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Justice before money

Jun 27,2019 - Last updated at Jun 27,2019

The popular response in our part of the world to the Trump administration’s approach, or “claim” to wanting to achieve peace at the Arab-Israeli level is overwhelmingly and unprecedentedly negative.

The administration has started off on the wrong footing, and continues on the same erroneous path.

Rather than take the time needed to study the highly complex question of Palestine and Arab-Israeli conflict, and building on previous efforts and agreements, it rushed into a series of bad statements, steps and measures which extremely angered and provoked a lot of people in this region, who saw them as not just fallacious and counterproductive, but malicious and ill-meant.

These include appointing US envoys, advisers and officials entrusted with the Arab-Israeli conflict file who are not just heavily biased towards Israel, but die-hard Zionists.

Who in the Trump administration’s team involved with “peacemaking” in the Middle East is trustworthy?

Is not trust a prerequisite to any intervention or intermediation for conflict resolution? 

Should not peacemaking be a cumulative process, in which much is built on previous agreements and resolutions?

Why reinvent the wheel when we all know precisely what should be done to establish peace in Palestine specifically and between Israel and other Arab countries more generally? And that is: Ending Israel’s illegal occupation and giving Palestinians and Arabs their lands and rights back.

But the series also included foolish decisions and big mistakes, such as relocating the American embassy to Jerusalem, and “recognising” Israel’s illegal occupation of the Golan Heights.

How can the Trump administration be committing these plunders, and expecting the Palestinians and Arabs to trust it and take whatever it offers seriously?

Which brings us to the Bahrain meeting, which is part and parcel of this erroneous approach.

First of all, the Bahrain conference is born dead because of lack of trust. The bottom line here is that people in our part of the world see it as a trap and a trick.

It is seen as another attempt by Israel and the US to manipulate the Palestinians and the Arabs, just as they have been manipulated them in Oslo and other contexts.

Furthermore, who says that either the problem or priority for the Palestinians and the Arabs whose land Israel is occupying is money?

The problem is the Israeli occupation; the priority is the ending of occupation.

It, and not lack of money, is the obstacle to development and prosperity in Palestine and the region. 

Put an end to the Israeli occupation of Palestine and other Arab territory and let the Palestinians and all in the region work on development and prosperity, with or without your money.

By the way, the Palestinians and Arabs are not capitalists, for whom dollars are so magical and so mouth-watering; and this is another fallacious assumption on part of the Trump Mideast team.

Do not insult people’s intelligence. 

People in this part of the world know what they want: Full restoration of their lawful rights, prior to anything and everything else.

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