Deciphering the White House Family Feud

In the past two weeks we have witnessed a great deal of press coverage of the escalating diplomatic row between Israel and the US over Israeli illegal

settlement construction in occupied Palestinian territory.

During my trip through the Middle East following the 2008 Presidential elections, I saw and heard a great deal of hope that the US would now play an evenhanded role in helping to resolve the regional conflicts. Following Obama’s Cairo and Istanbul speeches and his Nowruz (New Year) message to the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran, hope continued to rise.

Since then, however, the hopefulness has declined precipitously as conflict has continued unabated with no effective US response. Loss of hope is a likely precursor to violence, particularly if it follows increased expectations.

Given this dynamic, I am confused as to why the Obama administration has chosen this time and this issue to instigate a diplomatic confrontation. Last year the US lost a lot of credibility when, after demanding a complete settlement freeze and having Prime Minister Netanyahu refuse and publicly stonewall, the US backed away. Secretary of State Clinton called Israel’s partial slow down of settlement construction “unprecedented”.

The US administration has since ignored such Israeli actions as its murder of a Hamas official in Dubai, its passport identity theft of British, French, German, Italian, and Australian citizens, its use of US financial institutions to produce fraudulent charge cards, its killing of Palestinian protesters and its continued settlement construction. Why pick the announcement of 1600 new settlement units while VP Joe Biden was visiting Israel to instigate a major diplomatic crisis?

Perhaps the former senior Senator from Delaware was embarrassed. I know US senators have big egos, “but really”.

Perhaps the US was upset that Israel created a distraction just as the US was trying to mobilize international support for a confrontation with Iran.

Whatever the reason, now that the crisis with Israel has occurred, Obama had better be prepared to “win”. Backing down again will destroy any remaining credibility that the US has in the region and eliminate any chance for the US to be a force for a peaceful solution.

Never start a conflict that you can’t win. We should have learned that in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Technorati Tags: Israel,Palestine,Obama,Biden,Netanyahu

My Name is Rachel Corrie

Today is the 7^th anniversary of the death of Rachel Corrie, a 23 year old American activist who was crushed by an Israeli bulldozer while attempting to prevent the destruction of a Palestinian home in Rafah, Gaza. Last week our local community theater presented a dramatic reading of the play “My Name is Rachel Corrie”, which uses the diaries and writings of this young woman to tell the story of her efforts to stand up for the oppressed.

For any organization to present this work in the US requires a great deal of courage. When the work was first produced in New York City in 2005, pressure by some in the pro-Israel community resulted in the cancellation of the production. The same kind of pressure manifested itself here. The theater company was publicly attacked for providing a venue for anti-Israel propaganda and, while acknowledging the criticism, chose to go forward and defended their right and obligation to provide a venue for works that promote dialogue on controversial subjects.

The one woman play, while set in the context of Israel/Palestine, could have been as easily set in any country where the government is attacking its population with the goal of destroying their livelihoods, homes and lives. No two situations are completely analogous, but Darfur, Sudan comes to mind.

At a time when the US is extremely unpopular in the Arab and Muslim worlds, Rachel Corrie is held up as an American hero. I have seen her image in a mosaic in a Catholic Church in an Arab town in Israel alongside martyrs of the early church. When asked about how he felt about Rachel being singled out as a heroine when so many Palestinians had died in the same cause, a Palestinian friend said that he thought it was right. “We are stuck in this situation and have no choice. She made a choice to stand with us.” In a recent interview, Khaled Nasrullah, who lived in the home Rachel was defending said, “Rachel really changed our fundamental ideas. Sometimes we believed that Western people were fully supporting the Israeli side and did not have feelings for us ...”

Shortly before she died Rachel told her Gaza story in this interview

I had read the play before seeing it last week, but it didn’t come alive for me until I saw the performance. If it is “coming to a theater near you”, I strongly recommend it.

Technorati Tags: Rachel Corrie,Israel,Palestine,Gaza

Good News from Israel/Palestine

Last week I attended a conference sponsored by the Arthur B. Schultz Foundation Social Micro-enterprise Initiative (SMI). This organization (Their web site is here) provides loans to small and medium sized businesses in Kenya, Vietnam, Ghana, Nicaragua and Palestine. These businesses are too big for micro-credit and too small to access the private credit markets. The loans are paid forward through charitable donations rather that paid back to SMI.

Zeina, the young Palestinian woman who was responsible for selecting and monitoring the participating businesses on the West Bank, described the difficulties that these business men and women have in building their businesses. For these companies an export market is the neighboring town and, because of Israeli checkpoints, they have more difficulty accessing these markets than most companies have exporting to China.

During the discussion, I commented that, despite the difficulties, these projects were important for improving the lives of ordinary Palestinians as the idea of viable independent Palestinian state should be “consigned to the dust bin of history”. I have long ago concluded that given the “facts on the ground” created by Israeli roads and settlements a contiguous, viable Palestinian state is impossible. (See the map of the West Bank)

That evening at dinner, I asked Zeina if she agreed with me. She said “A Palestinian state went down the drain a long time ago.” She also said that most Palestinians agree and that the only reason that the Palestinian Authority doesn’t acknowledge this fact is that they want to hang on to power with all of the accompanying perks.

The good news is that, this week, we moved closer to the inevitable reality of a bi-national state in Israel/Palestine. During VP Joe Biden’s visit to the region, the Israeli government greeted him with announcements of the construction of 1600 housing units in Arab East Jerusalem and over 400 units on the West Bank. Eventually the rapid growth of Jewish settlements and infrastructure will force even the US and other western governments to conclude that a Palestinian state is impossible.

As former Israeli government official Uri Dromi points out in this NY Times op-ed piece, all the Palestinians need to do is to wait patiently until they are in the majority and the international community forces Israel to dismantle its apartheid regime. With a majority in the Knesset, they will be able to allow return of Palestinian refugees in the diaspora and Israel will cease to be a Jewish state.

If construction continues at the rate that it has in the last year, it may actually happen in my lifetime. Short term pain for long term gain.

Technorati Tags: Israel. Palestine,Joe Biden,Israeli Settlements,Middle East