Someone once said, "Great White Father speak with forked tongue".
I started reading this article and my stomach began to churn and a
great weight fell upon my chest, so I skipped through it. I have such
strong feelings, to the point that I can't begin to express them. But
I will say this, our involvement with Palestine has been so
disingenuous to the point that it represents the ugliest, mean
spirited, small minded, greed driven, controlling side of Human
Nature.
I see no honor in the behavior of what is going on, now or in the past.
But I will close before I say how I really feel.
Carl Jarvis
On 6/8/19, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Bipartisan bill complements Kushner's plan to try to buy off Palestinians
Opinion Mondoweiss
Josh Ruebner on June 7, 2019
Lindsey Graham, Chris Coons, and Maggie Hassan meet with Benjamin Netanyahu
as part of a a bipartisan delegation of senators to Israel in February
2018.
(Photo: Israel Government Press Office) Lindsey Graham, Chris Coons, and
Maggie Hassan meet with Benjamin Netanyahu as part of a a bipartisan
delegation of senators to Israel in February 2018. (Photo: Israel
Government
Press Office)
On Wednesday, six members of Congress introduced a bipartisan, bicameral
bill to create a $50 million annual fund to "facilitate and finance joint
economic ventures and people-to-people exchanges between Palestinians,
Israelis, and Americans," according to a press release.
The bill, known as the Partnership Fund for Peace Act of 2019 (S.1727 and
H.R.3104), is sponsored by Sens. Chris Coons (D-DE), Lindsey Graham (R-SC),
Tim Kaine (D-VA), and Cory Gardner (R-CO), and Reps. Nita Lowey (D-NY) and
Jeff Fortenberry (R-NE).
The bill would establish a five-person board of governors, appointed by the
US Agency for International Development (USAID), to dole out grants to
Palestinian entrepreneurs and companies partnering with Israeli and US
counterparts to create private sector jobs. The board would also fund
dialogue and coexistence projects run by Israeli and Palestinian
organizations.
In its most benign interpretation, this bill could be seen by
well-intentioned members of Congress as a last-ditch attempt to revive the
moribund prospects for a two-state resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian
issue and perhaps even as a foil to the Trump administration's "deal of the
century," which appears in all likelihood to preclude the possibility of
Palestinian statehood.
Job Creation vs. Sovereignty
Remarks from supporting members of Congress make the likely true intentions
of the bill evident.
In his remarks on the bill, Chris Coons maintained that "job creation is
the
best way to turn people away from violence," while Lindsey Graham stated
that "creating economic opportunities for the Palestinian people outside of
the old funding construct is a great way to promote economic opportunity to
people who have been systemically abused by their leadership for decades."
Jeff Fortenberry hinted at a similar line of thinking when he said, "We
often hear about the 'the road map for peace in the Middle East. The
challenge is laying the proper foundation for the road.this bipartisan bill
is a genuine attempt by the United States to regenerate our historic role
in
finding creative and imaginative pathways to secure a sustainable peace."
This discourse dovetails neatly with the Trump administration's repeated
claims that Palestinians are to blame for Israel's oppression and that the
way to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian issue is to provide Palestinians
with
economic development in lieu of their political rights.
Indeed, the timing of the introduction of the bill seems designed to
reinforce the Trump administration's plans to convene (without Palestinian
participation) a two-day "Peace to Prosperity" workshop in the repressive
Kingdom of Bahrain later this month.
The gathering is being spearheaded by presidential adviser and "deal of the
century" point person Jared Kushner, who recently opined that Palestinians
are not yet "capable of governing" themselves and "want the opportunity to
pay their mortgage" more than they want freedom from Israeli military
occupation.
Although the text of the Partnership Fund for Peace Act does not overtly
reek of this rank racism and paternalism, more than a whiff of it can be
detected through its more moderately couched language.
"Building a viable Palestinian economy is central to the effort to preserve
the possibility of a 2-state solution," according to the bill, which fails
to mention how Israel's continued illegal colonization of the West Bank has
rendered that option moot.
A push for economic normalization
Congressional funding for joint economic partnerships and people-to-people
projects will "increase the bonds of friendship and understanding between
the people living in the Palestinian territories and the people of the
United States and Israel," the bill states, while remaining mum on the
subject of Israel's separate-and-unequal rule over the Palestinian people,
supported by the United States diplomatically and financially, which would
remain intact even if the bill were to become law.
And while one of the declared objectives of the fund is "to promote the
private sector in the Palestinian territories," this comes with strings
attached for Palestinian entrepreneurs and companies. In order to access
the
fund, they must partner with Israeli or US companies, an induced economic
normalization.
The entire premise of the bill-that Israeli-Palestinian peace can be
facilitated if Palestinians only had more jobs or if Palestinians only
interacted more with Israelis and talked things out-is not only an obtusely
apolitical understanding of the issue. It is also an approach which has
already served as a feature of US policy throughout the interminable
quarter-century-long "peace process" and which has failed to have any
discernible impact on the prospects for peace.
Since 2004, the now-defunct USAID Mission to the West Bank and Gaza Strip
partnered with the US Embassy to Israel to fund 136 people-to-people
projects. And beginning in the 1990s, the Clinton administration
established
"qualifying industrial zones" (QIZ's) in Arab countries to promote both
Arab-Israeli and Palestinian-Israeli joint economic ventures. Goods
manufactured with mandatory Israeli inputs in QIZ's are eligible for
duty-free entrance into the United States.
Next steps
The bipartisan nature of the bill, along with the sponsorship of Members of
Congress who are well-placed to advance this legislation, makes its passage
a distinct possibility. All four Senators sit on the Foreign Relations
Committee, and all except Coons are on its Near East subcommittee.
Lowey is chair both of the Appropriations Committee and its subcommittee
with jurisdiction over foreign aid, while Fortenberry is an influential
member of that same subcommittee.
In addition, Graham is one of the president's strongest allies in the
Senate, making it likely that the legislation enjoys the support of, or at
least acquiescence from, the Trump administration.
The bill already boasts the support of a range of mainstream and liberal
Zionist groups, including AIPAC, the American Jewish Committee, Americans
for Peace Now, ADL, and J Street, according to its authors. If any
combination of these organizations were to really throw their lobbying
weight behind this bill, then its likelihood of passing would greatly
increase.
