This bit of gilded bait was put together by “senior White House adviser” Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law; Jason Greenblatt, chief lawyer of the Trump Organization and now U.S. envoy for international negotiations; and David Friedman, the president’s bankruptcy lawyer who is now the U.S. ambassador to Israel. All of these men are at once unqualified for their present positions as well as Zionist supporters of Israeli expansionism. It is not surprising then that the Israeli government has welcomed this effort. Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said that he “would listen to the American plan and hear it fairly and with openness.” On the other hand, the Palestinian West Bank leader, Mahmoud Abbas, who is boycotting the Bahrain meeting, said, “As long as there is no political [solution], we do not deal with any economic [solution].”
There are no doubt some members of the Fatah who are upset at Abbas’s position, perhaps some business people, often-unpaid bureaucrats, and a portion of the frustrated middle-class, who will be dearly tempted by the promise of all that money. These are people who, given over a century of struggle, see no hope of a just political settlement. Nonetheless, those tempted might consider these facts, as should consider the international community:
1. All those billions of dollars are hypothetical. The money is not in the bank, so to speak. And, it is not a given that Trump want or can actually raise the funds. Thus, for all those ready to trade justice for dollars, it might be premature to actually make the leap.
2. There is a prevailing belief among the Trump cabal putting this plan together that the Palestinians themselves are incapable of running the proposed development programs. They are assumed to be too corrupt or tainted with “terrorist” backgrounds to be trusted. Thus the question of who would run this effort (Israelis? American Zionists? anyone other than those dedicated to Palestinian interests?) is left unanswered. Relative to this question, it should be kept in mind that the Israelis have made something of a science of robbing the Palestinians of their resources. They are hardly likely to stop now.
3. The raising of money for the Trump plan is in competition with a UN effort to raise $1.2 billion for UNRWA, the agency that supports programs for Palestinian refugees. This fund-raiser is literally running at the same time as the Bahrain meeting. If the Trump plan gains traction, there might well be pressure to shut down UNRWA altogether.
Is this really an honest proposal to provide the Palestinians with prosperity? The history of “third world” development efforts sponsored by and run under the guidance of “first world” powers, be they Western governments or institutions like the IMF, is largely one of failure.There is no reason to believe that the Trump plan will fare any better. While these problematic economic efforts may eventually fall short, the political conditions almost certain to be attached to the aid will probably require immediate cessation of all anti-Zionist activities, including the relatively successful ongoing boycott of Israel.
Besides, this is not the first time that financial bribery to procure Arab cooperation with Zionist ambitions has been tried.
There is a historical precedent for Donald Trump’s attempted “deal of the century”. Back in 1942, the Zionist leader Chaim Weizmann told members of the U.S. State Department’s Division of Near Eastern Affairs (NEA) that Winston Churchill wished to make the Saudi king, Ibn Saud, “the boss of bosses in the Arab World.” The only condition to this offer was that Ibn Saud must “be willing to work out with Weizmann to achieve a sane solution to the Palestine problem.” Weizmann further claimed that the U.S. president Franklin Roosevelt was “in accord on this subject.”
The response of the head of the NEA, Wallace Murray, a man who knew the Middle East much better than did Chaim Weizmann, was one of skepticism. Murray noted that British influence over Ibn Saud was small and that he doubted the Saudi king wanted to be the Arab “boss of bosses.” Finally, he expressed doubt that anything the Zionists would consider a “solution” would be something Ibn Saud would consider to be “sane.”
Nonetheless, the Zionists persisted along these lines and soon came up with a plan where, in return for a Jewish Palestine, Ibn Saud would be made the “head of an Arab federation in control of a “development” budget of 20 million British pounds.”
At this point Murray became adamant that this would never work. He predicted that Ibn Saud would interpret the offer as a bribe—the offer of a throne in exchange for turning Palestine over to the Zionists. He would interpret the 20 million pounds as a “slush fund.” Consequently, there was every reason to believe that the Saudi ruler would see this whole plan as a personal insult. So Murray suggested that “the less we have to do with the … proposals of Dr. Weizmann the better.”
As it turned out Roosevelt disagreed with Murray and after a conversation with Weizmann in early June of 1943, authorized an approach to Ibn Saud along the lines of the Zionist plan. Why did he ignore Murray in favor of Weizmann? Because Murray’s accurate assessment of Ibn Saud conflicted with FDR’s stereotyped view of Arabs. This is revealed in the minutes of the June meeting with Weizmann wherein the president said that “he believes the Arabs are purchasable.” In other words, following a common erroneous Western view, the president saw the Arabs as a backward people who would do just about anything for the right amount of “bakshish.”
Subsequently, the entire scheme came to naught when, in the fall of 1943, Ibn Saud rejected it out of hand. He would subsequently tell FDR that the Jews should “be given the choicest lands and homes of the Germans who had oppressed them.” When the president replied that the Jews would not wish to stay in Germany after the war, Ibn Saud noted that the “allied camp” had “fifty countries” in it. Surely they could find enough open space (he even alluded to the underpopulated areas of the American West) to take in Europe’s Jewish refugees. Roosevelt came away from the exchange rather shaken. He finally understood from it that “the Arabs mean business” when it comes to Palestine.
