U.S. envoy to the Middle East, retired marine general Anthony Zinni’s announcement of his decision to end his cease-fire mission, following his meeting Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, adds yet another blunder to the numerous failed attempts by the U.S. to act as a genuine peace broker between Palestinians and Israelis.
Are Palestinians Human? by Sam and Leila Bahour December 5, 2001
In the wake of the horrific suicide bombings in Israel over the past 48 hours, hawkish Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon made his address to the nation as he simultaneously increased, by yet another step, Israel’s part of the violence in the ensuing conflict between Israelis and Palestinians. Sadly, no end is in sight and it is likely to get worse, much worse. If this statement sounds like a broken record, it’s because it is.
Key Points
This past month has been marked by a dramatic change in the U.S. and European attitudes toward the Israeli occupation. The U.S. first, and subsequently the EU, have adopted the Israeli view that the core of the problem is Yasir Arafat. Bombing Arafat’s helicopters, confining him to the besieged city of Ramalla, and the recent occupation of parts of the city, have nothing to do with Israeli security or “the struggle against terror.” The Israeli Government targeted Arafat, and succeeded in convincing first the Israeli public and now the international community that this policy is legitimate.
The U.S. House of Representatives barely approved fast track trade authority by a vote of 215 to 214, ending a long battle that pitted the Fortune 500 against a broad alliance of labor, environmental, religious, feminist, human rights, consumer, family farm, and other activists. These diverse forces defeated fast track twice during the Clinton administration and managed to delay a vote numerous times this year because of lack of support. Now that fast track has been approved, pro-free trade analysts would no doubt like to begin ringing the death knell of the opposition forces. To the contrary, there are several reasons why this vote is only a small setback in the fight against corporate globalization.
The day the World Trade Organisation (WTO) came into existence, on January 1, 1995, the Indian Express had carried a pocket cartoon on its front page. It showed two people walking amidst high rise buildings with huge billboards for popular multinational brands like Pepsi Cola, Coke, Philips, and McDonalds. The cartoon depicted one of the people walking down the street asking: “What does WTO stand for?” The other man replied: “We Take Over.”
Only three days have passed since U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell’s Middle East policy remarks at the University of Louisville’s McConnell Center for Political Leadership in Kentucky. Following Secretary Powell’s tribute to a key member in the audience, Kentucky’s Republican Senator Mitch McConnell, one of the fiercest opponents of the PLO and the Oslo Peace agreements, who together with Democratic Senator Diane Feinstein, published AIPAC’s (the Israeli political lobby in the U.S.) most recent initiative against the Palestinian Authority (Ha’aretz 22/11/2001), Secretary Powell boldly declared:
The mirage of positive movement in the deadly gridlock between Israelis and Palestinians continued today, uninterrupted by reality. Following U.S. President George Bush’s footsteps, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell, during a major Middle East policy address at the University of Louisville in Kentucky, finally confirmed the addition of the word “Palestine” to the U.S. political lexicon. More significantly, Secretary of State Powell explicitly acknowledged, for the first time ever, that Israel’s illegal “occupation” of Palestinian land and people “must end.”
The new Israeli “peace initiative” drafted by Israel’s Foreign Minister Shimon Peres and the Israeli Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon, is no more than a placebo for internal Israeli consumption and consumption by the U.S. and Europe in response to their pressuring Israel for positive movement toward ending the occupation of the West Bank, Gaza Strip, and East Jerusalem.