Suchergebnisse

U.S. policy on the Middle East, in general, and on Palestine, in particular, witnessed a seismic shift in the closing days of 2017: the U.S. president announced his decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, and to move the U.S. embassy there. While it came as a shock, the announcement was not a complete surprise: in fact, this essay argues, the decision is in line with a long history of bias in Israel's favor, and constitutes the abandonment of the earlier U.S. pretense of impartiality. The Jerusalem decision is part of what has been termed an "outside-in" approach to the conflict, whereby U.S. client states in the region gradually normalize relations with Israel and accept standard Israeli positions, while simultaneously pressuring the Palestinians to make further concessions to Israel. Taking into account the new international environment, and the equally deep shifts in U.S. public opinion, this commentary also explores the possible formulation of a new strategy to advance Palestinian aspirations for liberation and a just peace.

This essay argues that what has been going on in Palestine for a century has been mischaracterized. Advancing a different perspective, it illuminates the history of the last hundred years as the Palestinians have experienced it. In doing so, it explores key historical documents, including the Balfour Declaration, Article 22 of the Covenant of the League of Nations, and UN Security Council Resolution 242, none of which included the Palestinians in key decisions impacting their lives and very survival. What amounts to a hundred years of war against the Palestinians, the essay contends, should be seen in comparative perspective as one of the last major colonial conflicts of the modern era, with the United States and Europe serving as the metropole, and their extension, Israel, operating as a semi-independent settler colony. An important feature of this long war has been the Palestinians' continuing resistance, against heavy odds, to colonial subjugation. Stigmatizing such resistance as "terrorism" has successfully occluded the real history of the past hundred years in Palestine.