The world has changed a lot since the 1940s. Ibn Saud has been replaced by the Saudi Crown Prince Muḥammad bin Salmān. This can be seen as real step down in terms of personal integrity and strategic judgment. Franklin Roosevelt has been replaced with Donald Trump. The thing that has stayed constant, perhaps because it was always devoid of real empathy for the Palestinians, is the nature of Zionist leadership.
Thus, Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, Danny Danon, has said that the only way the Palestinians can be economically liberated is through their political surrender. But as suggested above, Israel is now a confirmed apartheid state that feels its own “security” necessitates both military and economic control of the Palestinians. Given that reality, Danon’s notion of economic liberation means about as much as Weizmann’s promise of someone else’s (i.e., Britain’s) money. And then there is the replacement of Chaim Weizmann (the Zionist pre-state leader) with Binyamin Netanyahu. The former may have had more persuasive charm than the latter, but certainly their goals were, and continue to be, the same.
It is Zionism’s ambition to possess the whole historical Palestine that has reduced the Palestinians to destitution. Perfectly predictable and legal Palestinian resistance is the excuse the Israelis use to cover up the segregationist and impoverishing policies that are necessitated by their ideological worldview. And now Donald Trump and his Zionist son-in-law come forward with their plan, fully expecting the Palestinians to trust the Americans and their Israeli allies to make them “developed” and prosperous?
Oh, come on!
It should be obvious to all that an occupied economy cannot "go the right way" even if billions are poured into its sectors. An occupation stunts economic development by default and no proposed financial "fixes" would ever work until it is fully lifted.
The economy of historic Palestine, once a thriving region, sharply deteriorated after the foundation of the Israeli state in 1948 and the subsequent occupation of Palestinian land. A series of "peace" agreements made in the early 1990s as part of the Oslo Accords brought Palestine under complete economic subjugation.There are no doubt some members of the Fatah who are upset at Abbas’s position, perhaps some business people, often-unpaid bureaucrats, and a portion of the frustrated middle-class, who will be dearly tempted by the promise of all that money. These are people who, given over a century of struggle, see no hope of a just political settlement. Nonetheless, those tempted might consider these facts, as should consider the international community:
1. All those billions of dollars are hypothetical. The money is not in the bank, so to speak. And, it is not a given that Trump want or can actually raise the funds. Thus, for all those ready to trade justice for dollars, it might be premature to actually make the leap.
2. There is a prevailing belief among the Trump cabal putting this plan together that the Palestinians themselves are incapable of running the proposed development programs. They are assumed to be too corrupt or tainted with “terrorist” backgrounds to be trusted. Thus the question of who would run this effort (Israelis? American Zionists? anyone other than those dedicated to Palestinian interests?) is left unanswered. Relative to this question, it should be kept in mind that the Israelis have made something of a science of robbing the Palestinians of their resources. They are hardly likely to stop now.
3. The raising of money for the Trump plan is in competition with a UN effort to raise $1.2 billion for UNRWA, the agency that supports programs for Palestinian refugees. This fund-raiser is literally running at the same time as the Bahrain meeting. If the Trump plan gains traction, there might well be pressure to shut down UNRWA altogether.
Is this really an honest proposal to provide the Palestinians with prosperity? The history of “third world” development efforts sponsored by and run under the guidance of “first world” powers, be they Western governments or institutions like the IMF, is largely one of failure.There is no reason to believe that the Trump plan will fare any better. While these problematic economic efforts may eventually fall short, the political conditions almost certain to be attached to the aid will probably require immediate cessation of all anti-Zionist activities, including the relatively successful ongoing boycott of Israel.
Besides, this is not the first time that financial bribery to procure Arab cooperation with Zionist ambitions has been tried.
There is a historical precedent for Donald Trump’s attempted “deal of the century”. Back in 1942, the Zionist leader Chaim Weizmann told members of the U.S. State Department’s Division of Near Eastern Affairs (NEA) that Winston Churchill wished to make the Saudi king, Ibn Saud, “the boss of bosses in the Arab World.” The only condition to this offer was that Ibn Saud must “be willing to work out with Weizmann to achieve a sane solution to the Palestine problem.” Weizmann further claimed that the U.S. president Franklin Roosevelt was “in accord on this subject.”
The response of the head of the NEA, Wallace Murray, a man who knew the Middle East much better than did Chaim Weizmann, was one of skepticism. Murray noted that British influence over Ibn Saud was small and that he doubted the Saudi king wanted to be the Arab “boss of bosses.” Finally, he expressed doubt that anything the Zionists would consider a “solution” would be something Ibn Saud would consider to be “sane.”
Nonetheless, the Zionists persisted along these lines and soon came up with a plan where, in return for a Jewish Palestine, Ibn Saud would be made the “head of an Arab federation in control of a “development” budget of 20 million British pounds.”
