I’m continuing to pull together and crystallize the many things I learned on my just-concluded trip. My big bottom line is an enhanced understanding of why the still-current US approach to the Palestine Question of “West Bank First/ Fateh Only” will not and cannot work.
Firstly, “West Bank First” hasn’t worked thus far, and if current circumstances continue to prevail there is no hope it can be made to work. The problem in Ramallastan is not a lack of funding. It is actually that in a situation of the political incoherence of Ramallastan’s political leaders, Israel’s continued tight quadrillage of the whole of the West Bank, and the complete non-performance of the final-status negotiations with Israel, more funding going to Ramallah only further fuels the corruption there, which only makes the whole WBF strategy less, not more, workable.
(We need to discuss what would constitute the WBF strategy “working.” From the point of view of its American advocates, they would consider that it “works” if it strengthens support for Fateh and reduces support for Hamas. From the point of view of the West Bank’s 2.5 million people, it would “work” if it made their lives better or at least bearable. For the vast majority of them, it hasn’t.)
Secondly, the “Fateh Only” prong of the WBF/FO strategy. Hillary Clinton, her coterie, and their predecessors in the Bush administration clearly thought “Fateh” was, or could be revived into being, a coherent political organization. It is not and cannot be. Indeed, the continued injection of US and US-mobilized funds into Ramallah has only hastened and aggravated the political implosion of Fateh.
… And now, as its response to the suffering of the people of Gaza, the Obama administration is about to pour an additional $600 million into Ramallah??
Talk about bizarre and wrongheaded.
My main hope at the moment is that Hillary Clinton is only a sort of unthinkingly holdoverish, default-mode epiphenomenon in Obama’s diplomacy and that someplace in the bowels of the Old Executive Office Building– or wherever else he has established his office since Dennis Ross kicked him out of the seventh-floor suite in the State Department– Sen. Mitchell is right now sitting down with his aides to craft a very different and much more effective policy towards the Palestinians.
I’m judging that the Prez may well not want to come out with a final policy toward the Palestinians until he sees exactly what kind of a government Netanyahu is going to put together in Israel. I’d urge him not to wait on this. With or without Livni in the Israeli government (and the Obama-ites evidently still hope it can be “with”) we can’t expect any real change either in Israel’s policy toward final-status issues or in its actual, extremely stifling, coercive, and land-grabbing practices in the West Bank. Or, come to that, in its harshly punitive, inhumane, and illegal practices toward Gaza.
Anyway, the main driver of Washington’s WBF/FO policy has always been, ever since its inception under Prez. Bush, to continue the exclusion of Hamas from the political/diplomatic process. It really hasn’t been because they “love” Abu Mazen, or because they actually support the establishment of a viable Palestinian state in just about the whole of the West Bank (and later, also Gaza), with only minor territorial adjustments made in a very small number of places… No, it’s been to continue to keep out of the political process the party that won the PA’s last legislative elections back in 2006, and that has a good shot of winning the next round, too.
WBF/FO hasn’t “worked”, and cannot work. A new policy is needed. How about… (gasp!) a real commitment to finding a way to recognize the political realities in Palestinian society and include Hamas in the political process, instead??
Can this be done? Yes we can.
17 thoughts on “Palestine: Why WBF/FO won’t work”
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It seems to me, Helena, that opposition to groups like Hamas is based first and foremost – but not only – on the view that such groups do not have interests limited to Israel. Which is to say, Hamas is perceived as an enemy of the US and, evidently, also of Europe. Even if the inclusion of Hamas would result in a two state solution (rather than a mere truce) – something I really doubt -, the US would still oppose it because the US does not see supporting transnational Islamist politics as being in the interest of the US.
There is also no real indication that Hamas wants to end the dispute, only to initiate a cease fire. That position represents a major step backwards in solving the dispute. So, the inclusion of Hamas in the “peace” process would effectively set negotiations back to the beginning point.
Lastly, groups like Hamas represent anachronistic politics. Large numbers of Arabs may want to live under anachronistic political system but the reality is that such a system is quite incapable of dealing with modern day problems. And, that means the success of groups like Hamas will lead to even more, not less, instability in the Arab regions. So, the US and the rest of the world has a real stake in not legitimizing groups like Hamas.
“Lastly, groups like Hamas represent anachronistic politics.”
It looks like somebody thinks that They are an Empire still and when They act They create Their own reality — like it says in the Gospel Accordin’ to Karl.
Here on Terra, however, Hamás is obviously an exciting innovation as compared to tired old Fatah. Secular nationalism is out, faith-craziness is in. (Haven’t you heard?) Neocomrade N. Friedmann rather overestimates the craziness when she speaks of “transnational Islamist politics,” yet one cannot exaggerate what one is unaware of.
