On the upcoming Friday (Sept. 23), Mahmoud Abbas, president of the Palestinian Authority (AP), is going to present at the General Assembly a formal request for the acknowledgement of his people as a member of the United Nations (UN).
The majority of the international public opinion is more than favorable to such a modest request, even aware of the certain veto which will be exercised by the United States and perhaps also by some other countries which are shamelessly submissive to the whims of the American huge economical, technological and military power – as much as this power has recently been going through a demoralizing outbreak of amnesia when it comes to the genial moral values cultivated by the Founding Fathers of the USA.
Among such forgotten values is the respect to the right of self-determination of the people. Or, by chance, can´t the Palestinians be considered as a “people”? Would the Palestinians merely be – as their enemies want – a primitive mass of sub-human individuals, ergo without rights? A band of savages, bandits or “pariahs”, without even the right to speak and vote in an organization which supposedly “represents” the planet? What kind of distorted representation is this? The UN currently has 193 countries, some of which have minimal populations, smaller than the number of Palestinians who have been banned from their homeland and have to live by the grace of others in precarious tents or shelters in neighboring countries. What is their “crime”, which could justify such Arabic Diaspora? None. They have just been there for centuries.
Any consultation to a website such as the Wikipedia will show that many of the members of the UN have a lowermost population, a reduced area and absolutely no influence in international geopolitics. We have nothing against the possibility for such countries to be heard and to be able to vote at the General Assembly, since every situation of injustice suffered by any number of people deserves a means to be expressed and discussed in an international entity. What is difficult to understand – and therein lies the legitimacy of AP´s intension — is how people who have been banned from a territory which they had occupied for more than two thousand years (and therefore arousing angry and merciless feelings of sympathy and vengeance from people such as Osama Bin Laden) — cannot have access to a legal international channel such as the UN to complain against treatment deemed to be unfair. No people can indefinitely tolerate the progressive occupation of its land and the expulsion of thousands of families.
Let us compare the populations of the following members of the UN: Andorra (71.822 inhabitants in 2007); Antigua and Barbuda (86.754 inhabitants in 2010); Bahamas (323.000 in 2005); Bahrain (791.000 in 2009); Belize (372.000 in 2010); Brunei (381.371 in 2009); Cabo Verde (499.796 in 2008), Granada (90.343 in 2008); not to mention numerous others micro-states. Why this scarce right to express and vote shall remain inaccessible to the Palestinians, who have lived for decades in a situation of submission, restriction to the right to come and go, poverty and banishment?
This systematic discrimination and “inferiorization” creates an atmosphere that breeds a deep resentment, which can consequently be easily expressed through acts of terrorism - terrorism that is unmistakenably sincere in its motivation, considering that nobody immolates or “explodes” himself for banal reasons. It is necessary to remember that the Israeli people have also had their “outlaw phase”, admittedly terrorist in the first half of the 20th century — the Irgun organization, which in April, 1946, blew up the King David Hotel in Jerusalem —, when the British opposed the excessive arrival of Jewish people in the Holy Land. The British forecast then the inevitable increase in the conflicts — already in place at that time — and such drama continues and is aggravated with the illegal settlements. As long as the conflict between Arabs and Israelis is not solved, the world will remain “contaminated”, in the anti-chamber of a global conflict. The risk of the “atomic spice”— i.e., Iran — was added to the soup of hatred which boils and can overflow and burn even areas which are far from the Palestine, considering the importance of the oil which is extracted from neighboring countries – rumors are already in place regarding the gas and oil sources which are dormant off shore, deep within the Mediterranean Sea.
Let us examine now the Jewish´s reasons. They also have endured a secular drama of persecutions – however, once they reached the Promised Land, such persecution ended, and now that they have the superior status of “Israeli”, they have forgotten what it means to be humiliated, to live with no rights, “under the knife”, impoverished by force and turned into second-class citizens – such as what happens now to the Palestinians. It is not uncommon, in the history of mankind, for the persecuted to become the persecutor.