At this point Murray became adamant that this would never work. He predicted that Ibn Saud would interpret the offer as a bribe—the offer of a throne in exchange for turning Palestine over to the Zionists. He would interpret the 20 million pounds as a “slush fund.” Consequently, there was every reason to believe that the Saudi ruler would see this whole plan as a personal insult. So Murray suggested that “the less we have to do with the … proposals of Dr. Weizmann the better.”
As it turned out Roosevelt disagreed with Murray and after a conversation with Weizmann in early June of 1943, authorized an approach to Ibn Saud along the lines of the Zionist plan. Why did he ignore Murray in favor of Weizmann? Because Murray’s accurate assessment of Ibn Saud conflicted with FDR’s stereotyped view of Arabs. This is revealed in the minutes of the June meeting with Weizmann wherein the president said that “he believes the Arabs are purchasable.” In other words, following a common erroneous Western view, the president saw the Arabs as a backward people who would do just about anything for the right amount of “bakshish.”
Subsequently, the entire scheme came to naught when, in the fall of 1943, Ibn Saud rejected it out of hand. He would subsequently tell FDR that the Jews should “be given the choicest lands and homes of the Germans who had oppressed them.” When the president replied that the Jews would not wish to stay in Germany after the war, Ibn Saud noted that the “allied camp” had “fifty countries” in it. Surely they could find enough open space (he even alluded to the underpopulated areas of the American West) to take in Europe’s Jewish refugees. Roosevelt came away from the exchange rather shaken. He finally understood from it that “the Arabs mean business” when it comes to Palestine.
The world has changed a lot since the 1940s. Ibn Saud has been replaced by the Saudi Crown Prince Muḥammad bin Salmān. This can be seen as real step down in terms of personal integrity and strategic judgment. Franklin Roosevelt has been replaced with Donald Trump. The thing that has stayed constant, perhaps because it was always devoid of real empathy for the Palestinians, is the nature of Zionist leadership.
Thus, Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, Danny Danon, has said that the only way the Palestinians can be economically liberated is through their political surrender. But as suggested above, Israel is now a confirmed apartheid state that feels its own “security” necessitates both military and economic control of the Palestinians. Given that reality, Danon’s notion of economic liberation means about as much as Weizmann’s promise of someone else’s (i.e., Britain’s) money. And then there is the replacement of Chaim Weizmann (the Zionist pre-state leader) with Binyamin Netanyahu. The former may have had more persuasive charm than the latter, but certainly their goals were, and continue to be, the same.
It is Zionism’s ambition to possess the whole historical Palestine that has reduced the Palestinians to destitution. Perfectly predictable and legal Palestinian resistance is the excuse the Israelis use to cover up the segregationist and impoverishing policies that are necessitated by their ideological worldview. And now Donald Trump and his Zionist son-in-law come forward with their plan, fully expecting the Palestinians to trust the Americans and their Israeli allies to make them “developed” and prosperous?
Oh, come on!
The 1994 Paris Protocol was particularly damaging. It imposed an unequal customs union, granting Israeli businesses direct access to the Palestinian market but restricting Palestinian goods' entry into the Israeli one; it gave the Israeli state control over tax collection; and it further entrenched the use of the shekel in the occupied Palestinian territories, leaving the newly formed Palestinian Authority with no means to impose fiscal control or adopt macroeconomic policies.
This in effect means that today Israel has full direct and indirect control over the levers of the Palestinian economy. The military occupation complements it by allowing the Israeli state to exercise physical control over the Palestinians' everyday economic activity and expand the colonisation of Palestinian land. What does this look like on the ground?
In Gaza, 35 percent of the farmland falls within the so-called "buffer zone" designated and enforced as such by the Israeli army. Farming this land leaves people at risk of coming under live fire. Other farmland in Gaza has been periodically aerially sprayed with herbicides by Israeli planes which resulted, on one occasion in January 2018, in losses worth $1.3m.
In the occupied West Bank, most of the natural resources and most fertile land fall in Area C (61 percent of the West Bank) which is under absolute Israeli control. This includes 95 percent of the Jordan Valley, which is heavily cultivated by illegal Israeli settlements. Indeed the loss of access to Area C is estimated to cost the Palestinian economy around $480m per year and is responsible for the unemployment of 110,000 Palestinians.
The Bantustanisation of the West Bank further stunts economic growth by restricting freedom of movement both people and goods. Israel is in complete control of most of Palestinian infrastructure and is able to restrict access to it, as it pleases. For years, it curbed the development of mobile services by imposing various restrictions on it, including a ban on the introduction of 3G technology. One report estimated that as a result, Palestinian mobile operators suffered losses of between $436m and $1.5bn in the period of 2013-2015.
Israel also restricts Palestinian access to various roads and passes in the West Bank on an everyday basis. A World Bank study estimated that in 2007, the Palestinian economy lost $229m or six percent of its GDP due to the negative effects of the numerous Israeli checkpoints dispersed across the occupied territories.
In Gaza, Israel has upped the ante and imposed a complete blockade, restricting the entry of almost all goods. This has devastated the agriculture and the manufacturing industries and resulted in the unemployment of 50 percent of the population. In addition, the Israeli army bombs regularly the strip completely destroying basic infrastructure, rending the area uninhabitable by 2020, according to the UN.
