clarifying that the Israelis
aim at strengthen and deepen their relations with the terrorist groups
in Syria in order to keep the calm and stability which now prevails
between these groups and Israel at Palestinian-Syrian borders.
The report also included interviews with
a number of the militants who stated that "Zionism is not macabre as it
has been portrayed by the Syrian regime."
"The regime used to force us to believe that our enemy is all the surrounding world, yet after the beginning of the revolution, we recognized our real friends and real enemies." |
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Monday, July 08, 2013 9:01 AM
New Saudi weapons en route to 'SNC' insurgents
Head of Syria’s opposition says the situation in the
country would change with Saudi
Arabia’s weapon
The so-called Syrian National Council is going to
receive new advanced weapons from Saudi Arabia.
Ahmad Jarba, who was elected as head of the so-called Syrian National Coalition said on Sunday that he was expecting "advanced weapons" to reach.
Jarba described the opposition's military position as weak, but he said the situation would change with Saudi Arabia’s weapons.
He added that the opposition would not take part in the peace conference due to be held in Geneva unless its military position becomes strong.
Jarba also offered the government of Syrian
President Bashar al-Assad a truce during the holy month of Ramadan -- an offer
many believe could be used as a cover to facilitate the delivery of arms to the
insurgents in Syria.
During the past 48 hours, the Syrian army has
managed to gain more ground in Damascus
and some other important regions.
Syria
crisis started in 2011 when pro-reform protests turned to a massive insurgency
following the intervention of western and regional states.
The unrest which took in numerous terrorist
groups from all over Europe and the Middle East
is going to become one of the bloodiest wars in the recent history.
The war, which many fear is turning to a “war of
hatred”, has already taken thousands of lives.
In an interview broadcast on Turkish television
in April, Assad said that if the militants take power in Syria, they could destabilize the entire Middle East region for decades.
“If the unrest in Syria
leads to the partitioning of the country, or if the terrorist forces take
control… the situation will inevitably spill over into neighboring countries
and create a domino effect throughout the Middle East
and beyond,” he stated.
SHI/SHI
- See more at: http://en.alalam.ir/news/1492671#sthash.djSZRJ9Y.dpuf
Friday, January 31, 2014 12:30 PM
Syrian anchor Elissar Moualla shocks opposition at Geneva talks
Elissar Moualla
Among dozens of Syrian and
foreign journalists covering the Syria
peace talks in Geneva,
Elissar Moualla stands out.
The popular Syrian news anchor, working for the
state-sponsored Syrian TV, never misses an opportunity to confront the
opposition delegation.
With a loud and agitated voice, she asks tough
questions in press conferences and she challenges statements the opposition
representatives make in the more informal media hub, the garden of the UN
headquarters.
"Can you tell me why the armed groups [you
support] are holding women and children hostage in Homs?" she yells to an opposition
spokesman.
"You claim you want to stop the fighting,
but do you have control over the armed groups?" she asks another.
The conference in Switzerland is the first time the
Damascus-based anchor has interacted with the Western-backed political
opposition trying to overthrow the government of President Bashar al-Assad.
She says the opposition representatives were
"shocked" when they faced reporters from Syrian state media.
"Even
though they are trained to answer journalists' questions, this is the first
time they've been grilled by journalists coming from inside Syria. This is
why they couldn't deliver their messages as effectively as they wanted,"
the 37-year-old told Al Jazeera.
For Moualla, the peace conference is a media
parade - but also a battlefield of countries she believes are trying to meddle
in the affairs of her country.
"This is the first time I see how big is
this game of nations and how the fighters in Syria are manipulated," she
says as she sips her coffee in the press bar at the UN building, where the US-
and Russian-backed talks are taking place.
"For the first time I pity the [opposition]
fighters because I realize just how misled they are. They think they are
fighting for the cause of freedom or a religious cause or whatever cause it is.
But in reality, they are fighting the battles of other countries," Moualla
says.
"Despite all the suffering they have caused,
I still cringe every time I watch them dead on TV. I don't like them and I hate
extremism, but I am human," Moualla says.
"I always tell my colleagues: 'When you film
them, do not take these harsh images; they are humans. Cover them when you film
them.'" She then quickly adds: "Those same people would kill me if
they saw me."
Many rebel groups consider state media employees
legitimate targets because they defend the Syrian government. Presenting the
views of her channel has come at a great cost for Moualla, who says she has
received a barrage of death threats and vicious bashing. "I receive
countless phone calls and messages. They once threatened to kill my father. And
the swearing is as ugly as it can get".
