12 june 2019
By Ramona Wadi
The dangerous farce of finding a purported solution for Palestine continues. To detract from issues such as the ongoing forced displacement of Palestinians and the Palestinian right of return, a new twist has been added to the Bahrain summit – pitting Palestinian business leaders against the Palestinian people, who have been rendered politically invisible.
In an interview with the New York Times, US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman justified the summit by mentioning the aspirations of Palestinian business people. “There is almost no Palestinian business leader that wants to refrain from meeting with some of the largest sovereign wealth funds in the world, when the topic of the discussion is limited to giving money to the Palestinians,” he declared.
A “silent majority of Palestinians”, he said would embrace the so-called deal of the century, were it not for the Palestinian Authority’s refusal to engage with the Trump administration.
That Palestinian business leaders would wish to attend the summit should not elicit surprise, or provide justification for disapproving the boycotts against Israeli-US incentives. That said, it has also been reported that, contrary to Friedman’s claims, Palestinian business organisations refused the US invitation due to the absence of a political solution. Economic peace, they said, has not been successful “precisely because freedom and sovereignty for Palestinians was lacking.”
The aim of the conference is to unite investors against Palestinians. If Palestinians participate, the summit would achieve a milestone in consolidating the divide between social classes in Palestinian society.
Moreover, it would boost the US plans to completely eliminate Palestinian political demands by promoting and requesting adherence to a business model that will provide economic incentives for a select group of investors, while forcing the rest of the Palestinian population into circumstances necessitating even more humanitarian aid.
The outcome would be the US and the international community finding a viable model of cooperation to exploit Palestinians. All the rhetoric of opposing US President Donald Trump’s plan would no longer take precedence. Instead, the international community would have an easier time to market Palestine and Palestinians as a perpetual humanitarian project. And evoking the deal of the century or the two-state compromise will no longer be considered a contentious issue within diplomatic circles.
Trump’s plan illustrated the perpetual actions of scheming against Palestinian demands. The international community’s refusal to go back in decades, before humanitarian aid and Israel came into existence with disastrous consequences for Palestinians, are among the main reasons why a solution has not yet been found. Human rights are not profitable for the international community, but violations are.
These violations include depriving Palestinians of their legitimate right to return to all of their land – something which the US, the UN and the PA are in agreement about. Indeed the success of Trump’s plan, irrespective of whether it is implemented, lies in the fact that it is uniting the world against Palestinian demands, obliterating Palestinian history and isolating the Palestinian people against the growing trend of investment for the elite across the political spectrum.
- Ramona Wadi is an independent researcher, freelance journalist, book reviewer and blogger. Her writing covers a range of themes in relation to Palestine, Chile and Latin America. Her article appeared in MEMO.
The dangerous farce of finding a purported solution for Palestine continues. To detract from issues such as the ongoing forced displacement of Palestinians and the Palestinian right of return, a new twist has been added to the Bahrain summit – pitting Palestinian business leaders against the Palestinian people, who have been rendered politically invisible.
In an interview with the New York Times, US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman justified the summit by mentioning the aspirations of Palestinian business people. “There is almost no Palestinian business leader that wants to refrain from meeting with some of the largest sovereign wealth funds in the world, when the topic of the discussion is limited to giving money to the Palestinians,” he declared.
A “silent majority of Palestinians”, he said would embrace the so-called deal of the century, were it not for the Palestinian Authority’s refusal to engage with the Trump administration.
That Palestinian business leaders would wish to attend the summit should not elicit surprise, or provide justification for disapproving the boycotts against Israeli-US incentives. That said, it has also been reported that, contrary to Friedman’s claims, Palestinian business organisations refused the US invitation due to the absence of a political solution. Economic peace, they said, has not been successful “precisely because freedom and sovereignty for Palestinians was lacking.”
The aim of the conference is to unite investors against Palestinians. If Palestinians participate, the summit would achieve a milestone in consolidating the divide between social classes in Palestinian society.