As a result of the combined effects of economic and military occupation, the Palestinian economy is severely underdeveloped, local production diminished, unemployment skyrocketing and traditional sectors reduced to shambles.
Given the domination and privileges of the Israeli economy over the Palestinian one, the Palestinian business can neither compete nor produce enough to meet local demand. Israeli businesses are making money not only by dominating the Palestinian market and exploiting their privileged position, but also by using Palestinian labour rendered extremely cheap by the lack of native economic Opportunity.
As a result, many Palestinians find themselves in the unenviable position of being forced to buy goods produced by their occupier on land stolen from them with money earned in labour for occupying businesses and in currency imposed on them again by the same occupying forces.
Apart from entrenching Israel's dominance over the Palestinian economy, the Oslo Accords also produced a governing entity highly dependent on outside forces - the Palestinian Authority (PA). Under Western pressure, it has fully embraced neoliberalism and helped create an ever-increasing wealth gap within the Palestinian population, making life much harder for the Palestinian working class.
The PA's restructuring in its 2007 "Palestine Reform and Development Plan"' is an example of this par excellence. It was developed with the help of the World Bank and British Department for International Development (DFID) among others and introduced various damaging policies, including massive reductions in public spending. In 2015, only 16 percent of the PA's annual budget was spent on education, nine percent on health and one percent on agriculture, whereas 26 percent was dedicated to the security sector (which through its policy of coordination works with the Israeli occupation to suppress Palestinian resistance).
The restructuring also encouraged borrowing, increasing the indebtedness of the general population manifold. Currently, the private sector owes close to $2.8bn to banks, while private individuals have taken out loans worth some $3.2bn. Over the past 10 years, car loans have jumped sixfold from $40m in 2008 to $250m at the end of last year.
Thus, in Ramallah, the de facto capital of the PA, could easily be mistaken for a prosperous city with middle-class neighbourhoods full of plush villas and shiny BMW's. But this is just a facade for the devasting effects of neoliberalism and occupation on the Palestinian people.
The indebtedness of Palestinians also allows for furthering social control and depoliticisation. Today, some 150,000 Palestinians are employed by the PA and some 100,000 others work in Israel, many of whom have taken out loans. They all face the threat of losing their employment (and potentially their home, car, etc) if they are seen to be involved in "undesirable" political activities. The Israelis regularly rescind work permits for entire extended families if a member is found to be engaged in anti-occupation activities.
The result of all of this is not only increasing poverty and hardship, but also growing individualisation which has contributed to fragmentation and political polarisation within Palestinian society.
It is within this context that the Bahrain workshop was held. Whatever the outcomes, they will not "fix" the Palestinian economy because they would not address the main problem: the Israeli occupation. The colonisation and oppression of Palestine cannot be remedied with a depoliticised economic solution.
To Palestinians, it is clear that the "economic peace" that is on offer is just another attempt to buy them off. Even the PA and prominent Palestinian businessmen have rejected it.
Yet the workshop is a symptom of a much larger global problem. Systems of racial domination and capital work together to oppress; it is in their interest to ensure that politics are kept separate from the Economy.
In post-apartheid South Africa, liberation was not fully achieved because of the separation of politics from economics. While racial capitalism was an important part of the ideological discussions of the African National Congress, it restricted its own anti-apartheid agenda to the political and social spheres. It made significant concessions to the economic elites and embraced neoliberalism, which today is responsible for the gross inequality in South African society and the continuing suffering of the black urban working-class and rural populations.
To avoid repeating the mistakes of the past, it must be recognised that in Palestine, there can never be "economic peace" as long as Palestinians are being denied their rights. The world must join the Palestinians in rejecting Trump's deal and the Bahrain Workshop and reiterating that the only solution to the Palestinian question is a political one - i.e. the complete lifting of the Israeli occupation and the dissolution of its apartheid regime. Anything short of that is unjust and inhumane, thus, doomed to failure.
"Well, I did see him spit it out."
I am reminded of this story every time I hear Trump administration officials claim we cannot judge their "peace plan" or so-called "deal of the century" before it is fully released. But we don't need to wait. We have seen Washington spit out one hostile policy after another over the past two years that leave no doubt about its intentions to humiliate the Palestinians into submission.
From recognising Jerusalem as Israel's capital to closing the office of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) in Washington, to cutting aid to UNRWA - the UN agency for Palestinian refugees - and sanctioning if not encouraging Israel to annex more occupied Palestinian territories, the Trump administration is doing all it can to bestow international legitimacy on the Israeli occupation of Palestine.
As I said above, the official Arab order has failed miserably in dealing with Israel since its foundation as a "Jewish state" on the ruin of the Palestinian homeland seven decades ago.
They initially tried but failed to impose a solution by force, losing one war after another. Then they tried to reach a diplomatic resolution of the Palestinian question with Israel and failed again.
For over a quarter of a century, they erroneously entrusted the United States, Israel's closest ally, with managing the "peace process", and continued betting on Washington's goodwill despite its dishonest management and utter failure to bring peace.
