UPDATED Israeli-Palestinian Peace Talks Highlight Israel's Desperate Need for Legitimacy In Face of Growing International Criticism 17&30AUG13

THE latest round of Israeli - Palestinian peace talks are doomed and a waste of time. Israel has no intention of any progress from these talks, and will find, and be supported by the American government, a way to blame the Palestinians for the failure of these talks. Israel will continue to impose on the West Bank and Gaza many of the same tactics the nazis used against the Jews and the occupied nations of Europe in WW II. Until the American government finds the moral courage to stand up to aipac and the old guard zionist of the Israeli political establishment as well as the Arab world who has used and neglected the Palestinians, the Palestinians will continue to struggle just to survive under the thumb of an apartheid state and the children of Israel, the West Bank and Gaza will grow up knowing only the threat of war and hatred of each other. That should be enough to move their parents to really seek peace, should be enough if the Israelis and Palestinians really do love their children. For an objective view of the Israeli - Palestinian peace process read Brokers of Deceit by Rashid Khalidi. This from TRNN....UPDATED on 30AUG13, at the end of the post I have added the civil exchange between Shel and myself on the TRNN page for this post...

http://youtu.be/RRKNHw8_PJQ

Published on Aug 16, 2013

Shir Hever: Israel wants negotiations with the Palestinians to continue for the same reason it recruits students to serve as propaganda agents, it tries to restore its tainted imageShir Hever: Israel wants negotiations with the Palestinians to continue for the same reason it recruits students to serve as propaganda agents, it tries to restore its tainted image -   August 17, 13

Bio

Shir Hever is an economic researcher in the Alternative Information Center, a Palestinian-Israeli organization active in Jerusalem and Beit-Sahour. Researching the economic aspect of the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories, some of his research topics include international aid to the Palestinians and Israel, the effects of the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories on the Israeli economy, and the boycott, divestment and sanctions campaigns against Israel. He is a frequent speaker on the topic of the economy of the Israeli occupation.