Moreover, it would boost the US plans to completely eliminate Palestinian political demands by promoting and requesting adherence to a business model that will provide economic incentives for a select group of investors, while forcing the rest of the Palestinian population into circumstances necessitating even more humanitarian aid.
The outcome would be the US and the international community finding a viable model of cooperation to exploit Palestinians. All the rhetoric of opposing US President Donald Trump’s plan would no longer take precedence. Instead, the international community would have an easier time to market Palestine and Palestinians as a perpetual humanitarian project. And evoking the deal of the century or the two-state compromise will no longer be considered a contentious issue within diplomatic circles.
Trump’s plan illustrated the perpetual actions of scheming against Palestinian demands. The international community’s refusal to go back in decades, before humanitarian aid and Israel came into existence with disastrous consequences for Palestinians, are among the main reasons why a solution has not yet been found. Human rights are not profitable for the international community, but violations are.
These violations include depriving Palestinians of their legitimate right to return to all of their land – something which the US, the UN and the PA are in agreement about. Indeed the success of Trump’s plan, irrespective of whether it is implemented, lies in the fact that it is uniting the world against Palestinian demands, obliterating Palestinian history and isolating the Palestinian people against the growing trend of investment for the elite across the political spectrum.
- Ramona Wadi is an independent researcher, freelance journalist, book reviewer and blogger. Her writing covers a range of themes in relation to Palestine, Chile and Latin America. Her article appeared in MEMO.
11 june 2019
Son of prime minister tells U.S. conservative TV network that U.S. president is best friend Israel, Jewish people ever had in White House, says 'wall' along border with Egypt 'completely stopped' illegal immigration
U.S. President Donald Trump is considered a "rock star" in Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's younger son Yair told an American conservative television network on Monday night. video
Speaking to BlazeTV, the 27-year-old praised the president as "the best friend that Israel and the Jewish people ever had in the White House," citing Trump's decision to move the United States Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and to recognize the Golan Heights as Israeli sovereign territory, 52 years after the plateau was captured from Syria in the Six-Day War.
"He will be remembered in Jewish history forever for moving the embassy to Jerusalem and recognizing Jerusalem [as the Israeli capital] and recognizing [Israeli sovereignty over] the Golan Heights," Netanyahu said.
"The Jewish people still remember King Cyrus the Great from Persia who recognized Jerusalem 2,500 years ago ... so we have a long term memory and the vast majority of Israelis adore America and adore President Trump. He's a real rock star in Israel."
Netanyahu senior has previously compared Trump to Cyrus, the king who is credited with allowing Jewish exiles to return to Jerusalem from Babylon in circa 540 BCE.
Yair, who is described as a "social media activist," also compared the recently completed border fence between Israel and Egypt to the wall Trump wants to build between the U.S. and Mexico.
"We had a border with Egypt that [was] just open desert and we started having a... big flow of illegal immigrants crossing from Africa, because Egypt has a border with Sudan and then from there the rest of Africa and they would just walk from Sudan to Egypt and then right through the border with Israel and go all the way to Tel Aviv," he said.
"So they would just walk from third world countries into [a] first world country."
He added: "Israel is only eight million people, so tens of thousands even hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants eventually would have (lead) to the destruction of Israel. So in 2011 we built a wall, coast to coast, on the border with Egypt and since the wall was completed the illegal immigration has completely stopped."
Israel's border with Egypt is primarily comprised of fence and electronic sensors, rather than solid concrete. It has been extremely successful in stopping African migrants crossing the border, of which there were some 38,000 in Israel in January 2018, according to government data (Hebrew).
U.S. President Donald Trump is considered a "rock star" in Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's younger son Yair told an American conservative television network on Monday night. video
Speaking to BlazeTV, the 27-year-old praised the president as "the best friend that Israel and the Jewish people ever had in the White House," citing Trump's decision to move the United States Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and to recognize the Golan Heights as Israeli sovereign territory, 52 years after the plateau was captured from Syria in the Six-Day War.
