Hamas & the Great March of Return:

Israeli PR always goes into overdrive after its killers complete their latest massacre(s). As with the massacre on the Turkish aid ship Mavi Marmara in 2010, clipped, edited videos, sound-bytes, and texts appear in record time, constituting a smokescreen of victim-blaming. The aim, of course. is both to provide Israel's defenders with suitable talking points and to divert world public opinion from the bleeding obvious.

Hot off the presses is the following item, now flooding the internet and popping up in the msm rants of the pro-Israel pundits. Here it is, for example, in the always purple prose of our very own Piers Akerman: "[T]he ABC's attempted whitewash of the nature of the terrorist attack was demonstratively undermined by the co-founder of Hamas Mahmoud al-Zahar who told Al-Jazeera that the terror group was 'deceiving the public' when it spoke of 'peaceful resistance' before the violent protests began." (ABC hits a new low in biased reporting, Sunday Telegraph, 20/5/18)

Here's the original, as translated and edited by Israel's Middle East Research Institute (MEMRI), an outfit that trawls the Arabic-language media, searching for items with potential (along with some judicious translating, cutting and pasting) for use as anti-Arab propaganda:

Host: Mr Mahmoud Abbas said that after all these years, Hamas is employing the same peaceful resistance that has been advocated by Fatah since day one and for many years. So why don't Fatah and Hamas agree on a united platform?

Mahmoud Al-Zahhar: This is a clear terminological deception. When you are in possession of weapons that were able to withstand the occupation in the wars of 2006, 2008, 2012 and 2014... When you have weapons that are being wielded by men who were able to prevent the strongest army in the region from entering the Gaza Strip for 51 days, and were able to capture or kill soldiers of that army, is this really 'peaceful resistance'? This is not peaceful resistance. Has the option (of armed struggle) diminished? No. On the contrary, it is growing and developing. That's clear. So when we talk about 'peaceful resistance', we are deceiving the public. This is a peaceful resistance bolstered by a military force and by security agencies, and enjoying tremendous popular support. As for (Fatah's) 'peaceful resistance', it consists of rallies, demonstrations, protests, pleas, and requests, in order to improve the terms of the negotiations, or to enable talks with the Israeli enemy. This deception does not fool the Palestinian public. (Senior Hamas official Mahmoud Al-Zahar on Gaza protests: This is not peaceful resistance, it is supported by our weapons, memri.org, 13/5/18)

Assuming that we accept the veracity of MEMRI's translation and editing of the Al-Jazeera original, the first thing to note here is that Al-Zahar's words should be seen in the context of Hamas's rivalry with the Palestinian Authority and Abbas's Fatah organisation. One of the key differences between the two is that Hamas is still committed to the strategy of armed struggle against the Israeli enemy, while Fatah is not. Al-Zahar here is doing no more than defend the use of arms vis-a-vis Fatah's abandonment of them for 'peaceful resistance'. The "we" of the highlighted sentence above is somewhat ambiguous (perhaps even made so by the MEMRI translator), but seems to refer more to Abbas than to Hamas. It is Abbas then, not Hamas, who is "deceiving the public." In fact, in the very next sentence Al-Zahar says, "[T]his [the Great March of Return] is a peaceful protest... enjoying tremendous popular support," albeit "bolstered by a military force," none of which was used during the demonstrations. The concluding sentence makes crystal clear just whose deception we are dealing with here - Abbas's: "This deception does not fool the Palestinian public."

Bill Clinton's Handshake Charade

However appalling, Trump is really only the tip of the iceberg of American ignorance and narcissism. Take our latest US visitor, for example, Clinton/Obama diplomat Dennis Ross, currently wowing them at Murdoch's Australian:

"Ross grew up in a non-religious Californian household, the son of a Catholic father and Jewish mother. At 19, inspired by the Six-Day War, he became religiously Jewish." (Long road to Israeli-Palestinian peace littered with broken deals and lost will, Brad Norington, 15/7/17)

Note that Ross was radicalised at 19. It seems that, in the US, such radicalisation, from all American boy to Zionist fanatic, is the perfect qualification and starting point for a career in US-style Middle East diplomacy. Sort of puts Jared Kushner in perspective, doesn't it?

And here's the pinnacle of that career, according to Norington:

"During an impressive career, Ross... helped facilitate the historic White House handshake between Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and Israel's Yitzhak Rabin."

Leaving aside discussion of the endless peace-process charade, and the preposterous, childish idea of Clinton's that this then (1993) 76-year-old colonial running sore could be solved by a cheap theatrical handshake, rather than by the hard yards of a decolonisation process and the rendering of justice to Palestine's dispossessed and occupied, let's just look at the minutiae of this supposedly "impressive" achievement, as described elsewhere by Ross himself.  Here he is interviewed by Jason M. Breslow of PBS's Frontline program (6/1/16):

Were you in the Rose Garden when [President Clinton] forged the handshake between [Yasser] Arafat and Rabin?

-Yes.

Tell me about that.

-There is an interesting back story to this... So we [Ross and Secretary of State Warren Christopher] get a call from Rabin... and he says, 'Look there's been a breakthrough with the PLO'... still... he's skeptical. He wants to know what our reaction to this is going to be. Well, our reaction is, this is a historic breakthrough between Israel and the PLO, two national movements competing for the same space, and for the first time they're prepared to recognize each other."

