Different day, Same story

Re: Israeli Rightists Stir Tensions in East Jerusalem

(April 25, 2010)

Is it really a surprise to anyone that an Israeli action caused tensions in Jerusalem? Did anyone really not think there was a conflict going on between the Israelis and Palestinians? Granted, East Jerusalem is part of a very holy city held high in esteem by both the Jewish and Muslim people but we know already. This article does have some merit. Israeli government officials express awareness that “Americans think they have a puppet in the Israeli prime-minister’s office… We are not puppets. Jerusalem is ours”. The government officials are not willing to allow American political and military forces to take over their decision-making process, which will indicate resistance to the “American-brokered negotiations”. Such American-run peace negotiation is the tried and failed approach. Take for example, the Annapolis process. This was a solution laid out by the United States at a conference in Annapolis for a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. This global hot spot is still an area of violence and conflict. Any time a country is forced into a resolution by another force, it doesn’t work out. Especially in this instance is an American-mandated truce impossible. It is well known that America is an ally of Israel so why should Palestine go to a meeting with the biased parent and angry sibling? Palestine knows what the result of this would be.

Dad-America has already chosen its side, and American citizens remain in the dark about what has actually gone underway. Any information we receive about a potential peace talk is put in such ambiguous terms that give a false sense of pending change, and real results. Even to the media sources “officials revealed few details” and little to offer in terms of actual accomplishment other than “the feeling is that we are back on track”. Back on track according to who? In February Israel announced the building of new apartments in the Jewish East-Jerusalem. I would be willing to bet money with more confidence than I would put in the stock market, that Palestine wouldn’t consider this action back on track.

Even though America is clearly standing behind Israel, this kind of a gross overstatement of one group of people’s pain is not acceptable. The peace talks are not back on track, Israel and Palestine are not willing to do this on their own, and it’s about time that the American media stops trying to lead us to think otherwise. The conflict is defined by many long years of conflict and history beginning with the Jewish populations forced evacuation of the area that came to be known as Pakistan. The solution to this conflict (if there can be a solution other than time) cannot under any circumstances be American forced, unless we intend to keep American military forces in control of this area until the end of time. It may just be my opinion, but this sound too close to a military occupation against the will of the people. Saddam Hussein anyone? Ideally, peace to the Israeli and Palestinian people would come naturally, but since it hasn’t, it can’t be the doing of the biased parent, America, to force a peace deal between the two that it isn’t willing to monitor with extensive military personnel.