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Tuesday, April 22, 2008

Mid-East Peace


Earlier this year, US President George Bush announced to all and sundry his expectation of the signing of a peace deal between the Israelis and Palestinians before he leaves office. In the meantime, his administration continues to ignore calls to talk to Hamas who yesterday announced that they would be willing to live in a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders as demanded by the UN. The US not only refuses to sanction Israel for its continued violations of agreements (especially with regard to roadblocks and settlements) while insisting that the Palestinians uphold their end but is also complicit in the illegal and immoral collective punishment meted out to the residents of Gaza.

The fact is the American Government has no interest in securing peace in the middle east because peace is the one thing the Israelis fear beyond all else. For as long as the illusion of an existential threat is perpetrated (and the US continues to act as Israel's mindless enforcer), then the Jewish state has a free hand in dealing with the Arabs. It can ignore all accepted norms of decent, civilised behaviour, can tear up UN resolutions, can appropriate the land of others, can turn Gaza into one huge concentration camp and continue to maim and murder Palestinians at will. A peace agreement would force them to abandon their search for Libensraum at the expense of their neighbours and would force the Jews to face up to the reality that they have behaved in a manner reminiscent of the attrocities perpetrated against them by the Nazis.

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