[P2P-F] Fwd: Abass, Netanyahu & Obama at the U.N. : responses from a Palestinian and a Jew

Sat Sep 24 10:05:39 CEST 2011

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Tikkun <magazine at tikkun.org>
Date: Sat, Sep 24, 2011 at 3:12 AM
Subject: Abass, Netanyahu & Obama at the U.N. : responses from a Palestinian
and a Jew
To: Michelsub2004 at gmail.com

   Editor's Note: *As we often do in the magazine, the website, and these
emails, here are responses you are unlikely to read or hear or see in the
mass media to the President of Palestine Abbas and the Prime Minister of
Israel Netanyahu in relationship to what they have been doing at the U.N.
Our first respondent is a Palestinian activist in Ramallah, the second a
Jewish columnist in NYC. *

   Kudos Mr. Abbas
Inbox
 X
      [image: Reply]Reply
 [image: More]
        Mazin Qumsiyeh mazin at qumsiyeh.org to rabbilerner, Human
   show details 11:18 AM (1 hour ago)
     http://popular-resistance.****blogspot.com/2011/09/kudos-mr-****
abbas.html<http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=ml84UJgzcWOK3%2FXlhnNv4AVJckDyRIuI>

Mahmoud Abbas gave a brilliant speech at the United Nations, getting rounds
of applause from most of the representatives.  I think it demonstrated
clearly and unambiguously that the Palestinian leadership has been
"unreasonably reasonable" and has instead seen the hopes of peace and of
millions of Palestinians suffering for 63 years dashed on the rock of
Israeli expansionist, colonial, and apartheid policies.  He explained that
Israel has been taking one unilateral action after another each resulting in
more pain and suffering for our people.  Going to the UN, he explained is
putting things back where the problems started (he did not use the last two
words but I do).  He said a word that I think he should defend strongly that
no person or country with an iota of logic or conscience should reject the
Palestinian state membership in the UN or its formation in the 22% of
historic Palestine that is the West Bank and Gaza.  I think he took a
courageous step and gave a good performance.  Now we here on the ground in
Palestine hope and will push for additional follow-up steps.  From our own
perspective, three things are critical:

1)  That he and his administration now implement quickly the reconciliation
agreement signed by all Palestinian factions most notably the one about
creating a representative Palestinian National Council. In his speech he
said he hopes this will be done in a few weeks.  We hope this  will be done
quickly and not any longer than four weeks.

2) That he and his administration act quickly and decisively to really
promote popular unarmed resistance throughout Palestine and among
Palestinians in exile.  In forming a new government, the ministry that is
now in charge of walls and settlements should be either a) dismantled or b)
reconfigured.  A new strategy to encourage real nonviolent resistance must
be adopted.  We must end the practice of holding a few demonstrative actions
that do not disturb the occupation and that are used to enrich a few people.
We must instead allow the kind of popular resistance that have been
effective from our history (see my book that details challenges and
opportunities learned from this history and available in Arabic and
English). He also said he will pursue this.

3) The Palestinian people are waiting to see clear evidence of change; a new
Palestinian Spring as Mr. Abbas called it.  This requires seeing visibly
what Mr. Abbas talked about: transparency, accountability, democracy, and
freedom.

There were those who worried that going to the UN will raise the
expectations of the Palestinian people who then may turn to despair and more
if they do not see a change on the ground.  I say a) it is great to raise
the expectations, and b) we, the Palestinian people will never turn to
despair but we will revolt if we do not see real changes and stronger steps.
I share Abu Mazen's hope that the international community steps up to the
plate.  But I also hope that we all go back to our people and take those
steps that will ensure our freedom.

I also listened to Netanyahu's speech and was just amazed at how many lies
can be packed in one speech. It is not even worth detailing except to refer
you to this link:
http://www.qumsiyeh.org/****liesandtruths/<http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=xaf%2BN2FgyZWQw%2B3g3gOfdAVJckDyRIuI>

In this occasion, it might be worth comparing Israel and the Palestinians.

                                                Israel
Palestinians
Population----------------5.5 million Jewish---------11 million (7 million
refugees or displaced)
Land controlled ----------91.7%---------------****-------8.3% of historic
Palestine
Nature--------------------****Occupier/colonizer------****Occupied people
Military Personnel------Regular 175,000-----------None
----------------------------****Reserves, 500,000
Irregulars----------------10-****50,000------------------3-5,****000
---------------------------****Armed settlers------------Armed underground
forces
Police/other security--- 30,000--------------------50,****000
Tanks----------------------3,****800----------------------0
Artillery-------------------****1500 large----------------0
Submarines---------------6 -------------------------0
Warships-----------------20-****30---------------------0
Combat airplanes-------2000----------****------------0
Nuclear Weopons------>300-------------****---------0
GDP----------------------$195 billion--------------$4 billion
Military expenditure---$10 billion---------------****Negligible (security
services)
Casuaties (63 years)----6000 killed-------------75,000 killed
----------------------------****20,000 injured---------300,000 injured
Abducted/jailed----------30---****------------------400,000
Homes demolished-------0------------****----------50,000
Refugees created---------0-------------****--------->6 million people

