{"id":9371,"date":"2017-12-22T15:34:44","date_gmt":"2017-12-22T15:34:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/litci.org\/en\/?p=9371"},"modified":"2017-12-22T15:34:44","modified_gmt":"2017-12-22T15:34:44","slug":"the-us-under-trump-is-finally-an-honest-broker-for-israel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/litci.org\/en\/the-us-under-trump-is-finally-an-honest-broker-for-israel\/","title":{"rendered":"The US under Trump is finally an honest broker… for Israel"},"content":{"rendered":"

Palestinians are angry about the US decision to recognise Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.\u00a0<\/em>We are angry because such a recognition is an acknowledgment that the US supports Israel in its colonisation of our land. In Jerusalem, this colonisation is translated into the ethnic cleansing of our people from the city. But this support isn\u2019t new. It is a century old, and our anger is that old too.<\/em>
\nBy Fayrouz Sharqawi.<\/strong>
\nOriginally published @ www.trtworld.com<\/a>
\n 
\nFor Palestinians on the ground, Trump\u2019s announcement is the normalisation of Israeli policies of colonisation. With the fear of putting things in a positive light, I dare say that this is the most honest US administration. Its positions and\u00a0actions<\/em>\u00a0are consistent regarding the occupation of Palestine.
\nThroughout the history of the Zionist project, successive US administrations have been supportive. Political, military and financial support was given to the Zionist movement prior to the\u00a0Nakba<\/em>\u00a0<\/a>in 1948 and has continued and grown since the declaration of independence by the state of Israel on Palestinian lands.
\nPolitically, this support has best been demonstrated through the use of the veto power at the UN Security Council. The US has used its veto power a total of\u00a079 times<\/a>, 42 of which have been used to protect Israel. Financially and militarily, Israel is the largest cumulative recipient of US foreign assistance since World War II. By the end of 2016, the United States had provided Israel with a little more than $127 billion in aid.
\nIn September 2016, Obama gave Israel a \u201cgoodbye gift\u201d. A new 10-year Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) according to which the United States pledges to provide $38 billion in military aid ($33 billion in Foreign Military Financing grants plus $5 billion in missile defence appropriations) to Israel. The previous MOU, which ended in 2016, was a $30 billion, 10-year agreement.
\nIn Jerusalem, this money supports Israeli plans to ethnically cleanse as many Palestinian residents as possible, with a declared aspirational demographic \u201cbalance\u201d of 70 percent Israeli and 30 percent Palestinian. The Israeli authorities have been bureaucratically and silently displacing Palestinian Jerusalemites.
\nThe policies are known to all: land confiscation, home demolition, residency permit revocation, the suffocation of our economy and intentional neglect and underdevelopment in general.
\nThere are many reasons for the historic unconditional, diplomatic and financial support that the US provides Israel with. Among these is intelligence sharing, ideological unity, the strong Zionist lobby and more. This support has been steadily growing and evolving over decades, and the Trump Administration\u2019s recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel is a natural result of a long-term process.
\nYet Trump\u2019s announcement caused a storm in the media.
\nStatements were issued condemning, expressing concern, calling and alerting that the announcement jeopardises \u201cstability in the region\u201d and harms the \u201cpeace process and the two-state solution\u201d. Summits and emergency conferences have been held, rehashing the same old words: human rights, international law, decisions, steps and so on.
\nThese are the voices of the Palestinian Authority, Arab and some foreign leaders and NGOs. They are angry too, but for a different reason: the announcement declares the bankruptcy of their discourse and project.
\nWhile Israel has been putting “facts on the ground,” creating its own Zionist state through the killing, dispossession, and oppression of the Palestinian people \u2014and while the US has been supporting this settler-colonialist project\u2014the PA and the \u201cInternational Community\u201d (including the US, absurdly) have been insisting on a framework for a peace process and negotiations aimed at lead to a two-state settlement in Palestine based on “international law”.
\nBut this peace process has been dead for a long time, and for more than 69 years, international law has been failing the Palestinians.
\nThe toolbox of human rights has not been helping, but rather stifling our struggle for freedom and dignity. While we have been formulating statements, citing international law and UN resolutions, Israel has been strengthening its grip over more and more Palestinian land, while also normalising its relationships with as many countries as possible through economic ties.
\nIn the face of these challenges, one would expect the Palestinian Authority (PA) to be defending the Palestinian people and their struggle. Yet the PA is the biggest obstacle in the people\u2019s way to liberation. The PA is considered by many here in Jerusalem as a collaborator with the occupying force.
\nPalestinians are aware that the biggest obstacle in our way to liberation is the PA\u2019s continuous security coordination with Israel, and it’s insisting on the \u201cpeace process\u201d and international law frameworks.
\nFor all these reasons, Palestinians are protesting in the streets. It is crucial that we see this wave of protests within a wider political context. This is not an uprising against Trump\u2019s announcement alone, but a natural part of an ongoing confrontation with the Israeli occupation.
\nFor Palestinians, the announcement is an opportunity to remind the world of this context, and to raise a louder voice that we refuse to remain trapped in a situation which undermines our struggle for freedom and self-determination.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Palestinians are angry about the US decision to recognise Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.\u00a0We are angry because such a recognition is an acknowledgment that the US supports Israel in its colonisation of our land. In Jerusalem, this colonisation is translated into the ethnic cleansing of our people from the city. But this support isn\u2019t […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9372,"menu_order":1151,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"litci_post_political_author":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3710],"tags":[4210,5330,5307,3721,5331,4649,4826],"class_list":["post-9371","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-palestine","tag-donald-trump","tag-fayrouz-sharqawi","tag-jerusalem","tag-middle-east","tag-palestinian-authority","tag-palestinian-struggle","tag-state-of-israel"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/litci.org\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/trump-y-netanyahu-820x500-1.jpg?fit=820%2C500&ssl=1","fimg_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/litci.org\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/trump-y-netanyahu-820x500-1.jpg?fit=820%2C500&ssl=1","categories_names":["Palestine"],"author_info":{"name":"litci","pic":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/c5ccde5393ccb83747702c5ca92f55d8fdaf99be9432d0142571c6d437fbaadb?s=96&d=mm&r=g"},"political_author":null,"tagline":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/litci.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9371","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/litci.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/litci.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/litci.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/litci.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9371"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/litci.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9371\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/litci.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9372"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/litci.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9371"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/litci.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9371"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/litci.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9371"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}