AIPAC conference confirms futility of negotiations

May 26, 2011 by occupiedpalestine 0 Comments

By Jody McIntyre | The Foreign Desk | Tuesday, 24 May 2011 at 4:52 pm

It was Nelson Mandela who once said, “Only free men can negotiate”. So-called negotiations between Israeli and Palestinian governments have often taken the form of slave and slave-master over the years. The rhetoric of the extreme right-wing current Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu is only a confirmation of a wider truth; that negotiations with the apartheid state of Israel are futile.

The AIPAC conference provides a platform for the Zionist lobby to flex their muscular influence on US politics, with President Obama included on the list of speakers. This was his speech of real importance, and who can forget his address to the AIPAC conference of 2008, when he stated that “Jerusalem must remain the undivided capital of Israel”. With those words, he nonchalantly dismissed the UN’s interpretation of international law, which clearly specifies East Jerusalem as the capital of any future Palestinian state.

So yesterday, another conference commenced; a celebration of continued US support for Israel. The fact that is being ignored is that, as a wave of uprisings across northern Africa and western Asia are proving, US dominance and influence in the region is on the decline. Just like hundreds of millions of dollars in aid were not enough to keep Mubarak in power in Egypt, all the billions of dollars in aid will not be enough to prop up Israel forever.

There are facts that need to be recognised; however much Israel and the US want to whip up fury about the “dangers” of a conciliation deal between Fatah and Hamas, the large majority of Palestinians, the refugee population, are not being represented by either of those institutions. As they proved through historic demonstrations on Nakba Day, particularly in Syria and Lebanon, they will not allow their voices to be drowned in a sea of apologist speech. However much Israel and the US want to legitimise the idea of “mutually agreed land swaps”, all Israeli colonies in East Jerusalem and the West Bank are illegal under international law, and always have been.

Netanyahu’s speech was so full of untruths that it surprises me that anyone takes him seriously. He talked about a place where “Christians are completely free”, despite the Israeli checkpoints that prevent Christian Palestinians from praying in Jerusalem. As Netanyahu continued, proclaiming that “Israel unites America”, demonstrators were repeatedly interrupting his speech with chants of “Occupying land is indefensible”, “Bulldozing homes is indefensible” and “Starving Gaza is indefensible”. Does Netanyahu not realise that the long propagated myths of “only democracy in the region” and “Israel’s right to exist” are wearing thin? No racist, apartheid state has any “right” to exist.

As Olof Palme, the Prime Minister of Sweden until his assassination in 1986, once said, “Apartheid cannot be reformed, it must be abolished.”

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