Going from her home in a flashpoint area on the
outskirts of Damascus
to her workplace in the center of the capital is also a daily challenge. She
recounts the day she thought her life was nearing its end: "One time,
three armed men wearing black bands around their heads tried to attack me in my
car after they recognized me. They ran away after the police arrived. I will
never forget that day."
Her parents, who lived in the coastal province of Latakia,
have left their hometown and moved to Damascus
because they are worried about her safety.
But the threats have not deterred her from
carrying on with her job. She remembers her colleagues who lost their lives and
says some other pro-government journalists suffer even more than she does.
At least five employees of Syrian TV have been
killed in the conflict, and the fate of one of Moualla's friends in the channel,
Mohammad Saeed, remains unknown after he was kidnapped.
Over the past three years, scores of journalists
reporting on the Syrian conflict have been killed, arbitrarily arrested,
subjected to enforced disappearances or tortured.
Moualla believes that the government's narrative
of events in Syria
has now become an undeniable truth. "Nobody can deny it," she says.
"The government is defending its territory from terrorists."
Moualla says that the coverage of the Syrian
conflict by most media organizations has been biased, whether intentionally or
unintentionally. She says atrocities committed by opposition forces have not
been covered well by foreign media and the Syrian state media.
The government has at times covered up crimes
committed by armed groups in divided cities like Homs, to prevent a rift among the people, she
says. "The government demanded from reporters [of state media] that they
do not film these atrocities, so that the Christian wouldn't view the Muslim in
a negative way, so that the Alawite wouldn't view the Sunni in a negative
way."
"The Syrian army is killing, but it's
killing the terrorists," Moualla insists. "There is a truth that
should be acknowledged: They are monsters. They are monsters that have been
released on Syrian land. Not humans. Some of them hold Syrian citizenship. But
they have lost all ability to live in a normal society."
Moualla will leave the peaceful city of Geneva for war-riddled Damascus, and return to the same death
threats, the same sounds of shelling, and another news bulletin full of blood
and death.
Sunday, February 02, 2014 1:33 PM
Israel's Livni, Saudi Prince Turki bin Faisal meet in Munich
Israel’s so-called Justice Minister Tzipi Livni (R) and Saudi Prince Turki bin Faisal.
The Israeli regime’s so-called Justice Minister Tzipi Livni
and Saudi Prince Turki bin Faisal have held talks on the sidelines of
the Munich Security Conference in Germany about the Israeli-Palestinian
peace process, a report says.
The Saudi prince, the former ambassador to Washington who also headed
his government’s intelligence apparatus, is thought to be an emissary in
the eyes of Western diplomats given his intimate familiarity with
Riyadh’s foreign policymakers, Israel Radio reported on Sunday.
Turki and Livni discussed the Saudi peace initiative. Introduced in
2002 under the auspices of the Arab League, the proposal entails full
normalization between Israel and the surrounding Arab countries in
exchange for a withdrawal to the 1967 lines.
Despite the attempts, made by Saudi Arabia to approach the Arab nations
with the Israeli regime, Arabs especially Palestinians observe any move
towards Middle East peace as doomed to failure.
According to Israel Radio, Turki told Livni that the House of Saud was
pleased she was named as head of the negotiating team in talks with the
Palestinians since it would “ensure that [Prime Minister Binyamin]
Netanyahu would not be so difficult.”
Livni responded that she viewed the Arab initiative as “very positive,”
adding that the Israeli leadership “believes that the price of not
reaching an agreement is steeper than reaching an agreement.”
According to Israel Radio, the so-called justice minister added that
while Israel won’t be enamored with every single aspect of the framework
agreement being drafted by US Secretary of State John Kerry, “Israel
can live with it.”
Acting Chief of Palestinian Authority Mahmoud Abbas has recently warned
that without East al-Quds as the capital of the future Palestinian
state, there will be no peace with Israeli regime.
In June 2013, leaders of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS)
movement to boycott Israel opposed any peace talks, even if they include
a long-demanded freeze of illegal Israeli settlements on Palestinian
land.
NTJ/HH
Sunday, February 02, 2014 1:33 PM
Israel's Livni, Saudi Prince Turki bin Faisal meet in Munich
Israel’s so-called Justice Minister Tzipi Livni (
- See more at: http://en.alalam.ir/news/1561710#sthash.TwsKZwcu.dpuf
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