The Perils & Pitfalls of Not Doing Your Homework

Following Israel's May 14, 60+ slaughter on the Gaza border, young US Democratic Party contender, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez reacted as any decent human being would, tweeting: "This is a massacre. I hope my peers have the moral courage to call it such. No state or entity is absolved of mass shootings of protesters. There is no justification. Palestinian people deserve basic human dignity, as anyone else. Democrats can't be silent about this."

Following her upset win in the primaries, however, Ocasio-Cortez unfortunately lost the plot in an interview with conservative Firing Line host Margaret Hoover:

MH: You, in the campaign, made one tweet... that referred to a killing by Israeli soldiers of civilians in Gaza and called it a 'massacre', which became a little bit controversial. But I haven't seen anywhere - what is your position on Israel?

AOC: Well, I believe absolutely in Israel's right to exist. I am a proponent of a two-state solution. And for me, it's not - this is not a referendum, I think on the state of Israel. For me, the lens through which I saw this incident, as an activist... if 60 people were killed in Ferguson, Missouri, if 60 people were killed in the South Bronx - unarmed - if 60 people were killed in Puerto Rico - I just looked at that incident more through... through just, as an incident, and to me, it would just be completely unacceptable if that happened on our shores. But I am -

MH: Of course, the dynamic there in terms of geopolitics -

AOC: Of course.

MH: And the war in the Middle East is very different than people expressing their First Amendment right to protest.

AOC: Well, yes. But I also think that what people are starting to see at least [that] the occupation of Palestine is just an increasing crisis of humanitarian condition[s], and that to me is just where I tend to come from on this issue.

MH: You use the term 'the occupation of Palestine'? What did you mean by that?

AOC: Oh, um [pause] I think it, what I meant is the settlements that are increasing in some of these areas and places where Palestinians are experiencing difficulty in access to their housing and homes.

MH: Do you think you can expand on that?

AOC: Yeah, I mean, I think I'd also just [waves hands and laughs] I am not the expert on geopolitics on this issue. You know, for me, I'm a firm believer in finding a two-state solution on this issue, and I'm happy to sit down with leaders on both of these. For me, I just look at things through a human rights lens, and I may not use the right words [laughs] I know this is a very intense issue.

MH: That's very honest, that's very honest. It's very honest, and when you, you know, get to Washington and you're an elected member of Congress you'll have the opportunity to talk to people on all sides and visit Israel and visit the West Bank and -

AOC: Absolutely, absolutely. And I think that that's one of those things that's important too is that, you know, especially with the district that I represent - I come from the South Bronx, I come from a Puerto Rican background, and Middle Eastern politics was not exactly at my kitchen table every night. But, I also recognize that this is an intensely important issue for people in my district, for Americans across the country, and I think what's at least important to communicate is that I'm willing to listen and that I'm willing to learn and evolve on this issue like I think many Americans are.

It's clear from Ocasio-Cortez's knee-jerk invocation of Israel's so-called "right to exist" that she hasn't a clue when it comes to this Zionist mantra. For someone aiming to win a place in the Zionist-controlled US Knesset Congress that's pretty damning. She should have made it her business to learn that Israel is an apartheid state built on the dispossession (1948 & 1967) and enforced exile of Palestine's indigenous Arab population, and spoken to this instead of parroting this Zionist talking point. The information is out there, she needed only to do her homework. A perusal of Sharmine Narwani's eviscerating essay, Three Magic Words, would have done the trick nicely. (See my 25/5/12 post of the same name.)

As for the "two-state solution" mantra, the absorption of a few basic facts - the inherent injustice of a Palestinian state on a mere 22% of historic Palestine; Israel's entrenched position in over 60% of the West Bank; the Likud Charter's flat rejection of a Palestinian state "west of the Jordan River" - should long ago have alerted her to the irrelevance of this tired and tatty formula.

