What Peace Is America Talking About?!

American President Barack Obama still has the courage to talk about peace! Once more, he is stating how important peace negotiations are in bringing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to an end. Even more, he is supporting a resolution for the establishment of a Palestinian state and reiterates what we heard before about Israel having to ground its sprawling settlement construction to a halt.

George Mitchell has again returned to the Middle East, without any preconditions, to handle the negotiation process. And, certainly, any preconditions here will relate to Palestinian and Arab calls to pressure Israel into stopping its settlement activities.

This time Mitchell is concerning himself with persuading the Israelis and Palestinians to begin negotiations on permanent status issues in order to overcome Israel’s refusal to halt its building of settlements. Actually, these issues encompass the argument over boundaries, which Americans thinks is the starting point for the negotiations. So it is already settled that once the boundaries are defined, meaning those of Israel and Palestine, the fight over settlements will be temporarily solved. Only then will it be clear that the settlements embraced by Israeli boundaries are a right to Israelis, whereas any settlements trespassing on Palestinian sovereignty will have to be removed and settlers will be transferred.

This truly makes sense! But Israelis are laying obstacles before any positive steps can be taken. And, regrettably, Americans are giving them a hand in this. Obama, who is honestly willing to seal historical agreements, is open-minded and wants to end the Israeli-Arab conflict, failed to convince Israel to comply with an agreement that would have suspended settlement activities for a period of time not exceeding a year. So can the American President persuade the Israelis to accept Palestinian state boundaries, which are then accepted by Palestinians and Arabs?

The Israelis are now talking about ruling East Jerusalem out of the territories of the Palestinian state. They are also openly determined to usurp large stretches of West Bank lands, especially those on which Israeli settlements were, and are now, built.

But this is rejected by Palestinians and Arabs, jointly and individually. No one would accept the waiving of East Jerusalem, which is set to be the capital of the newly established Palestinian state. Also, Palestinians and Arabs are demanding to fall back to the 1967 borders. This may necessitate a limited, yet balanced, exchange of territories, bearing in mind the value of exchanged territories.

So how will Palestinians and Israelis reach an agreement? What will Washington’s attitude towards all this be? Will it leave the two conflicting parties to go on with their negotiations without there being a clear meeting point? Will America interfere in order to find a compromise? And, in this case, what can that compromise be? Will America take sides with Israel, as usual, or will she make up her mind to do justice for Palestinians, even just a little bit?

So far, there is nothing to reassure Palestinians and Arabs. On the contrary, what happened these past months brings up nothing but concerns. Washington was thoroughly unsuccessful in making Israelis stop their settlement expansion. It only cornered Mahmud Abbas [the Palestinian head of state] into meeting with Netanyahu [the Israeli Premier] in Washington. Americans do not frankly blame Israelis for what they do. Rather, they joined them in common maneuvers! Americans stood in the face of the report of Justice Richard Goldstone to protect Israel — not against being punished for the war crimes Israel committed in Gaza, but against any international condemnation. So what peace is America talking about?