None at all; in fact, I think w e’ve had more and more evidence of
it. For example, w hen a tiny disagreement came up betw een Israel
and the U S about how openly settlement of the W est Bank should be
pursued, [T he first] President Bush didn’t hesitate to make thinly
veiled antisemitic remarks in front of a public audience. T he Israeli
lobby backed off and the U S did w hat it w anted.
T his is from Edw ard Said: “T he crisis in Palestinian ranks deepens
almost daily. Security talks betw een Israel and the PLO are
advertised as a ‘breakthrough’ one day, stalled and deadlocked the
next. Deadlines agreed upon come and go w ith no other timetable
pr o po s e d, w hile Israel increases...the building of settlement
residences [and] the punitive measures keeping Palestinians from
leaving the territories and entering Jerusalem.” He w rote this years
ago, but it reads like today’s new s.
It does. T he “peace process” goes up and dow n because the U S-
Israeli principles that define it have never offered anything
meaningful to the Palestinians. T he basic structure of U S and Israeli
policy has been clear for a long time. T he principles are, strictly
speaking, “rejectionist”—that is, they reject the rights of one of the
tw o contestants in the former Palestine.
In the U S, the term “rejectionist” is used in a racist sense,
applying only to those w ho reject the rights of Jew s. If w e can bring
ourselves to adopt nonracist usage, w e w ill describe the U S as the
leader of the rejectionist camp.
In December 1989, w hen the Bush-Baker administration w as
supposed to be very hostile to Israel, the State Department came
out w ith the Baker Plan. It called for a “dialog” in w hich only
Palestinians acceptable to Israel and the U S could participate.
Discussion w ould be limited to implementation of Israel’s official
Shamir-Peres plan, w hich stipulated that:
- there can be no “additional Palestinian state” (other than
Jordan, they meant) - Israel should have effective control of as much of the
Occupied Territories as it w ants (how ever much that
turns out to be) - it’s possible to hold “free elections” in territories that are
under Israeli military supervision and w ith most of the