And Ocasio-Cortez's backing away from her use of the word 'occupation' was a particularly bad move. All she had to do was remind Hoover of UNSC resolution 242 (1967), which calls on Israel to withdraw from "territories occupied in the recent conflict," and remind her that that occupation has gone on now for over 50 years.

I'VE SAID IT BEFORE AND I'LL SAY IT AGAIN: THERE IS REALLY NO EXCUSE FOR IGNORANCE ON THE PALESTINE/ISRAEL ISSUE ANY MORE, LEAST OF ALL FOR ASPIRING PROGRESSIVE POLITICIANS. THE INFORMATION IS THERE. DO YOUR HOMEWORK, OR STAY OUT OF POLITICS.

Blown Away by Labor's Advance on Palestine/Israel?

Before anyone gets too carried away by the latest glacial advance in the ALP's Palestine policy, please remember that Israel's illegal post-67 West Bank settlement project, which Bob Carr in particular opposes as standing in the way of a two-state solution to the Palestine/Israel project, is, in all its essentials, no different to Israel's pre-67 settlement project.

Every square inch of historic Palestine from the river to the sea is occupied and colonised Arab land.

It matters not whether the occupation and colonisation took place before 1967, or after.

Whether it takes the form of a Balfour Declaration or a United Nations partition plan, no imperial power, or collection thereof, had, or has, the right to dispose of one square centimetre of Arab Palestinian land.

It's Hebron today - but before that it was Haifa. It's Jerusalem today - but before that it was Jaffa.

After 1967, the Zionist land thieves were called settlers - before that kibbutzniks. Same colonial smell, same...

The Zionist settler-colonial, apartheid project called Israel has no right, God-given or otherwise, to one square centimetre of Arab Palestine.

Please keep this in mind before you get too excited about NSW Labor's 'secure and recognised borders,' or anything else to do with Palestine.

And take this ice cold shower:

"Israel fears 'delegitimization' more than anything else. Behind the velvet curtain lies a state built on myths and narratives, protected only by a military behemoth, billions of dollars in US assistance and a lone UN Security Council veto. Nothing else stands between the state and its dismantlement. Without these three things, Israelis would not live in an entity that has come to be known as the 'least safe place for Jews in the world.'

"Strip away the spin and the gloss, and you quickly realize that Israel doesn't even have the basics of a normal state. After 64 years, it doesn't have borders. After six decades, it has never been more isolated. Over half a century later, and it needs a gargantuan military just to stop Palestinians from walking home.

"Israel is a failed experiment. It is on life-support - pull those three plugs and it is a cadaver, living only in the minds of some seriously deluded foreigners who thought they could pull off the heist of the century.

"The most important thing we can do as we hover over the horizon of One State is to shed the old language rapidly. None of it was real anyway - it was just the parlance of that particular 'game'. Grow a new vocabulary of possibilities - the new state will be the dawn of humanity's great reconciliation. Muslims, Christians and Jews living together in Palestine as they once did.

"Naysayers can take a hike. Our patience is wearing thinner than the walls of the hovels that Palestinian refugees have called 'home' for three generations in their purgatory camps.

"These universally exploited refugees are entitled to nice apartments - the ones that have pools and a grove of palm trees outside the lobby. Because the kind of compensation owed for this failed Western experiment will never be enough.

"And no, nobody hates Jews. That is the fallback argument screeched in our ears - the one 'firewall' remaining to protect this Israeli Frankenstein. I don't even care enough to insert the caveats that are supposed to prove I don't hate Jews. It is not a provable point, and frankly, it is a straw man of an argument. If Jews who didn't live through the Holocaust still feel the pain of it, then take that up with the Germans. Demand a sizeable plot of land in Germany - and good luck to you.

"For anti-Semites salivating over an article that slams Israel, ply your trade elsewhere - you are part of the reason this problem exists.

