A deep subject, but briefly:
Both the peace process and the two-state solution died a long time ago. The expansion of settlements confirms this - 6,000 more given the green light to be constructed since Trump's inauguration – and as Ehud Barak said as far back as 2009, " Settlements are part of Israel" - fait accompli in spite of Resolution 2334 -said to be toothless.
Unfortunately, Ramzy Baroud's article doesn't spell out, exactly what (for the sake of clarity) he means by the "historical course that has been in the making for one hundred years" that Trump is about to reverse? The dar al Islam? Reverse the results of The Six Day War of 1967?
Certainly not about to reverse the rock-solid relationship between the US and Israel? Of course the Middle East theatre of War is now a lot more complicated than before, with Russia's entry into the fray and the lines are now even more clearly drawn between Sunni and Shia – albeit the US and Russia are likely to join forces, on the same side as Hezbollah, in eradicating what at the moment is mainly Sunni insurgents , al Qaeda, al Nusra, Islamic state and affiliates sometimes referred to as "Radical Islam"
That Trump moving the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem will inevitably light the powder keg is not in question, nor is Sarkozy's ancient advice that an Israel attack - fast forward – an Israeli attack on Iran would be "absolute catastrophe" - and despite putting Iran " on notice", that or an attack by US alone or in concert with Sunni allies is not likely to happen any time soon , at least not with the permission or blessings of Vladimir Putin or Israel's next door neighbour, Mr. Assad's Syria.
Should Israel be invited to join such an alliance against Iran, I'm sure that there are many Muslim states and their populations on main street who would not like it. Indeed, they would prefer such an alliance assembled against Israel instead of Iran. But what do I know? If it's the still unseen future that we are prophesying, or the fulfilment of various prophecies that's at stake, Armageddon and all that, when the dust of battle finally settles, what will the new demographic map look like? For now that move to Jerusalem could be thwarted or postponed if we are to believe what Mad Dog Mattis says and that the eerie confidence of his boss Trump does not stand in the way of the old prediction that the Arabs will lose Jerusalem too moving him on...
On Friday, 3 February 2017 00:20:44 UTC+1, Emeagwali, Gloria (History) wrote:
Operation Chaos: Trump Will Ignite a Powder Keg in the Middle East
By Ramzy Baroud
February 02, 2017 Information Clearing House
- "Those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it.
Newly inaugurated US President Donald Trump is about to do just that, reversing an historical course that has been in the making for one hundred years.
The inexperienced, demagogic politician hardly understands the danger that lies in his decision to move the American embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.
If he goes through with this, he is likely to unleash an episode of chaos in an already volatile region.
The move, which is now reportedly in the 'beginning stages', is not a mere symbolic one, as some naively reported in western mainstream media.
True, American foreign policy has been centered mostly on military power, rarely historical fact.
But Trump, known for his thoughtlessness and impulsive nature, is threatening to eradicate even the little common sense that governed US foreign policy conduct in the Middle East.
If the new president moves forward with his plan, unsympathetic to Palestinian pleas and international warnings, he is likely to regret the unanticipated consequences of his action.
History for the Wise
A century ago, British forces under the command of General Sir Edmund Allenby occupied the Palestinian Arab city of Jerusalem.
That ominous event in December 1917, has disturbed the cultural and political equilibrium that existed in Palestine for nearly a millennia.
It also initiated a war that has proved the longest and one of the most bloody and destabilizing in modern human history.
Although Palestine was wrestled from the hand of its governing bodies operating under the auspices of the Ottoman Empire, its new British rulers understood the unequalled importance of Jerusalem to its people.
That understanding was always present, even when France and Britain signed the Sykes-Picot agreement in May 1916, dividing Ottoman territories amongst themselves, Jerusalem's status was designated as an international area due to its shared religious significance.
The same emphasis regarding the neutrality of Jerusalem was made time and again, including in the League of Nations' decision in 1922 to give Britain a political mandate over Palestine, and the United Nations resolution to divide Palestine into two countries, one Arab and one Jewish, in November 1947.
While that envisaged Palestinian state never actualized (thanks to numerous obstacles placed by the US and Israel), Israel became a reality in May 1948. Mere months after an armistice agreement was reached, Israel declared Jerusalem as its capital in December 1949.
It was then that biblical mythology was remolded to fit political exigencies.
Israel's first Parliament (Knesset) declared in January 1950 that "Jerusalem was, and had always been the capital of Israel."
The "was" and "always been" are references to a twisted interpretation of history that has no place in modern international law, of which Israel is never a follower to begin with.
After 1500 years of Canaanite rule over Palestine, the land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea fell under the rule of numerous invaders, including the Philistines, the Israelites, the Phoenicians, the Assyrians, the Babylonians, the Persians, the Macedonians, the Romans, the Arabs, the Crusaders, and then it was ruled by various Islamic Caliphates from 1291 until the British mandate in 1922.
