{"id":45175,"date":"2021-02-18T20:34:57","date_gmt":"2021-02-18T20:34:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.radiofree.org\/?p=164025"},"modified":"2021-02-18T20:34:57","modified_gmt":"2021-02-18T20:34:57","slug":"leaving-aside-international-law-why-democrats-are-as-dangerous-as-republicans-to-a-just-peace-in-palestine-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2021\/02\/18\/leaving-aside-international-law-why-democrats-are-as-dangerous-as-republicans-to-a-just-peace-in-palestine-2\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cLeaving Aside\u201d International Law: Why Democrats are as Dangerous as Republicans to a Just Peace in Palestine"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a>Motivated by their justifiable aversion to former US President Donald Trump, many analysts have rashly painted a rosy picture of how Democrats could quickly erase the bleak trajectory of the previous Republican administration. This naivety is particularly pronounced in the current spin on the Palestinian-Israeli discourse, which is promoting, again, the illusion that Democrats will succeed where their political rivals have failed.<\/p>\n

There are obvious differences in the Democrats\u2019 approach to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, but only in semantics and political jingoism, not policy. This assertion can be justified if the Democratic administration\u2019s official language on Palestine and Israel is examined, and such language considered within the context of practical policies on the ground.<\/p>\n

Take recent remarks, made by the new US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, during a CNN interview on February 8. Blinken\u2019s comments reminded<\/a> us of the clever \u2013 albeit disingenuous \u2013 US foreign policy under previous Democratic administrations. His select words may seem as a complete departure from the belligerent, yet direct, approach of former US Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo.<\/p>\n

\u201cLook, leaving aside the legalities of that question (meaning the illegal Israeli occupation of the Syrian Golan Heights), as a practical matter, the Golan is very important to Israel\u2019s security,\u201d Blinken said. Later in the interview, he went on to, once again, acknowledge, yet, at the same time, sideline the question of \u2018legalities\u2019. \u201cLegal questions are something else,\u201d he said, before continuing to speak vaguely and non-committedly about the future of Syria.<\/p>\n

Juxtapose Blinken\u2019s position on the illegal Israeli occupation of the Golan Heights with statements made by Pompeo in November, just before the end of Trump\u2019s Presidency. \u201cThis is a part of Israel and central part of Israel,\u201d Pompeo said, as he was accompanied<\/a> by Israeli Foreign Minister, Gabi Ashkenazi, and speaking from the occupied Golan Heights.<\/p>\n

Pompeo\u2019s position, which is a stark violation of international law, was duly condemned<\/a> by Palestinians and Arabs and criticized by various governments and international bodies. Blinken\u2019s position, however, generated little media attention and negligible, if any, serious reprimand regionally or internationally. This should not have been the case.<\/p>\n

By acknowledging the relevance of the issue of legality, then \u201cleaving it aside\u201d, in favor of the seemingly more pressing question of Israeli security, Blinken simply defended the status quo, that of perpetual Israeli military occupation, which is also championed enthusiastically by Republicans.<\/p>\n

Succinctly, this is the Democratic doctrine on Palestine and Israel, in effect largely since the Bill Clinton<\/a> era. The current Administration of Joe Biden is, undoubtedly, following the same blueprint, which allows Washington to offer itself as a neutral party \u2013 an \u2018honest peace-broker<\/a>\u2019 \u2013 while helping Israel achieve its strategic goals at the expense of the Palestinian and Arab peoples.<\/p>\n

The clear distinction between the Democratic and Republican discourses on Palestine and Israel is a relatively new phenomenon. Interestingly, it was the Republican George H. W. Bush Administration that, in 1991, established the current Democratic narrative on Palestine. At the end of the First Gulf War, Bush championed<\/a> the multilateral talks between Israel and Arab States in Madrid, Spain. Within a few years, a whole new American discourse was formulated.<\/p>\n

