The Problem with the Process
Yousef Munayyer: Israeli and Palestinian negotiators are meeting again in Washington aiming to restart the often-attempted, never-successful process for peace—but it is the process itself that is the problem.
analysis
Combating Cynicism on Israeli-Palestinian Peace
Yousef Munayyer: “It’s never going to happen!” “They are just wasting their time.” “These talks are meaningless.” These are some of the most common responses when people who follow the Israeli-Palestinian issue are asked about the prospects for peace through negotiations. Call it cynicism if you will.
Why the Prawer Plan Is Just a Continuation of the Nakba
The Nakba is not a moment in time. The Nakba is an ongoing process. The Nakba is an experience of dispossession that transcends both time and space. Indeed the depopulation of Palestine of most of its native inhabitants from 1947-1949 did not merely become dispossession when an individual was forced from his home or his land. Rather, the dispossession became cemented when, after hostilities, a new state, the state of Israel, enforced this dispossession by…
Europe emerges from the ‘peace process’ dark age
Well, it’s finally happened. The European Union, Israel’s largest trading partner, has finally moved to leverage that relationship in the interest of changing Israel’s colonial behaviour. News broke yesterday of new guidelines for trade between the EU and Israel. The EU directive instructs “all 28 member states”, forbidding “any funding, cooperation, awarding of scholarships, research funds or prizes to anyone residing in the Jewish settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.”
Clinton’s Got It Wrong: Our Freedom is Our Right, Not Your Choice
Yousef Munayyer: The freedom of millions of Palestinians living under the yolk of Israel’s military occupation is portrayed as a matter that Israel should resolve because eventually they may be dealing with a larger problem: having to accept Palestinians as equals. Palestinian rights are reduced to an Israeli prerogative.
Does Israel Meet the Quartet Conditions?
Yousef Munayyer: Like many of his predecessors, Secretary of State John Kerry is currently working tirelessly in an effort to restart a peace process between Israelis and Palestinians. In recent weeks and months, he has traveled frequently to the region, meeting regularly with leaders. However, also like his predecessors, he too will fail to achieve anything without drastically breaking with the failed approaches of the past.
What Responses To Different Tragedies Teach Us About Ourselves: Profiling is Not the Answer
Yousef Munayyer: Something about the third week of April brings tragedy and bloodshed into American history: Waco, Oklahoma City, Columbine, Virginia Tech. Now Boston and West, Texas, are added to the list. The United States has too many memorials to remember in this short span. But the 2013 version of this week will prove important to reflect upon. Between the news of Boston and Texas came news out of Washington: the Senate failed to pass legislation that would expand background checks for gun sales, which would have been the simplest, least controversial legislative action they could have taken in response to an ongoing national debate set off after the Newtown, CT, shootings.
The Tour Hagel Should’ve Taken To Better Understand The Mideast Conflict
Yousef Munayyer: This is how an article in yesterday’s Washington Post, entitled, Chuck Hagel visits Israel, gets geography lesson, began. Hagel, the newly appointed U.S. Secretary of Defense, was taken on a helicopter tour by his Israeli counterpart, Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon. The helicopter of course, like so much Israeli military equipment, was U.S. made. But what kind of tour would Hagel really get from the Israeli military? I doubt they would take the time to point out the locations of all the Palestinian villages they depopulated—that would be a real geography lesson.
What Roger Cohen Gets Wrong
Yousef Munayyer: Liberal Zionism seems capable of nothing but hopelessness. Few things portray that as clearly and as succinctly as Roger Cohen’s most recent column for the New York Times, “Zero Dark Zero.” To give credit where credit is due, Cohen does accurately identify some important and relevant points. He argues that “Israelis for the most part are comfortable enough to ignore their neighbors.” He’s right. Israelis, as many analysts have come to conclude in reading the results of the most recent elections, have deprioritized the Palestinian issue.
