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Boycott the United Snakes: Amerika standing in the way of the two-state solution

July 14, 2016

The U.S. Republican Party recently had a meeting to work on its platform and dropped the two-state solution. It also explicitly rejected acknowledgment of Israeli occupation as a “false notion.”(1) Perhaps it should be known more as the American occupation of Palestine then, if it isn’t an Israeli occupation. Omitting the two-state solution may put the Republican Party to the right of Netanyahu nominally and to the right of the half of Israelis who support some two-state solution.

The idea that “Jewish” money or even an “Israel lobby” dominates AmeriKKKans is a lie. It is a lie because anyone who can read webpages in English can do the research on that themselves and know better despite playing stupid, and now there is more evidence in the media. The Republicans dropped support for the two-state solution – for reasons that have nothing to do with wanting either economic or political equality between Israelis and Palestinians within a single state – while even groups like ADL and AIPAC still supported it at least verbally, if halfheartedly or on terms intolerable to Palestinians.(2) That is just the latest indication. Non-Jewish Amerikans promote conflict, and interfere with peace efforts, in the Middle East for their own reasons and because of their own interests. Only Amerikan chauvinists or people influenced by them will persist with spreading notions about Amerika being a manipulated victim that – with the right trigger – can realize its revolutionary potential in the face of Palestinian suffering. Amerika is not a victim of “elites,” Jews, or I$raelis. It is a hegemonic colonizer and aggressor, and the biggest exploiter in the world. It has to be the most resolute anti-Amerikans among those shooting down the myth of an Israel lobby oppressing Amerikans because it is clear that others have been influenced by the CIA or the State Department to think of Amerikans as potential friends in comparison to various others.

The appearance of Republican support for the two-state solution was needed when a Republican was U.$. President and needed Arab cooperation in the so-called War on Terror. To say that the Arab Peace Initiative initially was just Saudi Arabia offering something to the Amerikans because Saudis were scared after 9/11 would be simplistic. In other words, supporting or opposing the two-state solution can easily be shown to be at least partly independent of what Israelis and Jewish Amerikans want. Today, some use the appearance of the two-state solution being linked to cooperation/accommodation with Western imperialist countries as an excuse not to support the Arab (Saudi) Peace Initiative, but there was less such difficulty supporting the two-state solution for many years after Bush announced support for it. It could be argued that the election of internationally popular Obama, who improved the United $tates’ image around the world, helped make abuse of Palestine as a bargaining chip less necessary because of willingness to cooperate with the Amerikans anyway. (And instead of invading Yemen more openly and requiring Saudi Arabia to justify cooperating in another Amerikan-led war by pointing to effort on the two-state solution, the united $tates can just threaten to push out Saudi Arabia’s other trading partners and force Saudi Arabia to share influence over the Bab-el-Mandeb choke point with it, achieved with u.$. “support.”) Unfortunately, less exploitation of Palestinian struggle in preparations and negotiations for war would not mean the Amerikans got out of the way of realizing a two-state solution.

The Democrats had their own meeting, at which they considered and rejected acknowledging occupation of Palestine.(3) If no occupation of Palestine anywhere is acknowledged, it is harder to acknowledge illegality of settlements, which hinder progress on the two-state solution. The result at the Democrats’ platform drafting meeting shouldn’t surprise anyone. Despite reported changes in sympathy for Israel versus Palestine, only slim majorities of Democrats (who at one point favored the two-state solution less than Republicans) favored “the establishment of an independent Palestinian state on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip” or agreed Israel and an “independent Palestinian state” could exist, in 2015 and 2014.(4) Overall, only 42% of Amerikans in early 2015 favored the establishment of a Palestinian state with 20% having no opinion. For comparison, AJC reported that 52% of U.S. Jews favored the establishment of a Palestinian state in 2015,(5) complicating the claim that Jews are a force, virulently against the two-state solution, influencing Amerikans. A greater percentage of Amerikan Jews explicitly oppose the establishment of a Palestinian state, but it seems that if Jewish majority opinion actually dominated, Amerikans would be more supportive of the two-state solution.

In Israel, narrow or near- majorities have supported a two-state solution.(6) If the seriousness or quality of some of these Israelis’ support could be doubted, so could the Amerikans’. Conflict in the Middle East is very real for Israelis, less so for Amerikans thousands of miles away who are busy obsessing with Pokémon GO and other extremely important things at the time of this writing. Many Amerikans have too much affluenza to care much about anything, or they are too worried about their economy to want to rock the boat with Israel to encourage negotiation. And if the power of Palestinians and other Arabs in Israel supporting a two-state solution could be debated, so too could the influence of New Afrikans (members of the black nation in the united $tates) disproportionately favoring a Palestinian state. The point is there is a basis for conflict between Israelis and Amerikans over the two-state solution. The vast majority of decline in support for the two-state solution among Amerikans – including among those claiming to oppose the TSS from a Palestinian point of view – has absolutely nothing to do with supporting armed struggle against the occupation and colonialism, or supporting some specific alternative that would not exacerbate oppression. Amerikans are prone to thinking they are superior, prioritizing their own short-term needs excessively, and sh*tting on everyone else.

