Sometimes I think columnist Charles Krauthammer and other Israeli apologists play a mind game. A good cop, bad cop strategy that is becoming more and more deadly.
Israel continues to develop tools and techniques to impoverish Palestinians and remove them from their lands. The latest two such devices are the apartheid wall and the so called Geneva Accord.
The accord was signed Dec. 1. The 50-page document lays out a plan for a presumed "peace agreement" between Israel and the Palestinian people.
This initiative is inconsistent with the prerequisites of a credible and durable peace. It undermines international law.
The accord nullifies the Palestinian right of return, both as a collective national right and as an individual right. By doing so, it strengthens existing attempts to relocate and scatter Palestinian refugees throughout the world.
The accord accepts the reconfiguration of Jerusalem based on Israeli annexation plans, and grants Palestinian-Arab legitimacy to the colonial process that altered the Arab character of Jerusalem.
The accord permanently accepts the presence of the vast majority of Israeli settlements, particularly those that surround Jerusalem from the east, south, north and northwest, where most post-1967 settlers live, and alters the geography of Palestine to accommodate such colonial seizures.
The accord codifies a process that would limit the upper ceiling of a potential Palestinian polity to a truncated and demilitarized entity void of sovereignty or viability. It allows for Israeli military and economic penetration and permanent outposts into the presumed Palestinian entity. It also leaves open all Israeli claims to the regions water resources, natural wealth, and airspace.
For these and many other reasons, these accords are only a recipe for continued war and violence.
Peace comes first and foremost from equality and respect for human rights. U.S. military and economic support merely encourages further violence and oppression.