The Impeached and the Indicted are on the campaign trail together with a shamelessly ridiculous plan for permanent apartheid in Palestine, all under the guise of an Israel-Palestine peace plan producing a viable two-state solution.
Well, attention Mr. Impeached President and Mr. Indicted Israeli Prime Minister — a two-state solution died long, long ago.
Israel’s continuous multiplication of illegal Jewish-only settlements throughout the occupied West Bank put a stake through that two-state dream like a knife cutting through butter.
And the US stood on the sidelines and watched.
Take a look at the map provided with the plan (which you can read for
yourself here). By the way, the extremely right-wing Jerusalem Post is thrilled that Trump’s plan comes with a map. They absolutely gush, It is the first plan to come with a map!
Oh joy, I guess the editors at JP like their books to come with big two-tone pictures.
But the map does illustrate one thing clearly. There ain’t no Palestinian state with contiguous borders (as Jared Kushner, the plans’ main presenter, insists there is).
Perhaps someone in the White House needs to explain the meaning of “contiguous” to Mr. Kushner.
The dark blue areas are the holes in the tiny piece of Swiss-cheese that Israel has left for the Palestinians to nibble on. These very non-contiguous dots are what is being called “a Palestinian state.”
They are like tiny Indian reservations linked together by underground tunnels and elevated bridges, all of which will be heavily monitored by the Israel military. So much for freedom of travel and assembly in the new Palestine.
Trump also made it very clear that those ungrateful Palestinian mice ought to be darn thankful for the meager crumbs of cheese left to them by their oh-
so generous benefactors, Israel and America.
Take a moment to scan this map tracking the loss of Palestinian land ownership throughout the years of Israel’s settlement expansion and illegal occupation.
A few other details to remember include:
- The new state of Palestine is prohibited from having any treaties or diplomatic connections with other countries. This is Israel’s idea of Palestinian national sovereignty.
- Palestine is prohibited from having its own, independent security forces. Whatever forces they have must always support Israeli security interests.
- None of the Palestinian refugees inhabiting the camps of neighboring nations since their displacement in the wars of 1948 and 1967 may return to Palestine. The Israelis insist, No more of your refugees jumping on the bed!
- There is a strong likelihood that many Israeli-Palestinians, possessing Israeli passports and citizenship, will be stripped of those possessions and forcibly transported to the new “state.” (Which, by the way, is a violation of International law. But Israel excels at such illegal dealings.)
- Along with all the other stolen land, Israel has also decided to annex the entire Jordan Valley, displacing all the Palestinian farmers who have owned and cultivated that land for as long as anyone can remember.
And the list could go on.
President Carter called for Palestine, Peace Not Apartheid in his 2006 book by the same name. But I am afraid that forcing brutal apartheid onto the Palestinian people has been the name of the game in Israeli and American politics for decades.
For the one-two punch of ethnic cleansing and apartheid are Israel’s
favorite original sin. They just can’t break their national addiction to war crimes, racism and oppression.
And there is no sign of national repentance anytime soon.
Palestinian outrage over the Trump plan is already evident throughout the region, and justly so. I expect that we may see a Third Intifada on the horizon sometime soon. Frankly, I’d love to be there to join them.
Heck, if I weren’t a Christian and a pacifist, I would be stockpiling rocks and organizing revolutionary resistance right now.
