United States' President Donald Trump's son-in-law and close advisor, the incompetent and racist Jared Kushner, has announced that he will soon reveal the 'deal of the century,' the one that is purported to finally end the Palestine-Israel conflict. Some tidbits of this 'deal' have been leaked, and a few things about it are, indeed, remarkable.
- The Palestinians had no input into the plan.
- The plan does not include a free andindependent Palestinian nation , something endorsed by the United Nations.
- Palestinians will continue to have limited or noauthorityover their own territory.
- Theinternationally-guaranteed right of return for all refugeeswillnot apply to Palestinians .
- Other nations will be expected to pay for some of the 'security' (read: oppression) that the U.S. is currently financing Israel to do.
Let's look at Kushner's qualifications to be a top presidential advisor, and an honest mediator to solve this decades-old problem. Ok, he has none. But that didn't stop the leader of the most powerful and violent nation in the world fromoverriding national security concernsand granting him top secret access, and then appointing him to resolve an issue that would be a non-issue if only Israel would abide by international law.
While Kushner has no qualifications, there are several things that clearly disqualify him from any role in the Palestine-Israel 'conflict' He is a close , personal friend of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu , a man that two of the potential Democratic presidential candidates (Vermont SenatorBernie Sandersand former Texas RepresentativeBeta O'Rourke ) have publicly called a racist. Kushner has also invested heavily in illegal settlements, in violation of international law.
Trump, of course, laid the groundwork for this 'deal', underestimating, as U.S. presidents have done since 1947, the resiliency and determination of the Palestinian people. He has supported all of Israel's genocidal actions, and hascut aid to United Nations agenciesresponsible for helping the Palestinians, thus making things more desperate in an already catastrophic situation. He seems to expect that the Palestinians will surrender their identity, their homeland, their aspirations and dreams, and disregard the sacrifices made by their ancestors, and accept whatever bone apartheid Israel and its racist financier, the U.S., decides to toss them.
Let's consider for a moment, the travesty of all this. First, all that is necessary for peace between Palestine and Israel is adherence to international law. The newly-minted United Nations, in 1947, decreed the borders when it established Israel (the shocking injustice of that decision, displacing nearly 1,000,000 Palestinians, is a topic for a different essay). Israel has spent over 70 years violating those borders.
Second, the U.S. is always proclaiming, against all evidence, that it supports the human rights struggles of everyone. Yet itsends billions of dollars in 'aid' to Israelevery year. This, while U.S. public schools continue to fall behind (some inner-city schools in northern states lack heat); Flint, Michigan is without drinking water and has been for years, and the cost of a university education is beyond the reach of most citizens, unless they avail themselves of high-interest government loans.
Third, Israeli forces (read: terrorists) routinelyshoot medics and journalistsduring the Right of Return March which has occurred on each Friday for over a year. Doing so violates international law. Even the New York Times, hardly a fan of Palestine, reported not long ago on itsstudy of one such murder,and said that its careful analysis contradicted in every way the official Israeli version.
Fourth, in 2004, the U.S. invaded Iraq because it had violated one U.N. resolution; Israel has violated dozens, yet receivesmore foreign aid from the U.S . than any other nation.
Fifth is that the U.S. states that this foreign aid is to protect Israel's borders, yet there is never any talk about the security of Palestine's borders or Palestine's people.
And now it appears that the disgraceful Kushner and his equally disreputable father-in-law will offer a 'deal', whereby Israel gets everything, and Palestine gets nothing. The chances of Palestinians accepting this deal are slim and none. Even the weak, spineless and corrupt leader of Fatah, Mahmoud Abbas, has said thatthe deal will be rejected .
But even its rejection will be a victory for Trump. He will then wash his hands of the problem, saying, incredibly, that he offered the Palestinians a 'great' deal, 'the best deal ever', and in their unreasonable way, they rejected it. Because of this, he will punish them by not reinstating any aid to United Nations agencies charged with assisting them, and he will increase aid to Israel to protect it from the 'threat' of a nation that has no army, navy or air force.
In the past, both Democratic and Republican elected officials in the U.S. marched lock-step in their servile bowing to Israel, supporting ever-increasing aid and praising its ongoing genocide against the Palestinian people, war crimes and crimes against humanity notwithstanding. Members of the Democratic Party are still nauseatingly pro-Israel, but, as indicated above, their complete and unqualified support for that apartheid state is a thing of the past. And arecent surveyindicates that, among younger Republicans, support for Israel is quickly dwindling.
These are positive signs, but with Netanyahu vowing toannex the West Bank , which Trump, who recently approvedIsraeli annexation of the Golan Heights , will probably support, and the pending farce of the 'deal of the century', one only hopes that the Palestinian people will have enough support in the international community to stem the growing tide of oppression against them. The signs are not good, but it's possible that any move to annex the West Bank, along with the blatant unfairness of the 'deal', will finally motivate the global community to act. Palestinians have suffered unspeakably for far too long; it's long past time for them to be granted the basic human rights that every living person is entitled to.
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