Palestinians Are Not Enemies of the United States

When President Barack Obama came to power in the United States in 2009, the Palestinian people welcomed the democratic advance that brought a black man to the White House for the first time. Their hopes grew after Obama’s address to the Islamic world in Cairo, where he announced the beginning of a new page in the relationship between the West and Muslims based on understanding, cooperation and mutual trust.

In this same speech, Obama said that he was in favor of the establishment of a Palestinian state and against settlements in the rest of the occupied territories, and he called on Israel’s right-wing leadership to acknowledge the two-state solution and stop the settlements. This demand provoked an immediate response from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who responded with an underhanded speech at Bar Ilan University, announcing, if only verbally, his acceptance of the two-state solution within debilitating conditions — that the Palestinian state be a “quasi-state,” demilitarized and with none of the fundamentals of sovereignty.

Palestinian hopes were raised when, after the Cairo speech, the new administration stood boldly against settlements in the occupied territories. However, they retreated from this bold stance as a result of internal pressures within the United States, which Netanyahu influenced in the interest of his government’s policies. This retreat continues until now, and will reach its apex if in the Security Council the United States vetos the call for an independent Palestinian state to be given full membership in the United Nations.

What we want to emphasize here is that the Palestinian people are not enemies of the United States, and have never committed any action that in itself was an offense to this great nation. On the contrary, many of the sons of this people have taken part in American civilization and culture, and there are hundreds of thousands of Americans of Palestinian origin incorporated into the demographic fabric of the United States.

The Palestinian people are not, however, a scapegoat that can be easily sacrificed on the altar of America’s domestic politics, or for the sake of congressional or presidential elections. Here the people have dignity, a deep-rooted history, and national ambitions, and they hope that if the U.S. doesn’t help achieve these aspirations, then that it at least won’t stand it their way.

The Palestinians have a right to equality. Does South Sudan, which was unanimously accepted to the United Nations, have more right than Palestine to U.N. membership? And on what basis were South Sudan, East Timor and dozens of other new states — states no one listened to and which no one could find on a map — accepted, while at the same time the U.S. hints at a veto of Palestine’s membership, with Palestine at the heart of the Arab and Islamic world and an object of devotion for billions of Muslims around the world?

Many observers and politicians, among them American officials, have warned of the negative consequences of this veto on American and Western interests in the region. If they actually raise their hands to cast this veto, then it’s certain that there will be dangerous repercussions in the Arab world, where the Palestine issue is considered a priority of the Arab Spring, and in the Islamic world, where Jerusalem and the al-Aqsa mosque are viewed as some of the most important holy sites for Muslims anywhere.

So why this veto? It’s necessary to understand, especially for the members of the Republican Party that support Israel in everything, even at the expense of America’s greater national interests. And this political short-sightedness needs to be dealt with without delay.

Palestinians want peace, justice, and a state to live in peacefully beside Israel. The twenty years of fruitless negotiations have hindered progress toward this goal, and the continuing settlement movement has made it impossible. They want a logical, practical and quick alternative route to freedom, independence and sovereignty.

The United States and its president still have a chance for an easy solution to this problem without vetoing the Palestinian initiative, in the interest of peace and negotiations and for the sake of America’s long-term interests in the region and the rest of the world.