Sham Middle East Quartet Report on Advancing Israeli/Palestinian Peace

by Stephen Lendman

The so-called Israeli/Palestinian peace process is the greatest hoax in modern times - dead-on-arrival each time proposed for nearly half a century.

No peace process exists, none because Israel and Washington reject what defeats their imperial agenda. Wars at their discretion, endless violence and chaos serve it. Nothing in prospect suggests responsible change. 

Palestinians remain largely isolated on their own, Gazans trapped in the world's largest open-air prison entirely for political, not security, reasons - all Palestinians, including diaspora ones, victims of Anglo/Zionist viciousness.

The UN, America, EU and Russia, comprising the so-called Middle East Quartet, ignored reality on the ground like they always do - calling on hugely disparate sides like they're equals, urging they "independently demonstrate, through policies and actions, a genuine commitment to the two-state solution (and) refrain from unilateral steps that prejudice the outcome of the final negotiations."

Fact: Palestinians are longstanding victims, Israelis ruthless occupiers. 

Fact: For decades, one side alone genuinely sought peaceful conflict resolution, Palestinians unilaterally surrendering at Oslo - getting nothing in return for acquiescing to virtually all Israeli demands, renouncing armed struggle, recognizing Israel's right to exist, and agreeing to leave major unresolved issues for later final status talks. They're still waiting.

What hope is there for peace when Israel wants endless conflict, won't end occupation harshness, keeps expanding settlements on stolen Palestinian land, loots its resources, won't permit East Jerusalem as their future capital, denies diaspora Palestinians their legal right of return, and continues a policy of apartheid viciousness.

How can anything be resolved when Zionist zealots want things entirely their way, when US-led Western nations one-sidedly support them, when Palestinian rights don't matter - never earlier, not now, not ahead for as far as anyone dares imagine.

Quartet members inviting "both parties to engage with it on implementing its recommendations and creating the conditions for the resumption of meaningful negotiations that resolve all final status issues" ignore overwhelming power by one side unwilling to responsibly compromise, and virtually none by a long-suffering people enduring endless misery. 

Israel has no intention of agreeing to Palestinian statehood within June 1967 borders, with East Jerusalem as its capital, accepting its sovereign independence, along with ending illegal occupation and settlement expansions.

Nor will it cease instigating violence against a defenseless people, blaming them for its ruthlessness.

Peace remains unattainable until Quartet members refuse any longer to put up with its high crimes against peace, hold its officials accountable and affirm international law guaranteed Palestinian rights by meaningful actions. 

It's shameless accusing a long-suffering people of terrorism when they're victims, brutally persecuted by a ruthless occupier - a fascist regime treating them the way Hitler treated Jews.

Lofty rhetoric urging both sides negotiate peace with no preconditions no longer holds water, meaningless to say what Israel should or shouldn't do - long past time demanding it, or else!

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. 

His new book as editor and contributor is titled "Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III."

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com. 

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