Commentary

Speaking privately at the Clinton Global Initiative conference in New York, Bill Clinton said Netanyahu lost interest because Palestine has a president he controls, and normalizing relations with the Arab world is within reach.

<blockquote>"The Israelis always wanted two things that once it turned out they had," he said, it didn't seem so appealing to Mr. Netanuahu."</blockquote>

<blockquote>Israel believes it has a reliable "Palestinian government, and there's no question - and the Netanyahu government has said - that this is the finest Palestinian government they've ever had in the West Bank."</blockquote>

In fact, President Abbas and Prime Minister Salam Fayyad are longtime Israeli collaborationists, serving as Israeli enforcers against their own people.

Of course Netanyahu approves. He controls them both.

<blockquote>Clinton added that "cynics" think his "government's continued call for negotiations over borders and such means that he's just not going to give up the West Bank."</blockquote>

Of course he's not nor any other Israeli leader. For decades, they've stolen most valued parts dunam by dunam. They'll keep doing it until Palestinians have only worthless scrub land for a bantustan state Israel will agree to as long as it remains occupied or at least firmly controlled.

Clinton also believes Abbas would accept the deal Arafat rejected in 2000, adding:

<blockquote>"For reasons that even after all these years I still don't know for sure, Arafat turned down the deal I put together that (Ehud) Barak accepted. (And) they also had an Israeli government that was willing to give them East Jerusalem as the capital of the new state of Palestine."</blockquote>

Fact check

In 1947, UN Resolution 181 internationalized Jerusalem as a separate body (a corpus separatum), administered by a UN Trustee Council. Israel spurned a policy still binding.

In July 1980, Israel's Basic Law declared "Jerusalem, complete and united, is the capital of Israel." Yet on June 30, 1980, the Security Council unanimously adopted Resolution 476. America abstained.

<blockquote>It stipulated that "all legislative and administrative measures and actions taken by Israel, the occupying Power, which purport to alter the character and status of the Holy City of Jerusalem have no legal validity and constitute a flagrant (Fourth Geneva) violation."</blockquote>

Following Israel's non-compliance, the Security Council unanimously passed Resolution 478, America again abstaining.

It "censur(ed Israel) in the strongest terms" for enacting the Jerusalem Basic Law, calling it a violation of international law. It also said the Council doesn't recognize it, and told member states to withdraw their diplomatic missions from the city.

At the time, the Security Council and General Assembly reaffirmed that East Jerusalem is occupied territory, that expropriating its land is illegal, and that all Israeli legislative and administrative measures altering the city's character and status are null and void and must be rescinded forthwith.

Israel never complied. Moreover, it continued land seizures, home demolitions, and dispossessions, flagrantly flouting its obligations under international law.

Camp David - July 2000

Bill Clinton hosted Arafat and then Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak. Clinton and America's major media called Israel's proposal "generous" and unprecedented," accusing Arafat of spurning peace for conflict by rejecting it.

Barak insisted Arafat sign a "final agreement," declare an "end of conflict," and give up any legal basis for additional Occupied Territory land. No written offer was made nor were documents or maps presented.

In fact, only a May 2000 West Bank map was used, dividing the area into four isolated cantons under Palestinian administration surrounded by expanding Israeli settlements and other Israeli-controlled land.

The cantons consisted of: Jericho, a southern canton to Abu Dis, a northern one including Nablus, Jenin and Tulkarm, and a central one including Ramallah.

Gaza was left in limbo as a fifth canton to be resolved when Israel disengaged in August and September 2005, but kept effectively occupied to reenter or attack any time.

Barak's deal, if accepted, would have doomed real peace. It also offered no resolution of final status issues, including statehood, fixed borders, diaspora Palestinians right of return, East Jerusalem as Palestine's capital, and others.

Arafat understood and rejected it. Yet he was unfairly blamed. Clinton was party to a deal calling for unconditional surrender, not peace or a viable Palestinian state.

Eleven years later he wondered why Arafat turned it down. He might have been run out of town back home or worse if he accepted it. That's why.

Support for Palestinian Statehood

Despite his own cross to bear, Turkish Prime Minister Recept Tayyip Erdogan understands enough to support Palestinian statehood.

Addressing the General Assembly on September 22, he sharply criticized Israel for obstructing Middle East peace and refusing to apologize for murdering nine Turkish nationals aboard the Mavi Marmara humanitarian ship to Gaza, then added:

<blockquote>"What is more painful is that the UN has been incapable of taking the necessary steps to end the humanitarian tragedy that Palestinians have gone and are going through."</blockquote>

He also urged UN member states to recognize Palestinian sovereignty, saying, it was established but never formally implemented.

Ahead of his September 23 General Assembly address, Abbas said pressure won't deter him from submitting a Security Council bid, knowing it'll go nowhere because Washington will obstruct it.

Nonetheless, he formerly petitioned the UN, handing Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon an official application for membership. PA delegation member Husam Zomlot called it a "historic moment." He and others may rethink that view when Palestinians get nothing substantive, leaving them at square one.

Former Clinton administration official David Rothkopf said Obama stated "a clear US position and put himself squarely as a champion of the status quo," leaving Palestinian statehood unresolved in limbo.

Whether or not he meant it, Abbas added:

<blockquote>Peace "negotiations with Israel achieved nothing at all. All parties are demanding that we return to negotiations, but we say that if Netanyahu does not announce his recognition of the Palestinian state on the 1967 borders and the halt of settlement (construction), we will not return to negotiations."</blockquote>

On September 17, Hugo Chavez wrote UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, saying:

<blockquote>"I address these words to the United Nations General Assembly, to this great forum that represents all the people, to ratify, on this day and in this setting, Venezuela's full support of the recognition of the Palestinian state: of Palestine's right to become a free, sovereign and independent state."</blockquote>

<blockquote>"This represents an act of historic justice toward a people who carry with them, from time immemorial, all the pain and suffering of the world....Palestine will live and overcome! Long live free, sovereign and independent Palestine!"</blockquote>

The New York Times' Jihad Against Palestinian Statehood

On September 22, its latest editorial broadside headlined, "The Palestinians' Bid," saying:

<blockquote>In addressing the General Assembly, "Obama had no choice but to stand by Israel, this country's historic ally. And we agree that a negotiated deal is the only way to ensure the creation of a viable Palestinian state, guarantee Israel's security and build a lasting peace."</blockquote>

Fact check

Times correspondents, opinion writers, and editorials support wrong over right, especially on issues affecting Israel.

Obama indeed has choices but made the wrong one. Negotiations never produced peace or statehood and won't now. Israel hasn't faced security issues for almost 40 years, and doesn't today as the region's nuclear armed superpower.

Palestinians are denied justice and statehood because Israel and Washington won't tolerate either. Peace won't come until world leaders go around them for resolution enforced with teeth.

<blockquote>"There is no mystery to what a final deal would look like, just a lack of political courage to push it to the end. (It would) creat(e) a Palestinian state on territory equivalent to the pre-1967 West Bank Bank and Gaza Strip, with mutually agreed land swaps."</blockquote>

Fact check

In 1948, Israel stole 78% of historic Palestine. In 1967, it took the rest. Palestinians will settle for 22% returned. Land swaps won't work because Israel will demand all valued areas, leaving Palestinians isolated in cantons.

Moreover, what about East Jerusalem as Palestine's legitimate capital. The Times thought it unimportant to mention, let alone demand.

Yet it called for a "bold and fair" proposal, as well as "help to sell it to the Israeli and Palestinian people - not just politicians." Otherwise a "diplomatic train wreck" may result.

In fact, Palestinians never got "bold and fair" proposals and won't now. Instead they've endured 63 "train wreck(ed)" years begging to be ended.

As a result, now's the time to go around Washington, Israel, their obstructionist allies, and collaborationist Abbas leadership for what they won't achieve otherwise.

It may not be now or never, but if left up to Washington, Israel, and its fifth column leaders, statehood and full UN membership won't ever come.

A Final Comment

On September 20, Gaza-based journalist and university lecturer Rami Almeghari headlined his Electronic Intifada article, "PA goes to UN without Palestinian consensus behind it," saying:

<blockquote>It's "clear that many Palestinians remain at best doubtful that the promised confrontation in New York will do anything to advance their rights and aspirations."</blockquote>

True enough, but he's wrong suggesting why bother given that likely outcome. Victories come incrementally, not all at once against long odds. Most important, they come by trying, knowing long sought goals are never achieved easily or quickly.

Moreover, committed leadership for what's right is key. Palestinians sorely lack it, assuring failure under a man who'll accept it, his rhetoric notwithstanding.

On September 20, London Independent writer Robert Fisk headlined, "Why the Middle East will never be the same again," saying:

"The Palestinians won't achieve statehood, but they will consign the 'peace process' to history." Of course, it was stillborn from inception, and indeed Washington and Israeli obstructionism prevents any possibility of statehood now or in the foreseeable future.

<blockquote>The Mossad-connected DEBKAfile agreed, saying expect no "diplomatic showdown....when the Palestinian bid for statehood is filed Friday, Sept. 23....Neither the Security Council or General Assembly will (make) any immediate decisions....(In fact, the) process (can drag on for) weeks if not months," and may end up dying from inaction.</blockquote>

"The game is lost," said Fisk. "America's political power in the Middle East will this week be neutered on behalf of Israel. Quite a sacrifice" for pyrrhic victories.

All the more reason why Palestinians should never quit trying for what one day's within reach by persisting. It's how all great struggles are won.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.

Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.

http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour/.

The anarchist Stuart Christie and his extremely odd literary bedfellow, the U.S. neo-conservative weirdo Stephen Schwartz

A former "armed struggle" anarchist offers a long-time salaried fan of the U.S. National Security State as an "expert" on anarchism and the Spanish Civil War...