If one does a simple news search for Marwan Barghouti within the last few weeks, one can see Haaretz, the Jerusalem Post, Israel National News and Times of Israel all discussing Marwan Barghouti as a potential replacement for Abbas. That isn’t a secret. Barghouti is still popular among Palestinians and, relative to others who might be considered less credible or suitable for pursuing the two-state solution, has the potential to be favored by many Westerners. Many have valid concerns about Abbas – who plays the role of perennial anti-intifada “diplomat” despite appearing to struggle with Israel(7) – and there may be reasons to be skeptical of Barghouti’s chances of winning an election, but to hear almost all of these Westerners talking about a death of the two-state solution, you wouldn’t know that Barghouti existed. Amerikans disdain both Iran and Saudi Arabia, and disdain both Fatah and Hamas, and everyone else except maybe abstractions like “Palestinian civil society” that actually include some of the people considered corrupt or prone to alleged corrupt influence. (That is not to defame “civil society.” The point is about trying to have things both ways with some forces criticized in other contexts, while making Westerners look like the hero compared with Arab and Muslim countries that may conduct little trade and investment with Israel to begin with.) Instead of Barghouti’s name, what you do hear are messages about how Amerikans should and can live up to their claims to democracy and superiority and save Palestine somehow without supporting the two-state solution or getting out of the way of others’ diplomacy.

The poll data, the news reports on the Internet – these are examples of free, public sources that anyone can find. The writing here is based on sources of info that everyone can read themselves. So, amid serious accusations and even possible armed struggle with Egypt and Saudi Arabia, one can see that Iran holds out the possibility of uniting with those countries in English-language global media. Soon after the Egyptian foreign minister’s meetings in Israel, the Iranian Financial Tribune had an article raising the idea of needing “strategic patience” with Saudi Arabia and “waiting for a chance to begin interaction” even as it accused Saudi Arabia of anti-Iranian and pro-Amerikan activity.(8) The Iranian lawmaker quoted in the article said, “We should not mistake prudence with diplomatic inaction and negligence,” referring to Iran’s actions regarding Saudi Arabia. “Strategic patience” is interesting in the context of difficulty with getting everything one wants in the Israeli-Palestinian issue right now, and Fatah, Hamas, Egypt, Iran, Israel and Saudi Arabia all claiming to be against ISIS. Struggle with ISIS may be opening up possibilities for the two-state solution. Contrary to assumptions that Iran is incapable of a perspective allowing progress on the two-state solution strategically, Iran’s complex statements, about other Muslim countries in an accommodation with the united $tates at this time, are relevant to Palestine whether some pro-Iranian, anti-Israeli commentators think so or not.

An important question Iranians and non-Iranians need to ask themselves is whether Iran really wants (or should be led to allow) the window for diplomacy on a two-state solution to close permanently. There’s always the option of Amerikans – who think they are more progressive than anyone else – bringing more tanks, jets and bombs to the Middle East to impose its own neo-colonial multi-state solution to conflict and “sectarianism,” an approach they have considered for Iraq for example.

Instead of cynically dismissing Iran’s carefully worded statements, people should accept that diplomacy is occurring and has expressions in media in English (a major language of diplomats) for a reason. Those who don’t care, don’t understand, or think that reading public opinion influence products for signs of diplomatic struggle is like seeing Jesus faces in outer space or pieces of bread, should not be purporting to intervene positively in Palestine as if they were on the ground there. The duty of activists in the First World is to oppose Amerikan interference in diplomacy and Amerikan influence in international relations. It is not to sh*t on everyone’s efforts as if there were about to be a socialist revolution in the Western or Arab world that could solve the issue, or as if international support for armed struggle to liberate Palestine were more developed than it actually is. Those who cannot support international diplomacy with less Amerikan influence should move out of the way and not take up space.

This writer wouldn’t purport to speak about matters in the united $tates either on the basis of any insight inaccessible to others. People should defer to the anti-imperialist vanguard there about the existence of New Afrika as an oppressed nation inside a country that is generally highly parasitic, but actually that is not less obvious than the existence of other occupied nations in a world with huge economic inequality between nations, inequality everyone can know about. Any proposed solution for Palestine needs to be based on an understanding of how u.$. dominance and global inequality together make nationalism, states, and diplomacy, important in international struggle still.

It is remarkable that Arab and Third World leaders are seen as always especially corrupt and always needing to be overthrown immediately even though socialist revolution in reality is stalled or floundering everywhere due to extreme u.$. dominance, which needs to be addressed with more and larger anti-Amerikan united fronts. Socialist revolution is impossible with the petty-bourgeois/bourgeois population of the united $tates except by being imposed from the outside, but those encouraging Westerners to have contempt for Arab and Muslim countries in addition (or not) to their own “elites” and diplomats are creating a contrary impression. They support delusions that the next Amerikan administration, or at least the next Democratic administration (which may be years from now, if Donald Trump wins), may play a positive role.