And today, as fanatic Zionists Jared Kushner, Jason Greenblatt, and David Friedman spearhead the Trump administration's diplomacy and boast about their total and complete acceptance of Israel's most radical policies in Palestine, all the while refusing to share the details of their plan, Arab regimes are jumping on the Trump bandwagon against the advice and pleas of their Palestinian brethren.
In other words, having failed at solving or resolving the Palestinian issue, a number of Arab regimes are today willing, grudgingly or not, to eliminate the Palestinian cause once and for all.
But why would they betray Palestinian freedom so flagrantly, so cheaply, so humiliatingly?
Well, some like the Saudi, Emirati and Bahraini leaders are enthusiastically supporting the US deal in order to clear all hurdles to a trilateral strategic Gulf alliance with the US and Israel against Iran. Others, like Jordan and Egypt, are unable to say no to their US patron for fear of isolation or retribution, especially, when the Trump administration is offering financial rewards.
But mostly, it is because the predominantly undemocratic Arab regimes are primarily motivated by self-preservation, not national unity, security and interest. Palestine is a constant reminder of their utter failure. Having lost all popular legitimacy, national credibility and regional clout, these regimes are turning to the US for support and protection. And that comes with a hefty price tag.
Thankfully, the people of the Arab world share a different sentiment and different loyalty.
Throughout the past century of tectonic shifts in the Arab and Muslim worlds - from colonialism to pan-Arabism to Islamism and from awakenings to revolutions to counter-revolutions - Palestine has persisted as a symbol of resistance against oppression.
Arab and other Middle Eastern leaders have used the cause of Palestine for their own narrow interests, because of its popularity with the masses. Indeed, championing the cause of Palestine and Jerusalem, even if just rhetorically, has long bestowed a degree of domestic and regional legitimacy over their rule.
For example, the Ayatollahs in Tehran and Wahabi rulers in Riyadh may disagree on everything, except public support for Palestine and Jerusalem. After the Iranian Revolution in 1979, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini embraced the cause of Palestine and dedicated a special day in the Iranian calendar to celebrating al-Quds, Arabic for Jérusalem.
Similarly, over the past five decades, the Saudi rulers have sponsored various initiatives for Palestine, including in 2018 an Arab League meeting in Riyadh called the al-Quds summit - just a few months after their closest ally had recognised Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.
At the same time, those who have dared to publicly go against the Palestinian cause have paid the price with their lives: whether it is King Abdulla I of Jordan (d 1951), President Anwar el-Sadat of Egypt (d 1981) or President Bachir Gemayel of Lebanon (d 1982).
While many Arab leaders have been cunning or opportunistic in their approach to the Palestinian cause, the Arab masses have been unequivocally and unconditionally behind it - something the Trump administration is bound to learn the hard way.
Most Arabs, including second and third generation of expelled Palestinians, may have never set foot in Palestine or its capital Jerusalem for the obvious reason: the Israeli occupation. But the cause of Palestine and Jerusalem transcends geography and geopolitics; it transcends even the Palestinians as a people and Palestine as a homeland.
For decades, Palestine has stood as a symbol of resistance against foreign hegemony and domination, be it British, French, or American.
In the 100 years between Britain promising a Jewish homeland in Palestine in 1917, when Jews comprised less than 10 percent of the population, and the US recognising Jerusalem as the capital of the "Jewish state", the Arab and Muslim worlds have always associated Israel's expansion at the expense of Palestine with Western domination, and resented the West for it.
This has always been a source of endless antagonism against Western powers as well as unity. Whether it is Saudis and Iranians, Afghans and Pakistanis, or Islamists and liberals - no matter what Muslims might disagree about politically or ideologically, they are certain to unite behind Palestine, which constitutes a certain degree of threat against US (and other Western) interests in the region.
Like previous forms of Palestinian resistance, the Palestinian popular uprisings - Intifada - have inspired solidarity marches across the Arab world. Some of the young people, who cut their teeth in those protests after the second Intifada, went on to lead the demonstrations of the Arab Spring a decade later.
Long unable to express their grievances against their rulers, the Arabs have projected their dreams and aspirations onto Palestine. Time and again the so-called Arab street has risen in solidarity with occupied Palestine and in reaction to their own internal occupation.
It is no coincidence that today, when Arab unity is in disarray, and Arab regimes are at their most repressive stage, they are also most eager to appease the US. It is also no coincidence that those who stood against the Arab Spring are rushing to normalise relations with Israel.
As the Trump administration exploits general fatigue in Arab capitals in order to dissolve the Palestinian cause once and for all, it may well reunite Palestinians, Arabs and Muslims against its Middle East policies and lackeys.
It is only a question of time for US decision-makers to regret their reckless policy towards Palestine
I am reminded of this story every time I hear Trump administration officials claim we cannot judge their "peace plan" or so-called "deal of the century" before it is fully released. But we don't need to wait. We have seen Washington spit out one hostile policy after another over the past two years that leave no doubt about its intentions to humiliate the Palestinians into submission.