Mr. President, we don't want a shortcut, we want our freedom by Abir Kopty
http://mondoweiss.net/2011/09/****mr-president-we-dont-want-a-****
shortcut-we-want-o
ur-freedom.html<http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=viieHjXgan%2BwhP1wCdcbQAVJckDyRIuI>

Palestinians on statehood: 'We want action, not votes at the UN'
Villagers who have often been at the sharp end of Palestinian-Israeli
relations are skeptical about the UN route
http://www.guardian.co.uk/****world/2011/sep/14/palestinian-****
statehood-action-un<http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=mASq2JoNHyLtVYhOLXuKBwVJckDyRIuI>
 *************************************************************************

*On Israel And Palestine, Obama Is Rick Perry*

President Barack Obama's speech to the U.N. General Assembly succeeded in
making clear why the Palestinians had no other choice but to take their
statehood bid to the U.N. and why the United States can no longer pretend to
be an "honest broker" in the conflict.

For the first time since the U.N. conferred statehood on Israel 63 years
ago, the sitting U.S president told the world body that the United States
will back Israel, right or wrong. The president's speech was so one-sided,
in fact, that he sounded a lot like Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who gave a similar
speech<http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=MNYFJsDOS3fs2C28Amnl9wVJckDyRIuI>to
a group of "pro-Israel" right-wingers one day earlier. Perry is not
the
president, so his speech was different, except for the motivation, which was
same.

Both speeches were standard "pro-Israel" bloviating, but Perry gave his on
the campaign trail and not in front of the entire world. (I hesitate to call
a speech opposing Palestinian statehood "pro-Israel" when the latest
comprehensive poll on the subject says that 70
percent<http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=%2BUPy0ldjVN90L%2B6FhbaKZQVJckDyRIuI>of
Israelis say Israel should support the U.N.'s decision if statehood is
granted.)

The very best explanation of what Obama did at the United Nations came from
Daniel Levy, a Brit who moved to Israel right out of college 18 years ago.
Levy's quote appeared on page one of the *Washington
Post*<http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=15miGp15ZvduJInT0bxmmAVJckDyRIuI>
.

"There is virtually no thread of reason running between the way he [Obama]
related to the rest of the world and its developments, particularly in the
Middle East, and the positions he espoused on Israel-Palestine — a conflict
apparently occurring on another planet," said Daniel Levy, co-director of
the Middle East Task Force at the New America Foundation. "Palestinian
freedoms, rights and self-determination are somehow supposed to be attained
without the recourse to leverage, international law or meaningful
international support, considered to be necessary and legitimate virtually
everywhere else."

Of course, there is one "thread," although it is not of "reason." Every word
in Obama's speech was designed not to advance a resolution of the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict but to keep single-issue donors and, to a
lesser extent, single-issue voters in his camp for the 2012 election. Not a
week goes by without the Obama team sending emails out to people it deems
Israel voters to remind them of all the wonderful things this president has
done for Israel. One recently was dedicated to citing quotes from Prime
Minister Netanyahu praising Obama, the first time I can remember that a
president sought to validate himself by citing the praise of a foreign
leader.

Obama isn't lying about his "pro-Israel" record, however. This
administration has been the most one-sided supporter of everything Israel
asks for since 1948. There is no competition. Not even George W. Bush comes
close.

When the Israelis, following Obama's election, asked Bush to give Israel
permission to bomb Iran, he said no, despite his vice president and
neoconservative aides pushing the Israeli position hard. Bush also did more
than Obama to advance the peace process that the Israeli right hates so
much, convening an international summit at Aqaba and being the first
president to say, in unambiguous terms, that the United States supports "two
states, living side by side in peace and security."

On Israel, Obama is to the right of Bush, to the right of Reagan, and
certainly to the right of Clinton. On Israel and Palestine, Barack Obama is
Rick Perry.

Of course, Obama's outrageous surrender to Netanyahu still won't impress the
Israel-Firsters. They have despised him from day one, for all kinds of
reasons, and predictably
condemned<http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=3UJGBy7iUlXl%2BMDFZ0VvtAVJckDyRIuI>the
speech. Meanwhile, Israel's thuggish far-right foreign minister,
Avigdor
Lieberman, told reporters that "I am ready to sign on this speech with both
hands."

Lieberman is telling the truth — he could have written Obama's speech — and
the neocons are lying. But neocons are adherents of the Sen. Mitch McConnell
(R-KY) school: They have only one goal, which is to defeat this president.
And although privately they celebrate their amazing success at intimidating
Obama into submission, publicly they denounce him and send scary emails to
senior citizens in Florida and New Jersey warning them that Obama wants to
destroy Israel.

