Photo by Ahmed Abu Hameeda
United States’ spokespeople never cease to spew nonsense. Secretary of State Antony Blinken continued this unbroken tradition when he proclaimed that the expansion of Israeli settlements, and the constant, ongoing demolitions of Palestinian homes in the West Bank, only make peace with the Palestinians more remote. This would be a reasonable statement, if peace with the Palestinians was something that Israeli wants. And then, in the same breath, he reiterated the ‘iron-clad’ status of the U.S.-Israeli relationship, and U.S. security commitments to that Zionist, apartheid entity.
Let us, for a minute, look at an imaginary, but parallel, situation.
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Imagine that this writer has several friends who have strong criminal tendencies. He knows they love guns, so he often gives them gifts of the most modern guns available. He also knows that they rob banks, and he often tells them that they shouldn’t do that.
On occasion, they ask, or rather demand, that he pick them up in town to drive them somewhere. Because they are such good friends, this writer always accommodates them. In the recent past he has picked them up in front of the First National Bank, the Main Street Bank, and the Community Bank. He parks his Ferrari out front (they specify the car they will need him to use); he follows their instructions to double-park if no parking is available. He, himself, would never double-park under other circumstance; doing so simply goes against his personal code of ethics. But they are such good friends, that he makes an exception for them.
On each occasion when he has parked (or double-parked) in front of the bank at the appointed time, he waits for a few minutes with the motor running (his friends also require this of him). Coincidentally, every time they emerge from the bank it is moments after he has heard gunshots and screaming, which seem to him to be coming from the bank! His friends then rush out of the bank, carrying several large bags; this writer sighs and pretends not to know what is in them. As they scream at him to ‘DRIVE!’ he accelerates rapidly. He notices some mutual friends ineffectively trying to stop him, and even some authority figures trying to do so, and while he respects them (at least publicly; in private he holds many of them in complete disdain), he continues driving at a high rate of speed until he reaches the destination he has been given.
His friends depart from the vehicle without even saying ‘thank you’, and go into their beautiful mansion.
This writer sighs again, and the following day, sends them an email, saying that they really must stop robbing banks. He follows that email with a specially-delivered gift certificate for $1 million dollars to the local branch of the best automatic weapons shop in town.
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Is this analogy so vague that Blinken cannot see it? Does he fail to understand these basics:
• Israel has no interest in peace with the Palestinians; genocidal regimes don’t want peace with their victims. They want the extermination of their victims.
• Saying settlement expansion is a barrier to (unwanted, anyway) peace, and then financing those settlements is counterproductive, to put it mildly.
• The U.S. could solve the Palestine-Israel ‘conflict’ today, by cutting off all funding, and ending diplomatic support for Israel’s war crimes. However, peace in the Middle East is obviously not what the U.S. wants.
• Ignoring international law, as the U.S. does by supporting Israel’s crimes, does nothing positive for the reputation of the U.S. on the international stage.
The people of Palestine are, and have been for generations, deprived of basic human rights. The U.S. is very selective in stating for whom it grants or supports human rights. Allowing and financing the deprivation of basic human rights to one population and granting or supporting them to another is the height of hypocrisy.
Blinken also stated that the U.S. will continue to work to normalize relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel. Saudi Arabian government officials have said for years that any such normalization is dependent on the freedom of the Palestinians, and the establishment of a free Palestinian state. This, of course, cannot be relied on. The U.S., although drowning in debt, is always willing to offer financial incentives to get its way (let U.S. citizens live in poverty; be unable to afford rent, let alone the purchase of a home; have to purchase drinking water because tap water is unsafe; the list goes on). It sends billions to the apartheid regime, and bribed other countries to establish ties with it. Saudi Arabia’s recent rapprochement with Iran threw a large monkey wrench into the works of U.S. efforts to encourage Israel and Saudi Arabia to make nice, but who knows what promises the U.S. will make to the Saudis? The Saudi government, however, certainly knows that the U.S. cannot be trusted. Does anyone still remember the JCPOA?
Sadly, we live in a world where human rights and international law take a back seat to power and profits. This isn’t new but, today, world governments don’t even seem to try to hide it. The U.S. continues to overthrow governments, and funds nearly 1,000 military bases around the world to keep other countries in line; should any of them elect a government that is too left-leaning, or perhaps grows too close to China (currently one of the U.S.’s many self-proclaimed ‘arch enemies’), U.S. soldiers – pawns in the chess game the U.S. has set up globally – and weapons are there to force that unfortunate nation to its knees.
When Iran and Saudi Arabia re-established diplomatic relations, in an agreement brokered mainly by China and with no U.S. involvement, it was heralded as a new way forward in the Middle East; less U.S. involvement meant less war and unrest there. The U.S. will not easily allow this to happen, so it will have few limits in bribing and arm-twisting the Saudi government. That government, however, although ruling with an iron fist, must still deal with its own people, where anti-U.S. sentiment is strong (legitimately), as is pro-Palestinian sentiment (also legitimately). It is unlikely that the Saudi government wants to deal with major unrest among it population of 36,000,000 people.
The Palestinians continue to suffer, as they have for over seventy years, due to the many injustices introduced by the United Nations, perpetrated by ‘Israel’ and supported mainly by the United States, but other countries as well. Blinken’s useless words about settlements being a barrier to peace have no meaning for the leaders of the apartheid, Zionist entity. International support for the Palestinians is strong; people around the globe must assure that their government leaders know this, and act accordingly.
