Dealing with Israel

Whether that pressure comes from the United States, the UN Security Council, the Quartet, or the burgeoning international Palestinian solidarity movement remains to be seen. What matters is that it be made known to Tel Aviv that it can no longer act with impunity. And the most viable and effective means of conveying that message is to support and enforce a regime of boycotts, divestments and sanctions which target Israeli companies, institutions, and government agencies, as well as those who do business with Israel.

Despite constantly being depicted as a Gordian knot by almost all mainstream commentators, particularly those with a pro-Israel bent, the means of overcoming the present impasse and, once and for all, beginning the process of moving towards a final peace settlement are in reality maddeningly simple, and indeed plain to see for anyone with even a cursory knowledge of the conflict (so long as they have their eyes open).

If I had the opportunity for an audience with Benjamin Netanyahu, here’s what I’d tell him:

“End all construction of illegal Jewish colonies in the occupied Palestinian territories, including in east Jerusalem, and including all building work related to the so-called “natural growth” of existing settlements. Lift totally and unconditionally the illegal blockade of Gaza, which does great harm to your strategic interests and undermines the security of your own people. Dismantle the illegal wall - fence, security barrier, anti-terror shield, call it what you will, just make sure you dismantle it - which de facto annexes large swathes of the West Bank, making a viable two-State solution literally a concrete impossibility, and is easily breached by Palestinian militants intent on staging attacks inside the Green Line. Finally, start direct talks not just with Fatah, but with the elected Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh. Furthermore, make it clear to the Hamas leadership, and indeed to the whole world, that such talks will be conducted without any preconditions. After all Bibi, surely you must realise the very idea of carrying out negotiations with preconditions is utterly ludicrous.”

No doubt sitting in the same room together, much less having a conversation with one another, would be a deeply unpleasant and extremely difficult experience for both Prime Ministers. Indeed it’s almost impossible to conceive of Netanyahu and Haniyeh ever “getting on” with each other at a personal level.

So while it’s certainly true we’re unlikely to see the emergence of a Middle East version of the famous De Klerk-Mandela partnership any time soon, such an observation is at best a fatuous distraction. As the saying goes, you don’t make peace with friends.

The plan I’ve outlined for beginning in earnest a real process of peace negotiations shouldn’t come as a revelation to anyone with even passing interest in the Israel-Palestine conflict. Nor do I expect to be in line for a Nobel Peace Prize as reward for devising an ingenious peace schema that only I had the intelligence and foresight to formulate. On the contrary, every point raised in my imaginary conversation with the Israeli Prime Minister is, to use a colloquialism, a total no-brainer. Furthermore, all the measures I’d recommend Netanyahu undertake are consistent with long-held principles of international law, and supported by literally dozens of nations around the world.

There is a very important caveat however to what in essence ought to be a very straightforward and uncontroversial “roadmap” of the way forward. So long as the United States continues to provide $US3 billion in “aid” to Israel every year, so long as the Obama Administration prevaricates in its commitment to even the most modest of peace proposals, and so long as virtually all the key players in the international community (including Australia) persist in lending carte blanche support to the Zionist State - witness the absence with precious few exceptions of any meaningful action by the Western world in response to the massacre on board the Mavi Marmara - then Bibi Netanyahu and his successors will lack all incentive to listen to the voice of reason.

Given the eagerness of the Israeli High Command to “finish the job” it started against Hezbollah in the July war of 2006, the escalating and potentially very dangerous tensions between Tel Aviv and Ankara in the wake of the aid flotilla massacre, and the very real possibility that Netanyahu just might be cavalier enough to launch what would inevitably be a catastrophic war with Iran … given all of these sobering geopolitical phenomena in which Israel is the common denominator, the so-called community of Western nations must bring Israel to account.

A rampant Israel that shows a flagrant contempt for international law, and which has demonstrated time and again its willingness to pursue wars of aggression in pursuit of its own interests, surely such a nation must be reigned in sooner or later. Ultimately the West’s own interests are at stake, for there will never be true peace and stability across West Asia, nor indeed throughout the wider world, until the region’s most enduring conflict is finally resolved.