Transcript

JESSICA DESVARIEUX, TRNN PRODUCER: Welcome to The Real News Network. I'm Jessica Desvarieux in Baltimore.This week, peace negotiations between Israeli and Palestinian leaders took place, but they were shadowed by news of the Israeli government building settlements in the West Bank. Now joining us to give us a perspective that you won't hear in the mainstream media is Shir Hever. Shir is an economist studying the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories for the Alternative Information Center. Thank you for joining us, Shir.SHIR HEVER, ECONOMIST, ALTERNATIVE INFORMATION CENTER: Thank you for having me, Jessica.DESVARIEUX: So, Shir, we've been covering this story at The Real News, and what we've been hearing is that essentially these talks are doomed to fail. So why is Israel and Palestine, why are they both deciding to participate in these talks?HEVER: I think it's at this point know by practically everyone that these talks cannot succeed, because Israel is not interested in having a solution or having any kind of compromise. Israel is interested in maintaining the conversation, maintaining these talks forever. As long as the talks can take place, Israel can maintain its international image. And what you hear from the Israeli government quite a lot is that Israel should not be pressured by the international community for ending the occupation. There shouldn't be any boycott against Israel, there shouldn't be any kind of sanctions against Israeli war crimes and apartheid, because Israel is engaged in peace negotiations, and those sort of sanctions or boycott would be harmful to peace process. This is exactly the kind of strategy that Israel is trying to adopt. And what we hear now, the breaking news from this week, is that the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has signed an agreement with the Israeli student union, which represents most but not all students in Israel, so that students will work for the government and be paid public money to work as paid commentators, and they would work anonymously to promote Israeli propaganda in the world and social media.And this story really shows what Israel is trying to get from these peace talks. Israel is trying to get credibility, Israel is trying to get legitimacy and to restore its images much as it can. But, of course, they have no real interest in the substance.Now, you also ask why are the Palestinians willing to negotiate, and that's maybe not a question that I am the best person qualified to answer. I think there is a lot of pressure on the Palestinian government in the West Bank of the Palestinian--on Mahmoud Abbas to continue the negotiations. Mahmoud Abbas has had a very clear position that negotiations will not resume unless Israel freezes construction in the illegal colonies. And it's very clear that Israel does not freeze that construction.DESVARIEUX: Okay. Let's talk a little bit more about the construction. How was this even able to happen? I mean, if Israel knows it's going to be coming to the table to negotiate, how is this even possible?HEVER: I think it's very clear when Israel is building these colonies in the area that it is supposed to negotiate about and that its future is not clear because this area might become part of the Palestinian state, then it's obvious that Israel is intentionally and directly sabotaging the negotiations. But I don't think that it's just because Netanyahu is doing two things at once and sabotaging the negotiations while trying to push for negotiations at the same time. Netanyahu honestly wants negotiations to happen. He doesn't want a Palestinian state. He doesn't want peace. He doesn't want an end of the occupation. But he wants negotiations. Negotiations themselves can fail because of the construction of the colonies. But the thing is that the Israeli government has built over the years sort of pockets of autonomy within its own government structure. There is a decent realization of decision-making processes, especially regarding the occupation and the colonies. In fact, no one in the Israeli government actually knows how much money is funneled into the colonies, because of all these pockets that allow funds to be transferred based on decisions of lower-, mid-level clerks and officials who are appointed in order to promote right-wing agendas and to help subsidize the colonies, but to do so in a clandestine fashion. And this is a policy that is quite special to Israel. It's not very common in Western countries to have a sort of decentralized government model like this. And the best example, I think, was just in the the very first days of the occupation during the war of 1967, the Six-Day War. Towards the end of that war, Israeli soldiers have occupied East Jerusalem, and they found the Wailing Wall, which is a religious site which is holy to the Jewish religion, and they decided to demolish an entire Palestinian neighborhood that surrounded the wall. And in their journals, those soldiers wrote, we decided not to ask the government for permission or for direct--for instructions about what to do about this Palestinian neighborhood, because we didn't want the government to have a sort of written record of the decision to demolish the neighborhood. We understood that we were expected to demolish it, but it's best that these things are done unofficially. And that kind of ideology, that kind of method of operation signifies in many ways the way that Israel has occupied the Palestinian territories for the past 45 years, 46 years.DESVARIEUX: Okay. Now let's talk about the United States, who is playing the role of mediator in all of this. What does the U.S. have to gain from participating and mediating these negotiations?HEVER: I don't think that the U.S. has much to gain from this, because I'm pretty sure that Senator Kerry, Barack Obama, they know--sorry, Secretary of State Kerry and Barack Obama, they know very well that these negotiations are going to fail, because they're not willing to put any pressure on Israel and they're not really mediators between the side. They are just supporting the Israeli side in a very clear way. They might get a few photo ops. Obama might be able to claim that during his presidency he did something for the peace process. But these things are not worth that much. I think these negotiations are worth a lot to the Israeli government. The Israeli government is in a state of panic at the moment. There is social unrest and a lot of social problems in the Israeli government. Just this week--in the Israeli public. Just this week it was revealed that there is a pension shortage, and people who are going to retire in the next ten years are going to have their pension payments reduced by 10 percent. So that's quite a big shock. And the government is trying to say, yes, we are proceeding on the peace process, we are maintaining Israel's image to the rest of the world, and they have to desperately prevent any further sanctions and boycotts from being announced regarding Israel. That is why Netanyahu uses all of his cards, all of his influence over the U.S. government to try to get these negotiations to resume, so to put pressure on the Palestinian government that will get them to agree to negotiations. And that's why he has this new plan with recruiting Israeli students. Of course, he's going to achieve the opposite result, because whenever people call for a boycott of Israel and call Israel an apartheid state, then if they learn that the Israeli student union, which actually doesn't represent the non-Jewish parties within the student group--so this is a student union that represent almost exclusively Jews. It's the very image of apartheid. And these universities and these students are now working for the government in order to justify Israel's actions, to justify the actions of the Israeli Army. So that actually proves that Israel is indeed--that is not the proof, but it is yet another indication that Israel is an apartheid state and Israel is a very repressive, nondemocratic regime. So we can clearly see what's Israel interest in this.The thing is that when the Israeli government is so stressed and so worried about the public reaction in its own public and the international outcry about the occupation and other types of repressive policies that it adopts, there is a real risk that Israel will try to create a diversion by means of escalating conflict with its neighbors or attacking Iran. And we saw that last November when Israel bombed Gaza and was ready to invade Gaza. So Israel already called the reserve soldiers. About 70,000--80,000 soldiers were called. Only 56,000 actually appeared for duty. And they were getting ready to invade Gaza on foot when President Morsi in Egypt, who was still in power in Egypt at the time, said that he could not see how the peace treaty between Israel and Egypt would hold if Israel invades Gaza on the ground. And at that moment, the U.S. interest becomes very clear. The U.S. interest wants the peace treaty between Israel and Egypt to hold, because this is an interest of the weapon companies, the weapon industries, the military-industrial complex in the U.S. Israel is the number-one recipient of military aid from the U.S. Egypt is number two. But when I say aid, it might give the impression that the U.S. is given some kind of benefit or gift to the people in Israel. In Egypt that's certainly not the case. This is in fact a subsidy to U.S. arms companies, because all of that money actually ends up in the U.S. arms companies. Israel may get a $3 billion voucher from the U.S. government, but they have to redeem it from U.S. companies. So that's something that creates a lot of profits for these massive corporations with very powerful lobbies in the U.S. government. And as long as there is a peace treaty between Israel and Egypt, the U.S. can safely provide these military deals to both countries. As soon as the peace treaty collapses, even if there is no actual war, if it doesn't actually deteriorate to an open fight, the U.S. can no longer support both countries with weapons and it will have to choose. I think it's quite clear it will choose the Israeli side. But it will be a blow to the profit of the arm companies in the U.S.DESVARIEUX: Okay. Thanks so much for joining us, Shir.HEVER: Thank you, Jessica, for having me.DESVARIEUX: And thank you for joining us on The Real News Network.

