Once Again Palestinians Denied Statehood

US president Barack Obama’s speech to the United Nations General Assembly typically reflected the interests of US imperialism and its steadfast support to Israel, notwithstanding the latter’s most brazen and blatant violations of various United Nations’ resolutions in occupying Palestinian lands, mounting military aggressions and denying, not merely virtually but in reality, the creation of an independent State of Palestine. This is in clear violation of the UN resolution 181 that provided for the creation of a Palestinian State alongside Israel.

In direct contrast to his speech to the United Nations last year where president Obama spoke of “promise and determination to advance Palestinian Statehood”, this year, he spoke of how “peace is hard” and vowed to veto the Palestinians bid for a Statehood if it came to the Security Council.

This only reconfirms, if such a reconfirmation was ever necessary, what we had said in these columns on November 9, 2008. Articulating our assessment on the remarkable ascendancy of Obama, the first ever African American, as the 44th president of the United States of America and the euphoria and hopes generated world wide, we had said, “Will this be used for creating a better world? The past experience of US imperialism, however, has shown that the leopard never changes its spots. If so, the struggle shall continue for the triumph of hope over experience.”

For the Palestinians, it is clear that this struggle shall not merely continue but will surely intensify.

Haaretz, the most widely read Israeli daily, had on September 23, 2011 said: “Ostensibly Israel has reasons to celebrate. Obama’s speech sounded more Zionist than ever. The Palestinian Authority leadership is on the collision course with the United States and PLO secretary general Yasser Abed Rabbo said yesterday on Channel 2 that the Americans would no longer be able to mediate between the Israelis and the Palestinian Authority.”

Notwithstanding his demagogic rhetoric, president Obama has clearly emerged as a champion of the powerful Jewish lobby that reflects US imperialism’s designs of global hegemony. The New York Times decried that, “A UN vote on Palestinian membership would be ruinous.” The Wall Street Journal alleged that the Palestinians are using, “another tool in their perpetual campaign to harass, delegitimise and ultimately destroy Israel.” The conservative-dominated US Congress has threatened to withdraw funds if Palestine is recognised as a State.

Nailing the US-backed Israeli lie and the package of propaganda disinformation that accompanies it in a global campaign, that the Palestinians do not recognise the State of Israel, the president of the Palestinian Authority Mahmud Abbas submitted to the UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon an official request to recognise the Palestinian State within the 1967 borders, a State that will live in peace with the State of Israel. This is based on the UN Resolution 181 that also provides for East Jerusalem as the capital of the Palestinian State.

83 per cent of the Palestinians all across the world, in polls conducted by western agencies, have enthusiastically supported the UN bid. Many Arab countries have given dire warnings, reports The Economist, “That if America casts a veto, its much vaunted efforts to mend relations with the Arab and Muslim world will have been worthless.” It quotes “a long-serving former Head of Saudi Intelligence, as saying that Saudi Arabia would “no longer be able to cooperate with America in the same way it historically has” if America votes against Palestinian Statehood.”

Clearly, in the background of the current severe economic crisis and recession where the finance capital controlled by the Jewish lobby is a very important factor for president Obama’s effort to refurbish the beleaguered US economy, as he moves in for his reelection, he has taken a hawkish position. This is also in line with the continued imperialist aggressiveness as witnessed in Afghanistan and the crisis generated by his Afpak policy. This has reached a point where its longstanding and long-considered US surrogate in South Asia, Pakistan, in an unprecedented move, recalled its foreign minister from the USA visit.

Under these circumstances, the US designs to strengthen its global hegemony will only intensify imposing greater agonies on the vast majority of the world’s population. This will mean the continued denial to the Palestinians of their fundamental right to Statehood.

However, what is likely to happen when the USA threatens to exercise its veto in the UN Security Council would be the setting up of a `review process with no definite timetable’. USA will hope that this will give it time and space to push forward talks among the so-called Quartet - USA, European Union, Russia and the United Nations. This Quartet, however, has not yet agreed on any set of negotiating guidelines on borders, security, refugees and Jerusalem.

Any lasting peace in West Asia is only possible when the State of Palestine is created with its pre-1967 borders after the vacation of illegal Israeli occupation of their lands, with East Jerusalem as its capital.

The US imperialism leopard can never change its spots. It needs to be squarely challenged and defeated.

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People's Democracy Editorial September 28, 2011