THE ANARCHISTS AND SPAIN: "COULDA, WOULDA, SHOULDA..."
In 1964, a courageous young Scottish anarchist named Stuart Christie was arrested in Spain for taking part in an effort to assasinate dictator Francisco Franco. If the attempt on Franco's life had succeeded it would have been one of the most emotionally satisfying political killings of the 20th century. But alas, like many earlier efforts against the Generalissmo this attempt failed, and Christie's role in this failure had several aspects. First, shortly before going to Spain, Christie participated in a television inteview where he made it clear he thought killing Franco would be desirable. Along with the obvious lack of discretion demonstrated by Christie, it later turned out the journalist interviewing Christie, Malcolm Muggeridge, had been involved with British intelligence services during World War Two. This compounded the fact that it was neither the time nor the place for Christie to voice his fiery sentiments.

Christie's second bad judgement call was that he tried to transport the explosives to be used in the anti-Franco effort while hitchhiking, and did some of his hitchhiking while wearing a kilt. Under the circumstances, hitchhiking might or might not have been a good way to transport explosives. The problem then becomes a sartorial one, so let's put this one in our live-and-learn file; if you are carrying high explosives to be used in an attempt on the life of a head of state, and you are male, and you decide to hitchhike, you may wish to refrain from wearing a plaid skirt while doing so, especially while crossing the rural regions of a socially reactionary Catholic police state.

These events took place in 1964. We all make mistakes. It would be churlish of me to bag on a man who is now in his sixties for mistakes made in a good effort in his long-ago youth. However, Stuart Christie's ability to look before he leaps has not noticibly improved in the years since the failed attempt to take the Generalissimo out of the box, and his lousy judgment-making skills are now on proud display in his choice of contributers for his literary journal 'Arena Two: Noir Fiction,' edited by Stuart Christie, and published by PM Press.

"Arena Two: Noir Fiction" features three pieces by a minor league neo-conservative war propagandist named Stephen Schwartz. (three, count 'em, three; Christie's cup runneth over a bit here.) A professional repentant former leftist turned fan of the Nicaraguan Contras, and more recently an apologist for Uzbek's murderous dictator Islam Karimov, Schwartz also styles himself as one of the world's leading authorities on the Spanish Revolution and Civil War. Schwartz's role in 'Arena Two: Noir Fiction" is touted in neutral terms as examining "the relationship between surrealism and anarchism." Indeed, "noir fiction" and "surreal" are words that easily attach themselves to the life and deeds of 'Arena Two: Noir Fiction' contributor Stephen Schwartz.

Schwartz was raised in San Francisco as a self-proclaimed "red diaper baby" in the milieu of the pro-Soviet Union Communist Party U.S.A. In his youth he experienced a suspiciously Oedipal-sounding rebellion against the C.P. and became a Trotskyist. Schwartz also styled himself as a later-day surrealist poet, did some heavy-duty hanging out in the late 1970's to early 1980's punk rock scene of San Francisco's North Beach neighborhood, and wrote articles in the SF punk newspaper 'Search and Destroy' under the name Nico Ordway. For several years he was also a one-man ultra-left Trotskyist organization with the grandiose name of 'Fomento Obrero Revolucionario Organizing Committee in the US.' In this context he published a sort of fanzine-to-himself called 'The Alarm.' Schwartz wrote in it under the names 'Comrade Sandalio' and 'S.Solsona,' perhaps attempting to cloak himself in a dashing air of mystery and adventure that was otherwise out of reach for an obnoxious, overweight, foul-mouthed cafe habitué who couldn't get dates with hot young punk rock chicks.

Schwartz was widely derided by those who encountered him in the flesh. Anarchist writer Bob Black dissed him in a 1982 leaflet as a "tendentious pedant" and "an after hours militant with nothing to say in six languages." After meeting him in person, his ostensible comrades in France and Spain declared that they had "broke all relations" ("...rompemos toda relacion con ellos.") with his one-person "group" in the May 1982 issue of their publication 'Alarma.' (1) Another acquaintance from that time, John Zerzan, has said of Schwartz: "...he always struck me as a pretty ridiculous character. He went from Stalinist to Trot to `Surrealist Trot' to what he called `very close to classical anarchist,' and given his flakiness it didn't seem to matter nor did it seem like it would surprise me whatever turn he would take. Now I know this sounds like a claim to omniscience, but he always struck me as an unstable case who could end up anywhere!...he made himself a joke by trying to recruit San Francisco punks - who all laughed at him while spending his money..." (2)

THE POETASTER'S DISHONOR...
By the end of Ronald Reagan's first term Schwartz stopped publishing 'The Alarm' and quickly became a neo-conservative. This coincided with a massive improvement in his job prospects. Schwartz went from being a guy who had recently made a living driving a cab to employment as an editor at a San Francisco-based, Reagan Adminstration-affiliated think tank called the Institute for Contemporary Studies. This was a rare charitable indulgence on the part of the Reagan right, since at the time of his hiring Schwartz didn't have an undergraduate degree and had never been involved in anything more politically consequential than sharing his opinions about anarchism, Trotskyism and the Spanish Civil War in a loud voice in bars.

``...ICS (the Institute for Contemporary Studies) was launched in 1974, during the waning days of Governor Ronald Reagan's Administration, by Edwin Meese III and other close Reagan associates...Defending America, a 1977 ICS title with an introduction by former Secretary of Defense James Schlesinger, built an early case that the Soviets had opened a `window of vulnerability' in U.S. nuclear defenses...ICS, which receives the bulk of its funding from corporations such as Bechtel, Chevron, IBM and Chase Manhattan Bank (also Alcoa, Union Carbide, Coors, Exxon, and the Hearst Corporation, at that time the owner of the San Francisco Examiner) and from key right-wing fundraisers like Richard Mellon Scaife, has been called `Reagan's favorite think tank.''' (3)

In his role as an editor at the Institute for Contemporary Studies, the newly-minted-former "Comrade Sandalio" of the 'Fomento Obrero Revolucionario Organizing Committee' worked enthusiastically to help create a favorable public relations climate for US-backed counterinsurgency efforts in Central America. Among tasks he performed in this vein was to help organize materials for a book published by ICS Press titled 'The Grenada Papers.' Published shortly before the 1984 US elections, 'The Grenada Papers' was a collection of internal documents of the 'New Jewel Movement,' the leftist regime that had governed the Carribean island of Grenada and self-destructed shortly before the 1983 American invasion and occupation of Grenada. The documents had been seized and analyzed by the CIA and Air Force Intelligence in the wake of the US invasion and then forwarded to the Institute for Contemporary Studies. Edited by University of California-Berkeley Professors Paul Seabury and Walter McDougall, the book extolled the US invasion as the first time a so-called Communist regime had been overthrown by democratic forces, and the book was structured to justify the invasion of Grenada to an audience mostly made up of the staffers of stupid American congressmen. 'The Grenada Papers' demonized by association the Sandinista regime in Nicaragua and leftist guerrilla movements in El Salvador and Guatemala. The editors' key point was that leftist insurgencies in the Caribbean and Central America were pawns of Soviet foreign policy and a dire strategic threat to the United States (we should have been so lucky). Events in Grenada were presented as an argument for increased aggression by the US government in Central America.

Schwartz wrote introductions to sections of the book in which the ``Left-wing'' West German Social Democrats were taken to task for not being sufficiently supportive of US defense goals.

'The Grenada Papers' was published in the fall of 1984. In the Fall 1984 issue of the ICS's 'Journal of Contemporary Studies,' Schwartz called attention to his participation in a presentation based on the materials in 'The Grenada Papers' before an "Outreach group on Central America" at the Reagan White House on Oct. 31, 1984.

In the same period, in a letter to the contemporary version of the Industrial Workers of the World dated October 24, 1984, Schwartz eulogized a recently deceased Marxist member of the current-day version of the IWW, Ed Spira, saluting Spira as a ``working class warrior.'' Schwartz signed his letter by name and by his IWW membership number, X333361.

Schwartz was also available for perfomances as an "expert" on Central America extolling the upside of a possible US invasion of Nicaragua at neo-conservative conferences.

An article by Sara Diamond in the March 5, 1985 issue of The Daily Californian, a University of California campus-oriented newspaper in Berkeley, reported that the Institute for Contemporary Studies hosted a $165-a-seat public policy conference early in 1985 at the Mark Hopkins Hotel in San Francisco. About 80 academics, business leaders and intelligence analysts attended this gathering. Reagan's attorney general, champion of the death penalty and W.C. Fields look-alike Edwin Meese delivered a speech lauding the virtues of the Reagan economic program. Other topics at this conference included education, Grenada, Nicaragua, and ``The Future of the Soviet Empire.''

Quoting from The Daily Californian article: ```I think...Nicaragua could easily become Grenada Two,' said Stephen Schwartz...The `lesson of Grenada,' he said, is that in `certain of the Soviet satellites...there are gigantic possibilities of internal instability and collapse.'
``U.C. Berkeley political science professor Paul Seabury, who edited The Grenada Papers along with Schwartz and U.C. Berkeley history professor Walter McDougall, said the documents provide analysts with a rare opportunity to study Soviet `proxy operations'.

``While he said he's not advocating any particular action, Seabury said that `as a scholar, I would just love to see the Managua documents.'''

Participating in this conference didn't prevent Schwartz from taking out an ad calling attention to his membership in the current-day version of the IWW on page 11 of the May 1985 issue of the IWW newspaper, 'Industrial Worker.'

