As Obama Goes to Palestine

By Geoffrey Cook, TMO

Sunnyvale (Calif.)–(Silicon Valley)–I am basing this article on an interactive presentation that Anna Baltzer of the (U.S.) End the (Israeli) Occupation gave here close to a year ago, but only has become relevant with the news of the President Obama’s journey to Israel/Palestine in hopes of personally enforcing a peace through the principle of the Pax Americana.  In reality, the United States’ pro-Israel policy has been for domestic consumption, but in recent years Tel Aviv’ foreign policy has become an albatross around Washington’s neck obstructing the U.S.A.’s greater interests in the region.  Basically, the Obama Administration wishes to fulfill the U.S.’ moral support for Israel while solving the most dangerous epicenter for a larger strife. To that end a path to justice for the Palestinians must be achieved.  This article has been written with extensive updating and analysis (in parenthesis), because this interchange at this Sabel Conference in 2012 has become most relevant now.

Jewish-Americans are undergoing a sea change of perspective on the Middle East as a whole (closer to the Muslim-American perspective).  This is, also, true in Israel itself.  (What is preventing change is the Settler vote, though, in Israel itself and the misperception of the make-up of the Jewish-American vote here in the States by former Administrations due to the fear and misinformation spread by AIPAC [American Israel Public Affairs Committee]). 

Most Jews stuck with the Democratic Party in this last election, and for the first time the Islamic vote did matter in that it offset the portion of the electorate that voted based on a narrow sectarian or intolerant basis.  This shows a need for the deepening of Muslim-American presence in the American political process.

A dialogue should be established between American Muslims and liberal Jews for both parties’ hopes and aspirations have similarities and are not exclusive to each other.  Civil society [“grass roots”] will ultimately solve the antagonisms in the Middle East, and since the United States is a key protagonist in the region, what better place than in the States for the Palestinian and Jewish diasporas to sit down, and find workable solutions. ) U.S. Judaism is most plural in its attitude towards Zionism (which has become an embarrassment for many of them although, ultimately, they support the existence of Israel, (but under different principles.)  The first of which to Jewish civil society (versus the Zionist government there, who pander to the settler vote) is to find peace with their immediate neighbors.  Now, the form envisioned for that peace by liberal Judaism does differ from that envisioned by the Palestinian Arabs, but it is close enough to be a basis for negotiation if the Hebrew right-wing can be forced to step down.  This is something that Obama’s team should grasp thereon.

The Israelis have placed a system of segmentation in their Occupied Territories:  “A classic Apartheid systemization.”  (Your commentator has always thought the concept of Apartheid and Bantuization is an oversimplification of Zionist repression – the Levant’s repression is more insidious!)  Obnoxious checkpoints abound within Palestinian regions (preventing continuity to the rightful residents of their land and their livelihood). 

Teachers and students cannot proceed to their schools.  The presence of Jewish State on Arab space disturbs the whole of the latter’s social fabric, (and is eating away the moral fabric of the former Jewish people garnered from the European holocaust). Despite this, the Palestinians are amongst the best educated within the Middle East (through seeking foreign opportunities to education although this has led to a diaspora, and has drained the homeland of the best and brightest; thus, the demand for the right of return).

Many of the Settlers believe they have a right to their land (through their rigid reading of their basic texts).  They kill the Palestinians wantonly, free of punishment with guns that those same Palestinians are disallowed to possess!

The Palestinian nation only has twenty-two percent of their historical lands left to them; (so, it will be hard for Barack Hussein Obama to achieve a two-State solution).  Occupation is not defined by the Settlements, but it is the controlling factor to it.  The blockade has still insured that the mini-State of Gaza is under Occupation, too.

The various American media portray Israel in the same light. 

(There is a basic pro-Zionist capital controlling those outlets, and that has been documented.)  Foreign media covers the Israeli-Arab contention more even-handily, but, if there is a U.S. edition, it is edited out here. 

Succinctly, we have a media blackout on the struggle here in the “Metropole.”

Historically, “Jews were treated better in the in the Arab realm than in the West” until the creation of the Jewish State Israel.

The Walls currently being built do not separate the Palestinians from an “innate” Hebrew nationality, but as a means towards economic territorial acquisition; e.g. the Settlements have stolen near a hundred percent of the Palestinian aquifer by means of those very Walls.  Concisely, in no manner, does the Wall contribute to the security of the Israeli State.  What it does do is to keep the Palestinians from their rightful resources.  Contrarily, Israel’s expansionism is merely for its own security.  Yet, because of this policy, if the Israel Defense Force (IDF) leaves, the illegal settlers will be exposed to rightful retribution.  (In other words, by creating the Settlements in the first place, the Center is now committed them.)  Zionist secular and often racist ideology is at fault.

The U.N. (United Nations) had offered fifty percent of the acreage of the former Mandate of Palestine to the Arabs and Jews each, but Israel forced the majority of the Christians and Muslims off their traditional spheres in 1948 taking a much larger percentage permitted by that international organization.

Now, Tel Aviv is attempting to take over East Jerusalem for the purpose of moving their capital to that symbolically highly charged city.

The Jews in the Diaspora have a “right” under Israeli law and are often paid to immigrate into “Israel” — often displacing the Arab residents there.

Importantly, the West Bank is denied access to the sea.      

Baltzer encouraged divestment.  This involves the divestment of large institutional investors from Israeli companies or those foreign companies who do business with Israel.  American (Christian) Methodists and Presbyterian Churches have taken the moral high road by divesting their endowments from the taint of Israel.  This very act demonstrates that mainline American Christianity does support Muslims under repression, and each group should look upon the other as natural allies.

Whatever, Palestinians will resist Settler Colonialism.  That should be the first fact held in mind by the U.S. President as he deplanes in the only (Israeli) airport for Palestine.

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