From recognising Jerusalem as Israel's capital to closing the office of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) in Washington, to cutting aid to UNRWA - the UN agency for Palestinian refugees - and sanctioning if not encouraging Israel to annex more occupied Palestinian territories, the Trump administration is doing all it can to bestow international legitimacy on the Israeli occupation of Palestine.
As I said above, the official Arab order has failed miserably in dealing with Israel since its foundation as a "Jewish state" on the ruin of the Palestinian homeland seven decades ago.
They initially tried but failed to impose a solution by force, losing one war after another. Then they tried to reach a diplomatic resolution of the Palestinian question with Israel and failed again.
For over a quarter of a century, they erroneously entrusted the United States, Israel's closest ally, with managing the "peace process", and continued betting on Washington's goodwill despite its dishonest management and utter failure to bring peace.
And today, as fanatic Zionists Jared Kushner, Jason Greenblatt, and David Friedman spearhead the Trump administration's diplomacy and boast about their total and complete acceptance of Israel's most radical policies in Palestine, all the while refusing to share the details of their plan, Arab regimes are jumping on the Trump bandwagon against the advice and pleas of their Palestinian brethren.
In other words, having failed at solving or resolving the Palestinian issue, a number of Arab regimes are today willing, grudgingly or not, to eliminate the Palestinian cause once and for all.
But why would they betray Palestinian freedom so flagrantly, so cheaply, so humiliatingly?
Well, some like the Saudi, Emirati and Bahraini leaders are enthusiastically supporting the US deal in order to clear all hurdles to a trilateral strategic Gulf alliance with the US and Israel against Iran. Others, like Jordan and Egypt, are unable to say no to their US patron for fear of isolation or retribution, especially, when the Trump administration is offering financial rewards.
But mostly, it is because the predominantly undemocratic Arab regimes are primarily motivated by self-preservation, not national unity, security and interest. Palestine is a constant reminder of their utter failure. Having lost all popular legitimacy, national credibility and regional clout, these regimes are turning to the US for support and protection. And that comes with a hefty price tag.
Thankfully, the people of the Arab world share a different sentiment and different loyalty.
Throughout the past century of tectonic shifts in the Arab and Muslim worlds - from colonialism to pan-Arabism to Islamism and from awakenings to revolutions to counter-revolutions - Palestine has persisted as a symbol of resistance against oppression.
Arab and other Middle Eastern leaders have used the cause of Palestine for their own narrow interests, because of its popularity with the masses. Indeed, championing the cause of Palestine and Jerusalem, even if just rhetorically, has long bestowed a degree of domestic and regional legitimacy over their rule.
For example, the Ayatollahs in Tehran and Wahabi rulers in Riyadh may disagree on everything, except public support for Palestine and Jerusalem. After the Iranian Revolution in 1979, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini embraced the cause of Palestine and dedicated a special day in the Iranian calendar to celebrating al-Quds, Arabic for Jérusalem.
Similarly, over the past five decades, the Saudi rulers have sponsored various initiatives for Palestine, including in 2018 an Arab League meeting in Riyadh called the al-Quds summit - just a few months after their closest ally had recognised Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.
At the same time, those who have dared to publicly go against the Palestinian cause have paid the price with their lives: whether it is King Abdulla I of Jordan (d 1951), President Anwar el-Sadat of Egypt (d 1981) or President Bachir Gemayel of Lebanon (d 1982).
While many Arab leaders have been cunning or opportunistic in their approach to the Palestinian cause, the Arab masses have been unequivocally and unconditionally behind it - something the Trump administration is bound to learn the hard way.
Most Arabs, including second and third generation of expelled Palestinians, may have never set foot in Palestine or its capital Jerusalem for the obvious reason: the Israeli occupation. But the cause of Palestine and Jerusalem transcends geography and geopolitics; it transcends even the Palestinians as a people and Palestine as a homeland.
For decades, Palestine has stood as a symbol of resistance against foreign hegemony and domination, be it British, French, or American.
In the 100 years between Britain promising a Jewish homeland in Palestine in 1917, when Jews comprised less than 10 percent of the population, and the US recognising Jerusalem as the capital of the "Jewish state", the Arab and Muslim worlds have always associated Israel's expansion at the expense of Palestine with Western domination, and resented the West for it.
This has always been a source of endless antagonism against Western powers as well as unity. Whether it is Saudis and Iranians, Afghans and Pakistanis, or Islamists and liberals - no matter what Muslims might disagree about politically or ideologically, they are certain to unite behind Palestine, which constitutes a certain degree of threat against US (and other Western) interests in the region.
Like previous forms of Palestinian resistance, the Palestinian popular uprisings - Intifada - have inspired solidarity marches across the Arab world. Some of the young people, who cut their teeth in those protests after the second Intifada, went on to lead the demonstrations of the Arab Spring a decade later.
Long unable to express their grievances against their rulers, the Arabs have projected their dreams and aspirations onto Palestine. Time and again the so-called Arab street has risen in solidarity with occupied Palestine and in reaction to their own internal occupation.
