Bishara Bahbah

AZ I See It

The prospects of a two-state solution in Palestine are vanishing by the day and with it the hope of permanent peace between Israel and the Palestinians. Israel is bent on obliterating the economic viability and territorial contiguity of a future Palestinian state with no hope in sight.

Having just returned from a three-week trip to Israel-Palestine, I left depressed and outraged and, under no illusion whatsoever, that Israel will not acquiesce to the establishment of a truly independent Palestinian state. And why should it? It is not about fairness or justice. It is about brut force.

Israel is run by a right wing, pro-settlement government under the leadership of a prime minister who cares little about anything except preserving his post. This Israeli government counts among its members, settlers, bigots and racists such as the newly installed defense minister, Avigdor Lieberman.

An uprising of disillusioned loners

The so-called “intifada of knives” is a failed uprising. It is not an intifada of the masses; it is an uprising of loners who are disillusioned, unemployed and devoid of hope in their future. Ironically, the destined failure of this intifada is due to the Palestinian security forces’ collaboration with Israel and the latter’s harsh collective punishment against not only the families of the attackers but whole villages and towns.

Palestinians hope in Arabs, Europeans or even the United States to come to their rescue is sorely misguided. Israel’s decision on July 5th to build 800 housing units for settlers in lands occupied by Israel in 1967 was met by a toothless condemnation of US State Department Spokesman John Kirby who criticized the Israeli government’s decision as “fundamentally undermining the prospects of a two-state solution and counterproductive to the cause of peace in general.”

Is that it?

And does the Israeli government really care about what the State Department says at a time when the US Administration is negotiating to provide Israel with the largest 10-year package of military aid, to any country, in US history?

Blame the occupied, not the occupier

The Israeli government’s cajoling of US Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian President Vladimir Putin has successfully declawed the much-anticipated Quartet Report on the peace process. Much of the report’s blame ended up in the laps of the occupied and the oppressed (the Palestinians) and not the occupier and violator of international law (Israel).

From I witnessed with my own eyes, Israel is building cities not settlements, on lands expropriated from the Palestinians. The Palestinian-controlled city of Bethlehem is overshadowed by a humongous “settlement” with high rises, malls, parks and schools.

Israel’s actions are leading to the creation of a one-state reality that belies its contention that Israel should be a Jewish state. Why then is Israel bent on this self-destructive path?

Israel’s cost of continuing the status quo is minimal. It is in firm control of the West Bank including the presumably Palestinian-controlled areas. It has found a new ally in Egypt’s president to suffocate Hamas in Gaza. The economic cost of the occupation has been unloaded to the Palestinian Authority that relies on almost 75 percent of its budget on foreign aid.

No one's pressuring Israel

The “intifada of knives,” which erupted in October of last year, is not a mass uprising and poses no existential threat to Israel. The Palestinians are divided between two competing parties – Fatah and Hamas. Concurrently, Israel’s fractured pro-peace camp is paralyzed with infighting.

Diplomatically, Israel faces no real pressure from any of the concerned countries that presumably support the two-state solution. The Arab countries are in disarray following the eruption of the Arab Spring in 2011. Iraq is fractured and under Iran’s influence. Syria, since the 1970s, has not posed a threat to Israel. Hezbollah is fighting a losing battle shoring up Assad’s Alawi faction. Russia, Syria’s “savior” has never had better relations with Israel.

Israel has the audacity to tout a “new horizon” in its relations with Egypt and the rich Arab Gulf countries. The common enemy is now Iran and presumably ISIS. The latter has usurped the civil wars in Iraq and Syria and established its own caliphate unleashing its indiscriminate terror against countries near and far.

The French initiative to reinvigorate the Israel-Palestine peace process is still born. And, Obama will not exert any meaningful pressure on Israel in his last six months in office in fear of alienating Clinton’s powerful US Jewish allies and her prospect of winning the presidency.

In short, Palestinians have been abandoned and are paralyzed living in a Bantustan asphyxiated by an all mighty Israel with no peace prospects in sight.

Bishara A. Bahbah taught at Harvard University and was a member of the Palestinian delegation to the Oslo peace talks. He serves on the board of directors of the American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee.