America’s Gentle Anger against Israel

On Jan. 2 of this new year, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz revealed something we Arabs had not previously noticed: a deep, repressed anger in America against Israeli Minister of Defense Ehud Barak, which could cause America to alter its policy toward the renegade state of Israel. By failing to fulfill his promise to be a mediator between America and Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, he has provoked America’s distrust. America had put its faith in Barak because to this day, it has been unable to convince Netanyahu and his government to advance the peace process. So now, it has come to pass that just as with America’s other attempts at outside mediation of the conflict, Barak has proven ineffective and perhaps even apathetic, as he has been unable to make any progress toward stopping the building of new settlements on occupied territory, or at the very least, unable to convince Netanyahu to take measures to this end. Barak has deceived Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton into believing that Israel wants peace, just as he has deceived the Palestinian people and the world.

It has been said that America will once again attempt to restart the peace process. However, it is certain that this new attempt will not produce any positive results, being that Netanyahu answers to no one and Barak is a known liar. The situation will remain just as it has been as long as Israel continues to stand by its impudent and stubborn policy of building new settlements on occupied territory. There must be more effective ways among the political sciences for dealing with these long-standing issues in a situation as unique as the Palestinian dilemma. Assuming Netanyahu’s “coalition” government has not broken away from other parties in the Israeli Knesset, the most important of them being the Labor Party and the opposition movement, then nothing will change. Further exacerbating the issue, America will no longer have someone to negotiate with on the Israeli side since Barak has failed America’s faith in his capabilities. Furthermore, even if there were a true opposition in Israel, the conflict would not be resolved as it should in accordance with standing law and pertinent United Nations resolutions, among them resolutions 242, 338 and 194, which were in favor of the Palestinians.

What’s humorous and yet tragic at the same time is that the years go on and we keep seeing the same act being put on by the Israeli government, and the Western world continues to look on, expecting the establishment of an independent Palestinian state. Today, the anger of the Palestinian people has reached a boiling point, especially as their quality of life continues to worsen and their hope diminishes for the necessary international intervention to return the occupied land to its rightful Arab owners. The civilized Western world, which was the key player in creating the Palestinian dilemma, has denied the Palestinian people their right to establish an independent state on their own land, and their anger will not acquiesce until it breaks out in a war of independence to retake what is theirs.

America is angry at its spoiled child, Israel, and history can most certainly attest that Israel is in fact spoiled. We recall what is recorded in the annals of history, that America has been biased toward the usurper nation of Israel since even before it was established in cooperation with the old imperialist Britain. History attests that on May 14, 1948, the Zionists announced the establishment of the state of Israel, and it was America that was first to recognize its existence, only 11 minutes after its inception. Perhaps being as educated as he is, Obama feels embarrassed of his country, which has long had a policy of spoiling and fattening Israel with financial and military aid and every other imaginable form of assistance. Obama’s speech in Cairo still rings in our ears, in which he called for the establishment of an independent Palestinian state able to thrive and grow in accordance with human and international rights.

So we say to Obama that America’s policy toward Israel is not working, but what will work is freezing military and financial aid to Israel, which is being used to build new settlements. Historically, America has been biased toward Israel, and its policy that lavishes the occupier with aid must be changed. Then again, perhaps the faith of the Palestinian people and their relentlessness in resisting the occupation by all legitimate means is the best way to approach the problem, and not the previous failed attempts at direct and indirect negotiations. The solution is in the hands of Obama, the leader of the most powerful nation in the world, but will he do anything different at the beginning of this new year instead of once again siding with Israel and maintaining silence about the crimes against the Palestinian people?