Peter

Don’t look to Government for solutions via traditional diplomacy to change the situation, look instead to Civil Society, such as people power in solidarity with BDS.

At Sabeel’s 28th regional conference, in Oct. 2009, Richard Falk, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in the Occupied Territories said:

“The grounds for hope are in the history of the last 75 years that shows that military approaches do not succeed in successful political outcomes. America won every battle in Vietnam, but lost the war.

“The people running the government still subscribe to political realism; military power. Afghanistan proves militarism doesn’t work, but we keep reinventing failure. We talk human rights but still engage in military interventions.

“Only progressive forces in civil society recognize this and understand the symbolic battlefield of morality and the legitimacy war. Shifting expectations from institutions and government onto the global battlefield of legitimacy will determine destiny.

“There is potency in nonviolence as proved by Gandhi but anti-apartheid strategies doesn’t mean we will see a just outcome; look at Tibet, but it is the only path.

“It is the Politics of Impossibility that can project the unimaginable. No one expected Nelson Mandela to be released from jail or the collapse of the USSR.

“This set of circumstances requires the art of the impossible and the war is waged in the consciences of people which makes it so powerful.

“The Legitimacy War gives me hope that Palestine will receive justice and there will be peace.

“The traditional institutions are limp and the UN Charter is an illusion as a way forward in the conflict. That is the signal to Civil Society to act for no leadership should be given impunity for what amounts to war crimes. They must be held accountable and the call is for national governments and institutions to implement international law and universal jurisdiction.”

Case in point:

On September 29, 2009, a Palestinian bid to enact international law and universal jurisdiction by seeking the arrest of Israeli defense chief Ehud Barak for war crimes during his visit to Britain did not result in his arrest; but it was seriously debated by UK Judges for five hours and led to Vice Prime Minister Moshe Ya’alon, to cancel his scheduled trip to London.

Does history give us any reason to hope that legitimizing and recognizing two fundamentally hostile neighboring states within the narrow confines of the Holy Land, separated by miles of barbed-wire fences, concrete walls, and watchtowers, will lead to a truly just and long-lasting peace? Will it resolve the countless gut-wrenching grievances over land seizures and bulldozed crops and dwellings? Will it be the balm needed in Gilead to soothe the pain of bereavement and despair? Will it be seen as doing equal justice to all concerned?

Then there is the symbolism of wrapping fortress Israel in a barbed wire security fence. Auschwitz and Buchenwald were fenced, too. There are some older Israelis who still remember what it was like to be cut off from the outside by such cruel perimeters. Will they ever be able to accept the transformation of their state into a ghetto-like “gated community”? Do most Jews truly desire this scenario in their hearts? I have yet to meet one who is completely supportive of such an outcome.

Buckminster Fuller once said, “In order to change something, don’t struggle to change the existing model. Create a new model, and make the old one obsolete.” The new paradigm being envisioned here is novel only in context, not in essence. It is based on an interesting but rarely considered diplomatic precedent: the highly successful Antarctic Treaty of 1959. That covenant is nearly as old as the State of Israel itself. It governs an area over five hundred times as large—an area that once was threatened with claims by quite a few competing nation-states. To its credit, and the credit of its signatories, it has been successful in keeping the peace for decades.

Given the widespread resentment that the State of Israel has lately brought upon itself by its expansionism, its illegal settlements, its religious and racial discrimination against non-Jews, and its oppressive treatment of the native Palestinians, one may be excused for wondering whether the world’s superpowers and the neighboring states in the region could not well and wisely undo today what they did in 1948-50.

Imagine a scenario, in other words, whereby the leading nations of the world would put the State of Israel on notice that, effective a certain date, diplomatic recognition would simply be withdrawn, and that henceforth no governmental claims to territory within the Holy Land (the region of present-day Israel and Palestine) would be recognized by the rest of the world.

Imagine a scenario in which most or all the other nations of the world would agree to support and recognize only a demilitarized “Holy Land Protectorate” (HLP) under U.N. stewardship. These outsider nations would commit themselves to a new tactic in international conflict resolution: “just saying NO” in a concerted way, on an international scale. They would agree to use every non-violent means within their power to transform the region of Israel and Palestine into a nation-state-free zone. They would declare it, in effect, a World Heritage site governed by a document similar to the Antarctic Treaty, with a full international bill of rights guaranteed to all its residents, regardless of their faith, color, or national origin. (A draft HLP treaty already exists at the web site http://www.holylandprotectorate.org.)

This may sound like tough love…. it IS. I submit that it is probably the only way to resolve the mideast crisis and the growing pan-Arab hostility to Zionism without war and bloodshed.