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What Are Bush’s Intentions Toward Palestine?

Having served as Legal Advisor to the Palestinian Delegation to the Middle East Peace Negotiations from 1991 to 1993, and in a similar capacity to the Syrian Delegation to the Middle East Negotiations during their First Round held in Washington, D.C. during 1991, I can state unequivocally that if there had been good faith on the part of the governments of Israel and the United States back in 1991, a comprehensive Middle East peace settlement between Israel on the one hand and Palestine, Syria, Lebanon and Jordan, respectively, on the other, could have been negotiated by no later than the end of 1993.

As became obvious at the time and is even more evident at present, the governments of Israel and the United States were never seriously interested in obtaining a comprehensive and just Middle East peace settlement in the first place, right from the very commencement of preparatory work for the Middle East peace negotiations by the Bush Sr. administration in the aftermath of its criminal war against Iraq for oil.

Rather, Israel’s perpetration and prolongation of its long-standing campaign of ethnic cleansing against Palestine and the Palestinians — as well as its “low intensity conflict” against Lebanon, the Lebanese, and Palestinian refugees living involuntarily in Lebanon — suit the political and economic interests of the interpenetrated security-military- industrial-complexes that really control the governments of the United States and Israel.

At this writing, the governments of the United States and Israel are plotting to launch catastrophic aggression against Iraq. Israeli Prime Minister General Ariel Sharon could very well use this second Bush Family anti-Iraqi oil crusade as a pretext and a cover to launch yet another Israeli round of ethnic cleansing against the Palestinian people, driving their West Bank residents into Jordan (which Sharon has always quite disingenuously maintained “is Palestine”) and their Gaza inhabitants into the Sinai desert, together with Israel’s Palestinian third-class “citizens.”

A Second ‘Al Nakba’ for the Palestinians.

There are also indications that Sharon would very much like to launch a major new aggression and land-grab against Lebanon and Syria just as he did in 1982 when as Israel’s so-called Minister of Defense, he obtained the proverbial “green light” from the Reagan administration to do so and exterminated about 20,000 Arabs in the process.

Meanwhile, President Bush Jr. has dispatched Secretary of State Colin Powell around the world to tamp down international discontent over Israeli’s serial massacres of the Palestinians in order to better enable the United States to reap the whirlwind of Iraq.

This incredibly volatile situation could readily degenerate into another regional war for the entire Middle East along the lines of 1948/1967/1973.

Could World War III be far behind?

Francis A. Boyle, Professor of Law, University of Illinois, is author of Foundations of World Order, Duke University Press, The Criminality of Nuclear Deterrence, and Palestine, Palestinians and International Law, by Clarity Press. He can be reached at: FBOYLE@LAW.UIUC.EDU

Please refer to:

Ramsey Clark, ‘The Fire This Time’ (1992).

Francis A. Boyle, ‘U.S. War Crimes During the Gulf War‘ September 2, 2002

Francis A. Boyle, ‘On Behalf of Iraq’s 4.5 Million Children — A Petition for Relief from Genocide

Francis A. Boyle, ‘U.S. Foreign Policy Toward the Iran/Iraq War‘ December 14, 2002.