Lies from Annapolis

From Khalid Amayreh in the West Bank

The peoples of the world are being subjected to a fresh dose of lies, this time coming from Annapolis, Maryland, in the United States.

George Bush, the Fuehrer of the White House, who has destroyed two nation-states and killed a million human beings, and then had the chutzpa to claim that the Almighty told him to do so, displayed some of his characteristically morbid magic this week.

He invited delegates from 50 nations to watch Israel, a state whose modus operandi consists of murder, theft and mendacity, and the miserable Palestinian Authority, which claims to represent the most uninterruptedly oppressed people on the face of earth, to pledge peace and reconciliation that would end decades of violence and bloodshed.

Speaking from a prepared text, Bush re-asserted his proverbial vision of seeing two states, Israel and Palestine, living side by side in peace. He didn't forget to warn that the would-be Palestinian state "must govern justly and dismantle the infrastructure of terror."

Bush tried to create an artificial aura of optimism by claiming that he was convinced that the leaders of both sides, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, were finally willing and ready to make peace.

Well, Bush's convictions are many, but are evidently mostly silly.

There is no doubt that Abbas earnestly wants peace for his nearly decimated people, constantly coerced, bullied and raped by an imperialistic Israel that very much resembles Nazi Germany during the heydays of its insolence and arrogance of power.

After all, the Palestinians, who have almost miraculously survived in spite of history, are the main victim of this sinister lingering outrage which allows Israel to constantly steal more Palestinian land for the purpose of creating more lebensraum for Jewish settlement expansion.

But Palestinian national survival can't really be take for granted no matter how many "peace" conferences are organized and how many foreign dignitaries are invited and how many nice-sounding speeches are given.

Zionism's aggressive blitz of ethnic cleaning against non-Jews west of the River Jordan is more than alarming for the starved and blockaded Palestinians. It is nothing short of a slow-motion genocide that no amount of verbal assurances can mitigate, let alone stop.

Of course, Bush doesn't and wouldn't pay attention to these real issues. He is too ignorant, too biased toward Israel and, yes, too unchristian, to call the spade a spade, especially when it is in the hands of Zionist imperialists.

This is why his claim that Israel wants peace and that Ehud Olmert is sincere about the quest for peace has no iota of truth.

Let us be frank and honest about this. Israel is not about to make peace with the Palestinians. Israel has not made a strategic decision to make peace with the Palestinians. Israel is not about to give up the spoils of the 1967 war. Israel is not about to give up occupied East Jerusalem.

Indeed, Israel is not about to come to terms with the paramount right of return for Palestinian refugees, unjustly uprooted from their homes and villages when the Zionist state was created nearly sixty years ago.

And above all of this, Israel is insisting that it be recognized as an exclusively Jewish state whereby Israel's non-Jewish citizens (25% of the population) would be treated not only as lesser citizens with more or less transient and uncertain status, but actually as children of a lesser God.

So, how can we possibly expect peace with attitudes like these, and with the outrageous willingness on the part of the West to entertain Israel's racist whims?

Moreover, it is amply clear that George Bush is not an honest broker. Needless to say, a dishonest broker can't be a true peace maker, even if he invokes all the deceptive theatrics he can muster.

Real peace requires true commitment and above all honesty, characteristics that Bush and his nefarious administration obviously lack.

In truth, the last thing Israel would want to see in the Middle East is a true peace settlement based on justice, even a semblance of justice. Such an equitable settlement would be anathema for Zionism, a fascist-minded movement that is antithetical to peace and calm and stability and human decency.

This is why Israel insists on "bilateral negotiations" with the weak Palestinian Authority not out of good will toward its Palestinian neighbors but rather in order to further bully and blackmail the vulnerable Palestinian leadership to give more and more and more concessions. Israel simply wants to be left alone with the Palestinians, its enduring helpless victims. And all that Bush is doing is to tell the rapist and the victim to sort it out without any external interference.

In fact, Israel becomes almost spasmodic and gets very angry whenever the rule of international law and human rights are invoked as a basis of any prospective resolution of the conflict.

Israel wants any prospective settlement with the Palestinians to reflect Israeli military supremacy, political hegemony and Jewish predominance over American politics and policies.

Israel pretends to accept UN resolutions 242 and 338 as the guiding principles for the peace process. However, Israel has its own skewed and twisted interpretation of these resolutions, which really render them void of substance.

And when Israeli leaders are offered the choice of international arbitration, e.g. by the International Court of Justice in the Hague, to rule on the matter, they vehemently reject any third party interference, probably save the US, claiming that the world out there is anti-Semitic and that it can't be entrusted to do justice to Jews.

For these reasons, I am certain that this endeavor will meet the same failure that previous endeavors ultimately met. And then, another American administration might invite the "sides," along with another multitude of false witnesses, to a new peace conference.

But then, it might be too late for a Palestinian state, or even for peace.

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