End

DISCLAIMER: Please note that transcripts for The Real News Network are typed from a recording of the program. TRNN cannot guarantee their complete accuracy.
HERE is the exchange between Shel and me

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@Craig: I am a Zionist (i.e. one who loves the State of Israel). It pains me to see what I think is a growing fascist tendency among Israelis. However, your comparison to Nazis only reveals your unfamiliarity with the horrors of Nazi Germany. The Nazis didn't negotiate with Roma ("Gypsies"), Poles, those with mental or physical handicaps, or Jews. They murdered them. With industrial and scientific might. And there was nothing that could prevent the Nazis' decree. No amount of sacrifice could save those victims' lives. And it's not as if murder was to avenge some action or national policy from those groups. No policy changes would solve the "issue". For the Nazis, the "issue" was that these people, esp. these Jews, were alive at all.

Israel, like all nations, may exercise any tactic that provides comparative advantage. From time to time, some tactics may be of debatable morality. This situation is the same as with England, France, Russia, India, Brazil, Uzbekistan, etc. Would you say their tactics are also the same as the Nazis...?? If so, it would only highlight your good fortune to have been born AFTER the 1930's.

 

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  Craig  Shel_TR 

  • 3 minutes ago

  
  

  @Shel. I am very aware of the horrors of nazi Germany, all of them. Anyone who has visited my blog ( http://bucknacktssordidtawdryb... ) knows I am aware of and could never deny, support, defend or excuse the crimes against humanity committed by the nazis. But when a nation like Israel, one established as a home for the survivors of the Holocaust and those of the diaspora, resorts to some of the same tactics as were used against them in pre WW II pogroms and by nazis I will point it out. Israel is guilty of the illegal and immoral occupation of the West Bank just as the nazi's occupied so much of Europe. Israel is guilty of the seizure of Palestinian lands in the West Bank for Illegal Jewish settlements. Those who have had their lands seized have not been compensated, just like the nazi's did in the occupied nations. Israel detains hundreds of Palestinians without recourse under the law, in the name of security, just like the nazi's did in their reign of terror in occupied Europe. Israel maintains brutal economic restrictions on the Palestinian administered areas of the West Bank and Gaza causing inhumane suffering due to, at various times, lack of medical supplies, basic food supplies, lack of water, lack of electricity and fuel, all tactics the nazi's used in occupied Europe. And Israel, since the 1967 war, has never attempted to negotiate in good faith with the Palestinians, deciding instead to exploit the weakness of the defeated Arab nations who had attacked Israel, knowing they would not be willing or able to support diplomatically or militarily the Palestinians in any negotiations to finally establish the Palestinian homeland mandated when Palestine was divided into Jewish and Palestinian states in 1948 but recognizing the post 1967 war borders. Just like the nazis never negotiated in good faith with the Chamberlain, or with the French when they took the Saarland, or with the Austrians before Anschluss, or the Czechs before taking Sudentenland. While many nations, including the U.S., have used nazi like tactics since WW II, Israel should be the one nation to never lower itself to that level of depravity. If pointing it out makes Israeli's and Zionist and their allies uncomfortable and angry that can only be because there is truth to the accusation..
  

