<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes"?><oembed><version><![CDATA[1.0]]></version><provider_name><![CDATA[Occupied Palestine | فلسطين]]></provider_name><provider_url><![CDATA[https://occupiedpalestine.wordpress.com]]></provider_url><author_name><![CDATA[occupiedpalestine]]></author_name><author_url><![CDATA[https://occupiedpalestine.wordpress.com/author/hajarhajar/]]></author_url><title><![CDATA[Road Map to Peace Beginning with&nbsp;Justice]]></title><type><![CDATA[link]]></type><html><![CDATA[<table border="0" cellspacing="1" cellpadding="1" width="100%" align="center">
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<td class="normal_text" style="padding-left:15px;" align="right">20:25 01/17/2011</td>
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<td class="caption_text" align="center">So what&#8217;s to be done?</td>
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<td class="normal_text" style="padding-top:10px;"><em>(An Open Letter to Sandy Berger and Stephen Hadley)</em></p>
<p><strong>By William A. Cook</strong></p>
<p>Let  me introduce myself lest you discard a letter from someone you do not  know. I am a citizen of this nation having lasted beyond the biblical  three score and ten with an ancestry that can be traced back to 1636.  That’s not necessarily a positive thing as our own ethnic cleansing of  the natives of this continent can testify. But as a professor who has  written three books about the mid-East, Tracking Deception: Bush  Mid-East Policy, The Rape of Palestine, and an edited work, The Plight  of the Palestinians, all specifically focused on Israel and Palestine,  and, let me add, a novella that drew its inspiration from Ariel Sharon, a  morality tale The Chronicles of Nefaria, I do my best to find recourse  in the moral premise that underlies America and its potential for good  in the world.</p>
<p>I doubt that you have read these works or listened  to any of the voices that write for Counterpunch, Antiwar, Media with a  Conscience, the Pacific Free Press, the Palestine Chronicle, Intifada  Palestine or all the other Internet publications that speak on behalf of  the Palestinian people. If you truly want to solicit ideas that differ  from those published in the main stream corporate controlled media then  this is where you should look. I realize you have been seeking  suggestions from Dennis Ross and Condoleezza Rice, indeed all the  politicos that have hung around D.C. for the past four decades, the ones  who have failed to bring peace to the mid-east because they have  “unbridled loyalty to Israel.” Quite frankly Mr. Berger and Mr. Hadley,  all of Clinton’s and Bush’s former employees should recluse themselves.  And let’s be totally honest, any ideas that do not begin with justice,  international justice, not Israeli justice or the justice promoted by  the United States, will end once again in failure.</p>
<p>In March of  2006, shortly after the ascendancy of Hamas to power in Palestine, I was  asked to give a paper at the 4th International Conference against the  Occupations in Cairo. My proposal at that time suggested that both  Mahmoud Abbas and the Hamas leadership propose peace plans to the world  that would engage the UN as principle broker for peace. Within two  months Abbas had called for a Conference on Peace to be held in Oslo and  Hamas representatives noted that the Saudi Prince’s Peace Plan proposed  in 2002 could be a viable proposal. Neither Israel nor the U.S.  responded to these initiatives. They were sent to the waste basket of  lost opportunities. Now this administration seeks new ideas even as a  more intransigently supportive Israeli Congress moves to Washington.  There is one answer: remove the U.S. from the position as “peace  broker,” it cannot be bound by “unbreakable acceptance of Israel” and be  credible much less effective. History demonstrates this.</p>
<p>In  July of last year, I wrote an article that presented this alternative  and suggested that the issue of peace in the mid-east be given back to  the UN. The Israeli government and our own will rant and rave at this  traitorous act by the U.S., but the world community will rejoice; I  speak here of the citizen of the world communities not the governments.  The article was titled “Terrorists United against Peace: Illusion versus  Reality.” I believe the proposal offered in this article bears  repeating. This is a section from that article.</p>
<p>Because the US  has veto power in the Security Council it can and it does negate any  actions taken by the member states against Israel or the US. This is a  structural problem inherent in the powers vested in five nations that  have permanent status on the Security Council. Procedurally, there is  little the majority of nations can do to prevent the US protection of  the Israeli state. Since the UNGA has acted in over 160 resolutions to  condemn Israeli actions, attempting to bring it in line with the UN  charter and declarations, and since the UNSC has acted approximately 30  times to force some compliance, it’s obvious that the world communities  have found the state of Israel to be wanting in its adherence to UN  policies and agreements. Therefore one might conclude that the UN has  attempted to hold Israel to the same standards as other member states,  but has been thwarted by the US veto power to enforce its policies and  compliance.</p>