On the editorial page of the San Francisco Examiner, April 11, 1986, an opinion piece by Schwartz was published under the title ``Support Contras:"'

``We helped bring down Somoza, and we donated more aid to the Sandinista regime, at first, than we gave Somoza in 20 years. But the new regime from the beginning treated us as `the Yankees, enemies of humanity'....'' Schwartz used the plural-possessive-"we" form almost once for every sentence here, and claimed that if ``we'' of the United States government didn't aid the Nicaraguan Contras, the Sandinistas would overrun Guatemala and Mexico and threaten the United States the way the Germans did to France in 1940.

PEEK-A-BOO, I-SEE-YOU...
The following year, Schwartz bragged on a television news broadcast that he used his insider knowledge as a former long-time leftist to spy on opponents of US policies in Central America, and feed information on them to the Feds.

On Thursday November 10, 1987, San Francisco's KRON-TV Channel 4, broadcast a report titled ``Private Spies,'' on its 6pm ``Evening Edition.''

The following is from a transcript:
Sylvia Chase (anchor on set): People and groups who speak out against Reagan administration policies put themselves in jeopardy of surveillance by private intelligence gathering organizations.

Target 4 has learned it's a kind of private spying network: conservative groups, with close ties to the White House. Members say they pass on the information that they collect to federal agencies, like the Justice Department. And on occasion to the White House itself...
...When Congress blocked aid to the Contras, the White House got around the law by turning to a private network to raise the money. That triggered the Iran-Contra scandal...
...Now, there's evidence of another private network. This one spies on the President's political opponents...
...Here's how it works. Around the country, people gather information on left-wing activities and funnel it to private conservative groups...like the Council for Inter-American security, the Capital Research Center, the Young America's Foundation, and the Institute for Contemporary Studies.

All have close ties to the Reagan Administration.

Stephen Schwartz (Institute for Contemporary Studies): We'll be seeing all of the NSC (National Security Council) people, I'm sure. I'll be seeing all of the NSC people.
Sylvia Chase: Stephen Schwartz is a member of what he calls the commie-watching network.
He works at the Institute for Contemporary Studies, a San Francisco think-tank founded by top Reagan aids like Ed Meese.
Schwartz says he addressed a White House meeting attended by Oliver North and even met former CIA director, William Casey. Schwartz says there are lots of ways to get information.
Schwartz: When a left-wing group publishes, say a list of its state committee and throws it in the garbage and somebody finds it in the garbage and brings it to me, then I know the names of all those people and sometimes there will be more information, too.
Chase: What techniques are being used today...going through the garbage. That's one way.
Schwartz: Going through garbage.
Chase: Lifting things off the desk when no one's looking.
Schwartz: Now, that's something which is something that I don't believe in. But that's not fair.
Chase: But you know that it happens?
Schwartz: Yeah. I do know that it happens.
Chase: What other techniques would people use?
Schwartz: Well, if any leftist group has an open office where there are a lot of people around, you know you can walk in and if there's something lying on a desk, you don't have to filch it. You might just write down what's on it...see a list of names or something like that.
Chase: Are there other people like you around the country keeping track?
Schwartz: There are people that are collecting information. Yes.
Chase: And are they able to get it to people in government?
Schwartz: Yes. But the people in the government are not, frankly, able to do anything more with it than simply collect the information and keep track of the information..."

Schwartz's tenure with the Institute for Contemporary Studies hinged on his ability to pontificate soulfully about the evils of Communism. But after the collapse of the Soviet Union this extremely narrow field of specialization was past its sell-by date. Without Stalinism, Schwartz was left without anything to not believe in. His bosses were probably tired of Schwartz running around their offices hollering about the latest developments in the feud between Trotsky and Stalin, anyway, so the ICS fobbed off the now otherwise unemployable Schwartz on an accomdating San Francisco Chronicle, wher he was assigned the lowly task of helping to write obituaries.

Imagine the letdown. He'd gone from huffing and puffing in the pages of 'The Alarm' about the left communist critique of labor unions, which he didn't have the intellectual chops to grasp in the first place, to shaking hands with the famous Oliver North and CIA Chief William Casey in President Reagan's White House. Punk rockers, anarchists and ultra-leftists had all "laughed at him while spending his money," but with the sinister and cynical neo-cons the porcine pedant had finally found a place at the table. Now he was marooned scribbling obits at the 'Chron,' a sarcastic tribute to his previous pencil-pushing efforts to help keep Nicaraguan cemeteries abundantly supplied with the corpses of the working poor. He'd even become the butt of humorous derisive local news coverage when he was ticketed by police for writing graffiti claiming that he was not the philosophical whore of North Beach. (4) His life must have seemed like a great gaping vacuity, now that this guy with a Trotsky fixation no longer had great and sanguinary events to attach himself to and powerful men to fawn over.

TO THE BALKANS..."AT LEAST IN SARAJEVO THEY CAN'T CALL ME 'THE PHILOSOPHICAL WHORE OF NORTH BEACH' -- IN SARAJEVO THERE'S NO BEACH..."
In the 1990's the former Yugoslavia became a focus of US national security concerns. Weary of his sinecure at the Chronicle, and drawn irresistibly to the smell of human blood being shed in copious quantities, Steve Schwartz now remade himself as an "expert" on the Balkans. As a part of this Schwartz gave himself a complete fashion makeover. He grew a long beard, started sporting a skull-cap, and relocated to Sarajevo, Bosnia, where he converted to the Sufi branch of Islam and changed his name -- at least for the duration of direct U.S. military intervention in the Balkans -- to Suleyman Ahmad Stephen Schwartz.

The newly-minted Suleyman Ahmad Schwartz appiled the cheerleading moves he'd honed on behalf of the Nicaraguan Contras to the Bosnian Muslim President Alija Izetbegovic, describing him as "an authentic warrior in a legitimate jihad," and on return to the U.S. Schwartz was a militant propagandist for U.S. miltary involvement in the war in Bosnia and Kosovo.

The September 11th 2001 blowback from former Presidents Carter and Reagan's foreign policy antics in Afghanistan gave Ahmad Suleyman Schwartz new opportunities to exercise his brand of journalism, penning pompous pro-war pronunciamentos in such venues as William Kristol's 'The Weekly Standard' and the 'Wall Street Journal.' Hired in July 2001 and fired in June 2002 from a job as a journalist with the Voice of America, Schwartz found a more suitable and secure position as a "Senior Policy Analyst" at a small, Washington DC-based pro-war lobby called the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies.

In his role as an apparent convert to Islam, Schwartz wrote a book titled (without apparent conscious ironic intent) 'The Two Faces of Islam.' Schwartz and his 'Two Faces' elicited a brief, scathing and dismissive review from leading U.S. anthropologist Clifford Geertz in the July 3, 2003 isue of 'The New York Review of Books:'

"Stephen Schwartz, who has also run into political difficulties in the capital, and stirred thereby a teacup-storm on the right, is a strange and outlandish figure. He grew up in San Francisco as part of the City Lights literary crowd around Lawrence Ferlinghetti, whom his father had published; he became a so-far-left-he's-right Trotskyist-anarchist under the nom de guerre "Comrade Sandallo," (sic) worked for a while as an obituary writer and street reporter for The San Francisco Chronicle, shifted his affections and his energies to Reagan during the micro-war in Grenada, and ultimately made his way as a freelance journalist to Sarajevo in the 1990s, where he converted to Islam and joined a Naqshabandi Sufi order. He changed his name again, at least for some purposes, to Suleyman Abmad, (sic) and found the Medusa's head every conspiratorialist needs: "Wahabism."

Geertz notes of Schwartz, "whose rhetoric has survived his allegiances," that in his "Two Faces:"

"His book consists in a monomaniacal tracing out, laborious and repetitive (the word "wahhabi" or "wahabbism" appears in almost every paragraph), of the thousands of ways, ingenious, insidious, and implacably relentless, in which the machinations of the House of Saud in the service of this mad creed reaches out to poison the souls of Muslims, turn them against one another, against us, against everybody. Mobilizing their petro-dollars to found religious schools all over the world, set up popular-front-type propaganda foundations, finance lobbying efforts, bribe the powerful, infiltrate legitimate organizations, recruit supporters, eliminate enemies, and most especially to finance jihad, terrorism, and the destruction of Israel, the Saudis work tirelessly to turn Islam, in its essence a peaceful, mystical, unifying force "preaching love and healing," into a world-dividing, world-destroying "two-faced" one.

"There is, of course, more than a grain of truth in this, as there is in any comprehensive indictment of faction-ridden politics, and the Saudi factions, like the Ayatollahs, Hamas, Syria, and Mubarak are, surely, playing for keeps. But Schwartz's discussion (he has virtually nothing to say about the concrete details of intra-Islamic conflict and, except for the Koran, he does without source references) is a prime example of how to transform an arguable argument into an obsessional fantasy:

(Schwartz:) "With the collapse of the Soviet State, Wahhabism effectively replaced the Communist movement as the main sponsor of ideological aggression against the democratic West.... The ideological division of humanity into "two worlds" has been promulgated on different bases: Wahhabism applied a religious distinction, Communism a class standard, and Nazism a racial criterion.... Wahhabism, like the other totalitarian ideologies... compelled members of the new middle classes in the Saudi kingdom and the Gulf states to eagerly kill and die, rather than to procreate and live.... The conduct of the Saudis was devious. They assured the West of profound affection, while fomenting worldwide adventurism and seeking to bring every Sunni Muslim on the face of the earth under their control.... The Wahhabi-Saudi regime...embodies a program for the ruthless conquest of power and a war of extermination.... [Its] face...is a great deal uglier than that of a general Islamism, or radical Arab nationalism,...or even of Soviet Communism, and its threat to the peace of the world is immensely greater..." (5)

Geertz gets some of the chronology regarding Schwartz's gyrations wrong, but his insight into the intellectually hollow core of a man of 'ressentiment' is on target.

