Ron Dermer, Israel’s ambassador to the United States, says that the Israeli occupation of Palestine is like the U.S. occupation of Japan and Germany after World War II continuing to this day. The occupation was imposed at first, but the German and Japanese people came to understand that occupation was “good for them.”
“Japan has U.S. forces for 75 years. Germany — U.S. forces for 75 years. And if anyone thinks that was by agreement at the beginning they’re kidding themselves. It was imposed, then they understood it was good for them. And over time there was a mutual interest in keeping it. But you have that same thing in South Korea and it’s helped stabilize the peace. Our situation is different than America’s situation; this is not a threat thousands of miles away. This is right next door, so Israel’s security service, Israel’s military, is going to have to have control west of the Jordan River, period.”
Dermer was making the Netanyahu government’s argument against the two-state solution, which he said would give “unlimited sovereignty” to Palestinians. “When people say two states, you’re flying into unlimited sovereignty,” Dermer told the American Jewish Committee earlier this week. Netanyahu’s position is: “I want the Palestinians to have all the powers to govern themselves but none of the powers that can threaten Israel.”
That would include a “flag” and “self-determination,” Dermer said, but Israel will not walk out of “Judea and Samaria” in a few years. “It’s not going to happen.” Israel left Lebanon and pulled settlers from Gaza and in each case got a “forward terror base” on its border.
How do you stay in a way that minimizes friction between the Palestinians and allows them to have this independent existence however you want to call it and not have constant friction with Israel’s security service?
The United States forcibly occupied Germany and Japan from 1945 to 1952. The U.S. is said to have 32,000 forces at many bases in Germany, and 54,000 troops in Japan. Americans did not seize land in those countries, move their citizens into those lands, building walled cities and exclusive roads to serve them, and allow the residents to continue to vote in American elections. Israel calls those colonies “settlements” to mask the massiveness of the project: about 650,000 colonists, almost all Jewish. Were the extent and character of the colonies better known, U.S. politicians might actually say something about them . . .
Addressing the Jewish audience, Dermer listed powers Palestinians could never have. How many think Palestinians should have an army? “No! How many here think that the Palestinians should control their airspace? How many here think that Palestinians should have full control of their borders” so that they can bring in any weapons they please. “No! How many think the Palestinians should be able to make military pacts with countries like Iran? No!”
Dermer is hardly alone in this view. This is the talking point of the Israeli right against Trump’s presumed peace plan. Israel needs “perpetual control,” rightwing Israel advocate Caroline Glick wrote lately about the Trump plan. Israel deserves sovereignty over Area C in the West Bank, where Jewish settlers outnumber Palestinians. “[T]to secure its strategic interests, Israel requires perpetual control over all of Area C.”
Thanks to Scott Roth.
“… they understood it was good for them …”
omg. Where have we heard this before? Dermer is a perfectly awful human (?) specimen. btw, the US Occupation of Germany and Japan has zero in common with the Israeli Occupation of Palestine. He’s also an idiot.
“Addressing the Jewish audience, Dermer listed powers Palestinians could never have. How many think Palestinians should have an army? “No! How many here think that the Palestinians should control their airspace? How many here think that Palestinians should have full control of their borders” so that they can bring in any weapons they please. “No! How many think the Palestinians should be able to make military pacts with countries like Iran? No!””
Ptooey! A flag is nothing without self- determination which includes the above… or not. It means sovereignty. The Palestinians already have a flag and they carry it in their soul.
Yup, those women freely walking the streets of the city and doing whatever they were choosing freely to do are better off being chained in the basement of a rapist who decides how and when to brutally “self-determine” himself in them. No-one can dispute his argument or the argument of pro-rapists that he knows better than those women what is best for them.
(Pro-)Zionists – like (pro-)rapists – are truly hateful and immoral hypocrites.
Sovereignty is the key here, and the Israelis will never concede that, why, because the historic ‘Land of Israel’ is at least the whole of Palestine [as per the Likud charter] the Israelis plan on presenting the Bantustans option in areas ‘A’ , ‘B’ and Gaza and because area ‘C’ [comprises 60% of West Bank with less than 200,000 Palestinians in it] it is already being integrated into Israel, the Israelis think that annexation of that area is almost defacto implemented the dejury aspect and the political opprobrium the Israelis would expect may come later, the Israelis could then say your too late, its a fait accomply, backed up by the US of course. The Israelis have all this worked out, they are working towards, in effect a one state solution, without the Palestinians able to vote in the Knesset and hoping the Bantustan solution backed up by Saudi, EU and US cash will buy off the majority. If they don’t give in Palestinians will suffer, glimpses of that punishment are in Kushners ‘deal of the century’ everyone is aware of that. As the Palestinian population begins to equal that of Israel and in ten years maybe even greater, the question has to be asked what price Apartheid? So time is not on Israels side, this together with the ‘arc of resistance’ Iran, Syria, Iraq and Hezbollah building up huge stockpiles of missiles with the capability of destroying Israel, makes an all encompassing agreement vital now. The Iran nuclear deal was bad for Israel because it guaranteed Iran could not enrich uranium beyond the level required to fuel their power stations, any excess to be sold on the open market, but crucially the deal did not prohibit Iran from building ballistic missiles so long as they were not designed to carry nuclear weapons, the US are piling the pressure on their allies to get them to renegotiate the deal so that Iran will be defenseless. Macron seems to be the weak link in Europe, already partly agreeing with Trump on a second agreement to include those missiles. The Iranians will not give in, nor will the Russians or Chinese and a war in the region is unthinkable, everyone would lose, especially Saudi Arabia and Israel followed by a world wide recession because no oil could transit the Strait of Hormus. The ball is in the US/Israel court unfortunately US leaders Trump, Pence, Pompeo and Bolton are incapable of striking a deal, even though they think God is on their side.
→ Were the extent and character of the colonies better known, U.S. politicians might actually say something about them . . .
I doubt it. What more needs to be known about the colonies? or the genocidal occupation of Palestine in general? US politicians do not support the criminal Zionist entity out of ignorance; they know exactly what is going on, and they endorse it.
Slave owners in the Old South also claimed their slaves were better off being slaves.
And the ABSURD false equivalence by Dermer shows that Zionists are desperately scraping the bottom dregs from the barrel of bigotry. It’s an ancient barrel.
The root of this attitude of superiority is shown starkly in the teaching by rabbis at a military prep school in Israel. They teach their future soldiers that non-Jews are intended by God to be slaves to Jews, and that they are better off when they are slaves to Jews. Literally, they say Hitler was right about there being a master race, but he just got the race wrong. The Jews, not the Germans are the master race.
“Israeli rabbis at military prep school are caught on video praising Hitler”
https://mondoweiss.mystagingwebsite.com/2019/04/israeli-military-praising/