It is only natural that the long-suffering Jews dreamt, for centuries, of having their own nation. And that is exactly what was granted to them after the Second World War ended, thankfully in great part to the indignation caused by the Holocaust. Hitler, with his implacable anti-Semitism, is also responsible for the conflict in the Middle East. Had there not been his policy of persecution and banishment, the European Jews would have remained where they were, climbing the social ladder in the areas of finance, arts and so forth. It is necessary to remember that the Arabs did not agree with the creation of the Israeli State. But their opinion was not even asked. Israel did not result from a direct “negotiation” between the Jews and the Palestinian Arabs, so much so that once the Israeli State was created in 1948, a war between Israel and the Arabic world started almost immediately – a war which Israel, being better prepared and armed by the USA, got the better of. With victory, arrogance flourished. And as a current atomic power, Israel does not admit, under any circumstance, the possibility for another country in the region — such as Iran — to have access to technology which might one day allow the construction of an atomic weapon (about this subject, please read the words of the creator of the Nobel Prize in the end of this article).
It is therefore incoherent the current Israeli intention to demand that the creation of a Palestinian State only happens as a result of “direct negotiation”, since such negotiation did not occur at the time of the creation of the Israeli State. Regardless of any agreement with the Arabs, a new Nation was created, nation which is currently the best armed of the Middle East, not only regarding atomic weaponry, but also conventional ones.
Benjamin Netanyahu´s demand for a new and eternal return to the “negotiation table” is nothing more than a strategy to gain time, allowing for the amplification of the Jewish settlements in the West Bank. Any person who has followed for years the advancements (fictitious and scarce) and retreats (constant) of the peace negotiations knows that as long as Netanyahu remains in power, the “negotiations” will not reach any solution. And that is exactly what this politician wants, a man whose greatest ambition is to be remembered in the future as the creator of “The Great Israel”, built through low and abject tactics, through the tactics of “pushing with the belly”, of procrastination. The longer it takes, the better the relative position of Israel in an eventual division of the territories is, because Israel is building thousands of houses while the Palestinians have barely the resources to survive.
Israel has not been lucky enough to put in a position of power a man of a superior mind, in the likes of Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, Gandhi or Frank D. Roosevelt. Netanyahu is a patriot in the most primitive sense of the word. Clever, insistent, unpreoccupied with the truth, he is untrustworthy when it comes to speaking about anything related to the Palestine. He is a typical example of a “mad lawyer”, which means that he is capable of any fallacy to favor his own client – in his case Israel —, even if this means to throw the Palestinian elders, children and youth in a hopeless misery. Elementary human rights are denied to the Palestinians.
As I have already said, the ancient yearning of the Jewish people spread all over Central and Eastern Europe is perfectly understandable. With Hitler´s rise to power, even the Jews who accepted a racial “assimilation”, with a loss of cultural identity, were rejected in their pretension. Hitler, a pathological maniac, prohibited the marriage between Germans (the “pure breed”) and Jews. He did everything he could to fanatically “clean” Germany and the countries he invaded, all of them dominated by a race which he considered inferior both physically and morally – which is one of the biggest scientific nonsenses of all times. He even oriented his secret service to discreetly stimulate the Zionism, which had the ultimate purpose of creating a Jewish nation – what he actually wanted was to get rid of all of them, once and for all. When persuasion was exhausted, he decided to implement the “final solution”. Many countries, even though publicly repudiating the Jewish suffering under the Nazi regime, refused to accept the migration of Jewish people to their territories. Hence, the understandable search, by the Jews, for an area which could become their own State. There was no conscious intent to harm the Palestinian Arabs who lived there, but who could have prevented and stopped the continuous arrival of people of the same race and belief searching for a better life?