As someone else has noted elsewhere:

"While every noble morality develops from a triumphant affirmation of itself, slave morality from the outset says No to what is "outside," what is "different," what is "not itself: and this No is its creative deed. This inversion of the value-positing eye -- this need to direct one's view outward instead of back to oneself -- is of the essence of 'ressentiment:' in order to exist, slave morality always first needs a hostile external world; it needs, phisiologically speaking, external stimuli in order to act -- its action is fundamentally reaction." (6)

THE FOUNDATION FOR THE DEFENSE OF DEMOCRACIES THAT BOIL PEOPLE TO DEATH...
In his job at the Foundation, Schwartz went to bat for the torturer tyrant of Uzbekistan, Islam Karimov. Karimov is a former Soviet apparatchik reborn in the post-USSR era as a love child of the Israeli and United States National Security establishments. This ex-Stalinist thug turned pro-US thug's contribution to the annals of early 21st century human rights abuses is a penchant for having prisoners killed by scalding them to death.

Right-wing libertarian Justin Raimondo of 'Antiwar.com' noted:

"Uzbekistan, land of torture, where opponents of the barbaric regime are routinely jailed, beaten and murdered -- you woudn't think that Uzbek "President" Islam Karimov would have any Western defenders. But, then, you probably weren't taking ex-leftist-turned-Muslim Stephen Schwartz into account.

"The fifty-something "senior policy analyst" for the ironically-named Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, a rabid war bird formerly with the Voice of America, doesn't have much of a problem with Uzbekistan's estimated 600 political arrests per year and some 6,500 political prisoners -- many of whom face death by torture.

Praising Uzbekistan in a speech as "a new, young, transitional democracy,' Schwartz explained:
"I cannot claim to provide a full endorsement of the Uzbek regime without going there. Obviously, as in any country, there have been abuses. However, I note that much of the discussion of Uzbekistan and the claims of Islamic figures in that country to being victims of repression, rests on extremely vague terminology. For example, the latest U.S. State Department report on human rights abuses around the world was released on March 4. It includes numerous allegations against Uzbekistan, many involving the government's struggle to suppress Hizb-ut-Tahrir - a clandestine subversive movement originating in Arab countries. This is a battle in which the United States should probably be cheering Karimov on, rather than condeming him."

Raimondo went on to write:
"According to a forensic report compiled last summer by the British embassy in Uzbekistan, two prisoners of this 'transistional democracy' were boiled to death. Their screams were not too audible in the West, drowned out, perhaps, by Schwartz's cheers and the support of the U.S. government. American taxpayers sheleld out $500 million in direct aid to Uzbekistan, $79 million of which went directly into the pockets of the torturers, i.e. the police and intelligence apparatus.

"Apologizing for torture, murder and the parboiling of human beings -- for the man they call "the philosophical whore of North Beach," it's all in a day's work..." (7)

Another useful source on Uzbekistan and its US-backed despot is found on the blog of Craig Murray, British Ambassador to Uzbekistan from 2002 to 2004.

An article of June 2005 says of Islam Karimov:

"...This dictator simply tolerates no opposition. And he expresses his lust for blood quite openly. Of political opponents, Karimov has said, “Such people must be shot in the forehead.” And more: “If necessary, I’ll shoot them myself.” On another occasion, he averred: “I’m prepared to rip off the heads of 200 people, to sacrifice their lives, in order to save peace and calm in the republic…. If my child chose such a path, I myself would rip off his head.”

"...Uzbekistan currently serves Washington in a more sinister way: it is believed to be one of the destination countries for the highly secretive “renditions program,” in which the CIA ships suspected terrorists to third-party countries where abusive interrogation methods are employed that are illegal in the United States. Essentially, the “renditions program” is the conscious and deliberate outsourcing of torture...As the London Times put it: “The CIA would not shop anywhere else, which is why a mysterious Gulfstream 5 executive jet routinely delivers terrorist subjects from Afghanistan [to Uzbekistan] for interrogation and, perhaps, percolation.”

"...Perhaps the greatest American apologist for Uzbekistan’s tyrant has been Stephen Schwartz, a onetime member of the neocon Foundation for the Defense of Democracies who is most celebrated for his purple prose advocating regime change in Saudi Arabia...As he wrote in the neocon journal The Weekly Standard in 2002, the situation in Uzbekistan was about as good as it could get.

"Explaining away the grisly record of the Karimov regime, Schwartz asserted that “before freedom can be established, the enemies of freedom must be defeated. The fate of democracies that do not defeat the enemies of democracy is illustrated by the histories of Germany and Italy after the First World War. Democracies can grant mercy to their enemies only from a position of unchallengeable strength...Since September 11, the United States no longer accepts the claim that the free exercise of terrorist agitation, incitement, and organization outweighs the benefits of legal sanction,” Schwartz wrote.

(Schwartz, quoted in Murray,) "The United States, which has entered into a military alliance with Uzbekistan, must support the Uzbeks in their internal as well as their external combat, and must repudiate the blandishments of the human rights industry.” (8)

As Justin Raimondo has noted in a number of grim, humorous and on-target columns about the sordid and clownish Suleyman/Sandalio/Schwartz:

"Here is someone whose long march through the ideologies started out on the far-left fringe of Trotskyism -- as "Comrade Sandalio," he was the leader (and sole member) of the 'Fomento Obrero Revolucionario' of the United States (FOCUS) -- and who wound up on the opposite shore, where he became "Suleyman Ahmad," the Jewish convert to Islam and a self-described "New Age rightist."

"No matter what sort of idelogical drag he turns up in, however, Schwartz always sings essentially the same song. During his travels through the Balkans, he teamed up with Albania Catholics, whom he claimed were "Threated by Christian Orthodox Imperialism -- 'Yugoslav,' Macedonian, Greek." Clinton had barely begun bombing some of the oldest cities in Europe when Schwartz popped up on Bay Area television cheerleading the Kosovo war. Now the enemy is Wahabism, instead of Orthodoxy, but it's the same old story: the US must conduct a religious war to suit Schwartz's latest persona -- whatever that is...

"...From the sectarian politics of the left-communist fringe to the halls of the Institute for Contemporary Studies and on to the Voice of America, this chameleon has changed his spots several times over, but always, you'll note, in search of a job. The only problem is that he has to blot out half his resume in search of the next one.

"Aside from opportunism, however, there is an ideological theme to Schwartz's recent career: Wherever there is a war, there is Stephen Schwartz, hovering vulture-like, demanding an escalation of the conflict. From the class war, to the Kosovo war, to the "war on terrorism," the war-bird Schwartz pops up on every battlefield, like some macabre jack-in-the-box..." (9)

And in "Portrait of a War Bird..."

"...Busy, busy, busy, and always in the service of conflict...there is Stephen Schwartz, circling over the battlefield and feeding off the carnage. Caw! Caw! Caw!" (10)

TO BE CONTINUED...

Arena Two: Noir Fiction. Stuart Christie, editor. Publisher: PM Press.
Publication Date: 2/1/2011 ISBN: 9781604862140

Footnotes to Part One:

(1) "Vista la actitud del unico militante de FOCUS que concemos y que es plenamente apoyado por otros miembro (hasta ahora desconocides) de este grupo rompemos toda relacion con ellos."
("In view of the attitude of the only militant of FOCUS that we know of and who is plainly supported by the other members of this group (who we know nothing about) we totally break all reletions with them.")
ALARMA #13, May 1982.

"This group has never contained (till our break up with it) anyone but Sandalio, as far as we know."
(Correspondance of FOR with Morgan Miller of Portland, Oregon, dated 9-12-83.

ALARME: (write without mentioning the name)
BP 329
75624 Paris Cedex 13 FRANCE

FOR is, or was, a small left communist tendency in France and Spain, founded in 1958 by a group including Benjamin Peret and Grandizo Munis. The FOR originated in the Trotskyist movement after World War Two. For more on ther origins, see footnote #3 in my article 'From Munis to Meese,...' cited below.

Copies of FOR materials available from me, at proletaire2003@yahoo.com

(2) Letter of John Zerzan to the Detroit, Michigan anarchist newspaper the 'Fifth Estate', Nov.12, 1985

(3) ``Buttoned-Down Bohemians - Welcome to San Francisco's New Age Right.'' 'Image' magazine, San Francisco Examiner, Sunday August 3, 1986

(4) "When “New Age Rightist” Stephen Schwartz discovered graffiti calling him “the philosophical whore of North Beach,” the former Trotskyite turned red with rage.
He uncapped his felt-tipped pen and was printing a reply to the scurrilous scribblings when he was busted by Mayor Feinstein's anti-graffiti police squad on a charge of malicious mischief, defacing the wall of a Vallejo Street construction site.
Schwartz...has demanded a trial to exonerate his exercise of free speech.

“I was just going to answer that I was not the philosophical whore of North Beach,” said Schwartz, 37.

If he wants a trial, he can have it, said Assistant District Attorney Joseph Hoffman, who believes citizens have the right to speak out under the First Amendment — but with limits.

“The remedy is that he can stand on a street corner and yell all he wants that he's not the philosophical whore of North Beach,” Hoffman said. “But he can't go around defacing other people's property.”

('A Battle Over Right to Write.' He wanted to rebut graffiti with graffiti
by Dennis J. Opatrny, of the Examiner staff. 'San Francisco Examiner', May 7, 1987.)

(5) Clifford Geertz, "Which Way to Mecca." 'New York Review of Books,' Volume 50, Number 11, July 3, 2003

(6) Frederich Nietzsche. "On the Geneology of Morals," Translated by Walter Kaufmann and R.J. Hollingdale. Vintage Books/Random House, 1967. 36.