[Note here the false framing. The reality is otherwise. These are not two, long-resident communities living in one patch, in some kind of parity, but struggling to get along. This is the old story of a foreign, usurping settler-colonial movement vs an indigenous resistance movement trying to hold on to or reclaim its ancestral homeland.]

- Now [Israeli foreign minister Shimon] Peres tells us... that there should be a meeting at the White House to sign a Declaration of Principles, but it's too much for the Israeli public to see Arafat there. It's just too much to take.

[Yes, it's simply too much for the colons to stomach their PM meeting with the leader of the people they've been slicing and dicing for the past 76 years - eeeuw! What to do?]

- So it should be Peres and Abu Mazen [Arafat adviser, Mahmoud Abbas] who would come. We actually don't question this...

[Of course you don't, you've been a card-carrying Zionist since 1967 for Christ's sake! Those sniffy colons are your volk! Notice how, even in 1993, the Israelis had their eye on Abbas as a stooge?]

- ... but when we raise it with Clinton... he simply dismisses what we've told him, and immediately leaves the impression that if Arafat wants to come, he's welcome. And he's right... because his instinct is, the only way to bind the two leaders to this is to have this colossal event where they're kind of obligated before the world... We're telling him how uneasy Rabin is, first to even be there and secondly the idea that he's going to shake hands with this guy who, in Rabin's mind, is responsible for  all sorts of acts of terror that, for him, are just very hard to swallow. It's difficult for Rabin to overcome this.

[Notice the fact that Rabin's hands are covered in 76 years of Palestinian blood nowhere occurs to Ross as a possible difficulty for Arafat or the Palestinians? This is America's idea of honest brokerage.]

- Now Clinton kind of raises this in private with the two of them before they go out.

[Bill doesn't want anyone spoiling his show!]

So they both agree to kind of come, and they're hanging around the Oval Office?

- Well, you come in advance, before we go out.

OK

- To the last minute, Rabin is insisting that Arafat can't come in anything that looks like a uniform.

[And of course Ross cannot help but oblige. His Master's Voice after all:]

- We're telling Arafat, 'You can't come with a -- you don't bring a weapon.' You know, he always had a pistol. 'You don't bring a weapon to the White House.' So they come in, and the president talks to both leaders. He is already encouraging them...

[We wouldn't dare tell Rabin...]

Have they met before?

- No.

How are they with each other?

- Rabin is very uneasy. The idea of personally shaking hands with with this guy is physically difficult for him.

[With this guy...?!]

- He couldn't hide his feelings... So here is Clinton, who sees this guy give this remarkable speech on the one hand, and physically, it's hard for him to shake hands with this guy. So the iconic photograph - he literally envelops them with his arms. But he knows he has to create that image... to make peace, and how can you do that if you're not prepared to shake hands? (pbs.org)

What Is It About Americans?

The almost perfect tweeted response to a Jerusalem Post article (Reports that Trump considering pulling out of peace efforts 'nonsense,' US official says, 24/6/17) on a recent reportedly "tense" meeting between the US administration's "senior adviser" Jared Kushner and the Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas runs as follows:

Wait... you mean sending a 30-something real estate developer to solve mideast peace didn't work? Get outta here... (Joy Read @JoyAnnRead, Jun 24)

I did say almost perfect.

As an American (because she's an American?), the exceptionally witty Joy Read has missed something much more important than the mere fact of Kushner's age and 'profession' - which makes you wonder: What is it about Americans that so many of them can't see the wood for the trees?

All her tweet needed to make it perfect was just the addition of two more words, as follows:

Wait... you mean sending a 30-something card-carrying Zionist real estate developer to solve mideast peace didn't work? Get outta here...

So damn obvious! So why did she leave them out?

Mahmoud Vidkun Abbas

Try getting your head around this. I can't:

"Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas' effort to cut electricity to the Gaza Strip as a means of 'pressuring' Hamas to hand over control of the region to him is finally getting support from Israel's security cabinet, which today signed off on a plan to cut exports to the Gaza Strip by 40%, meaning about 45 minutes less of electricity per day in a strip that already is in a state of blackout more than three-quarters of the time.

"Abbas had originally sought a 100% cut in Gaza's electricity, but Israel refused, citing humanitarian concerns. Even with this smaller cut, Israeli military advisers are warning a mounting humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip will likely escalate the level of violence along the Israeli border.

"Most in Israel's current far-right government are quite comfortable with that, as wars against the Gaza Strip are pretty popular among their parties, and it has been awhile since they got to spend a few weeks battering the civilian population in the name of national security." (Israel cuts Gaza electricity at Abbas' request, Jason Ditz, antiwar.com, 12/6/17)

Some of Our Best Friends Are Palestinian...

"NSW Jewish Board of Deputies chief executive Vic Alhadeff stressed the broad nature of the visits to the region his group coordinates. 'All our programs include the West Bank, where participants are briefed by senior Palestinian officials,' he said. 'This gives Australian delegations an opportunity to see the situation first-hand and form their own conclusions." (Bishop calls for Shorten to stop ALP ban on Israel visits, Christian Kerr/Tessa Ackerman, The Australian, 28/1/16)

Hm... senior Palestinian officials?

