No, Bill Clinton Didn't 'Kill' Himself Trying for a State of Palestine
(Video)
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/no_bill_clinton_didnt_kill_himself_to_gi
ve_the_palestinians_state_20160515/
AddThis Sharing Buttons
Share to FacebookShare to TwitterMore AddThis Share optionsShare to Email
Posted on May 15, 2016
By Juan Cole
This post originally ran on Truthdig contributor Juan Cole's website.
Former President Bill Clinton on Saturday claimed "I killed myself to give
the Palestinians a state," and maintained that he secured an agreement,
which the Palestinians turned down. In fact, no such text was ever
presented to the Palestinian side, and then Israeli Prime Minister Ehud
Barak kept flaking out on commitments previously made, leaving the
Palestinian negotiators with nothing to agree to. Negoatiator Aaron Miller
later admitted, "There was not a formalized, written proposal that covered
the four core issues. There was no deal on the table. None of the issues
were explained enough in detail to make an agreement, though the Israelis
made an interesting argument on Jerusalem."
No time here to go into the paternalist and colonial language about "giving"
the Palestinians a state. They are a stateless people because they are
unrecognized; they would get a state by recognizing them as such, not giving
them anything.
Here are signs Clinton didn't put himself out that much:
1. From the time Clinton presided over the handshake between Israeli PM
Yitzhak Rabin and Palestinian President Yasser Arafat in 1993 to the end of
Clinton's term, the number of Israeli colonists on the Palestinian land from
which Rabin had pledged to withdraw just about doubled. In 1993 there were
between 95,000 and 116,000 Israeli squatters in the West Bank and Gaza. By
1996 there were 147,000. By 2000 there were about 200,000. These numbers
do not include the squatters in East Jerusalem, which Israel has illegally
annexed in contravention of the UN charter. This stab in the back by the
Israelis of the Palestine Authority undermined the possibility of a
Palestinian state. Did Clinton kill himself stopping this vast expansion of
Israeli squatters on Palestinian land? No. Did he do anything at all about
it? No.
2. Israel agreed to withdraw its troops from the West Bank by the end of
1998. It did not. Its troops are still there, guarding sometimes murderous
or vandalizing Israeli squatters who are trying to displace the Palestinians
from their homes. Did Bill Clinton kill himself to get the Israeli troops
out of Palestine? No. Did he do anything at all about this collapse of Oslo
process commitments on Israel's part? No.
3. Donald Neff writes that in
"March, 1995 . . . President Clinton invoked the [UN Security Council] veto
after all 14 other members approved a U.N. Security Council resolution
calling on Israel to rescind a decision to expropriate 130 acres of land in
Arab East Jerusalem.23 The Clinton administration exercised two more vetoes
in 1997, both of them on resolutions otherwise unanimously supported by the
14 other Security Council members. The draft resolution was critical of
Israel's plans to establish a new settlement at Har Homa / Jabal Abu Ghneim
in East Jerusalem in the midst of Palestinian housing."
So did Bill Clinton kill himself stopping Israeli large scale theft of
Palestinian land while he was supposedly being an honest broker between
Israel and the Palestinians? No.
Clinton was the most partisan President for Israel in our country's history,
and was anything but even-handed in his approach to the Palestinians. The
Palestinians complained that they'd get an Israeli proposal, reject it, then
get the same one from the Americans; there wasn't really any difference
between the positions of those two.
Clinton also defended the brutal Israeli assault on defenseless little Gaza
in 2014, blaming it on Hamas and suggesting that they had craftily
manipulated world media into blaming the Israelis for killing nearly 2000
Palestinians. Mr. Clinton did not address the issue of proportionality, the
key one for critics of the assault. Nor did he address the Occupation, the
displacement of Palestinian families to Gaza by the Israelis, or the siege
of Gaza, contravening the Geneva Conventions if 1949.
Bill Clinton's partisanship for the Israeli side and refusal to act as an
honest broker, refusal to stop squatter settlements, refusal to let the UN
Security Council demand of Israel that it stop contravening international
law, and failure to get an actual text to which Palestinian negotiators
could assent, all these defects doomed the Oslo process and doomed the world
to more turmoil coming out of this interminable conflict. It also
encouraged the Israeli side to think they could get away with anything and
so warped them into a Likud far-right regime and an Apartheid state.
Bill Clinton didn't kill himself getting a Palestinian state. His one-sided
approach to the negotiations ensured that there would be none. Ever.
http://www.truthdig.com/ http://www.truthdig.com/
No, Bill Clinton Didn't 'Kill' Himself Trying for a State of Palestine
(Video)
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/no_bill_clinton_didnt_kill_himself_to_gi
ve_the_palestinians_state_20160515/
AddThis Sharing ButtonsShare to FacebookShare to TwitterMore AddThis Share
optionsShare to Email
Posted on May 15, 2016
By Juan Cole
This post originally ran on Truthdig contributor Juan Cole's website.
Former President Bill Clinton on Saturday claimed "I killed myself to give
the Palestinians a state," and maintained that he secured an agreement,
which the Palestinians turned down. In fact, no such text was ever presented
to the Palestinian side, and then Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak kept
flaking out on commitments previously made, leaving the Palestinian
negotiators with nothing to agree to. Negoatiator Aaron Miller later
admitted, "There was not a formalized, written proposal that covered the
four core issues. There was no deal on the table. None of the issues were
explained enough in detail to make an agreement, though the Israelis made an
interesting argument on Jerusalem."