"Israelis who don't want to share Palestine as equal citizens with the indigenous Palestinian population - the ones who don't want to relinquish that which they demanded Palestinians relinquish 64 years ago - can take their second passports and go back home. Those remaining had better find a positive attitude - Palestinians have shown themselves to be a forgiving lot. The amount of carnage they have experienced at the hands of their oppressors - without proportional response - shows remarkable restraint and faith.

"This is less the death of a Jewish state than it is the demise of the last remnants of modern-day colonialism. It is a rite of passage - we will get through it just fine. At this particular precipice in the 21st century, we are all, universally Palestinian - undoing this wrong is a test of our collective humanity, and nobody has the right to sit this one out.

"Israel has no right to exist. Break that mental barrier and just say it: 'Israel has no right to exist.' Roll it around your tongue, tweet it, post it as your Facebook status update - do it before you think twice. Delegitimization is here - have no fear. Palestine will be less painful than Israel ever was." (Excuse me, but Israel has no right to exist, Sharmine Narwani, english.al-akhbar.com, 17/5/12)

The Awakening of Dr Swee

One of the best personal accounts I have ever read of the journey from (Palestine) ignorance to (Palestine) awareness may be found in the memoir From Beirut to Jerusalem: A Woman Surgeon with the Palestinians (1989) by the remarkable and saintly British-Singaporean doctor, Swee Chai Ang.*

Her awakening came in 1982, in the context of Israel's brutal invasion and occupation of Lebanon. Here she is at the beginning of her journey:

"Lebanon and Beirut were were unfamiliar names to me, but Israel was not: my church had taught me that the children of Israel had were the chosen people of God. Many of my Christian friends held that the gathering of the Jews from all over the world into the State of Israel was the fulfilment of scriptural prophecies.

"Israel had my support for other reasons. In London, I had spent hours watching television programmes which showed how appallingly the Jewish people had suffered at the hands of the Nazis. Both of my parents had suffered at the hands of the Nazis' allies, the Japanese Imperial Army. As a refugee in a foreign country, I understood what it meant to be stateless. The creation of the State of Israel, giving the Jews a home free from persecution, seemed to me to be an act of justice - even one of divine justice.

"The newspapers said that the Israeli invasion of Lebanon had made a hundred thousand people homeless and had killed fourteen thousand, and this upset me terribly. I could not understand why Israel had done this. There had to be a good reason for it. Most of the news stories in Britain depicted the invasion as an attempt by Israel to flush out the Palestine Liberation Organisation - or PLO - from its bases in Lebanon. All I knew about the PLO was that it was an Arab group which hijacked passenger jets, planted bombs and hated Jews.

"Some of my Christian elders told me that the Palestinians were the descendants of the Philistines of the Old Testament, and everyone knew that the giant Goliath was a conquering Philistine who terrorised his opponents. The tale of David and Goliath had been one of my favourites when I was a Sunday school teacher: I loved telling my kids how little David brought down the mighty Goliath. (I am a couple of inches under five foot tall myself.)

"From the news coverage, however, it looked as though Israel had turned into Goliath: a swaggering giant bringing destruction, terror and death to neighbouring Lebanon. An Israeli leader told the press that much as he regretted the casualties, to make an omelette one first had to crack eggs.

"Crack eggs? That remark shocked me. What kind of 'omelette' was Israel trying to make, and were the people of Lebanon eggs to be cracked? It was clear from the news reports that nearly all of the people who had been killed, wounded or made homeless were civilians, many of them women or children. Bombing civilians is a disgraceful way to make war. The bombs fell for days: on playgrounds, cemeteries, houses, hospitals, schools and factories. Even International Red Cross ships bringing food and medical supplies to Beirut were targets." (pp 1-3)

Now here she is at the end of her journey of discovery:

"The Palestinian-Israeli conflict exists because Israel could only be created over the destruction of Palestine and the expulsion of its people. In 1988, the State of Israel celebrated forty years of existence; while the Palestinian exiles remembered the loss of their homeland. For Israel to flourish, all traces of Palestine had to be obliterated. The wounds inflicted by Israel go on festering; Israeli bombs cause death and destruction; torture and mutilation in Israeli detention camps, such as the Ansar camps, will take more than a lifetime to fade from the memory. And Israelis complain that the Palestinians refuse to 'recognise' the State of Israel. After being forced to give up their country, their homes - even their lives - the Palestinians are being asked to surrender their souls to the victors." (p 246)