Vic means these guys:

"The Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority works closely with the Israeli occupation. Earlier this month, for instance, Israeli officials praised the PA for 'cracking down' on opposition and resistance to Israel's occupation in the West Bank. The PA's leader, Mahmoud Abbass, has previously called this so-called security coordination a 'sacred' duty... The PA's intelligence chief Majid Faraj boasted to Defense News recently that his forces had arrested 100 Palestinians in recent months and were working closely with Israeli occupation forces to prevent the unpopular PA from collapsing. 'We, together with our counterparts in the Israeli security establishment, with the Americans and others, are all trying to prevent that collapse,' Faraj said." (Infographic: 7 ways the Palestinian Authority helps Israeli occupation, Ali Abunimah, electronicintifada.net, 26/1/16)

A Nugget of Truth in The Australian

Here are excerpts from a timely and trenchant opinion piece, It's high time that Australia told Israel a few home truths, by Peter Rodgers, a former Australian ambassador to Israel, published in yesterday's Australian:

"In September 2000, Israel's opposition leader at the time, Ariel Sharon, visited the Haram al-Sharif in Jerusalem, a site of intense religious significance for Muslims and Jews (as the Temple Mount).

"Sharon's purpose was entirely political - a statement that a Likud government would never cede control of the area to the Palestinians. The visit helped trigger the second Palestinian uprising. When it ended, about 6,000 people lay dead, more than 80% of them Palestinian.

"Fast forward to 2015. As Israelis celebrated the Jewish New Year in September, Agriculture Minister Uri Ariel led a group of the Likud Young Guard up the Haram al-Sharif, their self-proclaimed goal to 'assert Jewish sovereignty' over the area. Palestinians, not surprisingly, reacted with suspicion, hostility and, in some cases, violence. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu threatened a 'harsh offensive' in return, demonstrating once more that there is no greater double standard in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict than the issue of violence. Israel uses violence against Palestinians as a matter of course. It expects Palestinian quiescence and acts indignantly when this is not forthcoming [...]

"Late last month, Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas told the UN General Assembly that the Palestinians would no longer abide by the 1993 Oslo Accords. These provided the flimsy scaffold for negotiation of Palestinian statehood. What was remarkable about Abbas's speech was that it took so many years for him to make it. Oslo's corpse had long lain in the morgue. All Abbas did was to invite a viewing.

"With depressingly familiar hype, Netanyahu slammed Abbas's UN speech for its alleged deceit and incitement. He urged Abbas to accept the offer 'to hold direct negotiations with Israel without preconditions'. That was a good one coming from a prime minister whose own preconditions include no Palestinian state ever, who plays godfather to the settlement movement, and who has now deemed it reasonable to use live ammunition against rock-throwing Palestinians.

"Australia has long been susceptible to the line that the Palestinians are not ready for statehood. The Turnbull government, with 7 others (including tiny island states such as the Marshall Islands, Palau and Tuvalu), opposed the raising of the Palestinian flag at the UN. The opposition is not much better. The ALP conference last July decided at last to discuss possible recognition of a Palestinian state if there were 'no progress in the next round of the peace process'. As if there were a peace process or the faintest prospect of one.

"Australian governments have often spoken proudly of their friendship with Israel.

"It's high time that friendship was put in the service of peace by telling Israel a few home truths about the Gordion knot that is occupation and violence."

Now here's an excerpt from a letter in reply in today's Australian by Mike Tsykin, Elsternwick, Victoria:

"We remember that Israel is manning the front line in the war against Islamic terrorism. It is our war as well; we did not wish it, but it is fought in our streets. The best we can do is to continue supporting Israel. We are in this together."

What rubbish! Israel is not "manning the front line in the war against Islamic terrorism," it is manning the front line in Zionism's near 100-year war for Jewish supremacy and hegemony in historic Palestine.

Notice Tsykin's shameless conflation of the young heroes and heroines of Palestinian resistance to Israeli occupation and oppression with the murderous behaviour of our own politically illiterate, disaffected dupes of Islamic State propaganda. Just as Israeli Zionists have no qualms whatever in murdering any number of Palestinians - men, women or children - in their unrelenting push to control and dominate every square inch of Palestine, their cheer squads in Australia and elsewhere have no qualms whatever in stooping to any monstrous lie in order to shield them from justified criticism.

Palestinian Quislings

Blatant Zionist propaganda in the Sydney Morning Herald from Colin Rubenstein, executive director of the Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council (AIJAC):

"If the international community wants to ensure that any ceasefire agreement prevents yet another bloody Gaza conflict..."

Bloody for whom, Rubes?

"... like the one that ended on August 27, they should be listening to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas."

That's the PA 'president' whose term expired in 2009.

"He has repeatedly criticised Hamas for instigating and then prolonging the war and causing Palestinian suffering, lamenting how 'it was possible for us to avoid all of that, 2000 martyrs, 10,000 injured'. Earlier he had asked of Hamas 'What are you trying to achieve by sending rockets?..."

Here we go again.

Zionism's use of Palestinian quislings to counter and undermine Palestinian resistance to Israeli aggression is as old as the Zionist project itself.

Blanche Dugdale, Lord Balfour's niece, was a gentile Zionist groupie and confidante of Zionist leader Chaim Weizmann in the 30s and 40s. The following entry in her diary alludes to the conflict between the armed Palestinian resistance to British rule (& Zionist colonisation) from 1936-39, led by the Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini, and the collaborationist opposition led by the Nashashibi clan:

"January 18th [1939] - London... home to tea - then was rung up by Peter Rutenberg, this moment arrived from Palestine. He has been very active there, pinning the moderate Arabs to our side by the usual methods. Fakhri Nashashibi is earning his keep by staying in Jerusalem and shouting aloud that the Mufti and his friends do not represent Palestine." (Baffy: The Diaries of Blanche Dugdale 1936-1947, 1973, p 119)

Sound familiar?