<p>For virtually all of the past six decades, Israel and  the US have acted as one against the wishes of the UN membership as  those actions relate to Palestine and more recently to Iraq, Turkey and  Iran. Today, Israel wants Iran’s ‘nuclear ambitions’ curbed, ambitions  it has determined exist despite IAEA investigations to the contrary or  the reality that Iran has signed the non-proliferation treaty and Israel  has not. But what Israel wants, the US will provide according to  Lieberman (Senator Joseph Lieberman, “U.S. Prepared to Strike Iran,”  July 7, 2010) including pre-emptive strikes against a legitimate member  of the UN that has done nothing aggressive against either the US or  Israel. Israel on the other hand, during these same 60 years, has  attacked Egypt, Jordan, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Palestine and continues  to occupy portions of Lebanon, Syria and virtually all of Palestine.  Curiously enough, during all this time, the United States has  shamefacedly portrayed itself as the broker for peace in the mid-east.  Nothing could be further from the truth. The US Congress and the Israeli  Knesset are Siamese twins bound together by an umbilical cord of  dependency through interlocking arteries of corporate and military  budget lines that keep the complex alive while force feeding our  representatives with blood money.</p>
<p>All of which brings us to this  simple conclusion: Israel and the United States, the two states against  peace in the mid-east, must be aborted from the decision process that  determines peace in the mid-east. Consider the reality and not the  illusion. Look through the eyes of the real victims not through the  fractured lenses of the controlled media that fails to cover any  perception but that offered by our Congress or the Israeli dominated  international news. The mantra beats on—Israel has a right to defend  itself and, therefore, must provide protective borders around the state  of Israel. Hence it has a right to invade Lebanon to its north to ensure  that no rocket, missile or person (terrorist) can enter Israel; it must  blockade the sea on the west to ensure that nothing enters Israel  (weapons or terrorist) from international waters; it must confiscate an  eastern border from north to south to ensure that no weapons or  terrorists enter Israel from Jordan despite having agreements with  Jordan as a peaceful neighbour; and it must have a protective border  with Egypt in the south despite having a like peaceful relationship with  that nation.</p>
<p>Logic would suggest that Israel’s need for  protection and, therefore, its need for these aggressive measures that  results in stealing land from others, breaking international laws, and  creating hostility throughout the region would apply to each of its  neighbours. After all it is Israel that has weapons of mass destruction,  though it does not reveal that reality transparently, has invaded its  neighbours frequently over the years, and continues to occupy and  oppress the peoples of Lebanon, Syria, and Palestine. Consider what  would happen should Iran or Syria or Jordan or Egypt move to strengthen  their respective borders by applying the same tactics as Israel. Lebanon  would invade northern Israel, Egypt would not cooperate with Israel in  the south, Jordan would take Israel to the international court to object  to its illegal acquisition of the richest agricultural land in  Palestine given by Jordan to the Palestinians, and Syria would move to  force Israel to comply with UN resolutions demanding that it return the  Golan Heights.</p>
<p>Consider further the umbilical cord that ties the  US to Israel and the 60 years of non-peace that has existed as each  successive President and new Congress acts to bring a viable peace to  the mid-east. It has not happened. Why not? Read Dr. Jeff  Halper’s  enlightening chapter, “The Problem with Israel,” in The Plight of the  Palestinians: a Long History of Destruction, recently published by  Macmillan. There the whole sordid history of intentional delays and  deceits is laid bare for the world to see. The US does what Israel  wants, as Lieberman so eloquently testifies. Unending war is good for  the economy, at least for the elite that control it. The suffering of  those destroyed by their wars is of no concern to them.</p>
<p>One need  only consider the expansion of the American military throughout the  nations in the mid-east and its placement of airbases and military  installations that give it dominance throughout the region. Iran is  literally surrounded by weapons of mass destruction, US weapons of mass  destruction that coupled as they are with the desires of Israel to  expand its borders to “greater Israel,” far beyond the boundaries  provided by UN resolution 181 in November 1947, boundaries provided by  an ancient g-d that served as real estate agent to Abraham, and the  threat to Iran and all other mid-east nations glows like white  phosphorous and is just as dangerous and life threatening. It is the US  and Israel that are the terrorists acting out of concert with their  neighbours and wreaking havoc on the world.</p>
