The Israel-Palestine Impasse

The Israel-Palestine Impasse: Analysis and Proposed Solution
by Edwin L. Young, PhD
Information Assembled from Various Sources from January 2002 to February 2010

It seems that there is a lose-lose situation with respect to the Israel-Palestine conflict. Yet, it seems, there seems to be something approaching unanimous agreement that some very strong intervention is necessary immediately. May I humbly make a suggestion?

Suppose the Arab League formulated a plan, with, possibly, Egypt taking the lead, to form a peacekeeping contingent to intervene in the conflict region. Suppose the plan proposed that Egypt attempt to get as many of the other countries as possible to join this peacekeeping effort. For example, our Secretary of State, or the Secretary General of the United Nations, could request that, in addition to the nations in the Arab League, the US, Russia, the EU, and even Japan, China, and India, and any other sympathetic country join the effort. Such a large and consensual representation could insert itself between all of the Middle Eastern Countries parties in conflict, especially Israel and Palestine. The parties in conflict should include Israel, the Palestinians, Hamas, Hezbollah, the Al Aqsa Intifada, al Qaeda, and any group in the region actively involved in aggression and acts of violence toward either Israel or Palestine.

In this case, the Arab League could be assuming a role in the Middle Eastern world that is similar to NATO’s in the Eastern Europe conflicts. This larger coalition would be enunciating a consensus that the blame game is not relevant, is over, no one is listening, and the only thing that matters is the end of the conflict and beginning of a formulation of a settlement. Recognizing that the Israelis and the Palestinians are never going to arrive at terms they can both agree to, this intervention would have to be very forceful and simply and unequivocally lay down the terms for a solution.

The problems the Palestinians have for survival and prosperity would have to be addressed. Something like a Marshall Plan could be formulated. The need for access to potable water, which will become even worse as time goes on, must be addressed. While a de-salinization solution has been thought to be too costly in the past, I suspect that, if world conflict were at stake, the engineers of the world could come up with a cost effect technique to secure potable water for the Palestinians. An additional and essential benefit would be a drastic reduction in the financial and human life costs to both states and to the entire world.

There is the crucial loggerheaded dispute between the Israelis vs. the Palestinians over the Israeli maze-like settlements scattered like flesh maiming glass shards throughout the Palestinian territory’s impoverished neighborhoods. All of the world leaders know and will not publicly admit that the Israelis are committed to the end of time to expropriate the entire Palestinian territory so as to assimilate it into their state and make it an indissoluble part of their Homeland (their fabled Biblical Promise Land).

On the other hand, the Palestinian’s demand for reoccupation of their stolen homes and territory also seems to be an insoluble issue.

To solve these problems, the above noted world leaders will have to think outside the box. Here is a suggestion. Suppose, this problem were to be settled for the two parties by designating a least-populated-area of an number of square miles equivalent to what they occupy now plus what the Israeli’s stole from them. This territory could extend from the West Bank to the Sea. Perhaps it could be from the northeast corner of the West Bank, and extend as a narrow strip along the borders of Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon to the Sea and include the Golan Heights as well. In addition, the Palestinians could give up, and I doubt with much regret, the Gaza Strip, civilization’s own little version of smoldering Gehenna or hell. Thus, Palestine would be geographically united and Israel would have a long Sea front and would no longer have to be concerned with the disputed Golan Heights. The dislocated Palestinians could be relocated to a new Palestine. To their commercial advantage, they would be inhabiting a strip from northern Palestine to the shore, which would grant them a port for merchant ships and trade.

If such a Marshall Plan were to include, not only rebuilding some old and building new Palestinian cities, but also constructing and developing homes, communities, and industrial developments along the strip to the Sea and adjoined to Lebanon and Syria as well as Israel. This would provide Palestine with water, a Sea Port for world trade, borders with four countries for trade, and living conditions commensurate with what they formerly had had. This would free the Palestinians from economic dependence on Israel and Israel’s exploitation of them for labor.

