EDITORIAL: During a recent trip to Israel and the occupied West Bank, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken made a renewed call for a two-state solution — long dead in the water. Washington is never was an honest peace broker.
The Biden administration has refused even to reverse his predecessor Donald Trump’s decision to recognise occupied East Jerusalem — which the Palestinians want as the capital of their state — as the capital of Israel.
In fact, it is with the backing of Washington that Israel has been defying all efforts for resolving the Palestinian-Israeli conflict as per various UN resolutions.
Even the Obama administration, known to have rather cold relations with Israel, used veto power to oppose a UN Security Council resolution that demanded an end to the settlement activity.
Blinken also reiterated his country’s “ironclad” support for the Jewish state. So what was the need for his visit at this point in time?
It came in the wake of heightened tensions as the new coalition government of Israel — comprising settler activists and ultranationalists — headed by Benjamin Netanyahu is busy building new Jewish settlements in occupied West Bank amid rising Palestinian anger and resistance over daily raids by Israeli forces.
Last month alone, 35 Palestinians were killed in these raids. In one incident in the West Bank town of Jenin, Israeli soldiers killed 10 Palestinians. The next day, a Palestinian shot six Israelis dead. Hamas ruling in the Gaza Strip is also vowing to start another intifada.
The Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas — viewed by many Palestinians as a weak and inept leader — has suspended PA’s security cooperation agreement with Tel Aviv.
He told Blinken, who has been calling for calm, that the Israeli government is responsible for what is happening, because of its practices that undermine the two-state solution and violate the signed agreements — a reference to the peace accords of the early 1990s.
All these goings-on suggest it is to pacify inflamed passions that Washington has once again trotted out the two-state solution.
“We’ve been clear”, said Blinken, adding: “that this includes things like settlement expansion, the legalisation of outposts, demolitions [of Palestinian homes] evictions, disruptions to the historic status of the holy sites, and of course incitement and acquiesce to violence.” He also talked of President Biden’s “firm conviction that the only way to achieve that goal is through preserving and then realising the vision of two states for the two peoples.”
Even if Biden wants what he says, there is little he can do about it because of the influence the powerful Jewish lobby wields over the US Congress, media, think tanks and academic institutions. Any attempt in that direction will fail as did President Barack Obama’s 2014 bid.
The root cause of the conflict is occupation, which must end if the two peoples have to live in peace. Palestinians know all too well that won’t happen with America’s help. A press report quotes a Palestinian as saying “the two-state solution is like a song the Americans sing when they want to pacify us, it’s like a lullaby you sing to children to put them to sleep.” This best sums up the prevailing sentiment in the occupied Palestinian territories.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2023
Comments
Comments are closed.