Another reference to Rutenberg and Nashashibi appears in Hillel Cohen's study Army of Shadows: Palestinian Collaboration with Zionism, 1917-1948 (2008).

Writing on the February 1939 London Conference, convened by the British government to discuss Palestine's future governance and involving both Zionist and Palestinian Arab delegations, the latter drawn from the Mufti's Arab Higher Committee, Cohen notes that "the [Nashashibi] opposition had only token representation in the Palestinian delegation, and even that was achieved only after a tenacious struggle. Fakhri Nashashibi himself traveled to London on Zionist funding; it was his friend Pinhas Rutenberg who gave him 4,000 Palestinian pounds to pay for his trip." (pp 132-33)

And, just as the collaborationist Abbas criticises Hamas over Israel's latest wilding in Gaza, Fakhri Nashashibi "considered the [Palestinian] uprising of 1936-39 a 'counterfeit rebellion'." (ibid, p 265)

Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose.

Go See Dr Weizmann!

"'If by Zionist you mean that the Jews have the right to a homeland in Israel and the right to a country then I am a Zionist,' the Tory leader [David Cameron] said, adding that support for Israel is 'in the DNA' of members of his party." (Tory leader calls himself 'Zionist'; UK Jews campaign against boycott, Assaf Uni, Haaretz, 13/6/07)

Earlier this month, Little Britain's leader addressed the UK's United Jewish Appeal (UJA). Nothing out of the ordinary mind you, just the usual inauthentic channelling exercise you'd expect from a US puppet at a Zionist gig: first Netanyahu - "Iran is not just a threat to Israel. It is a threat to the world" - then Obama - "[N]othing is off the table."

What about the days of yore, I thought, when Britannia ruled not only the waves but also Palestine? Was there to be in Cameron's speech to the UJA no hint of the glory days when His Majesty's Government, not Obama or Netanyahu, called the shots?

Well, yes there was actually. It was when Cameron began lecturing the Palestinians that I first sensed a stir in his primordial Zionist DNA and caught, for the first time, a distant echo of a British, as opposed to an American or Israeli, voice. This is what he said:

"[L]et me tell President Abbas* something very clearly: there is no path to statehood except through talks with Israel. So if the Palestinian plan is simply posturing with the UN rather than negotiating with Israel, Britain will never support it. And let me say this to the Palestinians too. Britain will never support anyone who sponsors a football tournament named after a suicide bomber who killed 20 Israelis in a restaurant. We will not tolerate incitement to terrorism."

And then it hit me. That 'Go and talk to Israel' bit was all the proof I needed that here in 2012 David Cameron was channelling the Lord Balfour of 1921! (And how spooky are those numbers!) Allow me to explain:

It was in 1921 that a group of Palestinian leaders, in the form of a joint Muslim-Christian Palestinian delegation, set sail for London where, in the words of JMN Jeffries, who sympathetically chronicled their efforts, "[t]hey demanded the revocation of the Balfour Declaration, and supported this demand with reasoned statements and evidence presented to the Colonial Office." (Palestine: The Reality, 1939, p 458)

"The following month," continues Jeffries, "they went to Geneva for the meeting of the League [of Nations] Assembly, and here, as in London, their very presence and demeanour proved most awkward and annoying for the Government delegates. Balfour himself had gone to Geneva. During a five-weeks' stay the Arab delegates made many attempts to see him, but time and again were rebuffed with the insolent message, 'If it is anything to do with Palestine, Mr Balfour has already seen Dr Weizmann.'** The delegates preserved their tempers, which cannot have been easy, and continued to demand an interview, and to make known in the League corridors that they were determined upon one, till further refusal would have generated a scandal. So Balfour finally received them. But he sat wrapped in absence of mind and incomprehension and evasiveness, and all they could get from him concerning Palestine was a repeated, 'It is an experiment,' and the injunction to go and see Dr Weizmann. That interview was the only time the Arabs met their evil genius." (p 459)

Yet another indication, if needed, that the past is never truly past. Incredibly, no matter how diminished on the world stage, it seems that Britain, which incurred primary responsibility for the Palestine problem when it incorporated the Balfour Declaration of 1917 in its mandate for Palestine, still sees fit to dictate to the Palestinian people, almost 100 years after the event. If the Zionism of its ruling class is DNA deep, so too, it seems, is its capacity for colonial chutzpah.

[*There is no suggestion here that Abbas is in any way the equal of the worthies who made up the 1921 delegation. They would, of course, be turning in their graves at his recent statement to Israeli television that he has given up on his right to return and live in Safad, his 'Israeli' birthplace; **The British government's go-to Zionist supremo from 1917-1948.]

