Wonderful piece of analysis of the hateful colonization program, from Flynt and Hillary Mann Leverett at Foreign Policy, showing that Obama has accepted pro-Israel premises inherent in George W. Bush's doomed roadmap project:
the road map's most significant flaw
comes in its third and final phase, where not a single word is presented
regarding the parameters for resolving the "final status" issues — borders,
Jerusalem, and Palestinian refugees — at the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict. We all know what these parameters are: 1967 boundaries will be the
starting point for negotiating final borders, with the possibility of marginal
and mutually agreed adjustments. Jerusalem will be shared as the capital of
both Israel and Palestine, with special arrangements for the holy sites in the
center of the Old City. Whatever arrangements are made to recompense and
resettle Palestinian refugees, perhaps even with the theoretical
acknowledgement of a "right of return," those arrangements will not be
implemented in a way that threatens Israel's Jewish-majority character.
Without
such final-status parameters, there can be no credible political horizon for
resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. But their omission was no accident.
Again, during 2002 and early 2003, Flynt Leverett argued vociferously within
the White House that such parameters were essential. But President Bush and his
senior national-security team believed them to be unfairly demanding of Israel,
and refused to include them.
By
explicitly declaring Israeli settlements illegal, Obama could have transcended
this fatal flaw in the road map. If settlements are illegal, then no
negotiating process grounded in international law could take any starting point
other than the 1967 boundaries for negotiating final borders. Similarly, if
settlements are illegal, then any negotiating process grounded in international
law would have to start from the premise that all of Jerusalem cannot remain under
exclusive Israeli control.
