President Clinton’s last hooray for a final peace
settlement between the Israelis and Palestinians failed from the beginning
because of Clinton’s callous disregard for the true victims of the
conflict.
Despite eight years of pursuing failed Mideast peace
initiatives, Clinton continues to promote plans that ignore the central
issue of the Arab-Israeli conflict -- the right of return for more than
four million Palestinian refugees expelled from their homes when Israel
was created.
Clinton foolishly misconceived pseudo-sovereignty over
Jerusalem or the removal of a few illegal Jewish settlements in the
occupied territories as compensation for a just and equitable solution for
the Palestinian refugee problem.
The American and Israeli conception of peace basically
gives Israel kudos for fifty-two years of oppression, while telling the
Palestinian refugees to go to hell. For minor Israeli concessions on
Jerusalem, Palestinian refugees are asked to abandon any hope of returning
to their homeland.
In international relations, apparently two sets of rules
apply: One for the Israelis, another for the rest of the world. The rules
that applied in Kuwait, Bosnia and Kosovo cease to exist when the question
comes to Palestine.
Israel permits Jews from around the world the right of
return under Israeli law, yet categorically denies any such right for the
Palestinians. This sort of hypocrisy would be condemned if it occurred
anywhere else in the world, but is ignored when committed by Israel.
Israel wants a deal that guarantees the conflict is over
without actually acknowledging any guilt for the Palestinian
tragedy.
Dr. Martin Luther King once said, “True peace is not
merely the absence of tension, it is the presence of justice.”
Despite the fact that international law is on their side,
no one seems to care about justice for the Palestinians. Only when the
Israelis accept that their future cannot lie in racist, religious state
for Jews only, but in a free state in which Jews and Arabs live together
in justice and equality, will there ever be a real and lasting peace in
the Middle East.
