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Bush and
his money can go to hell
By Khalid Amayreh
02/27/06 "ICH"
-- --Ever since Hamas’s resounding electoral victory on 25 January,
Israel and her guardian-ally, the United States, have been rattling
their sabers, threatening to punish the Palestinians for electing
the Islamic movement instead of the corrupt Fatah group, to run the
Palestinian Authority (PA) government.
Israel, a manifestly full-fledged apartheid state, has seriously
escalated its institutionalized terror against Palestinian civilians
by restricting the movement of individuals and flow of goods and
services within the West Bank. Moreover, the Israeli government has
decided to permanently stop transferring Palestinian tax revenues to
the PA in what is being referred to as “silent induced starvation.”
For its part, the US is just parroting Israeli threats, even without
bothering giving even a scant thought to the Palestinian view point.
The latest drivel from Washington came on Friday (23 February) when
President Bush said that it was up to Hamas to decide if the next
Palestinian government would receive aid from the international
community (who elected him to speak on behalf of the international
community). Bush, probably the most ignorant President America has
ever had, said Hamas would have to recognize Israel, disarm, and
accept all agreements reached between Israel and the PA to qualify
for aid.
Well, Bush and his money can go to hell. The Palestinian people will
not give up their homeland and their rights for a monetary bribe
from its tormentors. We will not give up our inalienable right to
freedom and justice in return for some financial inducements. A free
woman would rather starve to death rather than sell her body to an
evil blackmailer. And America and Israel are the evil blackmailers
of our times.
Besides, why on earth should the Palestinians recognize Israel in
return for nothing? Has Israel recognized Palestine so that
Palestine could recognize Israel? Moreover, which Israel does Bush
and cohorts want us to recognize? Is it I948-Israel? 1967-Israel?
Israel with the West Bank? Israel with the Golan Heights? Israel
with the Shaba’a province? Israel with East Jerusalem? Israel west
of the Apartheid wall? Or, indeed, Talmudic Israel extending from
the Nile to the Euphrates.
How could the Palestinians possibly recognize a state that has no
borders? Indeed, Has Israel determined her borders?
More to the point, recognition is exchanged between sovereign sates,
not between a state and a fragile, autonomous entity languishing
under foreign occupation. The PA is not a state, it is not even a
state in the making, given the continued and unmitigated building of
Jewish-only colonies in the West Bank, which has effectively killed
any real prospect for a viable Palestinian state.
And the “disarm” demand. Well, if Hamas and Fatah were to disarm,
then, for heaven’s sake, who would protect Palestinian civilians
from the Nazi-like Israeli onslaught? America? We once trusted
America to protect our refugees at
Sabra and Shatilla near Beirut in 1982, only to see her
allow the certified war criminal Ariel Sharon, in concert with
Christian militiamen, to slaughter thousands of helpless women and
children, very much like the Gestapo and Wehrmacht did in central
and Eastern Europe more than sixty years ago.
Furthermore, It is really difficult to comprehend why only one party
to the conflict, and specifically the weaker party, is asked to
disarm, while Israel, a nuclear power, which also has the US, the
only superpower in the world, at her beck and call, is given carte
blanche to murder children, assassinate politicians, terrorize
innocent civilians, demolish homes, and reduce Palestinian
population centers to new, updated brands of Auschwitz, Treblinka
and Bergen Belsen.
Indeed, one is prompted to ask whether the Palestinians pose a real
threat to Israel, a country that possesses the most formidable
military arsenal in the entire Middle East, including some 600
state-of –the –art fighter Jets, some 5000 combat tanks, and
thousands of artillery pieces, as well as the estimated 350-400
nuclear bombs and missiles, with all delivery systems.
Is it true that this state feels threatened by the occupied and
tormented Palestinians who have a hard time feeding their children
and even a harder time reaching their jobs and schools and colleges
and hospitals, thanks to these Gestapo-like Jewish roadblocks and
checkpoints whose main function is to torment, humiliate and
frustrate these helpless people.
And they want us to accept the “past agreements” reached between the
PA and Israel. Well, what agreements? The Oslo Accords? Hasn’t
Israel killed the Oslo Accords? Does the Oslo Agreement allow Israel
to build 280 hateful colonies in the West Bank? Does it allow Israel
to build this satanic apartheid wall in the depth of the West Bank?
Besides, are we supposed to accept the Oslo Accords according to
whose interpretations? Israel considers the West Bank and East
Jerusalem “disputed territories” while the PA consider these
territories “occupied” rather than “disputed.” And the Americans and
the Europeans refrain from spelling out their respective
interpretations, opting rather to ask the rapist and his victim to
sort out things among themselves.
And the so-called “roadmap”? Well, will Mr. Bush and all other world
leaders be nice enough and tell us clearly and concisely which
“roadmap” they expect us to accept? We say that because we are
affronted with multiple “roadmaps” not just one “roadmap.”
So, are we supposed to accept the “roadmap” with the fourteen
Israeli reservations (each of which is sufficient to corrode
document and eviscerate it of substance)? Are we also supposed to
accept President Bush’s pledges to Ariel Sharon’s, namely that
Jewish settlements in the West Bank ought to be annexed to Israel?
The Americans and the Europeans, if they can demonstrate
independence from Israel, must first address these concerns before
hectoring the victims to accommodate the morbid whims of their
victimizers.
In fact, We suspect, in fact we are certain, that the real motives
behind the American-Israeli pressure on Hamas is to push the
Palestinians to capitulation to Israeli insolence.
Israel, to begin with, doesn’t need any recognition from Hamas.
However, because Hamas is viewed by some international circles as
the last Palestinian effort to withstand Israel’s designs to
liquidate the Palestinian cause, Israel and the US are effectively
trying to push Hamas to the corner in order to demonstrate to the
Palestinian people that even Hamas wouldn’t do them any good.
This is the truth about the present Israeli-American discourse. They
don’t want a peace settlement based on international law and human
rights and UN resolutions, but one that would reflect Israeli
hegemony, insolence and bullying.
Indeed, it is this brazen dishonesty on the part of Israel and the
US that prevents Hamas and the vast bulk of Palestinians from taking
steps toward a possible peaceful settlement with the Zionist state.
Well, Hamas is damn right. The PA recognized Israel in 1993, and
what was the result? Did Israel recognize Palestine? Did Israel stop
building settlements? Did Israel signal any readiness to give up
East Jerusalem or allow the refugees to return home?
Khalid Amayreh, is a Palestinian journalist from Dura near
Hebron. He is frequently published in Al-Ahram weekly and Al-Jazeera
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