<p>So what’s to be done?  Precedent suggests a possibility; justice demands it! In November of  1947 the UNGA passed Resolution 181 partitioning Mandate Palestine into  two parts, one for an Israeli state and one for the Palestinians.  Despite the procedural reality of the UN this resolution was acted upon  without having been acted upon in the policy sector of the UN, the  Security Council. This would suggest that the UNGA has the implied power  to act without concurrent UNSC action and have its resolution approved  by member states subsequently. Since Israel was the benefactor of this  process, it could hardly object today if the UNGA were to pass a  resolution that would establish a recommending body of members,  exclusive of the US and Israel, to bring forth a resolution that would  effectively force a just solution to the illegally dismantled partition  plan passed in 1947. Once such a group is formed, the UN could place a  peace keeping body in Palestine along the green line to maintain order  and provide security for both the Palestinians and the Israelis.</p>
<p>Should  such a body give priority to the resolutions passed by its members  since 1948, it would recognize that Israel would have to collapse its  territorial acquisitions by approximately 31% from its current illegal  possession of 86% of the original Mandate land offered to them by  resolution 181. This would then provide a viable contiguous Palestinian  state. Alternatively, Israel could and the Palestinians could decide to  live together in one state with equal citizenship for all. Should the  majority of UNGA member states approve the resolution offered by their  committee, a solution to the crisis might be in the offing. On the other  hand, should the Israeli government reject this offer, it would find  itself isolated from the world community and subject to whatever  sanctions might be imposed by the UN.</p>
<p>Understandably, not all the  resolutions since 1948 have been favourable to the Palestinians. They,  too, would be subject to the decisions made by the new committee  deciding the fate of the Israeli/Palestinian crisis. In simple terms,  the UN would have effectively removed the peace process from the two  states that are, as they state themselves, one and “unbreakable” in  their desires and intents and, consequently uniquely unqualified to be  the arbiters of the fate of the Palestinians or of other states in the  mid-east. To accomplish this end, the people of the world must view the  reality of the mid-east through the eyes of those suffering the  destructive power inflicted on them by the United States and Israel.</p>
<p>Every  principle on which the United States rests from the Declaration of  Independence to the Bill of Rights and the Constitution cries out  against the actions of the United States and Israel as they inflict a  merciless set of attacks, invasions and wars on the peoples of  Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Palestine, and now, Turkey and Iran. That  statement recognizes the power of the Israeli lobbies on behalf of its  client state, Israel, as it is more than complicit in the enforced  dominance of the US in the world. No one can witness the enormous  control asserted by Israel over the US Congress where almost 400  representatives and 100 senators vote in unison to support Israel’s  destruction of Lebanon, its invasion of Gaza and its murder of Turkish  citizens without recognizing their control. The people of America are no  longer in control of their government; it has become a client state of a  foreign power.</p>
<p>It is time for America to demand that its  government respect equality of life, not destroy it wantonly through  mercenaries and drones, reject wars of deception perpetrated by  purported friends of the nation by seeking reconciliation with those  we’ve destroyed, and, finally, withdraw support from the rogue nation of  Israel that has severed America from the community of nations making it  vulnerable to those who would use America for their own ends, and  become once again a nation of the people and for the people not a nation  of elites who use the people by inducing fear and phobia to control.</p>
<p>Virtually  all members of the UN understand this reality as the above news items  testify. As it becomes more and more clear that Israel and its compliant  US Congress care nothing for the rights of other nations as their  promotion of aggressive action against Iran proclaims, a virtual mirror  process that brought about the war against Iraq, the world communities  must face the reality that the US cannot control Israel nor its own  policies. Therefore, the UN must assert its responsibility for all its  member states and resolve a conflict that has plagued the world for the  past 60 years. It’s time illusion gives way to reality.</p>
<p><em>&#8211;  William A. Cook is a professor of English at the University of La Verne  in southern California. His most recent book, The Plight of the  Palestinians was just released by Palgrave Macmillan in July. He  contributed this article to PalestineChronicle.com. Visit: </em><a href="http://www.laverne.edu/"><em>www.laverne.edu</em></a><em> and </em><a href="http://www.drwilliamacook.com/"><em>www.drwilliamacook.com</em></a><em>.</em></td>
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<td height="35"><a class="contribution" style="cursor:pointer;" href="http://palestinechronicle.com/contribution.php"><strong><em>If you like this article, please consider making a contribution to the Palestine Chronicle.</em></strong></a></td>
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<p><a href="http://palestinechronicle.com/view_article_details.php?id=16559">Road Map to Peace Beginning with Justice</a>.</p>
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