4.82/5 (28) Well... that was fast. Last Thursday, in the News and Views from the Nefarium, I reviewed the geopolitical realignment that has been…
The post MOSCOW WANTS TO HOST ISRAELI-PALESTINIAN TALKS appeared first on Giza Death Star.
As world leaders congregated in Jerusalem last weekend to eulogise Shimon Peres as a “great peacemaker”, the peace camp of which he was the figurehead went to war against its main Palestinian partner in Israel.
Ayman Odeh, head of the only Jewish-Arab party in the Israeli legislature, is the most prominent representative of Israel’s 1.7 million Palestinian citizens. He also serves as chairman of a coalition called the Joint List, formed with other Palestinian parties, that is now the third largest in parliament.
Division within Palestinian society has reached unprecedented levels, becoming a major hurdle on the path of any unified strategy to end Israel’s violent occupation or to rally Palestinians behind a single objective.
Newly-appointed Israeli ultra-nationalist, Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman, understands this too well. His tactic since his ascension to office last May is centered on investing more in these divisions as a way to break down Palestinian society even further.
In April, President Abbas, true to form, buckled under international pressure to sacrifice the integrity of the land of Palestine on the altar of another bogus ‘peace’ initiative by friends of Israel.
The Palestinian Authority (PA) had been circulating to UN Security Council members a draft resolution condemning Israeli settlements when the French government effortlessly convinced Abbas to cease and desist the demand to protect diminishing Palestinian land being razed for settlement expansion until after France held its Paris talkfest.
I had mixed feelings when I learned that Palestine has erected a statue of Nelson Mandela, the iconic South African anti-Apartheid leader. On the one hand, I was quite pleased that the unmistakable connection between the struggles of Palestinians and South Africans is cemented more than ever before. On the other hand, I dreaded that rich, corrupt Palestinians in Ramallah are utilizing the image of Mandela to acquire badly-needed political capital.
“We won’t act like them, we will not use violence or force, we are peaceful, we believe in peace, in peaceful popular resistance.” This was part of a message issued by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abba in October, only days after a few incidents took place in which Palestinian youth were accused of attacking Israeli soldiers and settlers with knives.
Whether history moves in a straight or cyclical line, it matters little. The uncontested fact is that it is in constant motion. Thus, the current situation in Palestine is particularly frustrating to a generation that has grown up after the Oslo Peace Accord because they have been brought up within a strange historical phenomenon: where the earth below their feet keeps shrinking and when time stands still.
The Israeli ‘Right’, as demonstrated by a scary coalition of right wing nationalists, ultranationalists and religious zealots, deserves all the bad press it has garnered since its formation last May.
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has described his security forces’ cooperation with the Israeli military as “sacred”. But an armed attack on an Israeli checkpoint last weekend by a Palestinian security official, which left three Israeli soldiers injured, suggests that Abbas’ view may not be widely shared among Palestinians.
