American hypocrisy confirmed, Palestinians still pawns.
American hypocrisy is enormous: in alliance with Israel they have vetoed so many attempts to identify the real obstacles to peace, such as America enabling Israel to maintain massive armed forces, such as the continued building of settlements in defiance of international law.
Obama’s rhetoric and Netanyahu’s claims that he’s willing to talk, merely confirm that their idea of negotiation is that the most powerful should always get their way and that the human rights of Palestinians are incidentals.
There is no understanding that the Palestinian delegation has run out of cards to play. Request for the recognition of their sovereignty is almost the only card left. Previous peace negotiations have been a charade maintained by the powerful party and successive US Presidents have not had the courage to confront Israeli aggression and the stealing of land.
Australian governments collude with the unconvincing rhetoric from the US. They have yet another opportunity to display courage and insist that UN Resolution 242 and a settlement based on 1967 borders – still only 22 per cent of land to the Palestinians- is the solution which would involve some respect to human rights and to international law. Will Australia take this line ? Watch this space.