Pres. Biden today issued an Executive Order sanctioning four settler leaders who have spearheaded a violent campaign in which 241 separate attacks have expelled 1,100 Palestinians from 15 villages, leaving them entirely depopulated. While there has been a massive level of violence against Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza for decades, this is the first coordinated effort to eradicate Palestinians from entire villages. The effort aims to drive Palestinians into a few major population centers like Ramallah and eradicate any presence in the rest of Palestine. This would realize the Judeo-colonialist plan to integrate what Israelis call “Judea and Samaria” into Israel proper.
Though the Order purports to target individuals and “entities” which engage in or finance such acts of terrorism, Biden has already shown how limited the vision is for who it would target. Though they considered sanctioning Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben Gvir, they decided not to do so. As senior ministers responsible for funding settlements and supporting settler terrorism (see video above), they are key figures in the movement. Refusing to include them in the list of targets indicates the Order is toothless; nor have any of hundreds of settlers been included, who’ve murdered Palestinians in cold blood (many US citizens) for decades.
Another key organization, Honenu, offers financial support and legal counsel to every settler who has engaged in terror attacks against Palestinians. It also is not included among those sanctioned.
And of course the IDF itself is the foremost perpetrator of armed violence against Palestinians. In addition, it protects the settlers engaged in terror attacks, by firing at Palestinians seeking to defend themselves, their homes, their flocks and their farmland.
In other words, the entire State of Israel is inextricably tied to the settler enterprise. Designating four individuals or even 40 or 400, is misguided. The problem is not individuals. It is an entire state devoted to eradicating a Palestinian presence in Palestine. Any Order which refuses to recognize this will be ineffectual.
There is no indication Biden intends to include American Jewish figures and organizations which finance settlements. They include the Central Fund of Israel and the Hebron Fund which together have raised hundreds of millions funneled directly to settlements to purchase security equipment including automatic weapons, communications gear, and other offensive capabilities.
It appears political considerations motivated Biden’s Executive Order, rather than moral ones. He has essentially lost the Muslim and Arab-American vote-not to mention many Americans (including Jews) who vehemently disagree–due to his shameful support of the Gaza war. Loss of this key constituency means it would be impossible for him to carry the key swing-state of Michigan. Michigan alone could cost him the election. The Order is an attempt to mollify Arab-Americans and draw them back into the fold. It won’t work. There are 27,000 reasons it won’t work. Unless Biden can perform a miracle and raise the dead, he won’t earn their support.
Another weakness of the Executive Order is that it only applies to the current administration. If Trump wins the November election he will cancel it and the settlers will resume their rampage unfettered.
US-UK plan to recognize Palestinian state
Multiple media outlets have announced an imminent comprehensive plan for an extended Gaza ceasefire, which would reduce or end Israeli attacks in return for freeing Israeli captives held by Hamas and Palestinians imprisoned by Israel. The plan would proceed in stages to ensure that each party adheres to its provisions.
A key element of US longer-term plans provides a “pathway” to Palestinian statehood. Neither the US nor Britain would do so immediately, a key weakness of the proposal. Among the conditions to be met: reforming the Palestinian Authority, removing Mahmoud Abbas and much of his crony-class, which has become entrenched over the years; holding elections, and ridding the PA of corruption.
The Authority is despised by the Palestinians. It provides none of the services a functioning government would offer. It maintains little or no law enforcement presence in major population centers. It offers no resistance to Israeli Occupation, the biggest thorn in the side of Palestinians. One thing it does well is provide Israel with security services by arresting Palestinians preparing acts of armed resistance against Israelis.
The problem is not “reforming” the PA. It must be transformed: from a governing body representing solely Fatah and the West Bank, into one that encompasses all of Palestine (Gaza and the West Bank), and all the political factions in both places. In other words, the PA must integrate Fatah, Hamas and Islamic Jihad into a single governing body.
Hamas has already agreed to join the PLO in its revised 2017 Charter and in a 2021 reconciliation deal rejected by both the Biden administration and Israel. Without including all the main factions, such a state will not be politically viable.
Following this, there must be elections for a legislature and executive, which would administer all of Palestine. There must be a Palestinian police force integrating all of the groups mentioned above as happened in post-apartheid South Africa.
Most importantly, there must be a withdrawal by settlers, and from settlements in the West Bank. This is not possible in the current political climate. But without major withdrawals, there will not be a contiguous Palestinian state. Not to mention the threat continuing violence against Palestinians poses to an independent state. Israel will undoubtedly refuse to stop such attacks. So there must be an international force that maintains the peace and interdicts any party seeking to attack or sabotage the other.
Israel’s blockade against Gaza must end, and borders must be opened between it and Egypt. Israel must demilitarize its presence around Gaza. Its port must be rebuilt so that the enclave can conduct maritime trade with the outside world. Its claims to oil fields in the Mediterranean must be adjudicated and recognized. Revenue from this project would provide major funding for the new state.