No time here to go into the paternalist and colonial language about "giving"
the Palestinians a state. They are a stateless people because they are
unrecognized; they would get a state by recognizing them as such, not giving
them anything.
Here are signs Clinton didn't put himself out that much:
1. From the time Clinton presided over the handshake between Israeli PM
Yitzhak Rabin and Palestinian President Yasser Arafat in 1993 to the end of
Clinton's term, the number of Israeli colonists on the Palestinian land from
which Rabin had pledged to withdraw just about doubled. In 1993 there were
between 95,000 and 116,000 Israeli squatters in the West Bank and Gaza. By
1996 there were 147,000. By 2000 there were about 200,000. These numbers do
not include the squatters in East Jerusalem, which Israel has illegally
annexed in contravention of the UN charter. This stab in the back by the
Israelis of the Palestine Authority undermined the possibility of a
Palestinian state. Did Clinton kill himself stopping this vast expansion of
Israeli squatters on Palestinian land? No. Did he do anything at all about
it? No.
2. Israel agreed to withdraw its troops from the West Bank by the end of
1998. It did not. Its troops are still there, guarding sometimes murderous
or vandalizing Israeli squatters who are trying to displace the Palestinians
from their homes. Did Bill Clinton kill himself to get the Israeli troops
out of Palestine? No. Did he do anything at all about this collapse of Oslo
process commitments on Israel's part? No.
3. Donald Neff writes that in
"March, 1995 . . . President Clinton invoked the [UN Security Council] veto
after all 14 other members approved a U.N. Security Council resolution
calling on Israel to rescind a decision to expropriate 130 acres of land in
Arab East Jerusalem.23 The Clinton administration exercised two more vetoes
in 1997, both of them on resolutions otherwise unanimously supported by the
14 other Security Council members. The draft resolution was critical of
Israel's plans to establish a new settlement at Har Homa / Jabal Abu Ghneim
in East Jerusalem in the midst of Palestinian housing."
So did Bill Clinton kill himself stopping Israeli large scale theft of
Palestinian land while he was supposedly being an honest broker between
Israel and the Palestinians? No.
Clinton was the most partisan President for Israel in our country's history,
and was anything but even-handed in his approach to the Palestinians. The
Palestinians complained that they'd get an Israeli proposal, reject it, then
get the same one from the Americans; there wasn't really any difference
between the positions of those two.
Clinton also defended the brutal Israeli assault on defenseless little Gaza
in 2014, blaming it on Hamas and suggesting that they had craftily
manipulated world media into blaming the Israelis for killing nearly 2000
Palestinians. Mr. Clinton did not address the issue of proportionality, the
key one for critics of the assault. Nor did he address the Occupation, the
displacement of Palestinian families to Gaza by the Israelis, or the siege
of Gaza, contravening the Geneva Conventions if 1949.
Bill Clinton's partisanship for the Israeli side and refusal to act as an
honest broker, refusal to stop squatter settlements, refusal to let the UN
Security Council demand of Israel that it stop contravening international
law, and failure to get an actual text to which Palestinian negotiators
could assent, all these defects doomed the Oslo process and doomed the world
to more turmoil coming out of this interminable conflict. It also encouraged
the Israeli side to think they could get away with anything and so warped
them into a Likud far-right regime and an Apartheid state.
Bill Clinton didn't kill himself getting a Palestinian state. His one-sided
approach to the negotiations ensured that there would be none. Ever.
http://www.truthdig.com/avbooth/item/john_oliver_on_why_ubers_can_find_you_b
etter_than_911_can_video_20160516/
http://www.truthdig.com/avbooth/item/john_oliver_on_why_ubers_can_find_you_b
etter_than_911_can_video_20160516/
http://www.truthdig.com/avbooth/item/john_oliver_on_why_ubers_can_find_you_b
etter_than_911_can_video_20160516/
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/poof_its_forgotten_the_snapchat_version_
of_american_victory_20160516/
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/poof_its_forgotten_the_snapchat_version_
of_american_victory_20160516/
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/poof_its_forgotten_the_snapchat_version_
of_american_victory_20160516/
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/climate_change_means_cities_face_flash_f
lood_hazards_20160516/
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/climate_change_means_cities_face_flash_f
lood_hazards_20160516/
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/climate_change_means_cities_face_flash_f
lood_hazards_20160516/
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/why_april_17_2016_should_be_remembered_a
s_brazils_day_of_men_20160516/
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/why_april_17_2016_should_be_remembered_a
s_brazils_day_of_men_20160516/
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/why_april_17_2016_should_be_remembered_a
s_brazils_day_of_men_20160516/ http://www.truthdig.com/
http://www.truthdig.com/
http://www.truthdig.com/about/http://www.truthdig.com/contact/http://www.tru
thdig.com/about/advertising/http://www.truthdig.com/user_agreement/http://ww
w.truthdig.com/privacy_policy/http://www.truthdig.com/about/comment_policy/
C 2016 Truthdig, LLC. All rights reserved.
http://www.hopstudios.com/
http://support.truthdig.com/signup_page/subscribe
http://support.truthdig.com/signup_page/subscribe
http://www.facebook.com/truthdighttp://twitter.com/intent/follow?source=foll
owbutton&variant=1.0&screen_name=truthdighttps://plus.google.com/+truthdight
tp://www.linkedin.com/company/truthdighttp://truthdig.tumblr.com/http://www.
truthdig.com/connect
