Palestinians must reject new American tricks

By Khalid Amayreh : The Obama administration is reportedly planning to launch a new “peace initiative” in the Middle East. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton suggested the US would make fresh efforts to solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict over the occupation of Palestine by Zionist Jews who supported and backed by the West, especially the United States.

According to reports from Washington, President Obama will lay out US policy toward the Middle East and North Africa in the coming weeks. Obama had laid out his administration’s policy numerous times, only to discover that Israel’s supporters in Washington possessed a real veto power over the administration’s policy toward the Zionist regime

“The president will be speaking in greater detail about America’s policy in the Middle East and North Africa in the coming weeks,” Clinton said at the US-Islamic World Forum, a gathering sponsored by Qatar and the Brooking Institution, a Washington Think Tank.

The planned American activation of the so-called peace process, which has long been proved futile and fruitless, comes against a backdrop of popular revolutions in the Arab region that have toppled long-time tyrannical and pro-American regimes in Tunisia and Egypt.

It is really hard to give renewed American peace efforts the benefit of the doubt. Consecutive American administrations introduced numerous initiatives which failed even to make a dent in Israeli insolence and intransigence.

In fact, far from achieving any progress toward real peace, the US kept up enabling Israel to steal more Arab land, build more Jewish settlements and constantly erode the possibility of creating a viable and territorially contiguous Palestinian state.

Indeed, one would have to be a real idiot to think that an administration which stood quite powerless to prevent Israel from demolishing a single Arab home in East Jerusalem or stop the illegal seizure of a small plot of Arab land in the West Bank would be able to force Israel to return to the borders of the 4th of June, 1967.

Clinton and her boss at the White House may sound as speaking occasionally authoritatively with regard to the Palestinian issue. However, when it comes to implementation, we all know who has the final say. It is Israel and her powerful lobby, which holds Congress by the throat.

This is not pessimistic prognostication or, as some naïve people would put it, “not giving peace a chance.”

We have given a thousand chances for a dignified peace settlement but to no avail. The reason was and remains simple, namely the fact of Zionist insolence, arrogance of power and rapacity for more Arab land. Needless to say, Zionist insolence, arrogance and territorial expansion wouldn’t have paralyzed peace efforts had it not been for the simple reason of unlimited and unrestricted American backing of Israel.

Yes, the US may occasionally declare a certain stand that is not completely harmonious with Israeli whims, especially territorial aggrandizement. However, at the end of the day, Israel is allowed to have its way.

I don’t have a shred of doubt that the planned American effort to revive or promote the moribund peace process will meet the same fate and same failure which past efforts had met.

One doesn’t have to be a political genius to locate the fault lines in the long-standing American policy toward the Palestinian plight. Indeed, with a long history of complicity with Israel and acquiescence to her Nazi-like aggression and bellicosity, there should be no illusion about what the US can and can not do.

It is widely expected that the Obama administration will try to take credit for the democratic revolutions in the Arab world. There are also fears that the administration might try to trade off democratic successes in the Arab region, which by the way occurred in spite of Washington’s wishes, for possible Arab and Palestinian concessions to Israel. That would be scandalous, to say the very least.

There are two main reasons preventing the Obama administration from crossing the Rubicon with regard to the Palestinian issue. First, the Obama administration has entered the second half of its term, which means that it has to choose between pressuring Israel to give up stolen land in the West Bank on the one hand and preparing for a second term in office on the other. Needless to say, the two tasks are not compatible at all since pressuring Israel to dismantle settlements and give up stolen land would nearly certainly weaken Obama’s chances for re-election.

Likewise, failing to pressure Israel to be forthcoming for peace would most likely embolden the Zionist state and encourage her to build more colonies, steal more land and make the goal of establishing a viable Palestinian state utterly unrealistic and even far-fetched.

Second, there is also no doubt that the balance of power between the Obama administration and the Zionist lobby, which, as mentioned above, holds congress by the throat, is seriously tilting in Israel’s favor. This means that Obama will face a serious dilemma: If he dares challenge the lobby, he will seriously jeopardize his chances for re-election, and if he doesn’t, his peace efforts in the Middle East will evaporate into nothingness.

I understand that it is probably unwise to ignore, let alone challenge the only superpower in the world. However, it is even more unwise, to put it mildly, to give up our inalienable national rights just because some Zionist Jews happen to be in tight control of American politics and policies.

Eventually, any real and durable peace must be based on truth and justice. Otherwise, it wouldn’t withstand the test of time.