It is ironic that Palestine’s historic victory in the United Nations General Assembly in having its flag raised at the world body’s headquarters, despite its observer status and however symbolic in nature, has come at a time the movement’s fortunes are at their lowest ebb. The Palestine Authority President, Mahmoud Abbas, will be present when the flag will be raised later this month.
Yet Mr Abbas has overstayed his term in office by several years and Palestinians remained hopelessly divided between the mainstream Fatah movement and Hamas, in control of the Gaza Strip, which lies in ruins after its last war with Israel a year ago. What is even more important is that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is merrily multiplying Jewish settlements in occupied Jerusalem and the West Bank, seeking to close the option of a two-state solution, the official credo of international peacemakers for decades.
Mr Netanyahu took on US President Barack Obama frontally on its nuclear deal with Iran, lambasting him in the US Congress and letting loose the power of the American Jewish lobby, smug in the belief that whatever he does, American goodies in the form of military and economic aid will continue to flow. He won over US Republicans to his side even as it has become clear that the US President has enough votes in the Senate to frustrate attempts at sabotaging the deal.
Having lost his gamble, Mr Netanyahu made noises during his recent London visit on talking to the Palestinians without preconditions when there is nothing left to discuss. If anything, the Israeli leader is only embarrassing his indulgent sugar daddy, the United States, by highlighting how a client state can lead its benefactor on a string.
Indeed, the US has a heavy burden to carry in indulging Israel in its patently unjust suppression of Palestinians that is making the continuing turmoil in the Middle East worse. True, US secretary of state John Kerry made an effort to revive talks on the Palestinian issue after assuming office. Predictably, they went nowhere because the Israelis wanted to keep what they have illegally taken and Washington proved too weak to go against Jerusalem’s wishes.
After a time, when problems become too complicated, the world tends to forget them, except that with the Palestine issue remaining unresolved, the Middle East turmoil, with the rise of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, the injustice of Israel ruling over Palestinians as a coloniser makes a sane approach to peace impossible. Undoubtedly, Washington has geopolitical interests in Israel’s existence in an unstable area, but propping up Tel Aviv irrespective of its actions comes at great cost to its own world standing.
There was a time not so long ago when US Presidents curtailed an aid project to make their point, but even such token gestures are no longer made because, given the subjugation of American lawmakers to Israel’s desires, they are too scared of the American Jewish lobby’s money power and reach to strike a dissenting note. Will President Obama’s success in getting most Democrats to support the Iran deal against Republican attempts to sabotage it make a difference?
It is unlikely to change the American political picture. Indeed, President Obama has bent over backwards in heaping even greater military largesse on Israel, apart from assuaging a Sunni Arab world wary of Shia Iran’s resurgence. Washington’s pro-Israel bias will not go away because the Jewish lobby has become an essential part of the American political power structure. In the meantime, Israel has largely succeeded in effacing the 1967 borders, which are the starting point of all negotiations. Much of the world will take Mr Netanyahu’s new proposal of talks with Palestinians without conditions for what it is: hogwash.
Since American moves on any meaningful move on Israel are constrained by domestic political factors, what can the rest of the world do to help Palestinians out of a hopeless situation? First, Palestinians must help themselves. Mr Abbas has long outlived his usefulness and must resign to energise a decrepit Palestinian Authority to make way for a new young team in the leadership ranks. Second, a rejuvenated leadership must make a serious attempt at reconciling with Hamas.
It suits Israel to keep Mr Abbas and his team of veteran negotiators with Tel Aviv in place because they have become accustomed to the perks of their assignments and, as opposed to the plight of their people, live comfortable lives. Yet given the level of unemployment and other privations and indignities, Palestinian youth are ready to rebel for a better future against their own leaders as well as their Jewish occupiers. Palestinian citizens of Israel have no voting right.
However, the larger responsibility lies with the so-called world community, in effect the major powers led by the United States, which is paralysed in calling Israel to account. The irony is that protected and indulged by the United States, Israel has developed into a modern high-tech country, an expert in cyber security and a major exporter of military hardware to the world, including India. Is it trying to prove that, given propitious circumstances, it can indulge in old-style colonialism in the 21st century and get away with it?
Mercifully, there are many sane Israelis who realise that their country’s future is not paved with gold because in biological terms Palestinians will overtake Jews in the future if the two-state project is finally jinxed. The whole concept of a Jewish homeland will go up in smoke because of Jews’ own folly. But these Israelis are in a minority and are subject to the power of propaganda that plays upon the perils of their neighbourhood to keep the country brisling with arms, including of the atomic variety, and wary of Palestinian aspirations. In a sense, Israelis themselves are held in political bondage by their own political masters, apart from suppressed Palestinians. Yet human nature being what it is, the raising of the flag at UN headquarters will bring a smile to Palestinian faces.
