Washington’s Mideast Talks
Friday, September 03, 2010 :: Staff infoZine
“By failing to insist on guiding principles and a timeline, the Obama administration sets itself up for another failed round of talks.”
Washington, D.C. – infoZine – Amb. Edward Peck ( [email protected]) was chief of mission in Iraq and Mauritania and deputy director of the White House Task Force on Terrorism in the Reagan administration. On May 31, he sailed from Athens aboard the M/S Sfendoni as part of the flotilla taking humanitarian supplies to Gaza; the ship was assaulted in international waters by Israeli forces, which took it and its passengers to Israel under armed guard.
He said today: “Everyone is talking about ‘the peace process’ or ‘ending the conflict’ — but there’s no war going on, it’s an occupation. Everyone is talking about ‘negotiations,’ which implies two sides in relatively equal positions to affect decisions, but Israel is the jailer and the Palestinians are the prisoners.
“It is, unfortunately, unrealistic to expect anything significant to occur. No one in his or her right mind — and we all recognize that not everyone qualifies for inclusion — wants anything bad to happen to a single Israeli, or Palestinian — or American, but the terrible truth is that terrible things have happened, are happening and, I fear, will happen to all three groups because of [what] is and what is not happening in Palestine and Gaza. Please note that I very much do not want to be right.”
Josh Ruebner ( [email protected] ) is national advocacy director of the U.S. Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation. He said today: “Without the United States compelling Israel to abide by its obligations under international law and UN resolutions, it is impossible to envision how these negotiations can lead to a just and lasting peace between Palestinians and Israelis. By failing to insist on guiding principles and a timeline, the Obama administration sets itself up for another failed round of talks.” He recently wrote a piece titled: “Top Ten Reasons for Skepticism on Israeli-Palestinian Talks” in The Huffington Post. www.endtheoccupation.org link
Khalila Sabra ( [email protected] ) serves on the steering committee of the U.S. Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation and directs the Muslim American Society’s Immigrant Justice and Legal Clinic. She recently returned from a trip to the region, which included a peace conference and meetings with an Israeli Knesset member and the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa Mosque. She said today: “Today, Palestinians remain in the position of supplicants to Israel. It’s so similar to what African Americans experienced prior to civil rights.”