Hammond documents Israeli policy over the past decade. Richard Falk, a committed anti-Zionist, wrote the foreword. Hammond tries to ward off cries of "anti-Semitism" with an introduction by a more neutral Gene Epstein, asserting his "pride in being Jewish and American, and identification with many Israelis".
Falk makes Hammond's central point that "the US has been an essential collaborator in a grotesque double deception: falsely pretending to negotiate the establishment of a Palestinian state, while doing everything within its power to ensure that Israel has the time it needs to make such an outcome a practical impossibility."
Epstein denounces Israel's crimes as "heinous', but "that hardly makes them unique ... nor does it make the history of Israel very different from that of many other nations, including the US." Okay, the US committed a holocaust against the native people. That is something that Zionists like to throw in your face to change the subject of their crimes.
But Epstein nonetheless turns around and concludes that the Palestine-Israel conflict is "the most infamous of the world's longstanding international conflicts." So which is it? Doesn't "most infamous" mean "unique"?
He agrees with Hammond that "'Jewish state' [is] a racially-tinged statement that seems to codify the second-class status of Israel's non-Jewish citizens". More proof of infamy and uniqueness.
Hammond doesn't take the one-state proposal seriously, what Falk describes in the foreword as, "a unilaterally imposed Israeli one-state solution combined with either Palestinian Bantustanization or third-class citizenship in an enlarged Israel." Falk reluctantly endorses some version of it "based on the equality of the Palestinian and Jewish peoples" to resolve "overlapping claims of self-determination".
There is no 'happy ending' here. Both one and two state solutions are ugly with the massive wall enclosing the West Bank, and the unending siege of Gaza. The Palestinians will accept any reasonable solution based on pre-1967 borders. They would "recognize Israel by whatever name it applies to itself in accordance with international law,"** based on the 1967 borders and provide for the end of the Israeli occupation. What more could a sensible enemy ask for?
But the words coming from Washington and Tel Aviv having nothing to do with reality. (Correction: Israel is more honest at times. Netanyahu flatly vowed during the 2015 election campaign that there would be no two-state solution if he was re-elected.)
More Humpty Dumpty: 'terrorism' and 'racism'
We can't rely on the Obamas and Netanyahus, or even the well-meaning others. The only hope is to mobilize world opinion to pressure governments to bring Israel to account. It has been done before to other "unique" states: South Africa and Nazi Germany, though it was not an easy road. The world came to recognize the racist danger that both those nations posed to their people and fought it to end the scourge of racism back then.
Resistance is not "terrorism", just as the partisans who blew up bridges and exploded bombs in occupied Europe in WWII were not terrorists. It is the invaders who are by definition the terrorists. Despite their legitimate right to resist, the Palestinians have disavowed further violent resistance, in line with the South African anti-apartheid struggle, though there will always be hot-heads as long as the crimes continue.
What role do Jews with a conscience have? Again, not an easy road. Shlomo Sand and Gilad Atzmon are the two most prominent Israelis who realized that having "Jew" on their Israeli passports was racist, wrong, and refuse to call themselves by this now sullied signifier. For this courageous few, it is the real 'obstacle to peace'.
Rather than "identification with many Israelis", as Epstein claims, why not "identification with many Palestinians", as Atzmon and Shlomo do?
Zionist Power Configuration
Petras doesn't write much about Israel per se; his speciality is the Israeli-Jewish-Zionist--call it what you like--lobby, and he has written extensively on this in the past. His most recent books are more focused on the US.
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