If Israel is serious about ceasefire/hostage negotiations, it’s hard to tell from their decision to assassinate one of the chief negotiators for Hamas.
Welcome Ceasefire Negotiators
Ted Rall
Ted Rall is a syndicated political cartoonist for Andrews McMeel Syndication and WhoWhatWhy.org and Counterpoint. He is a contributor to Centerclip and co-host of "The Final Countdown" talk show on Radio Sputnik. He is a graphic novelist and author of many books of art and prose, and an occasional war correspondent. He is, recently, the author of the graphic novel "2024: Revisited."
6 Comments. Leave new
Indeed there is plenty of evidence — in recent days, the last year, and stretching back more than 75 years — supporting that the power brokers from both sides are not serious about peace negotiations. If we use that as an excuse to not be serious about peace negotiations going forward, that gets us only continuing violence. If we are to get anywhere, people are going to have to sit down and negotiate with the enemy.
What you need to take into account, Lee, is that Britain introduced European Zionists into Israel in much the same way that it introduced Christian Europeans into Zambia–by displacing the native people and granting the introduced people military and civil superiority over the indigenous population. In Palestine as in Zambia, the native population was never even asked to approve the infusion of Europeans and their own dispossession. Israel should be called “Far Northern Rhodesia.” That’s what the basis of negotiations should be, IMHO. The Palestinians are being very generous and forgiving if they will accept anything less.
Yes, I agree that bad stuff has been happening for a very long time. Way too many deaths and atrocities later, the question is how do we fix this? There is no resurrecting the dead, but for the survivors we must achieve a lasting plan that provides freedom, safety, and economic relief. Instead of sending tens of billions of dollars / euros annually for armaments, the world could be delivering something useful for the survivors. That depends upon getting some enemies to sit down and agree to it.
I completely agree with you about that.
I wonder. Has anyone “followed the money”? Which players, on both sides, have made the most money off this continuing conflict? And how much money are we talking about here?
I’m sure it’s been done, though I don’t have time to go looking for a link at the moment. There’s the several billion a year the US has been giving Israel for a long time, and then there’s all the special expenditures recently, plus the expense of moving and maintaining US troops and military equipment in Israel’s support. All money that would be better spent elsewhere and otherwise. As Lee says, it’s (mostly on the USraeli side) a huge profit opportunity for the murder weapon manufacturers, and it’s happening at the expense of salvaging enough of our ecosystem so that we, and all other complex life forms on this planet, have a chance to survive.