[*See Dr Swee in action in one of the most moving talks I have ever heard: Making a Small Difference: TEDxUCLWoman, https:www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9oH7HoxmLk]

When a Sectarian State is OK

When Zionists tell you you're an anti-Semite because you can't accept Israel as a Jewish state, say:

Not really. I also reject Christian, Islamic and Buddhist states.

But then, maybe I could be persuaded to accept Israel as a Jewish state - so long as it's not bang on top of someone else's home. If it were on the moon, say.*

[*A reworking of the Angry Arab's Rejection of Israel? 20/3/16.]

ALP Fiddles While Palestine Burns

My between-the-lines reading of Labor's latest position on Palestine:

The Australian Labor Party conference:

Affirms Labor's support for an enduring and just two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, based on the right of Israel to live in peace within secure borders internationally recognised and agreed by the parties, and reflecting the legitimate rights* and aspirations of the Palestinian people to also live in peace and security within their own state.

This merely means that Labor supports the division of historical Palestine into a sectarian, Jews-only apartheid state on 78% + of its former territory, and a bantustan, or series thereof, on what's left over.

Deplores the tragic conflict in Gaza and supports an end to rocket attacks by Hamas and the exercise of the maximum possible restraint by Israel in response to these attacks.

The crushing Israeli blockade and siege of Gaza, however, is not deplored. (Notice here the recycling of that musty Zionist propaganda trope: Palestinians always attack and Israelis only ever retaliate. Moving from propaganda to reality, what is actually being said here is that, while Palestinian retaliation must end, Israeli attacks are fine - just so long as they don't make the headlines.) 

Supports a negotiated settlement between the parties to the conflict, based on international frameworks, laws and norms.

... but not countless UN Security Council and General Assembly resolutions?

Recognises in government Labor retained its commitment to two states for two peoples in the Middle East and specifically:

*Did not block enhanced Palestinian status in the General Assembly;

IOW didn't vote for it.

*Restated the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, is occupied territory;

Really? Must've missed that one. All I can remember is Blinky Bill saying, "Middle Eastern issues are very complex..." (See my 9/6/14 post Israeli-Occupied Labor.) 

*Opposed Israeli settlements on occupied Palestinian land, recognising that a just, peaceful and enduring resolution will involve a territorial settlement based on 1967 borders with agreed land swaps;

That one too.

*Held that the settlements are illegal under international law.

What's with the bleeding obvious here? What's next? Labor held that water is wet?

Recognises that any resolution will be based on 1967 borders with agreed land swaps, a timeframe to end Israeli occupation, demilitarisation of Palestinian territory, agreement on a solution to Palestinian refugee issues, and resolution of the issue of Jerusalem's final status.

So only the proposed Palestinian bantustan is to be disarmed...

Agreement on a solution to Palestinian refugee issues? Issues? What f*****g issues?

Anyway, we already have a solution to the Palestinian refugee issue. It's called UNGA Resolution 194 and calls on Israel to repatriate those Palestinian refugees wishing to return or compensate those who choose not to. After all, we voted for it when it was first moved on December 11, 1948.

And if that's not enough, there's also the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). Specifically, Article 13(2) Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, AND TO RETURN TO HIS COUNTRY.

As for East Jerusalem, the resolution has already stated that it is occupied territory, so shouldn't it be calling for an end to same?

Recognises that settlement building by Israel in the occupied territories that may undermine a two-state solution is a roadblock to peace.

Labor calls on Israel to cease all such settlement expansion to support renewed negotiations toward peace.

