Any fond hopes, we might have had, that Barack Obama’s America could set to rights the ‘peace process’ in Palestine, have been swiftly dashed today by Jason Katsoukis’ Analysis. (The Age 5/10, p11).
Katsoukis comments that ‘Netanyahu is emerging as the region’s most skilled political player’, ‘outfoxing Obama on settlements (they will not cease), and forcing ‘the US to adopt his own approach of emphasising improved ... security conditions’, (no doubt continued freedom of operation of the Israeli Defence Force in the West Bank) instead of peace talks without preconditions, as President Obama had called for, before the United Nations.
Israel has already made it clear that it will never agree to a sovereign state of Palestine - with a military capacity.
Meanwhile, President Abbas, refusing talks without a freeze of new settlements (on US advice), has been comprehensively humiliated, causing understandable Arab 'outrage'.
Israeli defiance, and American weakness, with respect to spreading settlements in the West Bank, goes far back. No US president has succeeded in attempts to persuade Israel to desist due, perhaps, to concern over the Holocaust, and the power of the Jewish lobby. Nor has the UN any useful handle on power to successfully intervene -- with its rulings ignored.
We should ask ourselves: Can the threat of ‘terrorism’ ever be resolved by force of arms, without a solution to this outstanding injustice, causing the hatred at its root?
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