By Wafic Faour, Burlington Free Press 5/13/2010
On March 12, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had a conversation with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and demanded that Israel freeze all settlement-building projects in East Jerusalem and begin to negotiate the issues of boundaries, security, refugee status and Jerusalem with the Palestinians and U.S. envoy George Mitchell.Netanyahu responded the following Monday during an APEC conference, stonewalling U.S. requests by saying that the Jewish people had built Jerusalem 3,000 years ago and claiming it as their capital. Meanwhile, U.S. Gen. David Petraeus has made it clear that if the Middle East conflict continues, American strategic interests and troop safety will be compromised.This is not the first time the Israeli government has defied American peace initiatives. Agreements brokered during the Oslo accord of 1991 under George H.W. Bush, Camp David peace talks by Bill Clinton and the Middle East Road Map negotiated with George W. Bush were also openly defied. The Israelis speak to the international community and the American people about peace and security while continuing to confiscate Palestinian land and divide Palestinian communities with a massive wall. This wall (funded by American tax dollars) prevents farmers from working their land, keeps business owners from their stores, divides students from their schools and weakens the institutions and legitimacy of the democratically elected Palestinian Authority. This amounts to an aggressive defiance on behalf of successive Israeli governments and has resulted in an ineffective and divided Palestinian Authority.Ten more years of this occupation policy will result in a complete degradation of the 1967 borders and with Palestinians holding no land worth negotiating for. Israel must accept the international laws and human rights of the Geneva Convention. If Israel does not withdraw to the 1967 border, then it should accept responsibility as an occupying power and give full citizenship to all the residents within its borders, including voting rights. Since the beginning of the Israeli occupation in 1948, Arab Palestinians have not had the right to organize their own political parties or institutions even though they form 20 percent of the population.If Israel continues the charade of a two-state peace solution, the possibility of a one-state solution grows more plausible. Why not put an end to the current apartheid policies of Israel and implement a truly democratic, one-state solution mediated by the international community and the U.S.? The United States has the means to apply pressure: $5 billion of taxpayer money each year goes to Israel. This is enough incentive to be heeded. Meanwhile, there is a growing grass-roots movement in the U.S. to divest from Israel, which signals an interest on behalf of the American people to finally end this miserable form of occupation.
Wafic Faour lives in Richmond
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