Settlement expansion? Hang on - Labor has already acknowledged that Israeli settlements are illegal so shouldn't it be calling on Israel to DISMANTLE the bloody things, lock, stock and barrel?

Rejects the boycotts, divestment and sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israel.

Since BDS is merely a strategy to pressure Israel to

a) end its occupation and colonization of all Arab lands occupied in 1967 and dismantle the wall;
b) recognize the fundamental rights of Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel to full equality; and
c) respect, protect, and promote the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and properties, as stipulated in UN Resolution 194

Labor needs to spell out why exactly it rejects BDS.

But, of course, it won't, because then it'd sound indistinguishable from Zionist dead-enders who mutter darkly about a Palestinian 'demographic time bomb'. Definitely not a good look that one. 

Condemns the comments of the Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, during the recent elections where he ruled out a Palestinian state, and further condemns his appeals to race during the campaign.

Oh, FFS, the Likud platform has always ruled out a Palestinian state, and Zionism is racism. And apartheid.

Recognises a lasting peace will require a future state of Palestine to recognise the right of Israel to exist.

What this actually means is that, for Labor, the onus is on the dispossessed and occupied Palestinian people to give their seal of approval to the continued existence of the apartheid, Jewish supremacist regime which usurped their ancestral Palestinian homeland. 

Recognises the special circumstances of the Palestinian people, their desire for respect, and the achievement of their legitimate aspiration to live in independence in a state of their own. This a cause Labor is committed to. If, however, there is no progress in the next round of the peace process, a future Labor government will discuss joining like-minded nations who have already recognised Palestine and announcing the conditions and timelines for the Australian recognition of a Palestinian state, with the objective of contributing to peace and security in the Middle East.

That's it??? That's what we're supposed to write home about??? That's the light at the end of the tunnel???

Pull the other, Labor!

[*I'm using the version of the resolution that appeared on the Guardian Australia website. I note that in the Australian of 27/7 there is no reference to Palestinian rights, only legitimate aspirations. WTF! Will the real resolution please stand up.]

Setting the Bar Too High

"Beijing has raised the bar for fresh talks with the Dalai Lama - requiring him to defer publicly to contentious historical claims. China has published a new white paper on Tibet, which demands that if negotiations were to resume about his return after 56 years of exile, he must first make 'a public statement that Tibet has been an integral part of China since antiquity'." (Beijing sets bar too high for Lama, Rowan Callick, The Australian, 18/4/15)

Outrageous! Completely unacceptable! A demand not to be contemplated. 

But Israel's demand that the Palestinians give up on their homeland and concede that it really belongs to 'the Jewish people' - based again on some obscure, antique connection (formulated hyperbolically these days as 'Israel's right to exist' as a Jewish state) - now that's a different matter.

Unlike the Chinese demand, however, our Zionised msm pundits and scribblers invariably find Israel's demand not only eminently reasonable, but the Palestinians' acquiescence in it absolutely essential if peace is ever to come to the Holy Land.

And that's why you'll never see a headline like Tel Aviv sets bar too high for Palestinians.

From Little Things Big Things Grow

I feel it's appropriate to preface this post with an excerpt from a conversation between the great Dr Fayez Abdullah Sayegh (1922-1980) and David Susskind, host of The David Susskind Show (WNEW-TV). At the time, Sayegh was acting as a consultant to the Kuwaiti delegation to the UN. The conversation/debate (Susskind was your typical American Zionist boofhead) went to air in New York on December 3, 1967:

Sayegh: Now you say we refuse to recognize Israel. Yes, we refuse to recognize Israel because the Israel you are speaking about is an act of usurpation of an Arab territory, an Arab land; an act of ouster of an Arab population. Every Israeli who is in Israel today is living in the home of an Arab who has not been compensated for his property. Every Israeli who is in Israel today is there because an Arab has been ousted. Israel is, because Palestine has been made not to be. The being of Israel is the non-being of Palestine. We do not endorse the non-being of an Arab country called Palestine. We will not recognize Israel as long as that means non-recognition of Arab Palestine...
Susskind: If she's a usurper state, and inhabiting your land, the only successful conclusion, from your point of view, would be her final demise, or defeat?
Sayegh: Not necessarily.
Susskind: What else would accommodate your ambition?
Sayegh: I - what would accommodate my ambition will be - my hope - and I say this now in the utmost earnestness, whether you like to believe me or not - my hope is that the human conscience will still wake up among the Zionists living in Israel, and will make them realize that they have usurped someone else's land, and will make them accept to live as human beings in a democratic Palestine, where they and the rightful inhabitants have a place, rather than to live in an exclusively Zionist state at the expense of the rightful inhabitants of Palestine.
Susskind: Give up statehood?
Sayegh: Give up statehood, but not give up existence.
Susskind: Well, that's charming. Don't die, but go away.
Sayegh: Well, sir, you have done that... Israel has done that to the Arabs of Palestine. And I believe that the human conscience of many people in Israel will still awaken to the tragedy that they have been instrumental in inflicting upon another people that was never guilty of their suffering, that was never guilty of their persecution in Christian Europe...
Susskind: Turn over the state to an Arab country, is that it? The state of Israel?
Sayegh: While they're there it will not be an exclusively Arab country. Any Jew who has no place else to go will be able to stay in Palestine; the rightful inhabitants of Palestine must be allowed to come back to their country; and you will have a binational state of Christians, Muslims, Jews, Druse, Baha'i, atheists; all in Palestine, as Palestinians, leading a Palestinian life.

***

Further to my 10 September post - Remember Two Israelis, Three Opinions? - on Israeli NGO Zochrot's conference From Truth to Redress: Realizing the Return of Palestinian Refugees (29-30 September), I'm pleased to say that it proceeded without a hitch. Zochrot has just issued the following conference summary:

"The conference is over and it was a huge success! It took place as planned, despite attempts to prevent it, at the Rothschild Auditorium on the campus of the Eretz Israel Museum in Tel Aviv, which was built on the lands of the Palestinian village of Ash-Shaykh Muwannis. Some 400 people attended the 2-day conference. It was broadcast live on the Internet and viewed by some 750 people from all around the world. Tens of thousands of people were exposed to posts uploaded during the conference on Facebook and Twitter. Over 25 volunteers helped with administering and documenting the conference. Speaking in English, Hebrew and Arabic, 35 presenters - academics and activists from Palestine/Israel, as well as Canada, the US, the UK, Serbia and Poland - presented their various concepts and ideas for realizing the return of Palestinian refugees to their homeland and its spatial implications.

"Over the coming weeks, Zochrot will publish all the lectures and visual and textual materials presented at the conference. Videos will be uploaded starting this week, and an electronic booklet with 10 texts by conference speakers will be published in mid-November.

"In the meantime, you are welcome to view 3 visions of return which were presented at the conference and moved the audience: Planning the Future Village of al-Lajjun, Future Return to Mi'ar, and Actual Return to Iqrit. These visions were conceived by groups of Palestinian youth living in Israel, who participated over the past year in a joint project for Zochrot, Baladna: Association for Arab Youth, Arab Association for Human Rights, and the Association for the Defence of the Rights of the Internally Displaced.

"Palestinian author Salman Natur, who mediated one of the conference panels wrote the following on his Facebook page: 'I have just returned from Tel Aviv, where I took part in a conference organized by Zochrot, an NGO which acts to promote awareness of the Nakba and disseminate information about it and about crimes against the Palestinian people in general among the Jewish public. The concepts that echoed in the auditorium were Nakba, Awda (Return), memory, displaced villagers, refugees, one democratic state from the river to the sea, acknowledgement and reconciliation. About 200 people, mostly Jews, filled the auditorium. The panel I mediated included 7 speakers from the US, UK, Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and Haifa, in addition to a video lecture by Dr Salman Abu-Sitta, who wrapped up the entire story by stating: 'I was kicked out of my home, and I want to return to it.' The conference is a turning point in the attempt to transform Israeli consciousness. Something noteworthy is happening here. I recommend following up on the conference's outputs. What has been said there is priceless. In fact, I recommend all Zochrot publications. The idea of a single democratic state is increasingly taking hold in the minds of many who are seeking a just peace. The one-state solution as outlined by the researchers and academics who spoke at the conference sounds more realistic than the two-state solution.'