A Shiver Looking for a Spine to Run Up

What an unmitigated disaster this creature is:

"The Palestinian President, in a remarkable assessment delivered on Israeli TV, says the Arab world erred in rejecting the United Nations' 1947 plan to partition Palestine into a Palestinian and a Jewish state. The Palestinian and Arab refusal to accept a UN plan to partition the then British-controlled mandate of Palestine sparked widespread fighting, then Arab military intervention after Israel declared independence the following year. The Arabs lost the war. 'It was our mistake. It was an Arab mistake as a whole', Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas [Abu Mazen] told Channel 2 TV on Friday, in a rare interview to the Israeli media. 'But do they [the Israelis] punish us for this mistake 64 years?'" (It was our mistake, says Palestinian chief, Amy Teibal, AP/The Sun-Herald, 30/10/11)

Essentially, what he has said to Israeli viewers (assuming he even knows the relevant history) is this:

In 1947, the United Nations, then just a white man's club dominated by a superpower under the thumb of a powerful, fanatical and utterly ruthless domestic lobby, decided to gift over half of my Palestinian homeland, including Safad, the city of my birth, to a recently arrived but powerful, fanatical and utterly ruthless movement of European colons who behaved as if they owned the place but had purchased no more than 6% of it at the time, trashing in the process our right of national self-determination. All that and more, yet the Palestinian and Arab leaderships of the day were mistaken in not accepting such a state of affairs.

What next? The Balfour Declaration was actually a win-win for Jews and Arabs, but we missed that boat too? The Zionist project has actually been character-building for us?

No, not that, because the man is utterly spineless, as the late Edward Said recognised almost a decade ago:

"Perhaps the one thing that strikes me as the low point in Arab inability to grasp the dignity of the Palestinian cause is expressed by the current state of the Palestinian Authority. Abu Mazen, a subordinate figure with little political support among his own people, was picked for the job by Arafat, Israel, and the United States precisely because he has no constituency, because he is not an orator or a great organizer or anything really except a dutiful aide to Yasir Arafat, and because, I am afraid, they see in him a man who will do Israel's bidding. But how could even Abu Mazen stand there in Aqaba to pronounce words written for him, like a ventriloquist's puppet, by some State Department functionary, in which he commendably speaks about Jewish suffering but then amazingly says next to nothing about his own people's suffering at the hands of Israel? How could he accept so undignified and manipulated a role for himself, and how could he forget his self-dignity as the representative of a people that has been fighting heroically for its rights for over a century, just because the United States and Israel have told him he must? And when Israel simply says that there will be a 'provisional' Palestinian state, without any contrition for the horrendous amount of damage it has done, the uncountable war crimes, the sheer sadistic, systematic humiliation of every single Palestinian man, woman, and child, I must confess to a complete lack of understanding as to why a leader or representative of that long-suffering people doesn't so much as take note of it. Has he entirely lost his sense of dignity? Has he forgotten that he is not just an individual but also the bearer of his people's fate at an especially crucial moment? Is there anyone who was not bitterly disappointed at this total failure to rise to the occasion and stand with dignity - the dignity of his people's experience and cause - and testify to it with pride, without compromise, without ambiguity, without the half-embarrassed, half-apologetic tone that Palestinian leaders take when they are begging for a little kindness from some totally unworthy white father?" (Al-Ahram, 26/6/03)

The Palfour Declaration

Here's the Palestinian 'President' Mahmoud Abbas' version of 'the vision thing' in the lead-up to the Palestinian Authority's bid to seek UN membership for a Palestinian state later this month:

"We don't want to isolate Israel but to live with it in peace and security. We don't want to delegitimize Israel. We want to legitimize ourselves. We have good coordination [with Israel] to prevent terror and keep the situation calm and quiet. We will continue to do our job. Security will prevail as long as I'm in office." (Abbas affirms Palestinian bid for UN membership, Ethan Bronner, nytimes.com, 5/9/11)

Yet as inspiring as Abbas' vision thingy is, I think the Palestinians could do better. Heaps better. So, in the spirit of 'what's good for the goose is good for the gander', and drawing on precedent, here's the text I think the Palestinians should be taking to the UN:

'The United Nations view with favour the establishment in Israel of a national home for the Palestinian people, and will use its best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of the existing Jewish communities in Israel, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.'

Way to go!

Send in the Clown...

"American Jewish publications have received numerous proposals in recent days from senior Palestinian officials to interview Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas who will be arriving in New York next week to attend the United Nations General Assembly. The Palestinians hope to utilize Abbas' trip to carry out what they describe as a 'smiles & appeasement campaign' among America's Jewish community, in efforts to raise sympathy and support among US Jews... The non-profit organization [The] Israel Project, which provides information on the Middle East, was planning to hold a special dinner in Abbas' honor during his visit." (Palestinian officials launch 'smiles campaign' in US Jewish media, Shlomo Shamir, Haaretz, 17/9/10)

Supping with the devil...

"About TIP: The Israel Project (TIP) is an international non-profit organization devoted to educating the press and the public about Israel while promoting security, freedom and peace. The Israel Project provides journalists, leaders and opinion-makers accurate information about Israel. The Israel Project is not related to any government or government policy. Our team of trusted Middle East experts and former reporters provides journalists with fact sheets, backgrounders and sources. TIP regularly hosts press briefings featuring leading Israeli spokespeople and analysts that give journalists an opportunity to get information and answers to their questions face-to-face. By providing journalists with the facts, context and visuals they need, TIP causes hundreds of millions of people around the world to see a more positive public face of Israel. This helps protect Israel, reduce anti-Semitism and increase pride in Israel... Through its Jerusalem office, TIP operates 'Intellicopter' tours - two-and a-half-hour guided helicopter tours with expert guides that give reporters a bird's-eye view of the situation on the ground. The TIP 'Intellicopter' educates journalists about security threats and opportunities for peace. More than a thousand journalists from more than 450 media outlets have taken the 'Intellicopter' tour, including top journalists from the US, England, France, Germany, Russia, Italy, Latin America, Australia and Asia. Millions of people around the world have seen footage shot from these strategic aerial views - views which show Israel's tiny size and enormous security challenges." (theisraelproject.org)