"He will be remembered in Jewish history forever for moving the embassy to Jerusalem and recognizing Jerusalem [as the Israeli capital] and recognizing [Israeli sovereignty over] the Golan Heights," Netanyahu said.
"The Jewish people still remember King Cyrus the Great from Persia who recognized Jerusalem 2,500 years ago ... so we have a long term memory and the vast majority of Israelis adore America and adore President Trump. He's a real rock star in Israel."
Netanyahu senior has previously compared Trump to Cyrus, the king who is credited with allowing Jewish exiles to return to Jerusalem from Babylon in circa 540 BCE.
Yair, who is described as a "social media activist," also compared the recently completed border fence between Israel and Egypt to the wall Trump wants to build between the U.S. and Mexico.
"We had a border with Egypt that [was] just open desert and we started having a... big flow of illegal immigrants crossing from Africa, because Egypt has a border with Sudan and then from there the rest of Africa and they would just walk from Sudan to Egypt and then right through the border with Israel and go all the way to Tel Aviv," he said.
"So they would just walk from third world countries into [a] first world country."
He added: "Israel is only eight million people, so tens of thousands even hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants eventually would have (lead) to the destruction of Israel. So in 2011 we built a wall, coast to coast, on the border with Egypt and since the wall was completed the illegal immigration has completely stopped."
Israel's border with Egypt is primarily comprised of fence and electronic sensors, rather than solid concrete. It has been extremely successful in stopping African migrants crossing the border, of which there were some 38,000 in Israel in January 2018, according to government data (Hebrew).
David Friedman, the US ambassador to Israel, looks into Syria from the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. He has his eyes set on the occupied West Bank next
David Friedman, the US ambassador to Israel, has asserted that Israel has the right to annex West Bank land.
“Under certain circumstances,” Friedman told The New York Times, “I think Israel has the right to retain some, but unlikely all, of the West Bank.”
He put it differently in his 2017 Senate confirmation hearing when he declared he did not personally support Israeli annexation of the West Bank.
At the time, Senator Bob Corker, the committee’s chair, called Friedman out for changing positions leading the nominee to “recant every strongly held belief that you’ve expressed, almost.”
Yet it should come as no surprise to the US Senate that Friedman was not honest with them after years of fundraising to advance the Israeli settlement enterprise.
Friedman’s comment comes two months after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced just prior to the April Israeli election that he intended to annex parts of the West Bank.
Flawed Democratic responseSenate Democrats, unnerved at the impending Netanyahu and Trump-led foreclosing on the two-state solution, have pushed forward a resolution this month “noting that Israeli annexation of territory in the West Bank would undermine peace.”
Co-sponsors include presidential candidates Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren.
The resolution, however, is deeply flawed. Democrats are rightly expressing alarm at the prospect of annexation, but they embrace Israeli propaganda in noting that annexation would undermine “Israel’s future as a Jewish and democratic state.”
Such language is overtly racist and echoes the commonly expressed view in Israel that Palestinians, if given full rights, would constitute a “demographic threat” to Israel merely for being born and existing.
Indeed, Warren warned in February that “realities are bearing down on Israel, demographic realities, births and deaths.”
If Warren uttered the same words about, say, Latinos, in the US context, she would be rightly lambasted for Trump-like nativism and white supremacism.
Yet Warren, like other liberals, views segregating Palestinians and Israelis into separate entities – a “two-state solution” in which Israel would inevitably maintain all the real power – as the best way to solve what she sees as the problem of there being too many Palestinians.
The insistence on maintaining a Jewish majority – and therefore Israeli Jewish political power – at the expense of Palestinian rights is no different in principle than if Democrats, or Republicans, supported a white and Christian “democratic” United States of America.
Yet most 21st century Democrats would see such a “white and Christian democracy” as a farce, antithetical to bedrock Democratic principles.
