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CounterPunch
December
20, 2002
What are the
US's Intentions Toward Palestine?
by FRANCIS BOYLE
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.
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