(7) Justin Raimondo, "Wackos, Weirdos and Wingdings. The War Party -- a scary, ugly lot." 'Antiwar.com,' June 2, 2003. http://www.antiwar.com/justin/j060203.html

(8) Stephen J. Snikgoski, "Idealistic democracy, total hypocrisy, and Israel: America's man in Uzbekistan." June 22, 2005. http://craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2005/06/idealistic_demo_1/
Posted on the blog of Craig Murray, former British Ambassador to Uzbekistan.

Quote of tough guy Schwartz dismissing "the blandishments of the human rights industry" regarding systematic police rapes, torture, and boiling people to death is from, Schwartz, "Defending Freedom from Islamist Terror," 'Weekly Standard,' July 19, 2003.

(9) Justin Raimondo, "The VOA Folies -- 'Voice of America' loses a writer -- and the War Party gains a martyr." 'Antiwar.com,' July 5, 2002.
http://www.antiwar.com/justin/j070502.html

(10) Justin Raimondo, "Portrait of a War Bird -- 10 questions for 'the philosophical whore of North Beach." 'Antiwar.com,' Dec.6, 2002.
http://www.antiwar.com/justin/j120602.html

See also my article, 'From Munis to Meese: Left Communism or State Department Surrealism',
(http://www.infoshop.org/myep/munis_meese.html) based on my encounters with Steve Schwartz in the final stages of his 'Comrade Sandalio' song and dance routine in the summer and fall of 1984.

Kevin Keating
San Francisco USA
e-mail: proletaire2003@yahoo.com
Homepage: http://www.infoshop.org/myep/love_index.html

Resuming Peace Process Hypocrisy to Subvert Palestinian Statehood

Resuming Peace Process Hypocrisy to Subvert Palestinian Statehood - by Stephen Lendman

On September 20, London Guardian writer Chris McGreal headlined, "Palestinian statehood: plan emerges to avoid UN showdown," saying:

<blockquote>Washington-led "(i)nternational efforts to forestall a showdown in the UN Security Council over the declaration of a Palestinian state are solidifying around a plan for (Abbas) to submit a request for recognition but (agree to) put (a vote) on hold while a new round of peace talks is launched."</blockquote>

The plan also calls for establishing a timeline for creating a Palestinian state. In addition, it'll let Abbas go home saying he got something even with nothing to show for it.

<blockquote>"However, diplomats warned that a number of issues remain unresolved, including a Palestinian demand that" any deal includes halting settlement construction.</blockquote>

On September 22, Netanyahu again refused, saying:

<blockquote>"I did something that no previous Israeli government did. I actually froze any construction for ten months, waited nine months and one week; then Palestinians came and said, well keep on freezing."</blockquote>

In fact, construction never stopped. Israel's land grab continued. In many West Bank settlements, building proceeded apace. Dozens of construction sites remained active.

Moreover, Netanyahu declared a moratorium, not a freeze. Peace Now.org (PN) assessed what went on eight months into it. It found construction ongoing for 600 or more housing units in 60 settlements, and at least 492 others announced in direct violation of Netanyahu's pledge.

Near its end, PN explained that about 2,000 units were being built, saying "almost no freeze" existed, not "even a visible slowdown." It showed Israel wasn't enforcing the moratorium despite its rhetoric to the contrary.

On September 21, Obama met one-on-one with Abbas, telling him what everyone knows - that he'll veto a Security Council resolution if enough opposition votes aren't gotten to avoid one.

Netanyahu appealed for resuming peace talks with no preconditions. An unnamed diplomat said Abbas is amenable, but needs something to bring home to show he didn't come back empty-handed.

Palestinian spokesman Husam Zomlot said he remains committed to petitioning the Security Council Friday, but also wants peace talks resumed.

<blockquote>"There is absolutely no contradiction whatsoever between our quest for (UN) full membership and any possible negotiations," he said. "In fact, we see them as complementary. We are seeking this to provide any future bilateral process with sufficient multilateral cover where we don't waste another 20 years."</bloskquote>

Abbas appears willing to sacrifice what he came for as long as he has something to show on return, even if it's only restarting peace talks that never worked before and won't now.

In fact, they've been stillborn for decades. Washington and Israel reject an equitable, sustainable peace. Instead they opt for conflict.

With its veto, America blocked past General Assembly efforts for conflict resolution and Palestinian self-determination by overwhelming margins, including:

GA Resolution 3236 (1974) recognizing Palestinian self-determination; and

most recently on December 2, 2009 passing six resolutions to promote inalienable Palestinian rights for statehood, as well as ending Israel's illegal actions in Jerusalem and Golan.

The votes passed by margins of 109 - 8, 112 - 9, 162 - 8, 164 - 7, 163 - 7, and 116 - 7. Those against, in one or more resolutions, included America, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Panama, Ivory Coast, a few tiny Pacific islands, and, of course, Israel.

Since the mid-1970s, the "peace process" was little more than a slogan for what's been stillborn for over 35 years.

Pressured by the Israeli Lobby, Washington values Israel as an important ally in this strategically important part of the world.

It's vital to America's plan to control Eurasia with 75% of the world's population, most of its resources and physical wealth, and three-fourths of its energy reserves. They comprise the grandest of grand prizes, too valuable to let slip away, and one not to let peace obstruct.

After the 1967 Six Day War, the "Allon Plan," named after Defense Minister (later Prime Minister) Yigal Allon, was an early rejectionist measure, proposing:

"maximum land with minimum Arabs;"

annexing the choicest 40% of the West Bank and Gaza, including the Jordan Valley and Dead Sea's western shore;

expropriating a substantial area around Greater Jerusalem, including the Latrun salient; other portions would be seized later to secure full control of a united city, never again to be divided;

dispossessing Palestinians from areas Israel wants solely for Jews;

building permanent settlements and army bases; and

making remaining parts of the West Bank an autonomous region economically linked to Israel.

Since 1948, these strategic concepts have been part of Israel's military doctrine. They've influenced Israeli-Palestinian negotiations to this day. The terms "territorial compromise" and "land for peace" refer to Allon's rejection of Palestinian self-determination. They still do now.

Israel makes genuine negotiations impossible by demanding one-sided advantages. Everything for Israel! Nothing for Palestinians with rhetoric formulated to disguise it, mainly by planning later final status talks that never come.

It's been that way since the first April 1949 Lausanne, Switzerland peace conference, proposing a three-tier agreement, including:

diaspora Palestinians' unconditional right of return;

Jerusalem as an international city; and

a two-state solution, on equal portions of land.

Israel rejected it. It kept 78% of historic Palestine and granted Jordan the right to annex the West Bank and part of Jerusalem.

Egypt controlled Gaza. Peace efforts were suspended, and weren't resumed until the 1967 Six Day War left the West Bank and Gaza occupied. As a result, an unfavorable negotiating environment was created.

Today's situation is intolerable with over 500,000 settlers controlling over 40% of what Palestinians want for their state. Moreover, they're hamstrung by expanding settlements, Israel's Separation Wall, military bases, no-go areas, nature reserves, Jews-only roads, hundreds of checkpoints and barriers, as well as other impediments to real peace.

Combined, they've restricted Palestinians to shrinking cantonized communities surrounded by growing numbers of hostile Jews. They, in turn, want Judea and Samaria for themselves as well as all Jerusalem as their capital.

Peace in our time never came. Another incarnation won't produce it because Palestinians have no willing partner. Abbas knows it. He negotiated the sham Oslo Accords.

Yet apparently he'll accept another charade to put off for later or maybe never what Palestinians want and deserve now - statehood and full de jure UN membership within 1967 borders (22% of historic Palestine).

A Final Comment

Gideon Levy calls Palestinians the new Jews, comparing Arafat to Ben-Gurion. Abbas, Salam Fayyad and Saeb Erekat resemble former Israeli officials.

<blockquote>"They (exhibit the) same moderation, the same nondescript personality, the same pragmatism, the same political wisdom and even" a similar sense of humor. Their game is "take what is attainable....give up big dreams," and come away with too little to matter.</blockquote>

He calls it amazing that Israelis think Palestinian rights threaten their own. Why can't they understand that "almost the entire world is with the Palestinians...."

At birth, Israel "was considered a model society," despite the toll on displaced Palestinians to achieve it. Today the situation is "beyond recognition....With quite a number of corrupt Israeli politicians in prison or on the way there," with neoliberal harshness benefitting the few only, and a harsh occupation turning an earlier success story into a "missed opportunity."

For 63 years, Palestinians suffered for rejecting the 1947 partition plan. Israelis reject a 2011 one. Will they ahead pay dearly "for their stubborn and surprising opposition" to compromise for peace in our time.

It's on the table, but it would be out of character for Israel or Washington to grab it.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.

http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour/.

Palestinian Statehood: If not Now, When?

Palestinian Statehood: If not Now, When? by Stephen Lendman

After 63 years, including 44 under occupation, 85% of Palestinians want statehood now, not later or perhaps never.

Israel and Washington object, wanting permanent occupation and subjugation.

A previous article said a "silent agreement" among Western powers may postpone Security Council and General Assembly votes for later dates to be announced.

Sources also claim Abbas wants it for more negotiating time with America.

Delay very much benefits Washington and Israel for reasons, including:

more time for high-pressure strong-arming;

to get more anti-statehood Security Council votes to to avoid an embarrassing veto;

getting the issue out of headlines; and

convincing Abbas to drop the idea altogether in return for special favors and enough sweetners to take home to say he got something.

On September 20, Los Times writer Paul Richter headlined, "UN may delay vote on Palestinian statehood application," saying:

The plan calls for putting off a vote indefinitely to avoid an embarrassing US veto and let Washington try to restart peace talks that never worked before and won't now.

It "would also keep $600 million a year in American aid and other international assistance flowing to the Palestinians. Congress threatened to cut the US aid."