But when it comes to Israel they fail to grasp the import of their own words and how a “Jewish and democratic state” is totally incompatible with the rights of Palestinians.
A similar resolution introduced in the House claims that “the United States has long sought a just and stable future for Palestinians, and an end to the occupation, including opposing settlement activity and moves toward unilateral annexation in Palestinian territory.”
Setting aside Democratic mythmaking that the US has seriously sought an end to the occupation and justice for Palestinians – when it has long helped finance the occupation and armed Israel during horrific military attacks on Palestinian civilians, while denying Palestinian refugees’ right of return – the House resolution has similar problems to the one in the Senate.
Representative Alan Lowenthal’s resolution, with its 122 Democratic co-sponsors, resolves to “ensure the State of Israel’s survival as a secure Jewish and democratic state.”
There is nothing there about a state for all its people.
Israel has effectively imposed an undemocratic one-state solution – in other words apartheid – and is on the path to formalizing it.
But members of Congress are still insisting on a two-state solution – without calling for any effective measures to hold Israel accountable for blocking it – rather than demanding that everyone living in the territories currently under Israeli rule be granted full and equal rights.
They are late to understand what is happening, indeed, they still do not even understand Netanyahu, President Donald Trump and Friedman are changing the fundamental realities on the ground toward entrenching the system of apartheid Israel has spent decades creating without anything more than verbal opposition from the United States and the so-called international community.
Partial annexation would leave Palestinians in their truncated and disconnected bantustans, but would kill the pretense that Israel ever intends to leave the West Bank. And it may well prove to be only another step towards a future Israeli goal: full annexation of all the land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.
Yet even partial annexation may leave Democrats slumbering and oblivious that Israel is hewing closely to South Africa’s bantustan model. In fact, members of Congress and some in the international community may be more likely to accept partial annexation because it would permit Palestinian municipal government over remaining Palestinian cantons.
Only one sitting member of Congress, Minnesota’s Betty McCollum, has had the courage to name the system Israel has created as apartheid. Her name is on the House resolution as well.
Trump and Netanyahu’s trial run with the Golan Heights certainly gives no reason to think that Democrats will rise to the occasion when it comes to similar moves against the West Bank.
David Friedman, the US ambassador to Israel, has asserted that Israel has the right to annex West Bank land.
“Under certain circumstances,” Friedman told The New York Times, “I think Israel has the right to retain some, but unlikely all, of the West Bank.”
He put it differently in his 2017 Senate confirmation hearing when he declared he did not personally support Israeli annexation of the West Bank.
At the time, Senator Bob Corker, the committee’s chair, called Friedman out for changing positions leading the nominee to “recant every strongly held belief that you’ve expressed, almost.”
Yet it should come as no surprise to the US Senate that Friedman was not honest with them after years of fundraising to advance the Israeli settlement enterprise.
Friedman’s comment comes two months after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced just prior to the April Israeli election that he intended to annex parts of the West Bank.
Flawed Democratic responseSenate Democrats, unnerved at the impending Netanyahu and Trump-led foreclosing on the two-state solution, have pushed forward a resolution this month “noting that Israeli annexation of territory in the West Bank would undermine peace.”
Co-sponsors include presidential candidates Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren.
The resolution, however, is deeply flawed. Democrats are rightly expressing alarm at the prospect of annexation, but they embrace Israeli propaganda in noting that annexation would undermine “Israel’s future as a Jewish and democratic state.”
Such language is overtly racist and echoes the commonly expressed view in Israel that Palestinians, if given full rights, would constitute a “demographic threat” to Israel merely for being born and existing.
Indeed, Warren warned in February that “realities are bearing down on Israel, demographic realities, births and deaths.”
If Warren uttered the same words about, say, Latinos, in the US context, she would be rightly lambasted for Trump-like nativism and white supremacism.