Meanwhile, out of sight of Western 'journalists' on their 'Intellicopter' tours of the Apartheid State, or Palestinian quislings on their 'smiles & appeasement' tour of New York, life goes on as normal in occupied Palestine:

"Eyewitnesses reported that dozens of armored Israeli military vehicles invaded Tulkarem city and Nour Shams refugee camp at approximately 2:30 am and assassinated Iyad As'ad Shilbaya, 38. As details of the assassination began to unfold, it was revealed that soldiers first broke into the home of Iyad's father and forced his brother to accompany them to his home. After arriving at the home of Iyad, soldiers wired and detonated the main door and immediately went to Iyad's bedroom and fired at least 3 rounds at him while he was still in bed. One bullet hit him in the neck and 2 in the chest. Soldiers then took Iyad's body and withdrew from the area. His brother said that he heard him shouting 'Who's there?' before the soldiers fired 3 rounds at him while he was still in bed. His wife was not at home as she was visiting her parents in Jenin... Furthermore, soldiers kidnapped 10 Hamas members in Nour Shams and took them to unknown destinations." (Army assassinates a Hamas leader in Tulkarem, Saed Bannoura, imemc.org, 17/9/10)

Or, if you prefer the TIP version, as chanelled by The New York Times: "Israeli troops killed a Hamas militant during a raid in the West Bank... Israel said soldiers were trying to arrest him when he ran toward them, ignoring orders to halt." (West Bank: Israeli soldiers kill militant in raid, Associated Press, 17/9/10)

[See also my 6/9/10 post On the Nose]

On the Nose

As in Australia:

"Voters... can smell a politician who puts self-preservation ahead of the national interest. They can smell it even when they're not sure they fancy the measures needed to advance the national interest. And they're never impressed." (Ross Gittins, Voters censure Labor's lack of principles, SMH, 23/8/10)

So in Palestine, only the smell is worse, much worse, as you'd expect from collusion and betrayal:

"Abbas is fully aware that he goes to Washington with many Palestinians, including some of those closest to the PA, viewing him as having at best surrendered and at worst as being a traitor. He was badly shaken when, in the wake of his initial support for a postponement of the discussion on the Goldstone report, his grandson came to him crying and explained that children at his school had called his grandfather a 'traitor'. And it is well known that Abbas has checked into a Jordanian hospital on more than one occasion suffering from exhaustion and stress brought on by a process he once had faith in but which has delivered only pain to his people." (Abbas: The man & the politician, Lamis Andoni, aljazeera.net, 1/9/10)

"Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas told US Jewish leaders on Wednesday that he would never deny Jews their right to the land of Israel, according to participants of the 2-hour roundtable discussion." (Abbas tells US Jews: I would never deny Jewish right to the land of Israel, Natasha Mozgovaya, Haaretz, 10/6/10)

"Shalom to you in Israel. I know we have disappointed you. I know we have been unable to deliver peace for the last 19 years..." Chief Palestinian Negotiator Saeb Erekat's pitch to Israelis on Israel's Heskem TV, 28/8/10)

But none of this is new. The stench of collusion has been around for years now:

"'Be certain that Yasser Arafat's final days are numbered, but allow us to finish him off our way, not yours. And be sure as well that... the promises I made in front of President Bush, I will give my life to keep'. Those words were written by Fatah warlord Mohammed Dahlan, whose US- and Israeli-backed forces were routed by Hamas in the Gaza Strip last month [June, 2007], in a 13 July 2003 letter to then Israeli defense minister Shaul Mofaz and published on Hamas' website on 4 July this year. Dahlan, who despite his failure to hold Gaza, remains a senior advisor to Palestinian Authority chairman Mahmoud Abbas, outlines his conspiracy to overthrow Arafat, destroy Palestinian institutions and replace them with a quisling leadership subservient to Israel. Dahlan writes of his fear that Arafat would convene the Palestinian legislative council and ask it to withdraw confidence from then prime minister Mahmoud Abbas, who had been appointed earlier in 2003 at Bush's insistence in order to curb Arafat's influence. Dahlan wrote that 'complete coordination and cooperation by all' was needed to prevent this, as well as 'subjecting [Arafat] to pressure so that he cannot carry out this step'. Dahlan reveals that 'we have already begun attempts to polarize the views of many legislative council members by intimidation and temptation so that they will be on our side and not his [Arafat's]'. Dahlan closes his letter to Mofaz saying, 'it remains only for me to convey my gratitude to you and the prime minister [Ariel Sharon] for your continued confidence in us, and to you all respect'." (From Overcoming the conspiracy against Palestine, Ali Abunimeh, The Electronic Intifada, 18/7/07)

In fact, the rot set in at least as long ago as 1993 with the launch of the so-called peace process, symbolised by PLO head Yasir Arafat shaking hands with Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin on the White House lawn at President Bill Clinton's urging. The late Edward Said's damning assessment, written at the time, of Arafat's performance and its fateful consequences for the future of the Palestinian struggle for national liberation and independence has proved prophetic indeed:

