UN-Truth

Here are some interesting excerpts from remarks made in an interview conducted by the Jerusalem Post’s correspondent in the U.S., Shmuel Rosner, with Dr. Stephen P. Cohen, author of the recently-published book “Beyond America’s Grasp – A Century of Failed Diplomacy in The Middle East”

Question (Rosner): You say in your book that “America had never had an adequate understanding of how essential settlement of the Palestinian issue was to the stability of the region”.  Why is it essential…?

Answer (Cohen): The Palestinian issue remains a core unsolved problem of the Arab period under colonial control. I do not see Zionism as a colonial movement but I do see that the Arabs not only consider the Palestinian question as the most prominent and important remaining vestige of colonialism but that they also blame Zionism as the core of what helped to create a smooth transition between British colonial policy and the American search for a dominant role in the region … The uniqueness of the Palestinian question is the way that it consistently retains its emotional significance for the Arab masses.  The Arab satellite media have chosen to become the televisor of incidents of violence against Palestinians and of the restriction on their freedom of movement.  These news clips are repeated incessantly.  This emersion [sic - it should probably read "immersion"] of Arab satellite television in imaging Palestinian suffering in almost every newscast puts this issue on the popular mind again and again so that popular consciousness becomes a burden on the regimes.   Public opinions in Middle East countries hold their own regimes responsible for the suffering they see by blaming their own regimes for weakness and for maintaining a strong relationship with the United States even while the U.S. supports Israel and is the essential basis of Israeli continued military control over Palestinian life and military occupation of Palestinian land.  In this way, the Palestinian issue not only maintains the conflict between the Arabs and Israel but also exacerbates tensions between the U.S. and virtually every Arab country … I often say that conflict resolution requires attention, not only to the issues between the conflicting parties, but also to issues within each party.  So, for example, in Israel, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict does not fully subsume the internal religious conflict within Israel.  However, the Palestinian issue has exacerbated the religious conflict within Israel.  The issues of Jerusalem and land of Israel settlement or withdrawal are treated differently by secular Israelis than they are by religious Israelis…

Question: Do you think that the current administration has better understanding of the centrality of the Palestinian issue … ?

Answer: President Obama shows a more sophisticated understanding of the importance of resolving the Israeli-Palestinian question but, his first attempt to bring a major change in the policies of the parties towards solution has failed.  Obama now needs to move away from the exclusive focus on settlements to find a more convincing road to bringing Israelis and Palestinians to negotiate about permanent agreements.  This revised approach needs to emphasize showing Israel how more important strategic goals will be served by negotiating agreements than by maintenance or expansion of settlement activities.  He will have to show the Palestinians that, under his leadership, Israel will negotiate on the basis of the 1967 borders and will recognize that Jerusalem is important to Islam, not only to Judaism, and is as essential a component of Palestinian society, economy, politics and identity as it is for Israel … We are in a phase of the history of this conflict in which religion has become critical again.  Obama recognized that in his Cairo speech when he emphasized interfaith respect and understanding.  He has not yet had the freedom of action to have worked in practical ways on this religious dimension.

Question: You want the US to ‘help Israel solve its problem of the occupied territories’. What’s you recipe for achieving such goal?

Answer: … The U.S. has to think more concretely about Israel’s security problem of withdrawing from the West Bank.  There can be no opening to bringing any missiles into the West Bank.  Missiles in the West Bank would be a threat to Israel’s most important commercial airport, and through it, a threat to Israel’s economy.  Missiles in the West Bank could also reach the largest concentrations of Israeli population. It would not be enough to count on the military dominance of the Palestinian authority over Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Hamas. In my view, there would have to be a NATO peace force with teeth, and those teeth would almost certainly have to be American.  The American military and security establishment have to show willingness and preparedness for such a scenario.  In addition to that, the U.S. needs to think through long-term security arrangements for Israel and for the Palestinian state that would become ironclad deterrents to anyone contemplating renewal of hostilities … I emphasize the failure of Palestinian leadership from the early 1920′s in not building an effective civil society, not creating a structure of participatory governance and, most of all, for adopting a policy of  ‘all or nothing’  toward Zionism.  The Palestinians decided under Haj Amin al Husseini, the Mufti of Jerusalem, that any acknowledgment of the Jewish presence in Palestine is too much.  Under his leadership, the Palestinians rejected even the most far-reaching British limitations on Zionism, because those proposals still allowed a measure of legitimacy to the Zionist enterprise”…

This interview can be read in full here

Filed under: Israel, Middle East Peace Process, Palestine & Palestinians