Why U.S., Israel should welcome Palestinian move at U.N. by Rabbi Michael Lerner
Source:
http://edition.cnn.com/2012/11/28/opinion/lerner-palestinian-authority-israel/index.html?hpt=hp_c1
and I quote:
The de facto strategy of past and present Israeli governments of seeking security through domination and by pushing Palestinians out of their homes, or allowing right-wing religious fanatics to create settlements throughout the West Bank to ensure that no Palestinian state could have contiguous parts, has not and cannot work to provide safety for Israel.
Israel's fate and its well-being are intrinsically linked to the well-being of the Palestinian people. It's time for the powerful to show generosity to the relatively powerless.
So who opposes this?
Hamas, Israel and the U.S.
Why Israel? Because the Likud-Beiteinu dominated government does not want a Palestinian state to emerge that would limit the ability of the Israeli settlers to expand their hold on much of the West Bank. So while they sometimes talk about a two-state solution, they have in mind a tiny state that would not be economically or politically viable.
Its strategy: Insist that it cannot negotiate seriously with the Palestinian Authority on creation of a state because the authority cannot control Hamas. With that reasoning, they ask how can Israel be expected to work with the authority on terms for a peace treaty that would actually be viable? And then simultaneously, Israel strengthens Hamas in various predictable ways.
Its first move in this direction was to pull out of Gaza militarily without negotiating for the Palestinian Authority to take over control there, de facto leaving Gaza in the hands of Hamas. If the pull-out had been done in cooperation with the Palestinian Authority, there would have been no missiles and hence no "proof" that giving up land to the Palestinians would only increase Israeli vulnerability.
To keep any substantial Palestinian state from developing, the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has managed, in the latest Gaza war (whose cease-fire is for the moment holding) to strengthen Hamas. It allowed Hamas to show that it can fight back against Israeli assault in contrast to the Palestinian Authority who, Hamas points out, has gotten nothing in return for the past five years of complete non-violence and security cooperation with the Israeli Army (IDF).
Netanyahu is not stupid, and this is an intended outcome.
The shelling of Israeli sites killed five people. Israeli bombing killed 150 Palestinians. Yet the air raids and missiles aimed at Israel again stimulated the latent post-traumatic stress disorder among Israelis that leads so many to vote for right-wing parties against their own best interests out offear of the Palestinian people, most of whom would like to live in peace with Israel.
(Palestinians told me when I visited a few weeks ago that the ongoing trauma of the occupation is so present it can't become post-traumatic).
As long as Hamas is seen as the main face of Palestinians, even centrist and left-wing Israelis will support militarism rather than peace compromises.
Why Hamas? Because Hamas' strategy is to keep their area so powerless that the Palestinian people will turn away from support for the secular and peace-oriented and nonviolence-committed Palestinian Authority. So the last thing Hamas wants is for the Palestinian Authority to win popular esteem by being seen as having "delivered" a real tangible accomplishment to the Palestinian people in the form of statehood.
To the extent that even observer status is a step in that direction, powerful elements in Hamas want to undermine it. In fact, Hamas consistently tries to undermine the Palestinian Authority. That explains why it has been so unwilling in the past years to stop its war crimes against Israeli civilians by sending (thankfully, mostly inefficient) missiles toward Sderot and other parts of southern Israel. But even as they fall short of their targets, Hamas manages to create fear and trauma for millions of Israelis.
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[
Point to be noted - although until Sunday Haniyeh was saying that Hamas will not back the UN BID...it seems the leadership has changed its tone and the latest is that Hamas Chief Khaled Meshaal is welcoming the decision.]