"Now that some of the euphoria has lifted, what emerges from the Israeli-PLO agreement is a deal that is more flawed and less favorable for the Palestinian people than many had first supposed. The vulgarities of the White House ceremony, the degrading spectacle of Yasir Arafat thanking everyone for what, in fact, was the suspension of most of his people's rights, and the fatuous solemnity of Bill Clinton's performance - like a 20th-century Roman emperor shepherding two vassal kings through rituals of reconciliation and obeisance - all these only temporarily obscure the truly astonishing proportions of the Palestinian capitulation. So first of all let us call the agreement by its real name: an instrument of Palestinian surrender, a Palestinian Versailles... I doubt there was a single Palestinian who watched the White House ceremony who did not also feel that a century of sacrifice, dispossession, heroic struggle, had finally come to naught. Indeed what was most troubling was that Rabin in effect gave the Palestinian speech, whereas Arafat pronounced words that had all the flair of a rental agreement. Far from being the victims of Zionism, the Palestinians saw themselves being characterized before the world as its now repentant assailants, as if the thousands killed by Israel's bombing of refugee camps, hospitals, schools in Lebanon, its expulsion of 800,000 people in 1948 (whose descendents now number about 3 million, most of them stateless refugees), the conquest of their land and property, its destruction of over 400 Palestinian villages, the invasion of Lebanon, to say nothing of the ravages of 26 years of brutal military occupation, were reduced to the status of terrorism and violence, to be renounced retrospectively or dropped from reference entirely. Israel has always described Palestinian resistance as terrorism and violence, so even in the matter of diction it received a moral and historical gift. In return for exactly what? Israel's recognition of the PLO, undoubtedly a significant step forward. Beyond that, by accepting that land and sovereignty are being postponed till 'final status negotiations' the Palestinians in effect have discounted their unilateral and internationally acknowledged claim to the West Bank and Gaza: these have now at most become 'disputed territories'. Thus with Palestinian assistance Israel has been awarded at least an equal claim to them. The Israeli calculation is that by accepting to police Gaza - which Begin tried to give Sadat 15 years ago - the PLO would soon fall foul of local competitors, of whom Hamas is only one. Moreover, rather than becoming stronger during the interim period, the Palestinians will grow weaker and more under Israeli control, and thus less able to dispute the Israeli claim when the last set of negotiations begins." (Edward Said, from his October 1993 essay The Morning After in Peace & Its Discontents: Essays on Palestine in the Middle East Peace Process, 1995, pp 7/10-11)

Geraldine Doogue Meets the Palestinian Ben-Gurion

It'd be fascinating to know the circumstances surrounding the interview of the Palestinian Authority's puppet prime minister Salam Fayyad by ABC Radio National's presenter Geraldine Doogue on Saturday Extra on 12/9/09. After all, as someone now being promoted by Israeli president Shimon Peres as a "Palestinian Ben-Gurion*," that must open quite a few doors. Just listen to Doogue's introduction:

"I'd like to introduce you to a man you may not have heard too much about but he's really coming into his political prime and earning himself considerable international respect because his basic day job is super tough. Dr Salam Fayyad's official title is Prime Minister of the Palestinian National Authority. He's an independent member of the Palestinian parliament, ie he's neither ffrom the Fatah or Hamas party and he comes to this post via an unusual route and an unusual suite of skills. He has a Doctorate in Economics from the University of Texas; he's worked for the World Bank and as a private banker and some argue that even the Israelis are enchanted by him and he certainly seems to be presiding over some much wanted economic successes. Now he's started to throw down some googlies though, as he tries to change the whole strategic discussion in this arena. He's started talking about a 2 year program of change after which he'll expect an independent state to be created in Palestine and he wants to persuade the international community that if he runs a proper state, well he can demand that Israel treat it as such. So how does the prime minister plan to do all this?" A strutter on the world stage? Respected by all the right people? A winner of Israeli hearts? A magician who has to do no more than expect an independent Palestinian state for it to materialise (provided, of course, that he can show Bushama and the Israelis that he's the very model of a modern Palestinian Quisling). Wowee! [*EU sources: Terms set for renewal of Israel-PA talks, Akiva Eldar, Haaretz, 13/9/09]

Before proceeding further, it should be pointed out that Fayyad is merely a pawn of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and his prime-ministership is actually illegal under Palestinian law: when the democratically-elected Hamas government of Palestine managed to pre-empt a coup conceived in Washington and led by Fatah security forces chief Muhammad Dahlan in June 2007* [See my 6/3/08 post Mainsewer Media Clueless in Gaza], Abbas violated the interim Palestinian constitution (the Basic Law) when he declared a state of emergency, dismissed the Hamas-led Palestinian unity government of Prime Minister Ismail Haniya, and appointed a new government under Fayyad without parliamentary approval. Article 113 of the constitution stipulates that the legislature cannot be "dissolved or suspended during the emergency situation." The Haniya government, therefore, should have been retained as a caretaker government pending parliamentary approval for a new government. [See Abbas challenged over new cabinet, anisalqasem.com, 8/7/07]