"The conference is also receiving ongoing attention in the media. Recent articles include: Gideon Levy & Alex Levak, Haaretz; Esther Zandberg on the al-Lajjun Project in Haaretz; The Times of Israel; Ma'an News; Tom Pessah, 972mag.com."

Three Magic Words

In the spirit of keeping it real, drop everything and read this:
Excuse me, but Israel has no right to exist by Sharmine Narwani

"The phrase 'right to exist' entered my consciousness in the 1990s just as the concept of the two-state solution became part of our collective lexicon. In any debate at university, when a Zionist was out of arguments, those 3 magic words were invoked to shut down the conversation with an outraged, 'are you saying Israel doesn't have the right to exist??'

"Of course you couldn't challenge Israel's right to exist - that was like saying you were negating a fundamental Jewish right to have... rights, with all manner of Holocaust guilt thrown in for effect.

"Except of course the Holocaust is not my fault - or that of Palestinians. The cold-blooded program of ethnically cleansing Europe of its Jewish population has been so callously and opportunistically utilized to justify the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian Arab nation, that it leaves me utterly unmoved. I have even caught myself - shock - rolling my eyes when I hear Holocaust and Israel in the same sentence.

"What moves me instead in this post-two-state era is the sheer audacity of Israel even existing.

"What a fantastical idea, this notion that a bunch of rank outsiders from another continent could appropriate an existing, populated nation for themselves - and convince the 'global community' that it was the moral thing to do. I'd laugh at the chutzpah if this wasn't so serious.

"Even more brazen is the mass ethnic cleansing of the indigenous Palestinian population by persecuted Jews, newly arrived from their own experience of being ethnically cleansed.

"But what is truly frightening is the psychological manipulation of the masses into thinking that Palestinians are somehow dangerous - 'terrorists' intent on 'driving Jews into the sea'. As someone who makes a living through words, I find the use of language in creating perceptions to be intriguing. This practice - often termed 'public diplomacy' has become an essential tool in the world of geopolitics. Words, after all, are the building blocks of our psychology.

"The United States and Israel have created the global discourse on this issue, setting stringent parameters that grow increasingly narrow regarding the content and direction of this debate. Anything discussed outside the set parameters has, until recently, widely been viewed as unrealistic, unproductive and even subversive.

"Participation in the debate is limited only to those who subscribe to its main tenets: the acceptance of Israel, its regional hegemony and its qualitative military edge; acceptance of the shaky logic upon which the Jewish state's claim to Palestine is based; and acceptance of the inclusion and exclusion of certain regional parties, movements and governments in any solution to the conflict.

"Words like dove, hawk, militant, extremist, moderate, terrorist, Islamo-fascist, rejectionist, existential threat, holocaust-denier, mad mullah determine the participation of solution partners - and are capable of instantly excluding others.

"Then there is the language that preserves 'Israel's Right To Exist' unquestioningly: anything that invokes the Holocaust, anti-Semitism and the myths about historic Jewish rights to the land bequeathed to them by the Almighty - as though God was in the real-estate business. This language seeks not only to ensure that a Jewish connection to Palestine remains unquestioned, but importantly, seeks to punish and marginalize those who tackle the legitimacy of this modern colonial-settler experiment.

"But this group-think has led us nowhere. It has obfuscated, distracted, deflected, ducked, and diminished, and we are no closer to a satisfactory conclusion... because the premise is wrong.