Evidently the fiends of the Islamic Resistance Movement have failed to pull the wool over the vigilance of N. Friedman and persuade her that they can not be ‘anachronistic’ merely because they are new. That subtlelty might count for a little, if only one were quite sure that ‘Islamic’ and ‘anachronistic’ don’t automatically travel together for N. F. Plainly they do so with the bulk of our jihád careerists, for whom Mr. Bin Ládin and Dr. Zawáhirí are figures straight out of Century I/VII, all boxcutters to the contrary notwithstanding.
Happy days.
We need to discuss what would constitute the WBF strategy “working.” From the point of view of its American advocates, they would consider that it “works” if it strengthens support for Fateh and reduces support for Hamas. From the point of view of the West Bank’s 2.5 million people, it would “work” if it made their lives better or at least bearable. For the vast majority of them, it hasn’t.
US might have delayed in salvaging a two-state solution
Peace Now’s revelation this week that Israel plans to build more than 70,000 homes in the West Bank is the latest in a string of troubling disclosures about settlement expansion.
According to the report, about 73,000 homes – most still on the drawing board but 9,000 of them already built – would double the current population of nearly 300,000 settlers in the West Bank (an additional 220,000 are in East Jerusalem).
Of those homes, nearly 20,000 would be built beyond the limits of the steel and concrete barrier Israel is erecting mostly inside the West Bank and which is widely assumed to be Israel’s vision of its future political border with a Palestinian state. Another 3,000 would be built in a corridor of land known as E1 that would seal off Palestinian access to East Jerusalem, and about 6,000 are planned for East Jerusalem itself, the only viable capital for a future Palestinian state.
Who says WBF is not working? I think you’re confused as to what the goals of the US/Israeli Axis actually are in the WB, Helena. The goal is to incorporate the WB into Israel. First. And then Gaza.
Mrs Clinton has made clear that she wants to push negotiations with the Palestinians “vigorously” in the direction of a two-state solution…
What Clinton wants to “push vigorously” down Palestinian throats is their acquiescence to the Israeli takeover of their territory. The final solution is at hand. They need to accept the “fact” that they have been deserted by the world, certainly by the US and its present regime, and that they need to take whatever is offered by the US/Israeli Axis because what’s offered is only going to shrink.
I’m judging that the Prez may well not want to come out with a final policy toward the Palestinians until he sees exactly what kind of a government Netanyahu is going to put together in Israel.
The Prez came out with his final policy toward the Palestinians on 4 June 2008. They don’t count. They’re over.
WBF/FO hasn’t “worked”, and cannot work.
But it is working, exactly as planned.
My parents were right when they told me: Travel broadens the bottom.
There will be no peace until the illegal Jewihs presence is removed from Palestine. Pre or post 1967, doesnt make any difference, because the original crimes are 1948. I call on Christianity and Islam to come together based upon the doctrines of supercessionism, in which the Jews were rejected because they rejected Christ as a common thread in fighting Jewish claims on Palestine
It’s past time to STOP making exculpating assumptions about why Obama is failing to correct Bush’s foreign policy. In fact, it’s time to observe that Obama isn’t even going in the right direction. He’s going in the wrong direction and he’s getting worse.
Can you just once listen to yourself? You say that maybe he’s waiting on Netanyahu. That’s crazy on the face of it. For one thing, it would be very bad and very silly policy for the superpower to somehow wait in attendance on the whims of its client state. Secondly, we have a pretty good idea of what Netanyahu is going to do and we DON’T have to wait and see. If Obama were choosing to wait and see, it would only be as an excuse for continuing to refuse to correct the direction of Bush’s policy, the direction of the American Political Establishment, the continued unconditional support for Israel’s increasingly nakedly brutal policy.
Helena, thanks for clarifying so much with this analysis. Alas, I fear you are overly optimistic about Obama and what is likely to happen with his administration. I suspect, as I have since the beginning, that the best we can hope for is something Clintonesque – an appearance of an attempt at an endeavor to come up with a resolution while giving a wink and a nod to Israel’s continued colonization and slow, quiet ethnic cleansing in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, and its choking to death of Gaza. No matter how people have tried to spin Clinton’s remarks, she sounded more like Condi Rice than not.
And the ease with which the Zionist lobby and its cohorts killed off Chas Freeman makes any positive expectation seem illusory at best.
Helena – I admire your comments on the situation, and have been following them for months, if not years.
‘Can this be done? Yes we can.’ you say.
This is a slick politician’s sound bite. Worth no more than a hawk and a spit.
Ok, Obama may be black and plausible. That doesn’t make him either a saint or a revolutionary.
He’s as much trapped by this shitty little Levantine country’s lobby as anyone else.
I didn’t realise quite how much Israel is just another shitty little Levantine country until I went there, and saw it for myself.
Any country whose president is accused of rape, whose prime minister is hanging onto power before he goes for trial for corruption, whose prospective leaders are a mix of overt fascists and racists, should rightly be made a pariah by the world.
The only reason they aren’t, is that they’ve bought US politicians. With money donated from America.
