Settlement Plan

Bush's support of Sharon's settlement plan

April 15,2004

Yesterday President Bush announced his support of Ariel Sharon’s plan to pull out of the Gaza Strip but retain all but four of the Israeli city-settlements in the heart of the West Bank, presumed to be, with Gaza, the territory that would constitute the Palestinian State.

This is my response:

Mr. Bush,

This is in response to your support of Mr. Sharon’s plan to retain the Israeli city/settlements located in the West Bank. There is a distinct probability that Mr. Sharon will attempt to build his “wall” to include these settlements within Israel’s new borders: in short, an annexation of Palestinian territory into Israel.

It is clear that, once again, there is a disastrous disconnect between your perception, shaped by elitist conditioning, and reality. In your press conference of April 12 you used the phrase “I understand that” a few times. With due respect, no, you do not understand anything outside of the schema with which you view the world.

You operate on the philosophy that “might makes right,” and that God (a Western/Christian God) has in some way ordained you to “change the world,” another phrase you used forcefully in your response to the questions posed to you during the conference.

As you rolled into passionate gear in your answer you said, and this is a close paraphrase, that God has given freedom to every human being and that America is obligated to spread freedom throughout the world. “We are changing the world,” you also fervently said several times. This is the compulsion of a religious missionary, deny it as much as you will. Changing the world in our image was the motivation for the crusades that ravaged and butchered cities and populations in the Middle East, Arabs and Jews alike. (Western and colonial powers have oppressed and exploited the area ever since. And we wonder what gave birth to the long seething distrust, hate and terrorism aimed at the west).

All your policies reflect the underlying motif of “might makes right.” Your arrogant and disdaining relationship with the nations of the world and the United Nations (political expedience is now forcing you to recognize the need for international cooperation - will you dare to continue to accuse John Kerry of “flip-flopping”?), your taxation bills which enrich the already wealthy (this excessive enrichment is a threat to fiscal balance and health of the nation, as well as to the well-being of our working public), your disregard for environmental safeguards in order to deliver more profits to corporate business, your obvious manipulation of “intelligence” and facts in order to stampede the public into supporting your agenda, are just some examples.

And now, your breaking with historic diplomatic policy of the U.S. as regards the settlement question has sealed the lives of countless more innocent Jews and Palestinians. You have made conflicts and disagreements not only with the Palestinians but with all of the Muslim states even more difficult to resolve. You have given cause for greater hatred, danger and violent blood- letting towards America and Americans as well as towards Jews (even though many, if not most Jews, the truth be known, hate this conflict and injustice towards Palestinians).

You do not understand this. You do not understand the culture, the history, the pain and the struggle of peoples who have been long oppressed, discounted, dehumanized (even by many of their own leaders who have been installed and supported by the rich nations of the west), and denied equality, respect and a fair opportunity to own and benefit from their own resources.

You do not understand how to walk in the shoes of those different from yourself.

You rationalize your support for Mr. Sharon, who was raised to to bully, fight and make war (even as Arafat was), with the conceit that by injecting this greater burden into the conflict you encourage and motivate more negotiation between Israelis and Palestinians.

You hedge your stand by declaring that final borders between Israel and Palestine will have to be negotiated. You know full well that is fraudulent rhetoric/speak. The new border line will become the de facto border and the Palestinians will have little, if any, political leverage left to demand fairness and respect.

Imagine King George in 1776 saying to the American colonialists “fine, you can have a country, but I am keeping New York, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Virginia and South Carolina. You will have to have my permission to visit any part of your country if you must pass through any of my “settlements.”

Mr. Sharon knows and plans for just such a Palestinian state which, in reality, would be a patchwork of fragmented plots of land separated by strong, protected city/settlements, really no more than troublesome neighborhoods. And these neighborhoods most likely would be treated just as the Arabs and their neighborhoods are treated in Israel: second class impediments to a homogenous society.

Any negotiation attempted under this condition would be built on sand. Any agreements emerging from this inequity will be short lived and riddled with danger.

Mr. Sharon and Mr. Arafat already have blood, hopelessness, ruin of nations, families and broken hearts on their hands, and now, Mr. Bush, you have made this a triumvirate of despair.

Israel has a right to exist. Every human being is a “Zionist,” for Zion means home. Every human needs and has a right to a home and homeland. This is equally true of Palestinians. There are those who claim that there is no such right for Palestinians, that there was no state of “Palestine.” Neither was a there a state of Iraq. But, heaven knows we are dealing with such a state, now, in intense and tangible ways, are we not?

Were this new arrangement to become the new status quo, the best outcome would be to let the settlements exist peacefully in Palestine as Palestinian cities, and the Jewish inhabitants as Palestinian citizens, just as Arabs in Israel live as Israeli citizens (even some as members of the Knesset). In any case, thinking men and women know how to solve conflicts. Willing men and women, if permitted, can and will solve this conflict in just and sensible ways; fair to both sides.

There is a way, Mr. Bush, you may use the might at your disposal, the might of American resources, influence and material leverage, to help solve this insane and inane conflict. You can say to both parties: “There will be no support for either of you to the advantage over the other. You will come to the table and stay there until justice and peace is achieved, or we, America in true concert with the community of nations, the United Nations, will be there to stop the bloodshed, to feed the hungry, protect the defenseless, and care for the injured and the sick. But in all other ways we deny you the means to perpetuate this threat to world stability and its inhuman suffering. We, the world, are sick and tired of it.”

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