To understand why alleged prime minister Fayyad isn't all he's cracked up to be, one needs to take a long hard look at Washington's main man in Ramallah: "Abbas... long ago placed all of his eggs in the Israeli-American basket. Acting as if his chickens had already hatched, his inability to deliver any tangible achievement has instead meant they came home to roost with a vengeance. Key to this is Abbas' relationship to his people: simply put, it never existed. Arafat saw the Palestinians as the ace in the deck to be played when all else failed, and understood that his leverage with outside actors derived from their conviction that he represented the Palestinian people. If he consistently failed or refused to properly mobilise this primary resource, he at least always held it in reserve. Abbas has by contrast been an inveterate elitist, who seems to have regarded the Palestinian population as an obstacle to be overcome so that the game of nations could proceed - there are after all only so many seats at the table where great statesmen like Abbas, George Bush and Ehud Olmert together create the contours of a new Middle East. For Abbas, legitimacy meant the leverage you have with your voters by convincing them you represent others. Cursed with exceptional self-regard, Abbas has always shown disinterest in the opinions of others. From the moment he convinced himself of the sincerity of Bush's visions, which put the onus on the Palestinians to prove they qualify for membership in the human race and are worthy of being spoken to by Tsipi Livni and Condoleezza Rice, there was no turning back. Henceforth the Palestinian security forces would point their weapons exclusively at their own people, and only Saeb Erakat would be aimed at Israel. At the United Nations, once a primary arena for the Palestinian struggle, Abbas's emissary Riad Mansour was too busy drafting a resolution declaring Hamas a terrorist entity to deal with more trivial Palestinian concerns. It was simply simpossible to steer Abbas towards a change of course, let alone a national dialogue that could produce a genuine strategy. By the expiration of his presidency on January 9, his constitutional status had become the least of his problems. Each and every one of his policies had failed. In the West Bank, settlement expansion was proceeding at an inprecedented pace while the Wall neared final completion, rendering talk of a two-state solution all but moot. After Hamas triumphed in the 2006 parliamentary elections, Abbas's ceaseless scheming to remove the Islamists from office and overturn the election's results - characteristically in active partnership with outside forces rather than the Palestinian electorate - was a vertiable carnival of folly and incompetence. When Hamas acted first in 2007, it took the Islamists only several days to dispose of those few forces still prepared to fight for Mohammed Dahlan. While many are arguing that Abbas is now paying the price for his passivity while Israel slaughtered Palestinians in Gaza, this is only one part of the story. At least as important is the manner in which he conducted himself since December 27 - comprehensively out of touch with his own people, as if deliberately so, and dealing with the Gaza Strip as if it is a foreign country he has never heard of. In his initial response Abbas laid responsibility for the conflict at Hamas's doorstep, in one stroke reducing his role to that of a factional leader opportunistically siding with his cousin against his brother. More to the point, he unleashed the full power of his security forces against his own people. Not to prevent a Hamas coup in West Bank, or even attacks against Israel, but to suppress pro-Palestinian demonstrations of the kind permitted even within Israel. He responded to Israel's launching of a land offensive on January 3 by announcing that he was delaying for one day his vist to the UN Security Council. Not to lead his people, but rather to meet Nicholas Sarkozy. Since then he has barely visited Palestine; on his last sojourn he stayed only long enough to inform the Qataris that he could not attend their emergency meeting to discuss the war." (Out of the rubble, Mouin Rabbani, thenational.ae, 23/1/09)

But I digress - it wasn't really this Palestinian Ben-Gurion who made me sit up and listen. It was Doogue's farcical, and profoundly colonial, questions and interjections: "Now you are known as someone who can get on very well with many in the Israeli political establishment. What do you think it is that makes the Israelis comfortable around you?" Fayyad, of course, did not reply, Well, Geraldine, maybe it's got to do with the fact that I don't bring my bomb-belt and Kalashnikov to our meetings, but could have. For Doogue, it's all about the natives making their Zionist sahibs comfortable. Fayyad's utterly forgettable response was followed by this prattle: "What I've read is that they feel that they can trust you and you're a man of your word and that you're interested in efficiency which is, you know (laughs), the Israelis don't say that very often about the people from the Palestinian territory." Fayyad, of course, whose response was utterly foregettable, did not respond, No they don't, Geraldine, as befits people who have been wiping Palestine (and Palestinians) off the map for the past 60 years, they haven't actually paid us any compliments whatsoever.

Then it was vintage Doogue, whose all-consuming interest, from the snatches of Saturday Extra that have filtered through to me while taking a shower, seems to be $$$: "Are you getting Israeli money? Who is financing your development - because you've got 70% growth rate in the 12 months past; wages are up 24%. There's all sorts of new developments. There's a Palestinian city that could rise in the West Bank... Who's financing this?" Are you getting Israeli money? for Pete's sake! Again, Fayyad did not explain (but could have) that, while the Palestinians were getting heaps of goodies from the Israelis, like bullets in the brain, walls, checkpoints, uprooted olive trees, Israeli colonies (West Bank), and the privilege of being on the receiving end of state-of-the-art Israeli/US ordnance etc, etc (Gaza), they weren't getting anything remotely resembling the proverbial brass razoo.

Doogue was clearly intrigued by Fayyad. He was so wonderfully unPalestinian: "What I think is interesting about you is that you speak in this very pragmatic way. In fact, you haven't really mentioned, you're not held up [sic] on the fact of the occupation... How have you flipped your mind around to a different approach?"

Palestinian Che Guevaras hung up on the occupation are sooo boring, right, Geraldine?