At a recent town hall, an Oregon student asked Senator Ron Wyden where he stood on the Israel/Palestine conflict. He answered that a two-state solution was needed, the same answer he has given for over twenty years.
Despite Senator Wyden’s support, the prospects for a two-state solution have never been worse. Israel’s right-wing government and powerful settlers have always opposed it, and they rule Israel today. Israel’s settlements are expanding; Palestinians are forced from their homes as in the Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah. The occupation has a firm grip on the Palestinian people, and the Palestinians of Gaza live in a permanent prison, suffering occasional grotesque spectacles of violence.
So what has Senator Wyden done in support of his two-state solution? Here are some examples:
He opposes Palestinian access to the International Criminal Court, a venue that would allow them to hold Israel accountable for war crimes. This means that Israel is not held accountable for human rights violations, and Palestinians are not protected by international law.
Israel’s expansion of settlements and Palestinian dispossession are arguably the most significant threats to a two-state solution. Instead of opposing the settlements, Wyden has supported legislation to prevent the United Nations from holding Israel accountable for its settlements. Senator Wyden has given a green light to Israel’s colonization of the West Bank. Organizations like Human Rights Watch and B’Tselem have reported on the pervasive, apartheid nature of Israel’s control over Palestinians.
Senator Wyden may champion the rights of U.S. citizens against government surveillance, but Wyden leaves his progressive values behind when U.S. citizens use their free speech rights to take action for Palestinian human rights. He supported the Israel Anti-Boycott Act (S.720) which criminalizes boycott and divestment activism by U.S. citizens against the State of Israel, claiming that a line should be drawn around our free speech rights when it comes to Israel. This legislation (opposed by the ACLU and Amnesty International) is part of a broad strategy of legal warfare against Palestinian activists. Similar state-level bills have been struck down because they were unconstitutional.
Senator Wyden says that the two sides must negotiate a solution. One key negotiating point is the status of East Jerusalem which Palestinians want for their capital. When Trump unilaterally decided to move the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem, a severe insult to the Palestinian negotiating position, Senator Wyden weighed in to support Trump’s actions. So much for negotiations.
Senator Wyden justifies his support for Israel and domination of Palestinians because his parents fled the holocaust. But contrast Senator Wyden with Stéphane Hessel, a genuinely heroic and dashing figure. Born to a German Jewish family, Hessel joined the French resistance fighters against the Nazis and escaped two concentration camps and execution after his arrest. He co-authored the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Unlike Senator Wyden, Hessel truly believed in the word “universal” and was a staunch supporter of Palestinian rights. Hessel said that “The absence of meaningful action from governments to hold Israel accountable to international law leaves upon one path for citizens of conscience: to take this responsibility upon themselves, as done against apartheid South Africa.”
The pattern is clear: Senator Wyden is standing by for Israel whether it is support for settlements, military domination, escaping accountability for human rights violations, or protecting Israel from the activism of U.S. citizens.
Senator Wyden talks about two-state solutions, but his actions have led to apartheid.
In short, U.S. Senator Wyden is just another grovelling, Zionist dependent racist puppet on a string.
How can he and his ilk live with themselves? How much longer will the American people put up with being ripped off by the entity referred to as “Israel”?
Another “Senator from Israel”. Ready and willing to trample on our civil rights to support a foreign nation’s crimes against humanity. Remember this?
https://mondoweiss.net/2017/08/pummeled-questions-movement/
The parroting about a 2 state solution is huge joke. They know deep inside their corrupt souls that it is NOT going to happen, at the rate the zionists keep stealing lands and building illegal settlements. Actions speak louder than words, and by action we have seen no signs of the occupying power doing the right thing, or even showing signs to show it will. Crooked Bibi has stated there will be no 2SS under him, and those who follow will continue these inhumane policies. There will also be no end to the occupation.
Wyden is intelligent enough to realize that, but like Wasserman Schultz and all the other zionist servants in Congress, they are simply playing dumb and speak of 2 state solutions that are simply a fantasy visualized by Palestinian supporters.
Sen. Wyden is the living embodiment of US foreign policy and political propaganda regarding Israel.
Our leaders parrot AIPAC talking points like scripture from the Bible, yet their actions repeatedly reflect the polar opposite.
They “say” the only solution is a two state solution with mutually agreed land swaps. Yet routinely enable, finance, and enforce a single military apartheid state between the river and the sea, where Israelis gets to choose what land is theirs with brutal force..
They “say” that Palestinians “deserve a sovereign state of their own”. Yet have actively denied and failed to recognize Palestinian statehood and independence for over 70 years. As a bonus they also agree with Israel that any future Palestinian state, should have no military, no airports, no control over their own border, and no actual sovereignty, independence, or state to speak of. In other words, the Bantustans and Israeli Apartheid we have now.
They “say” that Israel has a right to live in peace, dignity, and within secure and defensible borders. Yet actively block and deny the same rights to Palestinians or any future Palestinian state.
They “say” that unilateral actions are unacceptable and will not be tolerated. Yet allow Israel to unilaterally annex the Golan Heights, effectively annex all of East Jerusalem, displace Palestinians en masse, demolish entire towns, and continue to build Settlements beyond the Green Line right up to the Jordanian border. Not to mention the unilateral actions that the US takes at the UNSC to block multi-lateral resolutions and even joint statements from all the other participating states.
They “say” that Palestinians must recognize Israel as the (oxymoronic) Jewish and Democratic State of the Jewish and ONLY the Jewish people. Yet claim that Israel is a “beacon of Democracy”, a “light unto nations”, and subsequently make no reciprocal demands of Israel recognizing a Palestinian Democratic state for the Palestinian people.
The cold hard truth is that Congress and the Presidency could recognize the State of Palestine tomorrow, based on the officially recognized 1948 borders of Israel, with Jerusalem as the mutual Capitol of both nations. They could help draft and facilitate UNSC resolutions, actions, and peacekeeping to maintain dual sovereignty over the key parts of any contested land and infrastructure until negotiations have successfully concluded.
Anything else is mere obfuscation.
He’s a PEPpie, Progressive Except for Palestine. Supporting a 2-state solution means supporting the status quo, which is a single Jewish-supremacy state.
I twice asked Canadian politicians, What’s your Plan B? When you can no longer pretend there’s going to be a Palestinian state, what then? One didn’t answer. The other said he had no Plan B.