I have little confidence that the US, Qataris and Egyptians can realize most, if not all of these provisions. Without instituting them, whatever plan they do implement will be a hollow shell, imposed by outside parties rather than by developed by Palestinians themselves.
Finally, there must be an ironclad time limit within which the UN will accept Palestine as a full member and the world recognize a Palestinian state. Creation of Palestine and its recognition must not be dependent on Israel. It must have no veto power. Without such a clear irrevocable timetable, this plan will suffer the same fate as Oslo. It proposed a Palestinian state within five years. Israel refused to implement it. And we all know the result.
Tom Friedman and the “Biden Doctrine”
Tom Friedman, a prominent pro-Israel media pundit and pipeline to the policy elite, published a column outlining what he’s grandiosely called a new “Biden Doctrine.” Whenever people want to herald what they believe is daring new thinking on a foreign policy issue, they fill in the current president’s name and slap the impressive word “doctrine” to it.
Friedman is known for sucking up to powerful foreign policy officials and being their chosen media outlet. He’s outdone himself here. Some key elements of the new approach:
A Biden Doctrine — as I’m terming the convergence of strategic thinking and planning that my reporting has picked up — would have three tracks.
On one track would be a strong and resolute stand on Iran, including a robust military retaliation against Iran’s proxies and agents in the region in response to the killing of three U.S. soldiers at a base in Jordan by…a pro-Iranian militia in Iraq.
On the second track would be an unprecedented U.S. diplomatic initiative to promote a Palestinian state — NOW. It would involve some form of U.S. recognition of a demilitarized Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip that would come into being only once Palestinians had developed a set of defined, credible institutions and security capabilities to ensure that this state was viable and that it could never threaten Israel. Biden administration officials have been consulting experts inside and outside the U.S. government about different forms this recognition of Palestinian statehood might take.
On the third track would be a vastly expanded U.S. security alliance with Saudi Arabia, which would also involve Saudi normalization of relations with Israel — if the Israeli government is prepared to embrace a diplomatic process leading to a demilitarized Palestinian state led by a transformed Palestinian Authority.
Tracks one and three are deeply troubling. But for the purposes of this post, I’ll focus on track two. While Friedman calls for “promoting a Palestinian state now,” it’s clear he’s not advocating such a state now, when he writes it would only come into being after benchmarks are achieved. But who would determine that? The US, of course. That leaves Palestinian sovereignty in the hands of a global superpower closely allied with Israel, which is a party desperate to sabotage statehood. What guarantee will the US give that it also has taken Palestinian interests to heart?
Another US condition would ensure the state would “never threaten Israel.” All well and good. But it’s even more vital that Israel never threaten Palestine. Because the former perpetrates far more violence on Palestinians than the latter does against Israel. Without such a guarantee–without taking this violent reality into account, this plan is doomed.
Finally, it’s telling that the Biden administration has been consulting figures “inside and outside the government” about the outlines of this state. But it’s not consulting the most important party: Palestinians themselves.This attitude is characteristic of the old colonial system of imposing outside will on colonial victims. It also reflects the same entitled approach the US took in Iraq and Afghanistan, resulting in decades of sectarian violence, failed governments, and ultimately the failure of all, or part of the governance model we sought to impose.
Simply put, you cannot shove a US vision of such a state down Palestinian throats. It must develop in close collaboration with the Palestinians themselves. And not our chosen Palestinian interlocutors (Abbas, Dahlan, etc), but all parties.
The Hallmark of our government and Administration is Hypocrisy, just as the hallmarks of Israeli regimes and the military are denials and lies.
Long time ago I had written a chapter: “Neocons fighting Israel’s wars …”
Many opportunities for peace were wasted as Israel had a single goal of fulfilling the Zionist dream from the River to the Sea (and beyond). Arab states were too opportunistic to serve the empire as proxies to shield their riches from Iran. These wars have led to present day chaos and insecurity. Building settlements for extra 700,000 on the West Bank outside the “security barrier” was a provocation for conflict. Military might is no alternative to a peace settlement.
The dream of every consultant is to have is to have a big client, who in reality doesn’t want to accept any solution, but demands new solutions to the problem to be made frequently and most importantly pays the consultants large bills of the consultations and advice in time. The problem is that there are no such eternal customers.
USA is in the Israel-Palestine case the consultant. USA had known all the time very well,that Israel will not accept anything else only that they will keep everything. What is hilarious is that USA pays the bills of the “peace process negotiations”, the costs of military occupation and much of the costs of the oppressed minority. Israel has created an excellent start up “company”, by forcing its mentor and adviser to pay astronomical sums for this halve century long “peace process administration”. If we estimate that Israel has earned in average 5 billion dollars yearly of that what USA pays to Israel, then Israel has earned >250 billions of the US halve century long “attempts” to solve the situation. To that sum should be added the sums Israel charges of administrative fees of Palestinian “economy”, much low cost or free labour and free land to be “developed”. Master business people, indeed. I mean Israelis not Americans.
Who is the idiot in this show, the one who demands the payments or the one who pays?