Each side would be giving up something, but perhaps nothing is worth never having any prospects for peace and security between the two of them and peace for the entire Middle East and even the rest of the world. The settlers could remain. They and the rest of the Israelis would know peace and security, while the displaced Palestinians would have a stretch of real estate that would be their own, would be Palestine as a nation among nations. It should be very valuable to them and therefore worth the exchange. Finally, the lands of the Gaza Strip and Golan Heights would be exchanged for their new Homeland. All of the tattered threads of the ancient dispute would be rewoven into a new tapestry.

However, this still leaves unsolved the tripartite, deeply rooted, divisive, hallowed-ground dispute over who has jurisdiction over the city of Jerusalem. Solution to the rivalry over this small, sacrosanct, archaic plot of earth doubtless would require some highly delicate and creative proposals and ingenious, statesmanlike maneuvering. One, perhaps unlikely, proposal could be that Jerusalem would be declared a District, like the District of Columbia or the Vatican See. Perhaps it could be declared an international treasure where all denominations of Jews, Muslims, and Christians could be scheduled by a joint authority to gather undisturbed to continue their religious practices and pilgrimages. Or, perhaps, it could be governed by a coalition of religious representatives as a testimony to each religion’s commitment to a principle of mutual respect. However it might be it to negotiate, something like this plan could be a win-win solution for everyone.

Finally, the Arab League, in conjunction with Israel, could develop something like training programs for young people from all countries in the Middle East as future peacekeepers. Such groups already exist in inchoate form. Such programs could operate cells in all of the Arab League countries and Israel. What better counter ploy to Al Qaeda recruitment efforts could there be. These groups plausibly could be merged with the US Peace Corps as well as with their counterparts from England, the European Union, and Asiatic countries. As time goes on, every country in the world could participate. This could be an ideal replacement of the US-centric Peace Corps. Youth from all over could exchange knowledge of each other’s cultures and gain international friendships. Hopefully, these groups would train all over the East and West and create a new sense of international understanding and unity.

The New Ploy in the Eternal Ruse of the Israeli Right Wing
by Edwin L. Young, PhD
June 2, 2009

Since the mid 1960s, after the Israelis dispossessed Palestinians of a huge number of their homes and property, the Israeli government began recruiting American Jews to inhabit them and the rest of the Palestinian “Occupied Territory” in what is now called the Settlements throughout the remaining Palestinian Territory. Since then, the Israeli government has promised to end the occupation and the expansion of the settlements. They have repeatedly promised to work for peace, and to create two states. They have promised to cease military incursions, aggression, razing homes and businesses, and to stop cordoning off the Palestinian neighborhoods into innumerable ghettos or virtual tiny internment camps.

The gullible, Pollyanna American public would happily accept the Israeli peace promises and initiatives. After a few months to a year, or so, the Israelis would engineer a pretext to resume their militaristic campaign to dishearten and drive out the Palestinians from Gaza and the West Bank.

Their vision of reuniting and restoring their biblically bequeathed Promise Land has never changed. Their goal has always been to move from suzerainty to expropriation of all of the Palestinian territory and finally, by driving out all Palestinians to neighboring Lebanon, Jordan, Syria, or even Egypt, to establish a one state solution, that of an exclusively Jewish Israeli nation. They are resolved to continue this cycle of going back and forth from brutalizing the Palestinians to mock peace proposals for a thousand years if necessary. They are sure that they eventually will win by wearing down and driving out the Palestinians while perpetually deluding the gullible US.

The Loyalty Oath Law and the Nakba Law are the latest new ploys in this irrevocably enduring stratagem.

For the Al Jazeera article on this topic see: http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2009/05/200952716164623556.html

PS The US fundamentalists and their belief in the Rapture and Armagedon unwittingly perpetuate this Israeli ruse.

PS 2 for a Middle Eastern perspective on the US financial crisis, see: http://english.aljazeera.net/focus/2009/05/200952792451540149.html

See:

Movie; Free Zone http://www.netflix.com/Movie/Free_Zone/70035175?lnkce=seBsLn&trkid=222336&lnkctr=srchrd-sr&strkid=1628987672_0_0 , Starring Natalie Portman

Several short Videos: http://anera.convio.net/site/PageServer?pagename=GazaReality

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Some background to the Israel- Palestine conflict, primarily over the decade 2000-2010; excerpts taken from Amy Goodman’s web site “Democracy Now.”

