Another excellent piece of analytical work from Jonathon Cook – unraveling the rhetoric to reveal the stone-cold logic behind John Kerry’s latest proposal for ‘economic peace’ for Israel/Palestine.
By focusing on economic development, Kerry directs attention away from the real issue – the Occupation! At the same time, if the Palestinian leadership balks at the proposal for economic aid they will be held responsible (once again) for scuttling the peace process. It’s a genuine lose-lose situation for the Palestinians.
Father Dave
Jonathon Cook
source: mondoweiss.net…
Kerry’s plan – Palestinians to be cast as fall guys . . . again
by Jonathon Cook
Under heavy pressure from the US, the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has paid grudging lip service over the past four years to the goal of Palestinian statehood. But his real agenda was always transparent: not statehood, but what he termed “economic peace”.
Ordinary Palestinians, in Netanyahu’s view, can be pacified with crumbs from the master’s table: fewer checkpoints, extra jobs and trading opportunities, and a gradual, if limited, improvement in living standards. All of this buys time for Israel to expand the settlements, cementing its hold over the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
After 20 years of pursuing Palestinian statehood implied in the Oslo Accords, the US indicated last week it was switching horses. It appears to be adopting Netanyahu’s model of “economic peace”.
The US secretary of state, John Kerry, flanked by the Israeli president, Shimon Peres, and the Palestinian Authority chairman, Mahmoud Abbas, at the World Economic Forum in Jordan, revealed an economic programme for getting peace talks on track.
Some 300 Israeli and Palestinian business people were on board, he said, and would invest heavily in the Palestinian economy in a venture that was “bigger, bolder and more ambitious than anything since the Oslo accords”.
No more details were forthcoming, except that it will be overseen by Tony Blair, Britain’s former prime minister who has been the Quartet representative, the international community’s “man in Jerusalem”, since 2007.
He is a strange choice indeed, given that the Palestinian leadership has publicly dismissed him as “Israel’s defence attorney” and privately argued — as revealed in the Palestine Papers leaked in 2011 — that he advocates “an apartheid-like approach to dealing with the occupied West Bank”.
Kerry’s claims for his programme were grand yet vague. Some $4 billion in private investment over three years would boost the Palestinian economy by 50 per cent; agricultural production and tourism would triple; unemployment fall by two-thirds; wages rise by 40 per cent; and 100,000 homes would be built.
But the proposal left few impressed, and for good reason.
Kerry is simply repackaging the task Blair was entrusted with six years ago. His job has been to develop the Palestinian economy and build up Palestinian institutions in preparation for eventual statehood, so far to little effect.
As David Horovitz, editor of the right wing Times of Israel newspaper, scoffed: “If there was $4 billion to be had in private investment in the Palestinian economy, you can rest assured that Tony Blair would have found it.”
Or seen another way, the Palestinian economy’s problem is not a lack of investment; it is a lack of viable opportunities for investment.
Palestinians have no control over their borders, airspace, radio frequencies, water and other natural resources, not even over the currency or internal movement of goods and people. Everything depends on Israel’s good will. And few investors will be prepared to bet on that. Israel has repeatedly shown itself more than ready to crush the PA’s finances by, for example, withholding Palestinian tax revenues it collects and is mandated to pass on.
Blair’s role has been heavily criticised because his narrow focus on economic development has not only failed to foster a climate conducive to talks but has served as cover for Israel and Washington’s inaction on Palestinian statehood. Instead of rethinking Blair’s failed mandate, Kerry appears set on perpetuating and expanding it.
Abdallah Abdallah, a senior Fatah official, summed up the Palestinian response: “We are not animals that only want food. We are a people struggling for freedom”.
Israel, meanwhile, is only too ready to push Kerry down this hopeless path.
From Israel’s perspective, the US plan usefully distracts attention from the Arab Peace Initiative, the Arab states’ renewed offer last month of full diplomatic relations with Israel in return for its withdrawal from most of the occupied territories.
Netanyahu, worried the offer might corner him into serious talks, has responded with stony silence. At the same time, Yair Lapid, the supposedly centrist finance minister who was originally promoted by the West as a peacemaker, has squashed the idea of a deal with the Palestinians as unrealistic. He told the New York Times last month that he supported expanding the settlements.
Israel, it seems, hopes that the Palestinian Authority, now permanently mired in financial crisis, can be arm-twisted with promises of billions of dollars in sweeteners. According to Palestinian sources, Abbas is facing intense pressure from the US, with the Kerry plan intended to leverage him into dropping his condition that Israel freeze settlement growth before negotiations restart.
Israel is keen to win that concession. Despite reports that Netanyahu has quietly promised the Americans he will avoid embarrassing them for the next few weeks with announcements of settlement building, a rash of projects is in the pipeline.
At the weekend, media reports disclosed a plan for 300 new homes in East Jerusalem, while nearly 800 more are to be released for sale. Several settlement outposts established without authorisation from the Israeli government are expected to be made legal retrospectively, including hundreds of homes in Eli, near Ramallah.
Reuters reported yesterday that Kerry expects a decision on restarting peace talks within two weeks – or, his officials say, he will walk away from the peace process. He told a meeting of the American Jewish Committee the same day: “If we do not succeed now, we may not get another chance.”
For Netanyahu, such threats are hollow. If the US absents itself from the conflict, Israel will simply be left with a freer hand to intensify its subjugation of the Palestinians and the theft of their land.