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  @Craig: Thank you. That was a genuine, earnest response. Nonetheless, I think you've missed the point I made. I.E. There are vast differences between: 1) cold, calculated national policies / actions vs. 2) nationally-sanctioned war crimes vs. 3) heinous crimes against humanity.

  Virtually all nations operate ruthlessly (#1). It's a competitive world. 'Nuff said.

  Many nations have committed war crimes (#2). Russia, China, Iran, and other contemporary regimes are (very likely) clear examples. Arguably, the U.S. has committed war crimes (although this is less clear). There are plenty of other examples (the Sri Lankan rout of the Tamil Tigers springs to mind). While deplorable, war crimes do not call into question into the fundamental legitimacy of a nation. All of the foregoing nations have a right to exist.

  But crimes against humanity are a separate category, legally and morally. Few nations have reached this bestial low. Of course, their national Aryanization polcies instantly qualify the Nazi regime for this category. Demonization of non-Aryans led directly to the Nazis' liquidation of vast numbers of innocents. Note the huge difference: These wholesale murders were not the result of disputes over land or resources. They were not the result of any actions on the part of the innocents, or any event at all for that matter. Those murders were simply the result of those innocent beings having been born non-Aryan.

  I don't dispute that Israel shares culpability for the Palestinians' plight. Ultimately, Israel may be proven to have committed war crimes (although I don't believe so and the absence of any actual organized trials supports my POV). The point, though, is that comparison to Nazis is simply not reflective of the facts. Moreso, it is repugnant that so shortly after the Nazis reign of terror, brutality and utter madness, people are willing to use it so inappropriately.

   

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    Craig  Shel_TR 

    • a few seconds ago

    @shel_tr 
    I feel it is right, when appropriate, to compare a nations actions as being similar to nazi tactics, especially while there are people alive who remember, in response to a nations actions. It is especially appropriate when many in that nation have suffered the brutality of the nazis. The former Soviet Union is an example of a nation whose people suffered horribly in the areas occupied by the nazis, and yet used those same tactics, except the mass gassing, against their own people after WW II. And they imposed those same tactics, with varying degrees of brutality, on the Soviet dominated peoples of Eastern Europe. The Soviet government and their Eastern European quislings chose to ignore the hypocrisy of their actions. China, N Korea, Iraq, South Africa, Sudan, Rwanda and Cambodia are all countries who have committed (and in the cases of N Korea and Sudan are still committing) nazi like atrocities against their own citizens. 
    But Israel is, by it's own design, held to a higher standard. Israel constantly proclaims to the world that we can never forget the Holocaust (and we shouldn't) and the crimes committed against the Jewish people and others during the nazi reign of terror in Europe. So it is very appropriate to publicly condemn and compare Israeli government actions and policies that are similar to actions and policies employed by the nazis. 
    Regarding war crimes and crimes against humanity, I think Israel is guilty of both from their involvement in the massacre of Palestinian and Lebanese refugees in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps in 1982. The Israeli Army surrounded and sealed off the camps and then allowed their Phalangist allies to enter the camps and slaughter a few thousand of the occupants (totals of those killed vary, from 762 to 3500). During the two day rampage Israeli Army troops surrounding the camps could hear the screams and gunfire, yet did nothing to stop it. In fact, they fired illumination flares at night to provide light for the Phalangist to continue their assault. The Israeli Kahn Commission investigated the massacre in 1983 and the only punishment was Ariel Sharon resigning as Minister of Defense. Tell me that was not nazi like. 
    Israel has the right to exist, and the responsibility to defend it's citizens and borders, a right the governing authority of Gaza has to accept to end the cycle of violence. The Israeli government's decisions to employ itself, or to tolerate some of it's citizens employing nazi like tactics on the people of the West Bank and Gaza, are morally repulsive and often illegal under international law. Israel, of all the nations of the world, should never resort to such tactics, and will never be able to get away with using such tactics, because they don't want the world to forget the Holocaust and because of the slogan "Never Again".

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