Israel, with hosts of tanks

Once again, the ludicrous appears as Israel, with hosts of tanks invading Palestinian territories, decries the Iranian shipment of anti-tank weapons. With no verification, the Israelis accuse the Palestinians of ordering the shipment. Of course, there are alternatives for the shipment’s destination. If the US made an unverified accusation such as this, the world would raise shouts of prejudice and injustice in unison. As we arm the Israelis in enormous excess to subdue the impoverished rock throwing Palestinians, we stand with sealed lips and listen to this outrage. Were we to be equitable in our relations with the Israelis and Palestinians, we would arm each party equally. Of course, I am not recommending this. However, I am recommending that we unseal our lips and call the game as any honest referee would. Please urge the State Department openly declare an accurate depiction of that dreadful, inequitable situation as the events unfold there.

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Israeli concept of Reciprocity:

Israeli lost Palestinian cost

One eye One eye, one, leg, one arm, one home

One person Ten persons and two homes

Ten persons Two hundred persons, one village razed

One hundred persons Two thousand persons, all villages razed

Israeli concept of racial equality: Israelis are God’s Chosen people and therefore superior to all other races.

Other nations should recognize that Israel has the medieval equivalent of the Devine Right of Kings: Israel can do no wrong; all acts of barbarism are justified, no matter what.

Palestinians, whose land and homes were confiscated and settled on by Israelis and whose Territory is under military occupation by Israel, the most heavily armed nation per capita in the world, and who are virtually devoid of self-defense, are terrorists and Israel is a victim.

But, hey, who’s objecting, the US is backing Israel? Right?

With these high moral credentials, Israel should certainly be granted the right to dictate to the UN how to conduct its investigation of possible Human Rights violations by Israel in the Palestinian Occupied Territory, Right?

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Eye for an Eye in the Israel and Palestine Conflict

I have been listening to the news about Haifa in Israel being bombed with rockets. I have to say that I have had enough of the Israeli policy of 12 eyes for an eye and the US policy of backing them no matter what. The whole world is suffering because of this one-sided justice. If parents had a child that was a bully and told him they support him no matter what, everyone would oppose those parents. Israel took the Palestinian land and homes around fifty years ago proclaiming it was their heritage, that God gave them that land and right to do so. They forced the Palestinians into that tiny ghetto and oppressed and impoverished them and expected them to just roll over and take it. For each act Palestinian retaliation for this they deliver 12, no 100 time more destruction and the world, the western world just sits there and says the Israeli's are right because the Palestinians, and now the Lebanese, are terrorists. No wonder the Arab countries hate us even more than they hate the Israelis. Our policies in the Middle East have been rapacious and cruel and exploitative for the last 90 years, ours and the British, and the world knows it. We should be tried in the International Court of Law.

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The Osterley Times & New Labours secret pro-Israeli stance

.The Osterley Times

Political commentary from a left wing perspective on current affairs. Either

written by myself or articles that I find interesting or provocative enough to

post. Covering The Iraq War, The War on Terrorism, George W. Bush, Tony Blair,

the Neo-Cons and politics in general.
Monday, May 14, 2007 New Labour's secret pro-Israeli stance.

Recently, whilst reading John Kampfener's Book, "Blair's Wars", I came across

the statement that Blair decided - after being schooled on the Middle East by

Lord Levy - to make New Labour pro-Israel. This is something that Blair never

made clear to the public, although it does go some way to explaining some of his

more bizarre decisions, including his decision not to condemn the Israeli

bombing of Beirut during the latest Israel-Lebanon war. It was a decision that

stretched his relationship with the traditional Labour party too far and led to

the coup that forced him to state that his speech to last year's Labour Party

conference would be his last.

It was the rock on which his Premiership perished.

Labour has always traditionally backed the Palestinians as the occupied people

rather than throwing their weight behind the occupiers, and many Labour MP's

were unaware - as were most Labour supporters - that Blair had decided to

reverse traditional Labour policy on this matter.

Indeed, it is only now that Blair is standing down that the influence that The

Labour Friends of Israel group has enjoyed in Blair's Downing Street is becoming

clear.