The September 11, 2001 attacks<\/a> on the US supplanted the peace process discourse in Republican foreign policy literature with a new one, which is avowedly dedicated to fighting \u2018Islamic terror\u2019. Israel cleverly used the new American language and conduct in the Middle East to present itself as a direct partner in the US-led global \u2018war on terror\u2019.<\/p>\n

To stave off the collapse of US global political leadership as a result of the Iraq invasion of 2003, the Barack Obama Administration quickly restored<\/a> the traditional American position, once again offering US services as a benefactor of peace in the Middle East. True, Obama labored to restore America\u2019s relevance as a \u2018peacemaker\u2019. His administration still utilized the disingenuous language of the past, one which constantly put the onus on the Palestinians, while gently reminding Israel of its responsibilities towards Palestine\u2019s civilian population<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Obama\u2019s Cairo speech<\/a> in April 2009 remains the most powerful, yet indicting document on the numerous moral lapses and legal blind spots of US foreign policy, particularly under Democratic administrations. The speech, which was meant to serve as a watershed moment in the US\u2019 approach to the Middle East region, fully exposed the caveats of US bias towards Israel, predicated mostly on emotional manipulation and historical misrepresentations.<\/p>\n

Obama deliberately fluctuated between the persecution of Jewish communities throughout history and Israel\u2019s \u2018right\u2019 to ensure its security at the expense of oppressed Palestinians, as if the systematic Israeli violence was carried out as genuine attempts to prevent further persecution of world\u2019s Jewry.<\/p>\n

Contrastingly, Obama insisted, with little sympathy or context, that \u201cPalestinians must abandon violence\u201d, thus painting the Palestinians and their rightful resistance as the true obstacle to any just peace in Palestine. Concerning Palestine and Israel, blaming the victim has been a central pillar of US foreign policy, shared by Democrats and Republicans alike.<\/p>\n

Yet, while Republicans increasingly ignore<\/a> the rights and, sometimes, the very existence of the Palestinians, Democrats, who continue to support Israel with equal passion, use more moderate \u2013 although inconsequential \u2013 language.<\/p>\n

For Democrats, Palestinians are the instigators of violence, although Israel may have, at times, used \u2018disproportionate force\u2019 in its response to Palestinian violence; for them, international law exists, but can easily be \u2018left aside\u2019 to accommodate Israeli security; for them, there is such a thing as internationally recognized borders, but these borders are flexible in order to accommodate Israel\u2019s demographic fears, strategic interests and \u2018military edge<\/a>\u2019.<\/p>\n

Hence, it is easier to discredit the foreign policy agenda of Trump, Pompeo and other Republicans as their aggressive, dismissive language and action are unmistakably objectionable. The Democratic discourse, however, cannot be as easily censured, as it utilizes a mix of superficial language, political platitudes and historical clich\u00e9s, worded meticulously with the aim of placing the US back at the driving seat of whatever political process is underway.<\/p>\n

While the Democratic discourse remains committed to arming<\/a> and defending Israel, it provides Palestinians and Arabs with no meaningful change, because substantive change can only occur when international law is respected. Unfortunately, according to Blinken\u2019s logic, such seemingly trivial matters should, for now, be \u2018left aside\u2019.<\/p>\n

This article was posted on Thursday, February 18th, 2021 at 12:34pm and is filed under Democrats<\/a>, Israel<\/a>, Occupation<\/a>, Palestine<\/a>, Republicans<\/a>, Syrian Golan Heights<\/a>, US Foreign Policy<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n

This post was originally published on Radio Free<\/a>. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Motivated by their justifiable aversion to former US President Donald Trump, many analysts have rashly painted a rosy picture of how Democrats could quickly erase the bleak trajectory\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":68,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[133,82,4,290,473,276,8926,57],"tags":[149,88,590,1125,1135,8948,69],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45175"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/68"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45175"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45175\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":45176,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45175\/revisions\/45176"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45175"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45175"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45175"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}