It is no coincidence that today, when Arab unity is in disarray, and Arab regimes are at their most repressive stage, they are also most eager to appease the US. It is also no coincidence that those who stood against the Arab Spring are rushing to normalise relations with Israel.
As the Trump administration exploits general fatigue in Arab capitals in order to dissolve the Palestinian cause once and for all, it may well reunite Palestinians, Arabs and Muslims against its Middle East policies and lackeys.
It is only a question of time for US decision-makers to regret their reckless policy towards Palestine
Cross Talk: TheDeal of the Century
IRAN
But by then, the villagers had wisened up and ignored his cries. With no one coming to help, the boy could do nothing to stop the wolf feasting on his flock. Aesop concludes: "There is no believing a liar, even when he speaks the truth."
Thinking of this fable today, one cannot help but wonder: Did Iran attack the Japanese tanker Kokuka Courageous with limpet mines - as the United States claims it did on June 13? Does the video the US army produced indeed prove the accusation?
Iran says it does not, and others have expressed doubts. So, who is telling the truth? Iran or the US and its accidental allies? And why does it matter?
The urgency of these questions is now a matter of war and peace, of life or death. After that accusation, the potential military confrontation between the US and Iran has increased exponentially. As the US and Iran inch ever closer to a military confrontation, the question the world faces at large is who to trust, what to believe, where to place our critical judgement?
As of June 10, by Washington Post's estimates, "President Trump has made 10,796 false or misleading claims over 869 days." That is probably a dictionary definition of a congenital liar. The newspaper further states: "The president crossed the 10,000 thresholds on April 26, and he has been averaging about 16 fishy claims a day since then. From the start of his presidency, he has averaged about 12 such claims a day."
In this context, it would be a mistake to judge the particulars of politics with the proverbial "Sunday School" sense of morality that is farthest removed from the abiding concerns of those who habitually lie. States, particularly the most powerful states, lie and these lies are for the best interests of the ruling elites in charge of those states.
From Vietnam to Iraq, the US has systematically and consistently lied to advance its own warmongering objectives. But the US is not the only state that lies habitually.
Right now, the interests of the US, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Israel all coalesce around targeting Iran and dismantling its share of regional power. Each one of these forces has its own internal reasons to wish Iran harm.
They, therefore, manufacture lies, exaggerate facts, take a smidgeon of truth and weave a long tale around it, all to turn Iran into a demon, the way they did with Iraq and Afghanistan in the past.
The US media is complicit in this charade. The Washington Post and the New York Times have stopped counting the lies Trump tells when it comes to the war with Iran.
The first casualty of war they say is the truth. That means all wars begin with a lie. Is the explosion of this Japanese tanker in the Gulf of Oman the lie that will result in yet another calamitous war in the region?
Today the fragile being of more than 80 million people is at the mercy of that piece of news for which John Bolton and Mike Pompeo have been gunning most of their political careers.
The regime of deception now code-named "post-truth" or "alternative facts" is predicated on what the French philosopher Guy Debord called "the society of the spectacle", where an image has assumed a reality of its own and it no longer matters what it actually means.
We see a ship burning and we read the story that the US imperial narrative ascribes to it and its media regurgitates. What actually caused that fire and what proof there is for the claim are all entirely irrelevant questions.
Three sources tell us Iran did it: the US, Saudi Arabia, and the UK. They all might be what we think them to be - habitual liars - but they might still be telling the truth that Iran did actually blow a hole in that ship. The problem is, as wise Aesop points out, "there is no believing a liar, even when he speaks the truth."
Let us take them one at a time. The US launched a massive military attack against Iraq and wreaked havoc in the region, all based on a blatant lie that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction - a lie that the Bush administration staged and the New York Times consistently collaborated. Under the current administration that habitual tendency of states to lie has been exacerbated by a man who has a very casual relationship with the Truth.
What about the UK? They also say the Iranians did it. They may very well be telling the truth. But we know for a fact that the British have a long colonial proclivity to tell lies to suit their interests. One such sustained course of lies was directed against democratically elected Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh during the CIA-MI6 military coup of 1953 staged against him. The BBC was integral in spreading fake news at the time.
Well, that is the past, you might say, today the UK is certainly the paragon of truth and justice. Indeed it might be, except that it recently chose to turn its back on the truth: "The UK refuses to back UN inquiry into Saudi 'war crimes' amid fears it will damage trade Britain's Middle East and North Africa minister Alistair Burt argued that the Saudi-led coalition itself should investigate any atrocities it committed in its conflict against rebel forces in Yemen."
Can we really trust a treacherous regime that has an equally causal relationship with truth and can turn a blind eye to facts when it suits its purposes?
What about Saudi Arabia, which too has claimed Iranians did it. Certainly, Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) could be a trustworthy source - except, he and his backers have repeatedly lied to the public in the face of facts about the tragic fate of slain Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi. The same Saudi prince - a favourite of New York Times columnists and President Trump's Zionist son-in-law - is chiefly responsible for a genocide in Yemen in which "85,000 children have died from starvation".