While Labour originally carried a reputation for having more voices

sympathetic to the Palestinians – especially during the Thatcher years – the

New Labour government of Tony Blair has reversed this orientation. Although

one of Tony Blair’s first acts after becoming an MP in 1983 was joining LFI,

the relationship truly developed in the early 90s, when as shadow Home

Secretary, Tony Blair met Michael Levy at a private meeting at the latter’s

house. Michael Abraham Levy is a former chairman of the Jewish Care Community

Foundation, a member of the Jewish Agency World Board of Governors, and a

trustee of the Holocaust Educational Trust. According to Andrew Porter of The

Business, Levy expressed his willingness “to raise large sums of money for the

party” which led to a “tacit understanding that Labour would never again,

while Blair was leader, be anti-Israel”. The partnership proceeded as Levy

started inviting potential donors for tennis at his palatial home where Tony

Blair would join them for a set or two. Levy would then proceed to ask the

guests for donations after Blair had left. The genius of Levy’s fundraising

strategy ensured that most of Labour's election funds came from private

sources, rather than its traditional source – the trade unions, thereby

weakening their say over policy.

Levy’s investment eventually paid off, with Blair’s accession to power. The

reward was not long in coming as Levy was ennobled and subsequently retained

as a “special envoy” to the Middle-East, leading predictably to the

development of a strong pro-Israel line. Given the fact that Levy has both a

business and a house in Israel and his son Daniel used to work for Yossi

Beilin – the former Justice Minister of Israel – speaks of a serious conflict

of interest, especially when he is the man assigned by Blair to negotiate

impartially with Palestinians and Israelis. The fact that Levy acted as a

fundraiser for former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak casts further doubt on

his capacity for impartiality. According to Neil Sammonds of the Palestine

Solidarity Campaign in 2002, Four of the previous five ministers with

Responsibility for the Middle East had been active members of LFI.

I find it simply astonishing that this change of direction has never been made

clear to the public or, indeed, to Labour's own supporters. Most Labour

supporters instinctively back the Palestinians in their struggle against

Israel's brutal colonial war and many would be shocked to discover that the

Labour party have deserted the Palestinians simply because they have found,

through Lord Levy and his contacts, a way to fund the party that circumnavigates

the unions.

I was also dismayed to discover that Gordon Brown is also a member of LFI which

means we can expect more pro-Israeli stances to be taken by New Labour when

Brown takes over.

And the LFI have also gone as far as to use their influence to intimidate the

BBC into adopting a pro-Israeli line when reporting on the Middle East.

LFI has used its influence to intimidate British media into adopting an openly

pro-Israel position. A recent study by the Glasgow University Media Group

revealed the systematic bias in BBC and ITV’s coverage of the Israel-Palestine

conflict which often reproduces the official Israeli narrative uncritically,

whereas very little time or detail is devoted to the Palestinian side[20].

Some, who dared to criticize the Israeli position have faced bans, as Faisal

Bodi, of BBC Radio 4’s The World Tonight did. According to Bodi, LFI members

play a "crucial propaganda role, carrying the flag for Israel in parliament,

and lobbying editors to toe the Israeli line".[21] Tim Llewellyn, a Veteran

Middle East correspondent for the BBC, has gone to the extent of calling BBC’s

reporting on the Israel-Palestine conflict downright “dishonest”. He has

attributed it to the “unremitting and productive” efforts by “Israel's many

influential and well organised friends”.[22] However, this still did not

preclude LFI’s Andrew Dismore from expressing “concern” about the BBC for

being “anti-Israeli and biased towards the Palestinians."[23] This charge

could not have been more frivolous given that BBC has referred to Jerusalem as

Israel’s ‘capital’ – a view otherwise shared outside of Israel by two out of

the world’s nearly two hundred countries.

Blair's unremittingly pro-Israeli stance was what finally caused the fissure

which ended his Premiership, with many Labour MP's and supporters simply baffled

by his reluctance to condemn Israel's illegal and inhumane attack upon the

Lebanese.

As it now transpires that this was an official policy and change of direction

that the public have never heard debated, we can only expect more trouble

amongst the rank and file once Brown comes to power.

The vast majority of Labour's supporters do not back the occupier in this

dispute and it is dishonest and underhand that New Labour are not making this

new policy clear to the people that they are asking to vote for them.

