Clinton’s Middle East Failure

 

President Clintons last hooray for a final peace settlement between the Israelis and Palestinians failed from the beginning because of Clintons 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.

Mr. Jefferson Fletcher is a student at University of Arkansas in King Fahd Middle East Studies Program. He has traveled to Middle East.

Sharon & Middle East Peace

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