Unnamed sources said Abbas "signed off on the plan," providing more evidence of what he had in mind all along - betrayal while coming home with something to say he tried.

Whether other PA officials go along isn't known. However, according to PLO Executive Committee member and PA legislator Hanan Ashrawi:

Palestinian officials are willing "to accept some delay, of the kind you would have under normal UN procedures."

But if it's being done to undermine the process, "we have recourse to other action," suggesting going to the General Assembly ahead of the Security Council.

Procedure requires both on statehood issues.

The Security Council acts promptly when Western interests are favored.

Voting for the illegitimate Libyan Transitional National Council regime and balkanized South Sudan most recently.

Otherwise it organizes committees for further deliberation or finds other ways to delay what it wants subverted.

Palestinian statehood and full de jure UN membership top Washington's agenda now in New York, going all out against long delayed justice.

It's America's pastime - supporting what's wrong over right, especially against people or nations who can't challenge.

Palestinians Rally for Statehood

On September 21, Haaretz writers Avi Issacharoff and Anshel Pfeffer headlined, "Thousands rally in Ramallah to back Palestinian statehood bid," saying:

Thousands filled "Yasser Arafat Square in central Ramallah on Wednesday (to) support" Palestinian statehood.

A huge displayed sign read "UN 194," signifying Palestine as the 194th member state.

Many waved Palestinian flags or condemned a threatened US veto.

Students got the day off to attend. The teachers union asked ministry of high education employees and directorates of education, private schools, and UNRWA ones to participate.

Thousands also turned out in Bethlehem, Nablus and Hebron.

Fatah leader Mahmoud Al-Alul spoke for others, saying:

"Yes, we want to change the rules of the game because we spent a long time in negotiations, and we made every possible effort to achieve a just and honorable peace. This Israeli government (and previous ones don't seek it), but rather (want) settlement expansion to satisfy settlers."

The International Middle East Media Center said rallies are being held in many countries for Palestinian statehood, including America.

On September 16, hundreds turned out in New York in support. One protester said trying for what's right will eventually work. Another said:

"Time is with the Palestinians. There is no question. History has taught us that people do get justice. It is going to be a long process. It will not happen tomorrow, but it will happen. I have every faith. I may not see it in my lifetime, but it will be."

It won't happen during the 66th General Assembly session because Washington, Israel, and key EU nations blocking tactics without objection from Abbas, regardless of what he says publicly to appease supporters.

Settlers Rally Against Statehood

On September 21, several hundred extremist ones marched in West Bank areas to protest what they only want Jews to enjoy.

Itmar settlement participants were escorted by Israeli soldiers.

Spokesman for northern West Bank settlers David Haivri said:

"The Jewish residents of Judea and Samaria are unfazed by the international media buzz going on around the Abbas circus at the UN."

Opposing "members of our community held symbolic processions (to express) our sovereignty on the land. Abbas can play house at the UN, but even he knows that it is a show with no real implications."

Indeed so, and he's a willing participant.

On September 20, dozens of settlers attacked Asira al-Qibiliaya, a Palestinian village near Nablus. Some were armed and fired weapons.

Israeli troops and police fired rubber bullets and tear gas against victims, making a bad situation worse. Several injured Palestinians required hospitalization, including a 14-year boy struck by a tear gas canister.

Obama in the General Assembly in 2010 and Now

Last year he said:

A year ago "I pledged my best efforts to support the goal of two states, Israel and Palestine, living side by side in peace and security, as part of a comprehensive peace between Israel and its neighbors."

"If an agreement is not reached, Palestinians will never know the pride and dignity that comes with their own state. Israelis will never know the certainty and security that comes with sovereign and stable neighbors who are committed to co-existence."

"I refuse to accept that future....This time we should reach for what's best within ourselves. If we do, when we come back here next year, we can have an agreement that will lead to a new member of the United Nations - an independent, sovereign state of Palestine, living in peace with Israel."

That was then. This is now. Obama's gone all out to subvert statehood, vowing to veto a Security Council resolution for it.

On September 21, 2011 in New York, he said Palestinians "deserve a state of their own. But....genuine peace can only be realized between Israelis and Palestinians themselves."

So far, "the parties have not bridged their differences."

"Peace will not come through statements and (UN) resolutions...."

Israelis and Palestinians "must reach agreement on the issues that divide them....Peace depends upon compromise."

"America's commitment to Israel's security is unshakeable." Peace depends on acknowledging "real security concerns that Israel faces every single day. Let's be honest: Israel is surrounded by neighbors that have waged repeated wars against it."

Fact check

Palestinians sought peace for decades. Israel spurned all initiatives, choosing conflict over diplomacy and justice.

Palestinians never had a willing partner. They don't now in Tel Aviv or Washington.

Nuclear armed, Israel is the most formidable regional power. It's faced no threats for almost 40 years. In contrast, neighboring states Lebanon and Syria face real ones as do Palestinians under occupation.

Peace indeed requires compromise. Israel offers none. Like Washington, it doesn't negotiate. It demands.

Obama barely stopped short of endorsing Israeli crimes in so many words. His agenda strongly supports them.

For many decades, it's been longstanding US policy. Many times it did so by vetoing dozens of resolutions condemning or censuring it for its actions against the Palestinians or other Arab people, deploring it for committing them, or demanding, calling on or urging the Jewish state to end them.

Israel never did or will now. In fact, for over three decades, it's flagrantly violated passed resolutions.

In March 1980, the Security Council unanimously adopted UN Resolution 465. It addressed Israel's illegal occupation of Palestine and Syria's Golan Heights.

it condemned Israel's policy of "setting parts of its population and new Immigrants in those territories (and said doing so constituted) a flagrant violation of the fourth Geneva Convention relative to the protection of civilian persons in time of war and also constitute a serious obstruction to achieving a comprehensive, just and lasting peace in the Middle East."

It called on Israel to "dismantle the existing settlements and in particular to cease....the establishment, construction and planning of (new) settlements in the Arab territories since 1967, including Jerusalem."

In 1977, Menachem Begin refused Jimmy Carter's request to freeze settlement activity. At the time, about 50,000 Israelis lived in East Jerusalem, only 7,000 in 45 West Bank and Gaza outposts.

In 1985, West Bank/Gaza settlers numbered 42,000, doubling their 1982 population. Today, it tops 500,000 and continues increasing on stolen Palestinian land. American funding supports it.

In June 1980, the Security Council passed Resolution 476. It also called for ending Israel's illegal occupation and condemned Israel for refusing to obey other Security Council and General Assembly resolutions demanding it.

Israel never complies. Supported by Washington, it does what it pleases with impunity. Palestinians, of course, suffer most.

They now want Israeli repression ended. Statehood is step one to achieve it. Abbas isn't in New York for it.

He's representing Israel and Washington, not his own people. He's replicating what he's done disgracefully for years.

Getting out from under him, his number two Salam Fayyad, and their hangers on is key to finally achieving Palestinian rights they've been long denied.

Obama's speech showed help from Washington isn't coming. Palestinian officials and analysts were disappointed, reading what he said as one-sided support for Israel.

In other words, he reiterated longstanding US policy to keep Palestine occupied and subjugated permanently.

Palestinians say that no longer will be tolerated and demand going on their own for justice.

A Final Comment

The Tel Aviv-based Reut Institute (RI) works pro bono for Israeli government agencies. It provides "real-time strategic decision-making" support in areas of national security and socioeconomic policy.

On September 13, it published a policy paper titled, "The Declaration of Palestinian Statehood: An Unparalleled Political Opportunity," offering a "framework for an Israeli political initiative" for Palestinian statehood.

Though deeply flawed, its principles include the following:

Independent Palestine and full UN membership will be recognized by America, Israel and other world governments;

"two-states-for-two-peoples" will refer to Jewish and Palestinian Arab ones;

the PA will maintain all powers granted by Oslo and subsequent agreements; recognizing Hamas will depend on fulfilling Quartet demands;

elements of sovereignty will be upgraded; Palestine could issue its own currency and negotiate international trade agreements, "but its final borders and security arrangements with Israel would" have to be agreed on;

initial territory would include Gaza and the West Bank; "the illegitimate Hamas....would not be recognized by Israel and the international community;"

Washington would guarantee agreed-on security arrangements; "Gaza would not be connected to the West Bank through a safe passage until similar arrangements are established on its border with Egypt;"

Israel's self-defense right from Palestinian threats would be recognized;

independent Palestine would exclusively represent its people;

elections would determine future leaders and representatives;

Israeli-Palestinian negotiations would decide borders, security, economic and trade issues, environmental ones, and matters relating to Jerusalem;

West Bank Palestinian prisoners would be released as a goodwill gesture; and

diaspora Palestinians could return.

RI calls "now" the "ideal time to launch such an Israeli initiative," omitting reasons most important. They include:

Israel's growing isolation;

rage against it on Arab streets;

growing global boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) initiatives; and

most of all because it's the right thing to do.

RI's initiative is noteworthy for proposing Palestinian statehood in contrast to strong Israeli/Washington opposition.

However, its elements fall way short of full sovereign independence, including 22% of historic Palestine within 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital.

Moreover, all states may elect whatever leaders they choose. Hamas is Occupied Palestine's legitimate government. Recognizing that and ending its foreign terrorist organization status is essential. Calling it an "illegitimate regime" can't be tolerated.

Nor can Israel's illegal occupation, theft of Palestinian land and resources, settlements for Jews only, the Separation Wall, and other ways Arabs are oppressed and discriminated against unjustly.

Less than full sovereign rights, including these, is failure. RI represents Israel. Palestinians need world leaders respecting ones they elect to represent them.

With all the above conditions met, a major step forward will be achieved. Now's the time for it.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.

http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour/.