It is clear now that it was Blair's support for Israel that guided much of his

foreign policy and led to his alliance with Bush and the neo-cons regarding Iraq

and much else in the Middle East. The neo-con Middle East policy has been a

disaster, and the intervention in Iraq has been an even worse British folly than

Anthony Eden's intervention into Suez.

The British Labour Party are not supporters of the occupiers of the West Bank

and Gaza and it is dishonest if they are being led by people who are, without

those people ever making their views clear.

If Brown intends to continue to talk of "peace in the Middle East" whilst hiding

the fact that, like Blair, he secretly favours the Israelis, then he is bound to

come into the same conflict with the rank and file Labour members as Blair did.

And, like Blair, that is a rock on which he will perish.

Click title for source.

Tags: Blair, Lord Levy, Labour party, pro-Israel, Iraq war, Israel, Palestine

Posted by Kel at 7:23 AM

Labels: Blair, Brown, Iraq war, Israel, Palestine, UK politics

4 Comments:

Cassandrina said...

I am surprised that you find this a surprise.

Gordon Brown has already mentioned Jewish support twice to my knowledge and

New Labour have always tried to link Christians and Jews in the same context.

While I appreciate that there can be a world of difference between Jewish and

Israeli, many (not all thank goodness) prominent Jews in UK support Israel

including the Chief Rabbi (but not his brother I believe.

Another "surprise" this morning was when on the Today programme Edward Sturton

stated his surprise that the Iraq War had an influence on the Eurovision song

Contest - they really must get out more.

Cassandrina.

11:23 AM

Kel said...

It's the fact that most of the party support the Palestinians that surprises

me about Brown and Blair's stance. And the fact that it's hardly ever

discussed.

And thanks for the laugh regarding Eurovision. They're insane if they thought

this would be the first year that Iraq didn't have an effect.

6:32 PM

Jason said...

You make it sound like being pro-Israeli is a bad thing. I've never understood

this about Europeans and given Europe's history I generally have to believe

it's the result of deeply ingrained anti-Semitism.

It amazes the rational mind how you guys can be such staunch supporters of

people like this.

3:57 AM

Kel said...

Jason,

Israel are carrying out a brutal forty year occupation of another people's

land, that's why being pro-Israeli is bad for a Labour government. And your

anti-Semitic charge is as cheap as it is misguided. We all want to see Israel

live in peace, but she will never do so whilst she brutally exploits another

people and attempts to ethnically cleanse them from their own land.

And as for your YouTube clip attempting to paint the Palestinians as some kind

of monsters, there are plenty reasons to believe that both sides are passing

their hatred of each other on to their children.

From Amy Goodman’s February 26, 2010 “Democracy Now”:

http://www.democracynow.org/2010/2/26/headlines

Israel to Build 600 New Homes in East Jerusalem Settlements

In Israel and the Occupied Territories, the Israeli government has announced plans to expand settlements in occupied East Jerusalem. The Israeli newspaper Haaretz reports Israel will build another 600 homes in the Palestinian area of Shuafat. The head of the Palestinian Authority press office, Ghassan Al-Khatib, said the Israeli move would violate international law.

Ghassan Al-Khatib: “The Israeli decision today of licensing another 600 settlement housing units in the areas between Jerusalem and Ramallah is yet another Israeli violation to the international law and another challenge to the American-led international efforts to resume a political process. It will not prevent us, the Palestinians, from continuing our efforts to build the institutions of the state in all the territories occupied in 1967 and to continue our peaceful, legal, public struggle against the Israeli settlement expansion and occupation.”

Shrine Uproar Fuels New Protests in Hebron

Tensions meanwhile continue to mount over the Israeli government’s inclusion of two biblical tombs in Palestinian towns on a list of Israeli heritage sites. On Thursday, clashes erupted in the West Bank city of Hebron for the third time this week. Israeli troops fired stun grenades at a crowd of Palestinian and Israeli marchers. At the United Nations, Syrian ambassador Bashar Ja’afari criticized Israel on behalf of member states of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference.

Bashar Ja’afari: “The OIC group condemned this Israeli irresponsible, aggressive and provocative decision and held the Israeli government responsible for the repercussions, outcomes and results of this irresponsible act.”