The united $tates is in a position to incentivize pursuit of the two-state solution or disincentivize collapse of negotiations, but it won’t do both to any significant effect. This makes greater non-Amerikan involvement in diplomacy, and in (dis)incentivization, necessary. There are some who have been calling the TSS dead or “academic” for almost a decade or more, still saying the same things in 2016 only more stridently partly because of economic crisis and actual and perceived political upheaval in the Arab and Western worlds. The TSS is no less academic than the one-state solution, due to economic and political concerns on both sides of the separation batter. That is unless proponents of the one-state solution are referring to a debatable de facto situation in the status quo, a single state in the form of an Amerikan-Israeli regime and the State of Palestine as a puppet. Since Israelis won’t accept the economic and political consequences of having millions of Palestinians as new Israeli citizens – unless the new citizens are to be formal apartheid subjects – the choice is between diplomacy or pressure for a two-state solution now – with or without Israeli agreement – or armed struggle. Without more Arab and international support, armed struggle (though allowed by international law) would probably not be viable.

Whatever people want – a two-state solution, de facto or formal apartheid within a single, “multiracial” state, or something else – there ought to be clarity about that instead of nihilist criticism without alternatives. A particular issue right now is lack of clarity among some BDS supporters themselves – criticizing diplomacy – about whether BDS is compatible with pursuing the two-state solution. Most promising in the BDS movement are those forces who see BDS as a way of supporting the two-state solution by circumventing state bureaucracies, but the distinction between supporting current diplomatic efforts and supporting BDS to create conditions for future diplomacy – and not supporting the TSS at all – isn’t always made. Undermining many BDS supporters’ own goals, this lack of clarity has contributed to a perception that BDS and working for the two-state solution are inconsistent. ◊

See:
• “Iran calls for Islamic unity in the midst of attacks,” 2016 July. https://github.com/pinotes/pinotes.github.io/blob/master/_posts/2016-07-10-news-Saudi-Arabia-bombings.md
• “Amerikan privilege and illusions of Amerikan leadership on national oppression: what Black Lives Matter really has to do with Palestine,” 2016 July. https://github.com/pinotes/pinotes.github.io/blob/master/_posts/2016-07-13-news-Black-Lives-Matter-Palestine.md

Notes:
1. “Republicans unanimously vote to Drop support for two-state solution in platform,” 2016 July 14. http://www.haaretz.com/world-news/u-s-election-2016/1.730550
2. ADL and AIPAC praised aspects of the Republican platform draft, but still have webpages for example officially supporting a two-state solution.
“ADL ‘disappointed’ by Republican opposition to two-state solution,” 2016 July 13. http://www.timesofisrael.com/adl-disappointed-by-republican-opposition-to-two-state-solution/
“Our mission.” http://www.aipac.org/about/mission (https://archive.is/kG6wv)
“The peace process.” http://www.aipac.org/learn/issues/issue-display?issueid={8DB2B03A-3F5F-4A92-BED7-3CFDE9C87609} (https://archive.is/w4yRc)
“Support direct negotiations, not imposed solutions.” http://www.aipac.org/learn/legislative-agenda/agenda-display?agendaid={52E0B8AE-92F0-4AD9-9A6A-45B399F802FC} (https://archive.is/nfoSY)
3. “Democratic platform committee rejects amendment rebuking Israel,” 2016 July 10. http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2016/07/10/democratic-platform-committee-rejects-amendment-rebuking-israel/
“Democrats reject platform proposal calling for ‘end to occupation and illegal settlements’,” 2016 June 25. http://www.haaretz.com/world-news/u-s-election-2016/1.727025
4. “Americans closely split over Palestinian statehood,” 2015 February 24. http://www.gallup.com/poll/181682/americans-closely-split-palestinian-statehood.aspx
“Public divided over whether Israel, independent Palestinian state can coexist,” 2014 April 29. http://www.people-press.org/2014/04/29/public-divided-over-whether-israel-independent-palestinian-state-can-coexist/
5. “AJC 2015 survey of American Jews,” 2015 September 11. http://www.ajc.org/site/apps/nlnet/content3.aspx?c=7oJILSPwFfJSG&b=9302337&ct=14761859&notoc=1
6. “Poll finds fading support for two-state solution between Israelis, Palestinians,” 2015 June 26. http://www.jpost.com/Arab-Israeli-Conflict/Poll-finds-fading-support-for-two-state-solution-between-Israelis-Palestinians-407222
“Poll: Most Israelis, Palestinians support 2-state solution,” 2013 December 31. http://www.timesofisrael.com/poll-most-israelis-palestinians-support-2-state-solution/
7. “Palestinian pre-conditions for Cairo summit a non-starter, official says,” 2016 July 13. http://www.jpost.com/Arab-Israeli-Conflict/Palestinian-pre-conditions-for-Cairo-summit-a-non-starter-official-says-460316
“Abbas says Cairo peace summit only after settlement freeze,” 2016 July 13. http://www.timesofisrael.com/abbas-says-cairo-peace-summit-only-after-settlement-freeze/
8. “Need for strategic patience toward Saudi Arabia,” 2016 July 12. http://financialtribune.com/articles/national/45304/need-strategic-patience-toward-saudi-arabia (https://archive.is/RGQBj)

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