But these speeches and love-ins with Netanyahu accomplish nothing for Obama.
The single-issue Israel voters and donors (3
percent<http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=7gsT0WPPKBTlnGcBtcaFqgVJckDyRIuI>of
the Jewish community) will take their money and votes elsewhere.

And Netanyahu will, working from Jerusalem, do everything he
can<http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=OwdXjpIkPw%2BjomiHizP8ugVJckDyRIuI>to
help the Republicans win the next election. It's almost funny how
these
people would exchange the person who is the most "pro-Israel" president ever
(looking at it from their "maintain-the-occupation-at-all-costs" vantage
point) for an unknown quantity like Perry or Romney. After all, a Republican
whose main constituency is Wall Street would likely turn out to approach
Israel with more skepticism than Obama does.

But it's a game. Netanyahu and the lobby want to defeat Obama to
demonstrate, yet again, who calls the shots on U.S. Middle East policy.

But forget the campaign for a moment — which is what Obama should have done
when addressing the U.N. The president's speech was an embarrassing
disaster. Since 2009, 1,600 Palestinians (overwhelmingly civilians and over
400 children) have been
killed<http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=pDf5V%2FVML6HrEnSKw8L6AAVJckDyRIuI>by
the Israeli army. Thirteen Israelis have been killed over the same
period. Despite that, Obama devoted 120 words of his
speech<http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=tpnTR4YL4hZ85ZZu2E18fgVJckDyRIuI>to
Israeli suffering (even going so far as to cite the Holocaust) and
*not one word* to Palestinian suffering.

Example: An Australian newspaper reports on a new film about the tragedy of
Palestinian women in Gaza (under full Israeli blockade) who are suffering
with breast cancer<http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=cm6oDpwaN3ArxHLIdyGrZgVJckDyRIuI>but
are not permitted by Israel to leave Gaza for treatment. (They used to
go to Israeli hospitals or hospitals in the Arab states and Europe.) Nor
does Israel permit the import of the radioactive isotopes used to treat
breast cancers. So they die.

One could go on and on about the horrors of the occupation but it won't
matter to the politicians who determine U.S. foreign policy. They know which
side their bread is buttered on, as Obama demonstrated at the U.N. this
week.

But, I'm surprised to say, Obama did Palestinians and the 70 percent of
Israelis who support statehood a big favor. By demonstrating that the United
States refuses to play the role of "honest broker" and by telling the U.N.
that we are Israel and Israel is us, the United States is yielding the role
of Middle East peacemaker to others. The French, Turks, Indians, Brazilians,
Chinese, South Africans, and Russians don't agree on much. But they do agree
on the urgency of the creation of a Palestinian state in the areas occupied
in 1967. And they agree that the United States, no longer the superpower it
once was, should move over and let countries not fully invested in one side
play a more constructive role.

Those who wonder how these "other countries" could exert the leadership the
U.S. has abdicated might consider the issue of economics, trade, etc. Israel
does not live on an island with the United States. It is part of the world
and not even the United States and the $3.5 billion it hands over to Israel
each year (no strings attached) can save Israel if the rest of the world
says "enough."

Obama has chosen to abdicate. The rest of the world is eager to step up.

And that is why I have no doubt that the state of Palestine was created this
week at the United Nations. By opting out, Obama did a tremendous favor to
Palestinians and Israelis both. Palestinians will have their fully
sovereign, contiguous state.  And the Jewish state of Israel will finally be
secure. As Israelis like to say, "*yhiyeh tov*." Or as Arabs say, "*insha'Allah
khair*." Everything will be fine.

-----------------------------------------------
 *
*

If these emails are helpful to you, perhaps you could subscribe to Tikkun at
www.tikkun.org
<http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=h7m0qDk9PznYb5lrDejcXQVJckDyRIuI>so
that we could afford to continue provide this service? or join our Network
of Spiritual Progressives at
www.spiritualprogressives.org.<http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=7Fd81JWAKLD%2F0SkqYcFkTQVJckDyRIuI>

 ------------------------------

unsubscribe: Click
here<http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=PqWFh57yrfagx9OYUFrKkQVJckDyRIuI>
if you are having trouble unsubscribing Click here <kay at tikkun.org>

Copyright 2010 Tikkun Magazine. Tikkun is a registered trademark.
2342 Shattuck Avenue, #1200
Berkeley, CA 94704
510-644-1200
Fax 510-644-1255
  [image: empowered by Salsa] <http://www.salsalabs.com/?email>
**

-- 
P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net  - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net

Connect: http://p2pfoundation.ning.com; Discuss:
http://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation

Updates: http://del.icio.us/mbauwens; http://friendfeed.com/mbauwens;
http://twitter.com/mbauwens; http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: https://lists.ourproject.org/pipermail/p2p-foundation/attachments/20110924/16b7c34f/attachment.htm 