Salim Nazzal

Obama started his Mideast involvement by demanding that Israel stop building settlements. The settlements are the land the government of Israel stealing from Palestine to construct housing project for Jews only. Streets only for Jews, schools only for Jews, and so forth. These settlements are constructed on hilly areas to put the Palestinian villages under its mercy. These settlements have destroyed the ecological system in Palestine because they are made without any consideration to the ecological system; their only consideration is the interest of Jews and only Jews even if Palestinians go to hell.

And these settlements have been constructed on areas with rich water reservoir, so the settlers can use the Palestinian water while Palestinians are deprived of their own. The Palestinian film director Rime Essa made a documentary film called “Drying up Palestine” where the film portrays the destruction which occurs to the Palestinian rural life as a result of the settlers activities. Those settlers are armed and between time and time they attack Palestinian villages destroying their corps and murder Palestinians under the protection of the Israeli army.

The settlements are illegal in international law, and more importantly the settlements are without doubt, preventing the possibility of reaching to a two state solution.

If this was happening anywhere else in the world the USA would be the first to condemn it, and to talk about the violation of basic human rights and the need for international protection. But in the case of Palestine the USA support the occupant even when it plays the broker role in the conflict. This is due to the power of the Jewish lobby which had made the USA Middle East policies largely a reflection of Israeli politics.

This week Israel defied the whole world and continued the settlement activities, The USA, Russia, France, Britain, and the rest were only “disappointed” of Israel. There was not even a shy condemnation from any of them. The British Guardian made it clear that Obama is too weak to stop Netanyahu. Palestinians know this fact; they also know it’s the same of the American previous administrations.

If the whole world is unable to stop Israel from freezing the settlement how can there be peace in the region?

The USA sent senator Mitchell with a letter of insurance to convince Israel to freeze building settlement only two months, in return that the US provide Israel with very advanced arms as if the Israel huge arsenal of mass destruction is not enough. The letter of insurance also assured Israel to block any attempt from Palestinians and Arabs to take the question to the United Nations especially to the Security Council where the USA has the veto which has been used several times to protect the Israeli atrocities. The letter of insurance confirms the fact that Israel is still able to defy the whole world and nobody is able to tell them enough is enough.

If the question is about settlements that the whole world considers illegal, but what then about the question of the right of return for the refugees? What about Jerusalem which Israel annexed illegally, what about the border in which the Zionist wall has already stolen so much of the border area of the future Palestinian state.

The American lack of will to force Israel to honor the united nation resolutions means one thing; it is a message to Palestinians and Arabs that the USA and the rest of the international society are unable to force Israel to adapt to the minimum requirement of the peace process. Arabs in this case need to review the peace strategy because it has become very obvious that Israel use the negotiation to cover its policy of imposing facts on the ground to prevent the establishment of a viable Palestinian state.

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Dr. Salim Nazzal is a Palestinian-Norwegian historian in the Middle East, who has written extensively on social and political issues in the region.