None of this is to exempt Iran from being part and parcel of the selfsame scene and engaging in its own game of lies. Despite the death toll in Syria surpassing half a million, it has continued to fabricate a story about supporting a "legitimate government", while Bashar al-Assad has continued in a sustained course of murderous mayhem. Indeed, the Iranian authorities may very well have planted that mine in the Japanese tanker.
The issue we face is not the guilt or innocence of any party involved, but, instead, the complete collapse of any moral authority standing on the side of Truth.
Nietzsche famously said: "Truths are illusions of which we have forgotten that they are illusions, metaphors which have become worn by frequent use and have lost all sensuous vigour."
In the Gulf of Oman, the truth has dived into the lowest depths of the sea in search of new, more convincing metaphors.
In view of US's common deceptions and Trump’s record as a pathological liar, his lack of impulse control and even a moral compass, there must be reasonable speculation on his sudden and unexpected reversal regarding the use of force.
In this sensible matter, there must be a strong mediator. The only person in the world who can act as agent of influence is Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The Russians in two previous crises over the past thirty years tried to convince the White House that the use of force in the Middle East and the Persian Gulf must be avoided. Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev believed he had convinced Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein to withdraw his forces from Kuwait, but couldn’t convince President George H.W. Bush of delaying the use of force. When the Russians were facing President Barack Obama’s possible use of force against Syria for crossing the “red line” regarding the use of chemical weapons, Putin and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov convinced Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry to stand down.
The Russians, unlike the Americans, have access to the leadership in Tehran and the two sides have coordinated policy on occasions in Syria. Putin himself would be placed in an awkward position if the United States were to use military force against a nation that the Kremlin supports that also happens to share a border with former Soviet republics. The Russians would not allow the United States to strike Teheran with impunity. Russia would gain a feather in its cap if it were to play a mediating role in the Persian Gulf.
PALESTINA
Hizbullah leader Sayed Hassan Nasrallah: “Some speak of rival regional powers. Some declare for example that today, the main power in the region is Saudi Arabia. But the leader of the enemy Axis, Mr. Trump, what does he say about the alleged major regional power that Saudi Arabia is? ‘If your planes take off without our help, they couldn’t land, they’d crash.’ ‘Without our support, you couldn’t stay in power for two weeks.’ ‘If we do not defend you, within a week, you will all speak Persian.’ But I do not understand how they could learn Persian in a week. They do not even know how to speak proper Arabic!”
The Intercept Brasil
O picareta Moro sabe que infringiu a lei inúmeras vezes para chegar ao Ministério da Justiça enlameado por seus mal-feitos. Ele apenas se achava intocável e que seus crimes contra a Justiça sempre permaneceriam em segredo, portanto, impunes como os dos malandros que protegeu.
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EU TAMBÉM! |
O picareta Moro sabe que infringiu a lei inúmeras vezes para chegar ao Ministério da Justiça enlameado por seus mal-feitos. Ele apenas se achava intocável e que seus crimes contra a Justiça sempre permaneceriam em segredo, portanto, impunes como os dos malandros que protegeu.
É por isso que muitos de seus apoiadores o abandonaram e que cupinchas saltaram do barco furado.
E é por isso que ele está usando a tática frívola e desesperada de questionar a autenticidade do material que ele sabe é real: porque a conduta em si não tem defesa.
Porém, conta com a ingenuidade de brasileiros incautos ou que preferem ver Lula crucificado do que encarar a verdade e punir os culpados do desrespeito com o nosso sistema judiciário.
Tenho cada vez mais vergonha de vir dessa classe privilegiada que quer que educação, saúde e cultura sejam ad eaeternam direitos exclusivos dela e que não digerem o "acinte" de um autodidata ser presidente da República e governar melhor do que os diplomados como eles. Talvez vejam a ascensão socio-cultural como perigo aos próprios filhos que apesar de todos os privilégios e portas abertas, só conseguem "vencer na vida" com pistolão e empurrão dos pais.
Graças a Deus! inteligência, determinação e perseverança não respeitam classe social.
Que os jovens das classes C, D, E, rompam as amarras sociais, as barreiras raciais, derrubem as fronteiras de seus bairros, estudem, leiam, sentem do lado do filhinho de papai na universidade federal - ou tome seu lugar, pois ele pena para passar no vestibular apesar dos estudos caros - e mude a cara desse nosso Brasil embranquecido a água sanitária e oxigenado!
Mas, cuidado! para, ao subir na escada social, não olhar para "baixo" com o mesmo olhar de desprezo que recebia quando estava tentando penando para galgá-la.
PERIGO: Usado no combate a larvas e insetos, a substância clorpirifós está em uso crescente no Brasil e deixa rastro nos alimentos e no corpo humano. Segundo monitoramento do Ibama, em 2009, foram vendidas 3 toneladas do produto. Oito anos depois, em 2017, as vendas ultrapassaram 6,4 toneladas.
Enquanto aumenta o uso no Brasil, o agrotóxico já foi banido por 8 países europeus e está em contestação em 6 estados estadunidenses. A União Europeia está pensando seriamente em não renovar a licença dessa substância tóxica em 2020.
AOS FATOS:Todas as declarações de Bolsonaro, checadas
VENEZUELA
