The United States Is the Main Obstacle to Peace in Palestine

Yves here. Although the topic is obvious to those who have paid attention to the war in Gaza, it still seems to bear repeating. The piece begins by denouncing the recent headfake peace plan (the US pretends it came from Israel to blame Hamas for failing to make a deal) and then offers a fine, historically high treatment of long-term US support. about Israel’s war crimes in Palestine.

By Medea Benjamin and Nicolas JS Davies, authors of War in Ukraine: Making Sense of A Senseless Conflict, published by OR Books in November 2022. Medea Benjamin is the founder of CODEPINK for Peace, and author of several books, including Inside Iran: The Real and Political History of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Nicolas JS Davies is a freelance journalist, CODEPINK researcher and author of Blood on Our Hands: The American Invasion and Destruction of Iraq.

US Marines and IDF soldiers in joint operation Intrepid Maven, Feb. 28, 2023. Photo: US Marines

On June 13, Hamas responded to the demands of US Secretary of State Antony Blinken regarding the US proposal to temporarily suspend the Israeli massacre in Gaza. The group said it “treated us well … Hamas added, in contrast, that, “although Blinken continued to speak of ‘Israel’s approval of the latest proposal, we have not heard any Israeli official express approval.’

The full details of the US proposal have not been disclosed, but a halt to Israeli attacks and the release of hostages in the first phase will reportedly lead to talks on a cease-fire and an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza in the second. category. But there is no guarantee that the second round of negotiations will be successful.

As former Israeli Labor Party prime minister Ehud Barak told Israel Radio on June 3, “What do you think [Gaza military commander] Sinwar will respond when he is told: but hurry, because we still have to kill you, after you have returned all the captives?”

Meanwhile, as Hamas noted, Israel has not publicly accepted the terms of the latest US ceasefire proposal, so it only has the word of US officials that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has secretly agreed to it. Publicly, Netanyahu has maintained that he is committed to the complete destruction of Hamas and its ruling authority in Gaza, and has in fact intensified Israel’s brutal offensive in central and southern Gaza.

The basic disagreement is that President Joe Biden and Secretary Blinken’s smoke and mirrors cannot hide the fact that Hamas, like all Palestinians, wants a real end to the genocide, while the Israeli and American governments do not.

Biden or Netanyahu can end the killing very quickly if they want—Netanyahu by agreeing to a permanent cease-fire, or Biden by ending or halting the delivery of US weapons to Israel. Israel could not have waged this war without US military and diplomatic support. But Biden refuses to use his power, even though he admitted in an interview that it was “reasonable” to conclude that Netanyahu is escalating the war for his own political gain.

The US is still sending weapons to Israel to continue the massacre in violation of a cease-fire order issued by the International Court of Justice. Bipartisan American leaders have invited Netanyahu to address a joint session of the US Congress on July 24, as the International Court of Justice reviews a request by its chief prosecutor to issue a warrant for Netanyahu’s arrest on charges of war crimes, crimes against humanity and murder.

The United States seems willing to share Israel’s isolation from voices calling for peace around the world, including major countries in the UN General Assembly and the Security Council.

But perhaps this is appropriate, since the United States is largely responsible for that division. Through decades of unconditional support for Israel, and using the UN Security Council on numerous occasions to protect Israel from international accountability, the United States has empowered successive Israeli governments to pursue blatantly criminal policies and thumb their thumbs at growing public and international anger. around the world.

This pattern of US support for Israel goes back to its founding, when the Zionist leaders in Palestine did a well-planned job of holding a much larger area than the UN assigned to their new country in its partition plan, Palestinians and neighbors. strongly opposed countries.

The massacres, bulldozed villages and ethnic cleansing of the 750,000 to one million people of the Nakba are carefully documented, despite an extraordinary propaganda campaign to convince two generations of Israelis, Americans and Europeans that it never happened.

The US became the first country to grant Israel de facto recognition on May 14, 1948, and played a leading role in the 1949 UN vote to recognize the new state of Israel within its illegally occupied borders. President Eisenhower had the wisdom to resist Britain, France and Israel in their war to seize the Suez Canal in 1956, but Israel’s seizure of the Occupied Palestinian Territory in 1967 made US leaders believe that it could become an important military ally in the Middle East.

Unconditional US support for Israel’s illegal invasion and occupation of many territories over the past 57 years has corrupted Israeli politics and encouraged increasingly extremist and racist Israeli governments to further expand their genocidal territorial ambitions. Netanyahu’s Likud party and government now fully embrace their Greater Israel plan to take all occupied Palestine and parts of other countries, wherever and whenever new opportunities for expansion arise.

The de facto expansion of Israel has facilitated the dominance of the United States over negotiations between Israel and Palestine, which has faced violence and defended against the UN and other countries. The irreconcilable conflict between the conflicting roles of the US as Israel’s most powerful military ally and the main mediator between Israel and Palestine is evident throughout the world.

But as we see even in the middle of the genocide in Gaza, the whole world and the UN have failed to break this US regime and establish a legitimate dialogue, which is not biased by the UN or neutral countries that respect the lives of the Palestinians and their people. and civil rights.

Qatar brokered a temporary cease-fire between Israel and Hamas in November 2023, but has since been prompted by US moves to widen the conflict through treacherous proposals, cross-referrals and Security Council votes. The US has always vetoed all but its proposals on Israel and Palestine in the UN Security Council, even when its proposals are deliberately absurd, ineffective or contradictory.

The UN General Assembly is united in support of Palestine, voting almost unanimously year after year to demand an end to Israeli occupation. One hundred and forty-four countries have recognized Palestine as a state, and only the US veto denies full UN membership. Israel’s carnage in Gaza has even embarrassed the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and the International Criminal Court (ICC) to stop their entrenched pro-Western bias and pursue cases against Israel.

Another way the nations of the world can come together to put more pressure on Israel to end its attack on Gaza would be a “Union for Peace” resolution at the UN General Assembly. This is an action taken by the General Assembly when the Security Council is prevented from taking action to restore peace and security by a full member vote.

Israel has shown that it is willing to ignore the cease-fire resolutions of the General Assembly and the Security Council, as well as the ICJ order, but the Uniting for Peace decision could impose sanctions on Israel for its actions, such as an arms embargo or an economic boycott. If the United States persists in its continued involvement in Israel’s international crimes, the General Assembly may take action against the US.

The decision of the National Assembly will change the terms of the international debate and shift the focus back to the tactics of Biden and Blinken focused on the urgency of enforcing a permanent ceasefire that the world wants.

It is time for the United Nations and neutral countries to push aside the US partner in genocide, and for international legal authorities and mediators to commit to enforcing international law, ending the Israeli occupation of Palestine and bringing peace to the Middle East.

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