Yet Warren, like other liberals, views segregating Palestinians and Israelis into separate entities – a “two-state solution” in which Israel would inevitably maintain all the real power – as the best way to solve what she sees as the problem of there being too many Palestinians.
The insistence on maintaining a Jewish majority – and therefore Israeli Jewish political power – at the expense of Palestinian rights is no different in principle than if Democrats, or Republicans, supported a white and Christian “democratic” United States of America.
Yet most 21st century Democrats would see such a “white and Christian democracy” as a farce, antithetical to bedrock Democratic principles.
But when it comes to Israel they fail to grasp the import of their own words and how a “Jewish and democratic state” is totally incompatible with the rights of Palestinians.
A similar resolution introduced in the House claims that “the United States has long sought a just and stable future for Palestinians, and an end to the occupation, including opposing settlement activity and moves toward unilateral annexation in Palestinian territory.”
Setting aside Democratic mythmaking that the US has seriously sought an end to the occupation and justice for Palestinians – when it has long helped finance the occupation and armed Israel during horrific military attacks on Palestinian civilians, while denying Palestinian refugees’ right of return – the House resolution has similar problems to the one in the Senate.
Representative Alan Lowenthal’s resolution, with its 122 Democratic co-sponsors, resolves to “ensure the State of Israel’s survival as a secure Jewish and democratic state.”
There is nothing there about a state for all its people.
Israel has effectively imposed an undemocratic one-state solution – in other words apartheid – and is on the path to formalizing it.
But members of Congress are still insisting on a two-state solution – without calling for any effective measures to hold Israel accountable for blocking it – rather than demanding that everyone living in the territories currently under Israeli rule be granted full and equal rights.
They are late to understand what is happening, indeed, they still do not even understand Netanyahu, President Donald Trump and Friedman are changing the fundamental realities on the ground toward entrenching the system of apartheid Israel has spent decades creating without anything more than verbal opposition from the United States and the so-called international community.
Partial annexation would leave Palestinians in their truncated and disconnected bantustans, but would kill the pretense that Israel ever intends to leave the West Bank. And it may well prove to be only another step towards a future Israeli goal: full annexation of all the land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.
Yet even partial annexation may leave Democrats slumbering and oblivious that Israel is hewing closely to South Africa’s bantustan model. In fact, members of Congress and some in the international community may be more likely to accept partial annexation because it would permit Palestinian municipal government over remaining Palestinian cantons.
Only one sitting member of Congress, Minnesota’s Betty McCollum, has had the courage to name the system Israel has created as apartheid. Her name is on the House resolution as well.
Trump and Netanyahu’s trial run with the Golan Heights certainly gives no reason to think that Democrats will rise to the occasion when it comes to similar moves against the West Bank.
Dr. Hanan Ashrawi, Executive Committee Member of the Palestinian Liberation Organization, has offered her respected opinion to Newsweek, regarding the U.S. so-called “peace plan”, led by President Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner.
Ashrawi calls the trio of Jason Greenblatt, Jared Kushner, and David Friedman – “a group of ideologically driven men with personal ties to the U.S. president and Israel, no experience in world politics and no interest in international law or the universality of human rights.”
She calls the group “a lethal combination of religious fundamentalist and nationalistic bias… with views that align with the far right in Israel.”
The PLO Executive Member stated that Jared Kushner, the United States president Donald Trump’s son-in-law, “as head of the Middle East ‘peace’ team, is just one example of this unqualified and irresponsible group.”
She claimed Kushner supports and funds the Israeli occupation army, as well as funding “construction in the illegal Israeli Beit El settlement” near the central West Bank city of Ramallah.
Friedman too is accused of being invested in the illegal Israel settlements, heading “an organization called American Friends of Beit El.” Greenblatt’s personal ties with Trump and open allegiance to Israel is also exposed.
Ashrawi states “Trump’s ‘peace team’ is seemingly stuck in the colonial era, when the subjugation of other peoples was justified by the racist claim that they were incapable of governing themselves.”