Full Court Press to Deny Palestinians Statehood

Full Court Press to Deny Palestinians Statehood - by Stephen Lendman

Palestinians deserved and were ready for statehood 63 years ago. Washington, Israel, other detractors, and naysayers say not now.

Libya's illegitimate Transitional National Council (TNC) puppet regime got theirs in less than 63 minutes.

Palestinians overwhelmingly want what imperial America and Israel intend to deny them. In fact, they're applying hardball pressure for it right now.

Palestinians have other ideas.

On September 18, Haaretz writers Ron Ben-Tovim headlined, "Majority of Palestinians believe UN statehood bid will succeed," explaining:

They also think Israel and America will respond harshly. Nonetheless, an independent Palestinian Near East Consulting poll showed 84% of Palestinians support statehood now. Moreover, they think the PA is capable of running it.

On September 13, Haaretz writer Danna Harman headlined, "Poll shows Europeans overwhelmingly in favor of Palestinian statehood," saying:

The "Internet-based movement, Avaaz," requested the poll conducted by YouGov in Britain and Germany, and Ifop in France. They showed 84% of Germans favor statehood, 82% in France, and 71% of Brits.

In addition, large majorities in all three countries want their governments to back and recognize it.

Citizens across Europe and other countries express similar sentiments.

On September 18, the BBC reported poll numbers strongly back statehood.

"The poll of 20,446 citizens conducted by GlobeScan (showed among countries surveyed) 49 percent back (it), while 21 per cent say their government should oppose it." Others are undecided.

Support is strongest in Egypt, Turkey, Pakistan, Indonesia, as well as other Muslim countries and China. Even Americans support it by a 45 - 36% margin.

GlobeScan Chairman Doug Miller said:

"If countries' citizens had a vote at the UN, the poll suggests that Palestine would receive official UN recognition."

In other words, most of the world backs doing the right thing. Many of those against or undecided may either worry about harsh US and Israeli recrimination or don't understand the implications of voting yes or no.

Palestinians know and say:

No more delays.

No more reasons why not.

No more obstruction.

No more let's make a deal.

No more maybe next time, not now.

No more yielding to American and Israeli pressure, threats and intimidation.

Now's the time! The name of the game is justice!

Palestine is Ready for Independence

On September 20, AP said donor countries and international lending agencies back Palestinian statehood, including the IMF and World Bank.

Norwegian Foreign Minister, Gahr Stoere, head of the Donors Support Group, called Palestinian institutions "a remarkable success story on the international level."

He strongly supports statehood despite obstacles presented by Israel's occupation and Gaza's siege.

Ami Ayalon, former Israeli Shin Bet (its internal security service) head backs it, saying:

"After voting for the Palestinian state, Israel should start negotiations over borders....We should realize that the Palestinian move came due to the lack of other options."

He added that Israel has itself to blame for its growing isolation and believes it's essential to formulate a new policy.

Enlightened millions globally agree, including growing numbers of Jews in Israel and elsewhere.

On September 16, Israeli ex-pat Gilad Atzmon headlined an article, "Obama, the Palestinian State & Zionist Schizophrenia," saying:

Monitoring the Hebrew press shows "a clear split within the Jewish collective psyche."

In fact, "most Israelis actually want the Palestinian initiative to go ahead and to succeed."

They believe achieving it is the best way to "save the 'Jews only State' from a demographic meltdown" because Palestinian numbers are growing faster than Jewish ones.

Polls show Israelis clearly favor Palestinian statehood. Not only that, "they actually love" the idea.

Opposing it are Netanyahu, Avigdor Lieberman, other political hard-liners, extremist settlers, diaspora Zionists, and the powerful Israeli Lobby.

"What we see here in practice is a clear identity crisis or even a schizophrenic counter flow of aspirations between" two opposing sides - most for it, others against.

It's long past time for responsible parties to stand tall for what's right, regardless of intimidating threats and pressure. It holds for ordinary people as well as nations with UN voting power.

Most important, it holds for PA president Abbas to pursue statehood responsibly. Previous articles said he won't. He signaled it in body language and explicit comments.

En route to New York, he told reporters:

"We decided to take this step and all hell has broken out against us."

"From now until I give the speech (on September 23), we have only one choice: going to the Security Council. Afterward, we will sit and decide."

His aides said he may also go to the General Assembly for an upgrade from observer to non-member state. However, doing so is accepting status quo failure, leaving Palestinians back at square one. As a result:

They'll be denied statehood.

They'll remain an occupied Israeli vassal state.

They'll have no rights.

The PA will remain Israel's enforcer against its own people with no independent power.

It'll have no control of its borders, air space or Gaza shoreline and waters. Nor can it end Gaza's siege.

More Palestinian land will be stolen for Israeli settlements.

Also its resources, mainly water.

East Jerusalem will become entirely Judaized, excluding Palestinians altogether and their right to have it as their capital.

Diaspora Palestinians will have no right to return.

Institutionalized racism will continue.

So will constant fear, economic strangulation, collective punishment, mass arrests, torture, neighborhood incursions, Israel's expanding Separation Wall, curfews, roadblocks, checkpoints, barriers, by-pass roads, barbed wire, electric fences, isolation in bantustans, daily humiliation, and naked aggression whenever Israel chooses to wage it against defenseless civilians.

Nonetheless, expect Abbas to settle for what no responsible leader should tolerate any time.

His disgraceful record shows he'll again prove his collaborationist credentials, opting as well for more peace negotiations that never before worked and won't now.

Systemic wrongs will continue. Poverty, unemployment, and repression will remain extreme. Institutionalized denial will substitute for freedom later, not now or maybe never.

Palestinian winter will replace hoped for spring. Status quo subjugation will be enforced by a puppet figurehead, a disgraceful Israeli collaborationist.

It's time for Palestinians to decide their own fate - freedom or bondage under rogue leaders like Abbas, his number two Salam Fayyad, and their hangers-on for whatever privileges they enjoy at the expense of their own people.

America's Media Never Quit

Unanimously they oppose statehood. A September 19 Washington Post editorial headlined, "A heedless rush for Palestinian statehood," saying:

Abbas "acknowledged (that statehood) will be more hardship for" Palestinians. "Congress may terminate US aid....Israel is hinting at retaliation....(V)iolent confrontation(s) with Israel" may ensue.

Fact check

Instead of supporting the right thing at the right time, WP echoed extremist threats that may, in fact, not occur given Israel's growing isolation and waning US regional influence.

As a result, if either country piles on more hardships it may only shoot itself in the foot, so why risk it with so little to gain.

WP, in fact, acknowledges that Israel "stands to lose" by taking a hardline position on statehood. "The United States, too, could pay a price in the Arab world if it is forced to" use its veto.

Nonetheless, Abbas "appears likely to stick with his grand gesture - and to let Palestinians pay the price."

Fact check

Failure will cost Palestinians much more than independence bordering Israel. If achieved, they'll be free at last, no matter what hardships lie ahead.

That reality defeats the unfortunate position of naysayers seeing a half empty, not half full glass with statehood.

Flawed freedom beats subjugation any time. It's step one toward better times no matter what hardships remain.

On August 28, 1963, a quarter million people heard Martin Luther King's "I have a dream" speech at Washington's Lincoln Memorial 100 years after Black people still weren't free, and aren't now.

He said he came to Washington "to cash a check," guaranteeing "the 'unalienable rights' of 'life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.' "

He "refuse(d) to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt."

That America's Blacks are excluded from "the riches of freedom and the security of justice."

"Now is the time to make justice a reality," he said.

"We can never be satisfied" with victimhood and second class citizen status.

He had a dream still unfulfilled, but success depends on trying, staying in the struggle for what's right.

Palestinians have a dream after 63 years of denial. They've never had a better chance for step one than now.

Naysayers aren't welcome in their struggle as defeatists.

Others proudly stand for what's right over wrong always.

It includes liberating Palestine no matter what lies ahead for achieving it.

Subjugation no longer can be tolerated. Nor can naysayers.

A Final Comment

On September 20, Ma'an News said seven Security Council members committed to support statehood. Two more are needed to force a Washington veto.

The same day, Haaretz writer Shlomo Shamir headlined, "Report: UN vote on Palestinian statehood might be delayed for weeks," saying:

"Sources say a 'silent agreement' exists among Western powers to act to postpone" Security Council and General Assembly votes for later dates to be announced.

Sources also "claim Abbas is interested in postponing the Security Council vote," allegedly for more negotiating time with Washington.

Clearly America wants resolution delayed as long as possible for several likely reasons, including:

-- more time for high-pressure strong-arming;

-- without enough Security Council votes to get more to avoid an embarrassing veto;

-- getting the issue out of headlines; and

-- convincing Abbas to drop the idea altogether in return for special favors.

Given his intent already, he may agree with some bogus sweetners thrown in to say at least he got something.

He surrendered unconditionally at Oslo but came home claiming peace in our time.

Expect it again once UN business wraps up.

At issue is will Palestinians and their supporters accept betrayal when victory is so close at hand?

Stay tuned. This issue isn't going away.

At least not until Palestinians get what they want and deserve.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.

http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour/.

Let's All Play "Bibi Says"!!!

It was a Friday when I heard Israeli PM, Benjamin Netanyahu, was going to address the UN General Assembly ahead of the vote to recognize Palestinian statehood, so I just had to come up with a way to lighten the mood.

Let's All Play "Bibi Says"!!!

Obama and Netanyahu to Palestinians on Statehood: Go to Hell

Obama and Netanyahu to Palestinians on Statehood: Go to Hell - by Stephen Lendman

"(T)he (UN) General Assembly shall meet every year in regular session commencing on the Tuesday of the third week in September, counting from the first week that contains at least one working day."