The Israelites control barely lasted for 77 years and it is largely contested that Israeli Jews of today are even blood relatives of the groups that inhabited Palestinians 2000 years ago.
Yet that was enough for the modern Israeli national myth, which is now championed by the most right-wing, religious extremists in both the United States and Israel.
In 1967, Israel occupied the rest of historic Palestine, including Palestinian East Jerusalem, annexing the city in 1980.
The international community has continually rejected and condemned the Israeli occupation, with repeated emphasis on Jerusalem.
Countries around the world, even those who are considered allies of Israel, including the United States reject Israeli sovereignty over Jerusalem, and refuse Israeli invitation to relocate their embassies from Tel Aviv to the illegally-occupied city.
The American Exception
The United States' attitude towards Jerusalem, however, has been marred with contradictions. Since 1995, the US position has been divided between the historically pro-Israel US Congress, and equally pro-Israel, but slightly more pragmatic White House.
In October 1995, the US Congress passed the Jerusalem Embassy Act. The act passed by an overwhelming majority in both House and Senate. It called Jerusalem the undivided capital of Israel and urged the State Department to move the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.
The US administration at the time protested the violation of protocol as such a decision is the responsibility of the executive branch, not lawmakers beholden to Israel's influential lobby in Washington.
The other dilemma is that if the US walks away from international consensus on the matter it both loses the little credibility it had as a 'peace broker' and would be left to contend with the likely terrible consequences included political instability and violence.
It is true that Jerusalem has tremendous spiritual significance for Muslims, Christians and Jews. But the uninterrupted cultural and religious significance it had for Palestinian Christians and Muslims alike makes it unpatrolled as an economic, political and cultural hub as well.
For many years, US administrations under Presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama have signed a presidential waiver that deferred the Congressional bill six months at a time.
The last time the waiver was signed by former President Obama was on December 1, 2016.
Bull in China Shop Foreign Policy
Throughout his campaign for the White House, Trump made numerous, wholesale, often contradictory promises. While initially pledged to keep a similar distance between Palestinians and Israel, he later reversed his position, to adopt that of Israel's rightwing government.
Now, the opportunistic real-estate mogul enters the White House with an eerie agenda that looks identical to that of the current Israeli government of right-wingers and ultra-nationalists.
"We have now reached the point where envoys from one country to the other could almost switch places," wrote Palestinian Professor, Rashid Khalidi, in the New Yorker.
He wrote, "The Israeli Ambassador in Washington, Ron Dermer, who grew up in Florida, could just as easily be the US Ambassador to Israel, while Donald Trump's Ambassador-designate to Israel, David Friedman, who has intimate ties to the Israeli settler movement, would make a fine Ambassador in Washington for the pro-settler government of Benjamin Netanyahu."
The Israeli right is almost in a state of political euphoria. Not only the superfluous references to a 'peace process' and a Palestinian state is over, but they now have a free hand to build illegal Jewish settlements (colonies) in occupied Jerusalem unhindered.
New bills are springing in the Israeli Knesset to annex even the Jewish settlements rendered illegal by Israel's own definitions, and to remove any restriction on new settlement construction and expansion.
The Trump administration has no qualms with that; to the contrary, this falls squarely in the agenda of the new rulers of the United States who now control the legislative and executive branches.
Careful What You Wish For
The odd thing is that the US is about to violate the very international consensus (as in US-led western consensus) regarding the conflict in Palestine.
Speaking to the Paris peace conference on January 15, French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault warned Trump from the "very serious consequences" that await in case the US embassy is in fact moved to Jerusalem.
The French and other European countries are aware that such a move would end the US-led 'peace process' along with the thus far futile quest for a two state solution.
However, this should be the least of anyone's concern, since both the 'peace process' and the 'two-state solution' charade have been largely an American investment to maintain US leadership, power and influence over the conflict in Palestine.
The US and its western allies certainly had the needed clout and power to achieve a peaceful and just resolution to the conflict, if that was indeed their overriding priority.
They failed to do so over the course of 25 years, starting in the Madrid Talks in 1991 and ending with the pitiful Paris conference on January 15.
Past American failures notwithstanding, the Trump administration gamble in moving the US embassy is likely to ignite a political fire throughout Palestine and the Middle East with horrific and irreversible outcomes.
Palestinians and Arabs understand that moving the embassy is far from being a symbolic move, but a carte blanche to complete the Israeli takeover of the city, including its holy sites, and complete the ethnic cleansing of Palestinian Muslims and Christians.