Deep down, the worst current political problem lies in the answer to a simple dilemma: the Jewish people deserved to have a “home”, but the chosen house was too small, was already inhabited and did not have space for two big families. Only through some modification in the traditional concept of sovereignty it would be possible to accommodate two large families in the same place. It is necessary, however, for help to come from the outside, i.e., from the international community. Fortunately, there is still room in the planet to accommodate a few Israelis and Palestinians. Africa, for example, is enormous. The planet has already paid enough for the lack of boldness in the improvement of the concept of sovereignty. The UN, or any other tribunal/court created by it, has plenty of conditions and is much more able to solve, without bias, this ancient conflict than the two parties involved, parties which have already been poisoned by resentment and desires of vengeance. Every civilized country has already found out, throughout history, that when neighbors get in an argument and are unable to reach an understanding, the solution is to appeal to a superior stance, which can listen to both parties´ arguments and decide, sovereignly – and the party which loses the matter must abide by the decision, whether wanting or not. No country can impose its sovereignty by crushing by force or intimidation its neighbor’s own sovereignty.
Barack Obama has already said he will veto the acknowledgement of the Palestinian State because only the two parties involved are able to reach a permanent solution. Why does he say so, despite the persistent failure of all previous negotiations? Because he needs the lobbying, money and the vote of the Jews in his next presidential election. Deep down inside, he antagonizes Netanyahu haughtiness, ever the arrogant, responding with resounding “No´s!” to Obama´s requests to contain the occupation of the West Bank.
The arrogance of the Israeli Prime Minister comes from the certainty that Obama prefers to be elected for a second term than to be fair to a small defenseless people who has been humiliated for years. On the other hand, here is what Obama probably thinks but doesn´t say: “I will give in now to Netanyahu´s interests but, when I am re-elected, I will put him in his right place. It is the only possible action for the moment. Besides, if the Republican Party, with the Jewish lobby, wins the election, the Palestinians will be in a much worse situation. I need to act like a patient chess player. But obviously I can never publicly reveal what I really think.” This must be Obama´s plan. If not, we will witness the decadence of a man who is intelligent but does not have the necessary moral fiber to face people who are more determined than himself.
The ideal thing in the upcoming Sept. 23rd would be for the Palestinian Authority, the USA or the European Union, in an outburst of lucidity, to suggest, discuss and finally allow for the UN to approve the creation of an international court to solve the Palestinian issue. Such court, “ad hoc” — or even the already existing International Court of Justice — would define the borders of both states and determine compensations when it was not feasible to strictly follow the 1967 delimitations. It would then create the Palestinian State where the Gaza Strip is territorially linked to the West Bank and solve the issue of the return of the banished Palestinians. Only then we would at last find peace and a huge reduction in terrorism. Such court should advisably not have as members any judge who is from an Arabic or Jewish descent, for obvious reasons.
It is also necessary for the UN to correct another impressive absurd: the refusal of jurisdiction. Whoever wants to be “part of the club”, the UN, must accept its rules and judgment. The ones who will not accept such terms should simply get out. It is appalling that in the 21st century it is still possible for an accused party to refuse being judged and that the UN respects such a refusal.
Nicholson Baker, author of the book “Human Smoke”, mentions, in the first page of his work, that Alfred Nobel, manufacturer of explosives, was talking to his friend, Baroness Bertha von Suttner (author of “Lay Down Your Arms” and co-founder of the European Pacifist Movement) after she had just participated in the World Peace Conference in Bern. It was August of 1892. Here is what he said:
“Maybe my factories will end wars before your congresses. In the day when two Armies are capable of mutually annihilating themselves, it is possible that every civilized nation retreat in horror and dismantle their troops”.
This measured opinion comes in favor of the argument that no country in the Middle East should have the privilege of conventional, atomic and diplomatic power. Excessive force induces its bearer to see the weak as defenseless insects. Hence the need to concede something substantial to the Palestinians when their president speaks at the General Assembly next Friday. A minimum of personality is demanded from the ambassadors of all voting countries who, even being sympathetic to the Palestinians, are unable to obey their own conscience. Remember that, Nigeria.
(September 19th, 2011)
Website: www.franciscopinheirorodrigues.com.br
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