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MY LAI VET SAYS: HERE IT
COMES AGAIN IN IRAQ
Tony Swindell
recalls "Butcher's Brigade" in '69; says "gooks"
have now become "ragheads", every adult male is an
"insurgent" ... atrocities against Iraqi civilians
are soon going to explode in America's face; US Government's courtroom jihads against terror
stumble. Alexander Cockburn on Lodi case where Feds paid $250,000
to man who "saw" world's three top terrorists at mosque.
As neocons
and Israel lobby howl for US to bomb Teheran, an Iranian outlines
simple path to peace. CounterPunch
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Now!
This is, as they say, the crunch. This
is the political moment all Israeli governments--all of them,
Labour, Likud and 'National Unity'--have been working towards
the past four decades of Occupation: the final push for an expanded
Israel, the permanent foreclosure of any viable Palestinian state
and a unilateral declaration that the conflict with the Palestinians
is over. Indeed, it is the final taking of the entire Land of
Israel between the Mediterranean and the Jordan River that Zionism
has dreamed of for the past century.
On the surface, Israel's election
was humdrum, with none of the 31 parties running raising issues
that grabbed the public. No party emerged 'victorious' or in
a position of domination. The largest party in the Parliament,
Kadima, Sharon's party now run by Olmert, received only 29 seats
out of 120. Overall, the election saw the strengthening of the
Right, even the extreme right (I don't accept the notion that
Kadima of Sharon and Olmert is a 'Center' party; it's extreme
right-wing, only slicker) i.e. those parties that refuse to even
consider the notion of a viable Palestinian state, won 73 seats.
The number of left/liberal seats stands only at 30.
Humdrum sums up how the Israeli
public viewed the election. The only substantial issue raised
was that of the plight of poor and working class Israelis, and
that issue failed to ignite any popular enthusiasm. Yet it is
precisely this 'hum-drum-ness' that is the big news. Ehud Olmert
put his intentions right in the public's face: the most immediate
and pressing task of his new government will be to determine
the permanent borders of Israel, meaning that the massive settlement
blocs, the 'greater' Jerusalem area and the Jordan Valley will
be annexed to Israel, confining the Palestinians to some five
isolated, impoverished and non-viable cantons (Sharon's term)
that they will be expected to accept as their 'state'.
Of course, Olmert's plan was
presented with a positive spin characterized by terminology to
do Orwell proud. Hitkansut or 'withdrawing into oneself'
in Hebrew is the operational phase of 'separation' from the Palestinians,
and seems exactly what the public wanted (a full 85% of Israeli
Jews support the construction of the Wall, or 'Separation Barrier').
Perhaps that is the reason it generated no public discussion,
no dissent and ended up a non-issue. It does not mean, however,
withdrawal of Israel back to its pre-1967 territory, but rather
a 'convergence' of Israeli settlers scattered throughout the
West Bank into Israel's major settlement blocs. Though the idea
of leaving territories densely populated by Palestinians sounds
good to Israeli Jews, it really means apartheid. And it will
be imposed unilaterally because Israel has nothing to offer the
Palestinians. True, they get 70-85% of the Occupied Territories,
but only in truncated enclaves. Israel retains control of all
the borders, Palestinian movement among the cantons, all the
water and the richest agricultural land, the large settlement
blocs including "greater" Jerusalem (which accounts
for 40% of the Palestinian economy), the Palestinians' airspace
and even their communications. Indeed, Israel retains all the
developmental potential of the country, leaving the Palestinians
with only barren and disconnected enclaves. Israel expands onto
85% of the entire country, leaving the Palestinians--the majority
population or soon to be--with only about 15%, and that truncated,
non-viable and only semi-sovereign. A Bantustan a la apartheid
South Africa.
What the outside world considers
important--the conflict with Palestinians, Occupation, the Wall,
settlements, possibilities for peace--are non-issues in Israel.
Most Israeli Jews agree that (1) the Palestinians don't want
peace, (2) therefore there is no political solution to the conflict,
(3) separation is the best course and thus (4) Israel must keep
all of Jerusalem and its major settlements. There is simply nothing
to discuss. The entire Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been
reduced, for Israeli Jews, to one technical issue: how do we
manage terrorism and secure our personal security.
So where does that leave the
Palestinians after their election of a Hamas government? Nowhere,
as far as Israel is concerned. The election of Hamas legitimized
in the eyes of Israeli Jews and the international community Israel's
intention of proceeding unilaterally, thus facilitating the move
towards an apartheid regime. Left with no ability to pursue an
agenda of its own, even that of a two-state solution as embodied
in the Road Map, the Palestinians have fallen back on the most
powerful tactic of the powerless: non-cooperation. Their vote
proclaimed in a loud voice 'The hell with all of you'--the US
and Europe that do nothing to end the Occupation; Israel who
has closed off the possibility of a viable Palestinian state
by expanding into Palestinian areas, and then blames the Palestinians
for preventing peace; Fatah, that, in addition to enabling corruption,
failed to effectively pursue the Palestinians' national agenda
of self-determination.
Knowing that the conflict is
too destabilizing for the global system to let fester, the Palestinians
are saying: We will remain sumud, steadfast. Impose on
us an apartheid system, blame us for the violence while ignoring
Israeli State Terror, pursue your programs of American Empire
or your self-righteous notion of a 'clash of civilizations'--we
Palestinians will not submit. We will not cooperate. We will
not play your rigged game. And in the end your power will be
for naught. So costly will we make this conflict to Israel, the
US and the international community that you will come to us to
sue for peace. We will be ready for a just peace that respects
the rights of all the peoples of the region, including the Israelis.
But you will not beat us.
The two elections pit apartheid
against sumud. If injustice is ultimately unsustainable,
I bet on the latter.
Jeff Halper is the Coordinator of the Israeli
Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD) and a candidate,
with the Palestinian peace activist Ghassan Andoni, for the 2006
Nobel Peace Prize. He can be reached at jeff@icahd.org.
This essay originally appeared
in The New Internationalist.
Now
Available
from CounterPunch Books!
The Case
Against Israel
By Michael Neumann
CounterPunch
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