A lot of these comments are overtly racist and anti-Semitic. Helena, do you want to be a collection point for these folks?
Scott,
People do happen on to websites such as this one. Allowing the views of Israel’s enemies to be expressed with their prejudices helps show the dispute as it really is and not as the fantasy position – i.e. whitewash – projected onto Israel’s enemies.
– Scott Benson and N.Friedman – apropos your posts, I have read through (three times) all the messages in this thread, and have found no trace of anti-semitism at all.
Angry and virulent attacks against Israeli national policies and actions – yes. Anti-semitic and racist comments (about Jews or Arabs, both Semites) – no.
I called Israel another ‘shitty little Levantine country’ because, when I was a perfectly normal racist 30+ years ago, I was immediately shocked on visiting a Jerusalem bakery and my place in the queue for a pizza was taken by a very obviously Mizrahi IDF patrol.
Israel is so obvously racist that it even has a list of categories longer than the Suth Effricans ever had:
– Extreme American Jews, like the ones I met at Kiryat Arba.
– East European Ashkenazi
– Russian pseudo Israelis
– Southern European and ‘African and Arabic’ Sephardim (Mizrahi)
– Black Mizrahi – those Ethiopians
– Israeli citizen Arabs, who stayed in their homes in and after 1948, who Lieberman wants to cleanse.
– OPT Palestinians, beyond the pale
When the US of A runs out of money, and has to cut them off, then Israel, the phony nation, will be dead.
There won’t be an Ashkenazi government, but Jews won’t be massacred either.
1313,
Evidently, you did not read Shyryn Pourpour Mossadegh at March 11, 2009 10:21 PM, where the noted poster wrote:
Supercessionism is and has always been an important formula of Christian Antisemitism. And, here the argument, by which Christians and Muslims would come together against Jews on the theory that Jews are replaced by Christians such that Jews are damned people with no rights.
The poster, Shyryn Pourpour Mossadegh, sought on a different post page on this website, information about how supercessionism and Islam might be reconciled. In fact, such has occurred by means of Replacement Theology in which Jews are effectively deleted from the Bible and replaced by Arabs.
In simple terms, what the poster has in mind is a religious war against Jews.
There is one seriously anti-semitic comment in this thread:
There will be no peace until the illegal Jewihs presence is removed from Palestine. Pre or post 1967, doesnt make any difference, because the original crimes are 1948. I call on Christianity and Islam to come together based upon the doctrines of supercessionism, in which the Jews were rejected because they rejected Christ as a common thread in fighting Jewish claims on Palestine
I find this comment terrifying. Helena, is this oday with you?
There is one seriously anti-semitic comment in this thread:
There will be no peace until the illegal Jewihs presence is removed from Palestine. Pre or post 1967, doesnt make any difference, because the original crimes are 1948. I call on Christianity and Islam to come together based upon the doctrines of supercessionism, in which the Jews were rejected because they rejected Christ as a common thread in fighting Jewish claims on Palestine
I find this comment terrifying. Helena, is this okay with you?
Rachel, the comment you find so terrifying is obviously a send-up. Someone who is not very grown up is having a little “fun”, that’s all.
1313, what would be of great interest to me is a similar itemisation of categories of sources of labour power in Israel.
For example in South Africa since the abolition of slavery in the 19th century there have inter alia been ex-slaves (“coloureds”); Afrikaner workers; Indian indentured labourers (from 1860); Cornish miners; black migrant labourers from the sub-continent; South African black workers; white immigrant workers; immigrant workers from Zimbabwe.
It would be good to have such a picture from Israeli history with as much quantitative and chronological detail as possible.
The the kinds of racial categories you have listed could then be pinned back to the underlying pattern of human exploitation from which they are derived, or upon which they are imposed as justification.
The common pattern will emerge: conquest, ethnic cleansing, relative or absolute genocide and destruction of the pre-existing political economy; assembly of labour on grossly bourgeois terms; division and manipulation of labour; incipient bourgeois labour crisis; inevitable formation of secular national proletariat; consequent inevitable demise of colonialism.
The recognition of this trajectory by the Israelis (and formerly by the old SA regime) is explicit and they consequently seek to “beat the rap” of class formation by various strategems. But the “old mole” will get them, for sure, and sooner rather than later.
The question of the US subsidy is only part of the story.
Haven’t had time to get back to this discussion until now. But I’ve just seen the contribution from “Shyryn Pourpour Mossadegh” who is almost certainly a sock puppet inserted here for provocatory or other misleading purposes.
Of course I do not believe in the theory of “supercessionism” and the way it was used by SPM was clearly antisemitic. But there are of course other, much more valid and anti-colonialist grounds for rejecting the Zionists’ claims on Palestine. The claim that because one group of people believe, however deeply, that they are theological or even physiological descendants of people who ruled an area 2000 years ago cannot give them any special priority over the rights of the people indigenous to that area.