The Middle East Peace Process Scam

By Henry Siegman, London Review of Books, Augut 16th, 2007

The Middle East peace process may well be the most spectacular deception in modern diplomatic history. Since the failed Camp David summit of 2000, and actually well before it, Israel’s interest in a peace process – other than for the purpose of obtaining Palestinian and international acceptance of the status quo – has been a fiction that has served primarily to provide cover for its systematic confiscation of Palestinian land and an occupation whose goal, according to the former IDF chief of staff Moshe Ya’alon, is ‘to sear deep into the consciousness of Palestinians that they are a defeated people’. In his reluctant embrace of the Oslo Accords, and his distaste for the settlers, Yitzhak Rabin may have been the exception to this, but even he did not entertain a return of Palestinian territory beyond the so-called Allon Plan, which allowed Israel to retain the Jordan Valley and other parts of the West Bank....

...Anyone familiar with Israel’s relentless confiscations of Palestinian territory – based on a plan devised, overseen and implemented by Ariel Sharon – knows that the objective of its settlement enterprise in the West Bank has been largely achieved. Gaza, the evacuation of whose settlements was so naively hailed by the international community as the heroic achievement of a man newly committed to an honourable peace with the Palestinians, was intended to serve as the first in a series of Palestinian bantustans. Gaza’s situation shows us what these bantustans will look like if their residents do not behave as Israel wants...

...If the US and its allies were to take a stand forceful enough to persuade Israel that it will not be allowed to make changes to the pre-1967 situation except by agreement with the Palestinians in permanent status negotiations, there would be no need for complicated peace formulas or celebrity mediators to get a peace process underway. The only thing that an envoy such as Blair can do to put the peace process back on track is to speak the truth about the real impediment to peace. This would also be a historic contribution to the Jewish state, since Israel’s only hope of real long-term security is to have a successful Palestinian state as its neighbour. MORE...

De Soto's End of Mission Report on the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

Thanks to Loubnan Ya Loubnan, I found this interesting document written by Alvaro de Soto at the end of his mission as special coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process between May 2005 and May 2007, and before Tony Blair took up the task.

It is interesting to read this report leaked by The Guardian, which is very critical of all the parties in the conflict, especially Israel. It will be in my permanent links now in the right side bar. I can't wait to ompare it to what Tony Blair will have to tell us about the same mission, the kind of blabla he uttered two days ago, just before the attempted bombings in Glascow, about Muslims having false grievances (thanks Stef for the picture).

The Bush-Blair Era: synonymous of the slowly irreversible agony of the peace process in the ME

From Le Monde. A poll of their readers (12550 polled) shows that more than 60% think that the nomination of Tony Blair as special envoy of the quartet to the ME will not help reinvigorate the negociations process in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Let alone the peace process. Le Monde's readers are center left and moderates.

The Madrid Conference for the Middle East is Back

The Madrid conference is back, supported this time by private initiatives but with the attendance of many who were in Madrid in 1991; Hanan Ashrawi, Slomo Ben Ami, and the messages of Gorbatchev, James Baker, Bill Clinton, etc...
Read here a first account by Kanishk Tharoor, managing editor of Madrid11/Open Democracy.
Another account in French.