She continued “In Palestine’s case, the international community has repeatedly and unequivocally recognized and reaffirmed this right for decades. But like his father-in-law, Kushner is obviously ignorant of the law and averse to facts.”
Dr. Ashrawi declared that “Kushner is voicing the dominant bias of this administration, which treats Israel with positive exceptionalism, rewards and bribes while singling out Palestinians for negative exceptionalism, bullying and exclusion.”
She lists the actions of the U.S. since Trump entered office;
1. “The unilateral and illegal decision to recognize Israel’s illegitimate annexation of Jerusalem was just the first in a series of hostile and irresponsible political and financial decisions—aimed not at achieving peace but at pummeling the Palestinians into submission and capitulation.”
2. “The administration also closed the Palestinian representative office in Washington, D.C., and the U.S. Consulate General in Jerusalem, which had served U.S.-Palestinian relations since 1844.”
3. “It discontinued Congress-approved funding to Palestinian civil society, hospitals and infrastructure, and then, following the advice of this “peace team,” it defunded UNRWA, the U.N. agency mandated to serve over 5 million Palestinian refugees.”
Lastly, Dr. Ashrawi affirms that “the Palestinian people are not begging for charity or seeking to improve the conditions of their captivity.” “Palestinians seek to realize their natural and inalienable right to self-determination, freedom, sovereignty and dignity—none of which depend on Kushner’s approval nor the administration’s endorsement.”
Ashrawi calls the trio of Jason Greenblatt, Jared Kushner, and David Friedman – “a group of ideologically driven men with personal ties to the U.S. president and Israel, no experience in world politics and no interest in international law or the universality of human rights.”
She calls the group “a lethal combination of religious fundamentalist and nationalistic bias… with views that align with the far right in Israel.”
The PLO Executive Member stated that Jared Kushner, the United States president Donald Trump’s son-in-law, “as head of the Middle East ‘peace’ team, is just one example of this unqualified and irresponsible group.”
She claimed Kushner supports and funds the Israeli occupation army, as well as funding “construction in the illegal Israeli Beit El settlement” near the central West Bank city of Ramallah.
Friedman too is accused of being invested in the illegal Israel settlements, heading “an organization called American Friends of Beit El.” Greenblatt’s personal ties with Trump and open allegiance to Israel is also exposed.
Ashrawi states “Trump’s ‘peace team’ is seemingly stuck in the colonial era, when the subjugation of other peoples was justified by the racist claim that they were incapable of governing themselves.”
She continued “In Palestine’s case, the international community has repeatedly and unequivocally recognized and reaffirmed this right for decades. But like his father-in-law, Kushner is obviously ignorant of the law and averse to facts.”
Dr. Ashrawi declared that “Kushner is voicing the dominant bias of this administration, which treats Israel with positive exceptionalism, rewards and bribes while singling out Palestinians for negative exceptionalism, bullying and exclusion.”
She lists the actions of the U.S. since Trump entered office;
1. “The unilateral and illegal decision to recognize Israel’s illegitimate annexation of Jerusalem was just the first in a series of hostile and irresponsible political and financial decisions—aimed not at achieving peace but at pummeling the Palestinians into submission and capitulation.”
2. “The administration also closed the Palestinian representative office in Washington, D.C., and the U.S. Consulate General in Jerusalem, which had served U.S.-Palestinian relations since 1844.”
3. “It discontinued Congress-approved funding to Palestinian civil society, hospitals and infrastructure, and then, following the advice of this “peace team,” it defunded UNRWA, the U.N. agency mandated to serve over 5 million Palestinian refugees.”
Lastly, Dr. Ashrawi affirms that “the Palestinian people are not begging for charity or seeking to improve the conditions of their captivity.” “Palestinians seek to realize their natural and inalienable right to self-determination, freedom, sovereignty and dignity—none of which depend on Kushner’s approval nor the administration’s endorsement.”