Even though much more is at stake for the Palestinians, the PA has so far been quietly dismissive of the Kerry plan. It has stated it will not make “political concessions in exchange for economic benefits” – a diplomatic way of saying it will not be bribed to sell out on statehood.
But the real danger for the Palestinians, as they remember only too well from the 2000 Camp David talks, is that they are being set up as the fall guy. Should they refuse to sign up to the latest version of economic peace, Israel and the US will be only too ready to blame them for their intransigence.
This is win-win for Netanyahu, and another moment of disastrous slippage in the diplomatic process for the Palestinians.
Filed under israel and palestine articles, israel and palestine conflict by on Jun 6th, 2013. Comment. 
This article by Natash Mozgovaya appeared in Haaretz on July 4. The vote to divest from companies supporting the Palestinian Occupation lost by only two votes, both of them abstentions! The vote is disheartening to all of us who had hoped for a strong stand from the church against the Palestinian Occupation, especially as it comes on the heels of a similar failure at the Synod of the U.S. Methodist church.
You can read the gracious response of ‘Jewish Voice for Peace’ here. My (less gracious) response is that timidity has always been sadly typical of church synods. If we had had to wait for a church synod to vote to end slavery, we might still have that atrocious institution with us as well! Mind you, I suppose we should be heartened that this same Presbyterian gathering did vote to divest from products actually produced in the Settlements, but it’s hardly comparable really. Dave
Presbyterian Church in U.S. rejects divestment of global companies in Israel
Deeply divided General Assembly votes down proposal that sought to divest three major companies that ‘profit from Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories.’
By Natasha Mozgovaya
The largest Presbyterian group in the United States narrowly defeated a proposal to divest from three companies that do business with Israel. After an hours-long debate that took place late Thursday, the Presbyterian General Assembly voted 333-331, with two abstentions, to reject the divestment plan..
The debate was long and nerve-racking, as those attending the debate in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania were deeply divided on the matter.
Divestment supporters said the targeted companies – Caterpillar Inc., Hewlett-Packard Co. and Motorola – were profiting from Palestinian suffering. The American Jewish Committee, a public policy group, said the proposal demonizes Israel and threatens Christian-Jewish relations.
In an announcement, one student said the reasoning behind the divestment proposal was not a motion against Israel or the Jews, but rather against investment in “non-peaceful products.” “Many of us can’t sleep at night knowing our pension money comes from this oppression,” he said.
A Palestinian told the assembly that his house “was demolished in 1968 by a CAT bulldozer,” adding that “occupation is the worst form of terror.”
A Caterpillar employee from Illinois complained that commissioners were only being presented one side of the story. “I’ve been an employee of Caterpillar for 37 years. You are being shown the very narrow side of CAT. CAT is the first responder around the world,” he said, noting the company’s work at the Twin Towers after the September 11 attacks. “I am proud to wear this Caterpillar shirt, no matter what happens at this GA.”
Another commissioner said she feared the motion was “missing the target.” “Different companies in Israel militarize the bulldozers. Caterpillar can’t stop building at the West Bank”, she said.
There were also those who expressed concern that a vote in favor of divestment would only “alienate our Jewish friends.” Matthew Miller from Iowa said, “I believe an unintended consequence of the divestment will alienate our interfaith Jewish partners in this country. Taking one side over another will privilege Palestinian suffering, not Israelis that are terrorized by their neighbors that seek to eliminate them. This course of action will not have its intended effect; it will achieve nothing but alienation.” His comment stirred angry responses that the Presbyterian community has been “doing what Rabbis told us to do” for years, and the “number of settlers is over 500,000 today,” adding that it would be a shame “to be bullied out” of the divestment and to “ignore the suffering of our Palestinian brothers.”
Some harsh words were thrown around the room. “Investment will never relieve our conscience from ethnic cleansing and apartheid,” said one debater. “There is plenty of investment in Israel – billions of dollars are invested in illegal colonies, a separation wall. We have had enough with investments that bring hatred.”
The Israel-Palestine Mission Network of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) expressed its disappointment with the decision, as they did after a similar initiative failed to pass the Methodist Church vote earlier this year.
“It appears that church commissioners were swayed by a fear that divestment would cause irreparable harm to Jewish-Christian relations,” said Rev. Katherine Cunningham, IPMN Vice-Moderator. “In reality, the divestment motion was supported by a broad alliance of Jews, Christians and others who believe that nonviolent means such as divestment are an effective way to pressure the Israeli government into abiding by international law and respecting Palestinian human rights.”
In a subsequent vote of 369-290 the assembly decided to support a minority report that called for a positive course of action with respect to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and proposed to invest in companies that promote peace.
Pro-Palestinian Presbyterians have been trying for years to persuade the denomination to divest. The church, however, has been dissuaded by U.S. Jewish groups and other Christians who argue that withdrawing investments will not contribute to peace in the region.
Pension funds in Norway and Sweden have divested themselves of holdings in some firms involved in building settlements or helping to erect the West Bank separation barrier. European activists have stepped up pressure on companies by exposing their West Bank ties and picketing stores that sell goods produced in Israeli settlements.
While Thursday’s vote may have resulted in the General Assembly voting down the divestment, members vowed to reignite the debate next year, saying that if progress is not made between Israel and the Palestinians, the result of the next vote might be very different.
Filed under Israel and Palestine, israel and palestine articles by on Jul 7th, 2012. Comment.
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