That escalation will certainly, and explicably lead to violence. Vital US interests in the Middle East could and will also suffer the consequences of such an imprudent move.
Palestinian officials and religious figures alike condemned the US decision. A top Palestinian official referred to it as a declaration of war on Muslims.
Considering the significance of Jerusalem to Palestinian Muslims and Christians, and hundreds of millions of believers around the world, Donald Trump might indeed be igniting a powder keg that would further derail his already embattled presidency.
While some in the mainstream western media are already predicting 'a fresh wave of Palestinian violence' shall the embassy be relocated, the new US administration must think carefully before embarking on such self-destructive moves.
Just because Trump intends to reverse the legacy of his predecessor, doesn't mean the new American president should begin his legacy by inviting more violence and pushing an already volatile region further into the abyss.
– Dr. Ramzy Baroud has been writing about the Middle East for over 20 years. He is an internationally-syndicated columnist, a media consultant, an author of several books and the founder of PalestineChronicle.com
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______________________________ _____ Trump Bull in the Mideast China Shop
By Eric Margolis
February 01, 2017 Information Clearing House
- President Donald Trump is getting ready to plunge into the burning Mideast with all the zeal and arrogance of a medieval crusader. The new administration's knowledge of the region is a thousand miles wide and two inches deep.
Reviving a truly terrible idea originated by know-nothing Congressional Republicans, Trump proposes US-run safe zones in Syria for refugees from that nation's conflict. The president went out of his way to insist that such safe zones would spare the United States from having to shelter Syrian refugees.
He should better worry about Chicago where 762 citizens were murdered last year.
At the same time, Trump, declaiming from his new Mount Olympus of New York's Trump Tower, vowed to impose a 30-day halt on immigrants from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen to 'protect the American people from terrorist attacks by foreign nationals.'
One wonders if any of Trump's Praetorian Guard noticed that all these listed 'terrorist' nations have been attacked by the United States or seen their governments overthrown by Uncle Sam. I'm surprised Afghanistan and Pakistan were left off the list. Their time will likely come soon. Is it any wonder that all of these Muslim nations bear a serious grudge against the United States? The angriest group is ISIS, who are seeking revenge for the destruction of Iraq.
Former President Barack Obama shied away from direct military intervention in Syria, preferring stealthy warfare, drones and hit squads. He had the sense to know that US military intervention in the heart of the Mideast would be fraught with danger, not the least clashes between US and Russian forces. History shows it's easy to invade into unstable areas but hard to get out.
But not so for bull in the Mideast china shop Trump as he charges into the Levant, advised by generals who made a mess in Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq. Trump's ardently pro-Israel cabinet must be rubbing their hands in glee as they see Syria in his cross hairs. The destruction of Syria's regime and fragmenting that nation is an Israeli strategic priority.
One wishes Trump would stop for a moment and reflect. There are 11 million Syrian refugees in Syria and neighboring states. They are the result of a civil war engineered by Washington, Turkey, the Emirates and Saudi Arabia, with France and Britain playing a supporting role. Western money, arms and supplies have fuelled the six-year old conflict whose aim was to overthrow Syria's Assad government because he is an ally of Iran.
The US and France did exactly the same thing in Libya, overthrowing its leader, Muammar Khadaffi, and murdering him – thank you Hillary Clinton. The US invaded and destroyed Iraq, tore apart Somalia and neighboring Sudan, and is now providing warplanes, bombs and mercenary advisors that Saudi Arabia – the patron of the jihadi forces in Syria – is using to crush little Yemen.
The largest number of Mideast refugees are now in Syria, thank you Uncle Sam, and its neighbors, Jordan and Lebanon. The second biggest group are the 5.2 million Palestinian refugees scattered across the Levant. Iraq is awash with internal refugees, thank you George W. Bush. Add now a couple of million refugees from strife-torn South Sudan, a new failed nation created by blundering US Mideast policy as a way of punishing disobedient Sudan, thank Bush and Obama.
At the same time, Washington must avoid any and all risk of military clashes in Syria with Russia. We can't keep huffing and puffing that Moscow has no business in Syria when it's as close to southern Russia as northern Mexico is to Texas. The US has troops and bases across the globe, most lately in Africa. Who are we to tell Russia to get out of Syria?
Just when it seemed that the Syrian conflict was beginning to simmer down, Trump's intervention will be certain to heat up the conflict and undermine potential peace agreements. In case there are still Muslims who believed the US is their friend, as was the case fifty years ago, they will now understand that America is their enemy thanks to Trump's ham-handed, 'no Muslims' policies.
Muslims account for 23% of the world's population and will surpass Christians in about four decades. Besides riling up the Chinese, is it really wise to antagonize and insult members of Islam, the world's fast-growing religion? And single out Muslims as most likely to face torture? Bad idea.
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