"There is no fixing this problem. This is the kind of crisis in which you cut your losses, realize the error of your ways and reverse course. Israel is the problem. It is the last modern-day colonial-settler experiment, conducted at a time when these projects were being unravelled globally.

"There is no 'Palestinian-Israeli conflict' - that suggests some sort of equality in power, suffering, and negotiable tangibles, and there is no symmetry whatsoever in this equation. Israel is the Occupier and Oppressor; Palestinians are the Occupied and the Oppressed. What is there to negotiate? Israel holds all the chips. They can give back some land, property, rights, but even that is an absurdity - what about everything else? What about ALL the land, property and rights? Why do they get to keep anything - how is the appropriation of land and property prior to 1948 fundamentally different from the appropriation of land and property on this arbitrary 1967 date?

"Why are the colonial-settlers prior to 1948 any different from those who colonized and settled after 1967?

"Let me correct myself. Palestinians do hold one chip that Israel salivates over - the one big demand at the negotiating table that seems to hold up everything else. Israel craves recognition of its 'right to exist'.

"But you do exist - don't you, Israel?

"Israel fears 'delegitimization'' more than anything else. Behind the velvet curtain lies a state built on myths and narratives, protected only by a military behemoth, billions of dollars in US assistance, and a lone UN Security Council veto. Nothing else stands between the state and its dismantlement. Without these three things, Israelis would not live in an entity that has come to be known as the 'least safe place for Jews in the world'.

"Strip away the spin and the gloss, and you quickly realize that Israel doesn't even have the basics of a normal state. After 64 years, it doesn't have borders. After six decades, it has never been more isolated. Over half a century later, it needs a gargantuan military just to stop Palestinians walking home.

"Israel is a failed experiment. It is on life-support - pull those three plugs and it is a cadaver, living only in the minds of some seriously deluded foreigners who thought they could pull off the heist of the century.

"The most important thing we can do as we hover on the horizon of One State is to shed the old language rapidly. None of it was real anyway - it was just the parlance of that particular 'game'. Grow a new vocabulary of possibilities - the new state will be the dawn of humanity's great reconciliation. Muslims, Christians and Jews living together in Palestine as they once did.

"Naysayers can take a hike. Our patience is wearing thinner than the walls of the hovels that Palestinian refugees have called 'home' for three generations in their purgatory camps.

"These universally exploited refugees are entitled to the nice apartments - the ones that have pools downstairs and a grove of palm trees outside the lobby. Because the kind of compensation owed for this failed western experiment will never be enough.

"And no, nobody hates Jews. That is the fallback argument screeched in our ears - the one 'firewall' remaining to protect this Israeli Frankenstein. I don't even care enough to insert the caveats that are supposed to prove I don't hate Jews. It is not a provable point, and frankly, it is a straw man of an argument. If Jews who didn't live through the Holocaust still feel the pain of it, then take that up with the Germans. Demand a sizeable plot of land in Germany - and good luck to you.

"For anti-Semites salivating over an article that slams Israel, ply your trade elsewhere - you are part of the reason this problem exists.

"Israelis who don't want to share Palestine as equal citizens with the indigenous Palestinian population - the ones who don't want to relinquish that which they demanded Palestinians relinquish 64 years ago - can take their second passports and go back home. Those remaining had better find a positive attitude - Palestinians have shown themselves to be a forgiving lot. The amount of carnage they have experienced at the hands of their oppressors - without proportional response - shows remarkable restraint and faith.

"This is less the death of a Jewish state than it is the demise of the last remnants of modern-day colonialism. It is a rite of passage - we will get through it just fine. At this particular precipice in the 21st century, we are all, universally, Palestinian - undoing this wrong is a test of our collective humanity, and nobody has the right to sit this one out.

"Israel has no right to exist. Break that mental barrier and just say it: 'Israel has no right to exist'. Roll it around your tongue, tweet it, post it as your Facebook status update - do it before you think twice. Delegitimization is here - have no fear. Palestine will be less painful than Israel ever was." (al-akhbar.com, 17/5/12)