The 66th session began Tuesday, September 13. Access its agenda through the following link:

http://www.un.org/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=A/66/250http://www.un.org/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=A/66/250

On Friday, September 23, Abbas and Netanyahu will address the body. Obama plans to do it Wednesday, September 21.

According to Middle East expert Jon Alterman:

"The president's actions have gotten him anger on all sides, and accolades on none," with good reason. "I don't know an easy way to get out of this problem."

Put another way: He made his bed. Now he has to sleep in it!

So does The New York Times. Its longstanding editorial policy notoriously turns a blind eye to the most egregious injustices - notably on Israeli/Palestinian issues.

As a result, it virulently opposes Palestinian statehood and full UN membership, no matter how just, right and timely.

Supporting the right thing, in fact, was never The Times long suit.

It's September 11 editorial is one of many examples. Headlined, "Palestinian Statehood," it calls a UN vote for it "ruinous," adding:

"If a UN vote takes place, Washington and its partners will have to limit the damage...."

On September 18, Times writer Neil MacFarquhar headlined, "Palestinians Turn to UN, Where Partition Began," referring to the 1947 partition plan. More on it below.

According to America's UN ambassador Susan Rice:

"There is no magic wand. There is no magic piece of paper here or anywhere else. In order to achieve the creation of a Palestinian state with clear boundaries, with sovereignty, with the ability to secure itself and provide for its people, there has to be a negotiated settlement."

According to MacFarquhar:

"The United States and Israel accuse the Palestinians of turning to the United Nations in a futile attempt to short-circuit the direct negotiations."

Fact check

Representing Obama, Rice endorses continued occupation and bantustan isolation on worthless scrub land.

"Negotiations" never worked before and won't now. Israeli and Washington demands offer nothing in return but continued bondage and occupation.

Given America's opposition, Palestine's only option is General Assembly approval under the 1950 Uniting for Peace Resolution 377 with authority to override an expected Security Council veto.

As a long-time Israeli collaborationist, expect Abbas to muddle through the current session ineffectively.

Though statehood and full UN membership are within easy grasp, smart money wagers he'll either accept Security Council rejection or pursue worthless half loaf General Assembly failure, calling it success.

Either way, Palestinians will be back to square one, occupied, disenfranchised and betrayed.

The 1947 Partition Plan and Other UN Resolutions

On November 29, 1947, the UN General Assembly passed Resolution 181, the Palestine Partition Plan, granting 56% of historic Palestine to Jews (with one-third of the population), 42% to Palestinians.

In addition, Jerusalem was designated an international city (a corpus separatum - separate body) under a UN Trusteeship Council. The area included all Jerusalem, Bethlelem, and Beit Sahour, to encompass Christian holy sites.

Resolution 181 called for an Independent Arab state by October 1, 1948, asking:

"all Governments and peoples to refrain from taking any action which might hamper or delay the carrying out of these recommendations."

The Security Council was to take "the necessary measures as provided for in the plan for its implementation."

Israel had other ideas. On May 14, 1948, its "War of Independence" (what Palestinians call the Nakba, or catastrophe) created the Jewish state on 78% of historic Palestine. Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem were excluded.

On December 2, 1947, the General Assembly (GA) passed Resolution 32/40 A and B, stating deep concern:

"that no just solution to the problem of Palestine has been achieved and that this problem therefore continues to aggravate the Middle East conflict, of which it is the core, and to endanger international peace and security."

It reaffirmed "that a just and lasting peace in the Middle East cannot be established without the achievement, inter alia, of a just solution of the problem of Palestine on the basis of the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people, including the right of return and the right to national independence and sovereignty in Palestine, in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations."

The Security Council was urged to act promptly. Sixty-three years later, it's done nothing to assure "a just solution to the problem of Palestine."

As a result, regional wars, occupation, and settlement expansions continue. Palestinians are still oppressed, dispossessed, isolated, and denied what UN resolutions and international laws mandate.

They include a viable sovereign state, East Jerusalem as its capital, and the right of diaspora refugees to return.

Obama and Netanyahu disagree, telling Palestinians to go to hell, not the Security Council or General Assembly.

Moreover, world leaders haven't held Israel accountable for breaching virtually all international humanitarian laws, as well as others on war and occupation.

Specifically, Israel refuses to recognize Palestinian sovereignty under provisions of the December 1960 UN General Assembly Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples, as well as all UN resolutions before and thereafter affirming Palestinian self-determination. They include:

(1) UN Resolution 181, the 1947 Partition Plan.

(2) GA Resolution (1965): Declaration on the Inadmissibility of Intervention in the Domestic Affairs of States and the Protection of Their Independence and Sovereignty, affirming the principle of non-intervention.

(3) Security Council (SC) Resolution 242 (1967), calling for an end of conflict and withdrawal of Israeli armed forces from occupied territories.

(4) The 1970 Declaration on Principles of International Law Concerning Friendly Relations and Cooperation among States in Accordance with the Charter of the United Nations.

(5) SC Resolution 298 (1971), affirming acquisition of territory by military conquest inadmissible, calling Israel's failure to observe previous resolutions deplorable.

(6) SC 338 (1973), affirming the same demand.

(7) GA Resolution 3236 (1974), recognizing Palestinian self-determination and expressing "grave concern" that they've been "prevented from enjoying (their) inalienable rights (to) self-determination....national independence and sovereignty....without external interference...."

(8) GA Resolution 3314 (1974) on the Definition of Aggression in accordance with the UN Charter and Charter of the Nuremberg Tribunal and its judgment, calling it the supreme international crime against peace.

(9) Numerous other SC and GA resolutions, affirming the principles of international law, including Geneva's Common Article 1, obliging all nations to enforce them, saying:

"The High Contracting Parties undertake to respect and to ensure respect for the present Convention in all circumstances."

Israel also won't comply with the Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid (the Apartheid Convention).

Under the Rome Statute, it includes murder, extermination, enslavement, torture, arbitrary arrest, illegal imprisonment, denial of the right to life and liberty, cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment, and other abusive acts imposed by one group or nation on another.

As a result, Palestinians have endured slow-motion genocide through:

-- wars of aggression;

-- mass deaths, injuries and arrests;

-- targeted assassinations;

-- torture;

-- land theft;

-- home demolitions;

-- dispossessions;

-- denial of their right to free movement, expression, and assembly;

-- their own resources, including water and offshore oil and gas;

-- control of their airspace, coastal waters and borders; and

-- other international law violations, including Gaza's suffocation under siege.

It's high time longstanding injustices ended, but don't expect it as the 11th hour approaches. Behind the scenes pressure continues to assure status quo betrayal.

Abbas and Prime Minister Fayyad are very much involved, working against their own people they're sworn to represent. They never have and won't now.

Instead of a done-deal, expect double-dealing duplicity complicit with Washington and Israel. They'll again sell out people who depend on them, though it's hard understanding why.

Abbas signaled defeat, saying:

"From now until I give the speech, we have only one choice: going to the Security Council (knowing it'll vote rejection). Afterward, we will sit and decide."

"Sitting" assures defeat and betrayal. Securing a General Assembly vote assures statehood and full UN membership if proper procedures are followed.

They won't be! Bet on it!

A Final Comment

On September 19, Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniya said:

"There is no mandate for any Palestinian leadership to infringe on Palestinian national rights, nor is there a mandate for any Palestinian actor to make historic concessions on Palestinian land or the right of the Palestinians, foremost among them the right of return."

"Given this position, we reiterate our rejection of (Abbas') bid."

Nonetheless, he'll "place (no) obstacles in the way of the establishment of a Palestinian state with full sovereignty," adding:

"We repeat today that we are with the establishment of a Palestinian state on any liberated part of (historic Palestine) that is agreed upon by the Palestinian people, without recognizing Israel or conceding any inch of historical Palestine."

Though believing all Palestine rightfully belongs to the Palestinian people, Hamas has long been willing to accept an independent state within 1967 borders in return for recognition and peace.

Israel adamantly refuses, wanting all valued West Bank land, as well as East Jerusalem entirely Judaized as Israel's capital, excluding Palestinians entirely.

Refusing concessions makes negotiations with an unwilling partner impossible.

It's why now's the time in New York for what can't be gotten any other way.

But it won't be when Abbas yields at the 11th hour.

Instead of statehood and full UN membership, he'll accept maybe next time, not now.

It's his longstanding agenda, collaborating with his Washington/Israeli partners against his own people.

It's about time they knew that justice depends on going around, not through, him. There is no alternative.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.

http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour/.

Abbas and Fayyad: Collaborationist Israeli Allies

Abbas and Fayyad: Collaborationist Israeli Allies - by Stephen Lendman

Five days ahead of Abbas petitioning the UN for Palestinian statehood and full UN membership, it's important to know who's friend or foe.

Abbas and Fayyad never did represent Palestinians and don't now.

Both lack legitimacy. Israel rigged Abbas' January 2005 presidential victory. Moreover, his term expired in January 2009. Nonetheless, he's still in office because Israel and Washington want him there.

Johnny for President - In Your Dreams

Johnny for President - In Your Dreams
http://www.multiupload.com/G4G2N9ZTLG

Justice to the war criminals of indiscriminate
warfare would better serve ourselves to halt for
our safety. The bushmob did 911.

1. The ISI's General, Mahmoud Ahmad funded 911's Atta

2. We have video of iron flowing like water from the towers

So, instead of fighting for Justice to preserve
freedom, America is lawlessly still led by the
unelected illiterate Tea Bagger Repuglicons -
who claim we don't need evidence to form
their guilty verdicts. On the matters of Good
and Evil. And some people call ME crazy..

Justice is key to securing a better
future for all as freedom standing

The Zombie Enemy Tea Bag Rightard Nazi