-- crop destruction and agricultural restrictions;
-- home demolitions;
-- restricted movement through hundreds of checkpoints as well as curfews and border and other closures any time for any reason;
-- building permit restrictions and construction prohibitions;
-- denial of essential services; and
-- other politically motivated daily repression and "matrix of control" harassment.
This all continues without letup with the full acquiescence and support of the West plus billions in annual aid from Washington.
Furthermore, Hamas is barred from the peace process, and without its participation there can be none. Its exclusion and the desperate conditions in the Territories expose the glaring hypocrisy overhanging the staged affair. Just like the fraudulent "road map," this latest incarnation is going nowhere with more proof on November 4 from Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni. She told Secretary Rice Israel's security comes first, and "only then (can there be) a Palestinian state."
Electronic Intifada editor Ali Abunimah compares the process to "one of those big budget Broadway extravaganzas; they go on for years (and) with each revival the cast changes," but the outcome is always the same as intended.
Abunimah notes the "latest revival" has Condoleezza Rice in a lead role play-acting to end the long-running conflict. George Bush is on stage as well trying to cast off his image as a warmonger and enabler of "Israeli colonization" and now pretends to want peace "with an eye on his legacy."
And so it goes with the other key actors in this melodrama pretending the process is real - quisling Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas who agreed to let Washington act as a "neutral arbitrator," Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert who jumped on the idea, and "special guest star" and reinvented war criminal Tony Blair in his new role as Middle East peace envoy. Last June he ended a failed 10 year run as UK prime minister when his audience booed him off the stage. He's been practically invisible since but will resurface in Annapolis later in November once a firm date is announced.
Abunimah notes how reality at times intervenes. It did in mid-October after Abbas' representatives met with Israeli counterparts to arrange a "declaration of principles" for the Annapolis meeting that are still unresolved. The IDF expropriated 300 more acres of Palestinian land near "occupied East Jerusalem (to expand the huge) Jewish-only settlements (bisecting) the West Bank (that) render a contiguous Palestinian state impossible."
Land seizures have been continuous since the 1993 Oslo Accords. For the past 14 years, Israel expropriated an area the size of Washington, DC for Jewish-only development knowing none of the "peace process" participants would object. It's been so extreme that noted Israeli historian Ilan Pappe believes the settlements, army bases, roads and separation wall will let Israel annex almost half the West Bank by 2010 and dispossess Palestinians now living there.
And now Abunimah explains "Rice feigns (gallingly hypocritical) frustration saying: "Frankly it is time for the establishment of a Palestinian state." She knows Israel won't allow one nor will Palestinians accept it under the current bantustan configuration and the condition Pappe describes.
Nor is one possible given the power of extremist elements in the Israeli government led by proto-fascist Deputy Prime Minister Avigdor Lieberman. Haaretz reported he insists any Israeli-Palestinian conflict resolution "include Israel's Arab citizens (on) the basis (of) a land swap and population transfer." He means no peace is possible unless 1.4 million Israeli Arab citizens are ethnically cleansed from the country. Nor will he allow core Palestinian issues to be discussed in Annapolis (or elsewhere) like "borders, settlements and the (right of return for) Palestinian refugees expelled by Israel."
And the beat goes on. Life in occupied Palestine is intolerable and worsening as the latest sham peace extravaganza is heading to Annapolis once its "opening night" is announced with fanfare and phoniness.
I am a 72 year old, retired, progressive small businessman concerned about all the major national and world issues, committed to speak out and write about them.
