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October 2, 2011
The decades of obstruction by Israel and the United States to prevent a Palestinian state continue with the US rejecting the Palestinian application, for statehood handed to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon last week.
The United States and Israel are devising a face-saving formula to kill the application in the Security Council ln the context of the Arab Spring and its wave of popular demands for human and political rights.The present bid for statehood will be defeated by a US veto, highlighting the power of the Israel lobby in the US.
What this shows is not just that the US and Israel work to bloc kthe peace process but that the US foreign policy in the Middle East is beholden to Israel. Israeli continues with the demolitions of Palestinian homes and its settlements,. The US, in siding with one of the most right-wing, pro-settler governments in Israeli history, has given up talking about, or acknowledging Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory.
So a two state solution is dead. We have the ongoing Israeli colonization of the West Bank and East Jerusalem under the benevolent gaze of the Obama administration. The so-called peace process is designed to give political cover to Israeli colonization and to maintain America’s diplomatic monopoly--the United States government remains the custodian and broker of any peace negotiation. The 1993 Oslo Accords are no longer be the framework for future negotiation.
What is left on the table is the one state solution? It does appear that the Palestinian leadership has decided to finally take matters out of the hands of American diplomats who for decades have systematically advanced Israel’s interests at the expense of the Palestinians. Can they succeed in reunifying the divided Palestinian national movement?
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What is Australia going to do in the UN? Go along with the Washington-Israeli consensus or show a bit of spine and at least abstain in the UN vote?