Letters to the Editor
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You're right, of course..
..this peace plan is a charade, never meant to succeed.
Note that countries like Saudi Arabia use the plight of the Palestinians as a rallying cry. But they could do much more in practical matters, if they had the will.
Why exactly were all these countries even invited? This is political machinations at the highest level.
But you neglected to explore the option that Bush is just delusional. Maybe he actually *believes* that he is bringing peace to the middle east.
He *is* a man of faith after all. Or so he claims.
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for the record...
there will be no peace while the zionists defend a religious state of israel. peace will happen when the u n watches the transformation of israel and the occupied territories into the secular state of palestine.
i would claim this is obvious to anyone, if justice was the goal. but apparently it is not.
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Bush is Everybody's Worst Enemy
Anyone who aligns with an idiot suffering from a Messianic complex is doomed. While it is true only America can bring about anything remotely like Kamiya's "best case scenario", and it is equally true, at least right now, that Olmert is the only one who can front such an effort, the whole current plan is driven by the idiot would-be Messiah, and nothing will move forward until Bush is out of the driver's seat.
The best the world can hope for (and it is the world's concern, not just that of America, Israel and whatever is to become Palestine) is that no greater harm is done in the interim. If this "plan" is pushed forward, with no tracks and no arc to follow, a worse-case-than-now scenario will unfold and it will likely involve a key assassination taking place inside Israel.
I think we know who the assassin will take out; the real question then becomes (for purposes of prevention) just to whom the assassin will belong, in whose pay he will be.
The party (or parties) with the most to lose by "peace breaking out" in the middle east would be the sponsor or sponsors of such an assassination, the author or authors of such an atrocity, was/were in the State House in Annapolis. We know the name or names. We know the rhetoric. We know the Big Lie by heart.
Hamas would take the fall for the killing -- and far too many would be overjoyed to accept this verdict without a trial or even an investigation.
Gary Kamiya has, once again, placed the King's X accurately. Anyone who can read between the lines knows what is likely to happen as the "roadmap" is followed: someone's blood will have to be spilled to derail the ultimate success of a real peace process being fulfilled between Israel and Palestine. We all know who will be responsible for this dream's deferral.
Forewarned is forearmed. We must first, however, be willing and able to hear and recognize the warning.
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Bush's Middle East Charade
You could tell from the outset that Bush wasn't really "into" this potentially historic conference: he couldn't be bothered to spend 10 minutes before the photo-op to brush up on pronouncing the names of the participants.
Then he left them to it, taking off to do something else that interested him more.
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Even Olmert admits that Israel's worst nightmare is ful enfranchisement
He admits that it is the position of Israel to maintain a pseudo-democracy where only members of one religious group have rights.
What I can't understand is why Americans keep supporting this plan, which was put in place after an ethnic cleansing (in 1948) and an occupation (1967) and has been upheld by brutal policing and the open-air prison scheme Mr. Kamiya mentions.
What part of "oppression isn't democracy" are Americans not seeing?
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Here's my beat-case scenario
and it is more realistic than what Mr. Kamiya proposes.
In a few years, Israel develops a missile shield capable of intercepting Palestinians' rockets. Having resolved the security issue without Palestinians' help, Israel can finally leave West Bank, the same way they left Gaza. Of course, they will get nothing in return, because Palestinians don't want to give up any of their 'rights,' the biggest of them the Right of Return. This is the convergence plan that Olmert wanted to do when he came to power, but could not after it became clear that Palestinians will start shooting from the West Bank right at his office in Tel-Aviv. This status quo will still not satisfy Mr. Kamiya or Gideon Levy, but I don't see how this can possibly lead to a situation, where Palestinians can legitimately demand equal voting rights.
There is one thing Mr. Kamiya forgot to mention, and it is Israeli recent rhetorical demand of Palestinians to recognize Israel as a Jewish state, as an implicit recognition that they will have to give up the demand of the Right of Return for all the Palestinian refugees. So far, the Palestinians, including Abbas and the enlightened and moderate prime-minister Fayad, not to mention all their negotiators, categorically refused.
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I just watched the documentary "Death in Gaza"
It was made in 2003. Most of the documentary consists of interviews with children in Rafah, a town in Gaza. The children have bought into the martyr mythology -- the idea that if you die fighting Israel, you are a hero. A really cute 5-year-old girl says that Jews are "the sons of dogs." These are children. Their parents don't necessarily agree with this, but it's a pervasive element of their society. It's inescapable. Israeli tanks regularly intrude in their world, knocking down their homes. Palestinian children throw rocks, even crude grenades. They make toy machine guns out of wooden stakes nailed together and painted black. They throw rocks at bulldozers and some of them end up shot, at age 10 or 12, by IDF snipers or the Bedouin Arabs hired by Israel to patrol the borders. The Israelis knock down the Palestinians' crude homes, clear areas of dirt under the guise of eliminating border tunnels (shades of Nogales, Arizona or San Ysidro, California), and then move their border fence ever closer, effectively annexing land -- lots of land in the long run.
"Death in Gaza" ends on a particularly disturbing note. The videographer who shot all the footage dies when he is shot in the neck while waving a white flag. It was on his last day of filming. His name was James Miller, an Emmy-winning BBC videographer who covered conflicts in Afghanastan, El Salvador and elsewhere.
Watching this documentary made me sick to my stomach. The overall picture is that these people (the border Palestinians) live in a world of shit. They try to make sense of their daily life, but it's total hell. They're fucked. Some people blame them for that, but that's all too easy and lazy. They - are - fucked. The culture of martyrdom, and especially radical Islam, doesn't help, but it's all they have. Their religion is their only sense of power and identity that gives them anything to feel proud of. They have no economy, little potential for getting out of their utterly desperate situation. Expecting them to change overnight is idiotic.
I don't blame Israeli citizens, but I do blame the Israeli government. I blame Zionism for the completely arrogant idea that Israelis have a God-granted right to the ownership of that land. Israel is pathologically incapable of doing the right thing, which is this: Give back large quantities of land. Force out settlers. Reverse course completely. Israel has the power and the money to do this. They can take a bath on the real-estate. They can maintain ownership of key infrastructure (water) with a fair plan for shared usage. They can do this -- they have the power, money, and brainpower -- but they won't. There is too much pride, too much racism, too much built-up hatred.
If Bush really wants to help, he would work closely with the United Nations. He would set up an international coalition that would be granted the authority to impose stark reforms on the entire area. Israel's nationhood would be contingent on their cooperation. So would Palestine's. Outside forces would impose order on ALL of them. Israel cannot be trusted to do the right thing, and Palestine is too splintered and, let's face it, ignorant to even begin to do the right thing.
For Bush to set up this meeting is like setting up two children -- one an irredeemable bully, the other a dirty-fighting underdog -- and saying, "Okay kids, make peace! I'll be back in 30 minutes to check on you!" It's absurdly inadequate. We've all been through this before.
And the citizens of the U.S. need to PAY ATTENTION to what's happening in the Middle East! We need to hold Israel ACCOUNTABLE for everything they do! We are paying them well over 4 billion dollars a year! Israel's military operations are completely, inextricably tied up in our own efforts there. The war with Lebanon? Rubber-stamped by the U.S. We should be all over Israel's ass to do the right thing, which is to CEDE LAND BACK TO THE PALESTINIANS. Ever heard of "right of return"? It's an international agreement. Israel is bound to it but avoids it at every turn, and officials like John Bolton are complicit in making sure that they are never held accountable. There is so much corruption in this whole situation, it's amazing.