05/02/14 – Ramzy Baroud – The Scott Horton Show

Oh, John Kerry's Mideast peace talks have gone nowhere.
Hey y'all, Scott Horton here for the Council for the National Interest at councilforthenationalinterest.org.
U.S. military and financial support for Israel's permanent occupations of the West Bank and Gaza Strip is immoral, and it threatens national security by helping generate terrorist attacks against our country.
And face it, it's bad for Israel, too.
Without our unlimited support, they would have much more incentive to reach a lasting peace with their neighbors.
It's past time for us to make our government stop making matters worse.
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Okay, Ramzi and the beach refugee camp, that is a reference to the place where a deal was made, a handshake or a signature was signed, something, making peace and beginning at least the forging of a coalition government with the Palestinian Authority, Fatah and Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
Is that correct?
That is correct, yes.
And what's the status of that agreement at this point?
Well, the status of the agreement is that both parties agreed on the, because it has a different constituency, many of its supporters are quite religious and they do not necessarily, you know, they needed language that appeals to them at a different level.
So they provided a set of conditions that would appeal to their constituents.
But at the same time, the practical implications of it is that they too are willing to go for the two state solution.
And perhaps this is the real danger of the agreement as far as Israel is concerned.
Responsibility, which usually means take it on the chin with some missile strikes and stuff in response, even if it's somebody else that does it, right?
So they're trying to act like a responsible state as responsible prison guards inside the juvenile prison that is the Gaza Strip, basically, correct?
That's right.
And in fact, the second day, the second day to the signing of the unity agreement between Hamas and Fatah, Israeli forces conducted an incursion into the northern Gaza Strip, perhaps hoping that Hamas would retaliate.
And then the whole propaganda war is going to start saying, wait a minute, you've just signed an agreement with a terrorist organization and so forth and so on.
So the whole provocation thing is very much related to Israel's intention of constantly creating a Palestinian boogeyman.
In the case of Hamas, if Hamas manages to navigate itself out of that stereotype, again, it's going to be a very tough position for Benjamin Netanyahu, although personally, I think the Israeli government is very, very resourceful towards it.
At the same time, Netanyahu and his Palestinian partner, whether it was Arafat, now Abbas, kind of really maintain this charade of being, you know, constantly meeting, shaking hands and that sort of thing.
It kind of means.
Sorry, I have to stop you right there, Ramzi.
We got to take this dang break here.
There are heartbreaks built in, but we'll be right back, everybody, with Ramzi Baroud from PalestineChronicle.com.
One second.
Phone records, financial and location data, prism, tempora, X-key score, boundless informant.
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All right, you guys, welcome back to the show.
I'm Scott Horton.
This is my show, The Scott Horton Show.
I'm talking with Ramzi Baroud, editor of Palestine Chronicle at palestinechronicle.com and a frequent writer at antiwar.com.
Palestinian unity, hope and gloom in the beach refugee camp.
And so, well, let me ask you this now, Ramzi, and I may be all over the place in this interview.
I never know quite what to think about all this stuff, but I saw an essay by a writer.
Well, I don't want to get you in a fight with anybody.
I saw an essay by a writer, a Palestinian writer who says that the two state solution really is just a trap.
It'll only be, if it ever happens at all, it'll be one step up, maybe half a step up from the occupation as it exists now.
It'll never be a state in the sense that any other nation state in the world is a state.
Netanyahu has explained what an independent Palestinian state would look like to him.
And it's just like the occupation, basically.
Well, you know, area C security zones, etc. like that, and how ultimately if they did a two state solution, in practice, what it would amount to is legitimization of what is now considered by almost everyone on earth to be completely illegitimate.
And that is the permanent occupation of the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem.
And so what do you think about that, that it's such a half a loaf deal, it'll make it, it'll short circuit real attempts, attempts that could create a more workable solution, a better solution of some kind, and replace it with basically a status quo, a stronger status quo.
That'll be much harder to dislodge.
I do agree with his opinion.
I think there are two realities here, one that exists intellectually and politically, you know, what we talk about over radio, what we write about in newspapers, and what we blog about.
And there's the other reality of what is actually happening in the ground in Palestine, to talk about two state solutions, and actually try to understand the topography of the occupation, the demographics, how involved both Jews and Arabs are in their in their everyday life, to talk about two state solution that is going to guarantee some sort of racial supremacy of one or create some sort of segregation between ethnicities and races is absolutely impossible.
No one can look at the map of the West Bank, and Jerusalem and Israel.
I mean, just look at the Palestinians within Israel itself.
Nearly 2 million Palestinians living in Israel.
These are Palestinians who have never left after Palestinians were ethnically cleansed in 1948.
It's just an impossible scenario to create a two state solution that is based on ethnicity.
The fact is, this is something that we talk about, because politically, the Americans, the Europeans, the UN are politically bankrupt, they don't really have anything else.
They know that the two state solutions is over.
It only exists on paper, it only exists at some sort of intellectual level, but it doesn't exist in reality.
But to accept the fact that it no longer exists, it means to have to contend with a very harsh reality for them.
And that is for Palestinians and Israelis to coexist somehow.
And for that to happen, Netanyahu has decided that this is tantamount to the destruction of the Jewish state.
And nobody wants to venture out to that to that level.
So we talk about something that doesn't exist, because we are afraid to embrace and to discuss the reality on the ground and what is in fact possible at this point.
Which is what because it seems like things play out in an obvious way, where at some point, there are just so many more Palestinians than Israeli Jews, that at that point, it will at least be a real if it's not already, I understand people would say it is already, I'm not saying it's not.
But at that point, it'll be basically consensus that Israel has annexed the West Bank, that it is part of Israel proper.
And now it's a minority Jewish population ruling over the Palestinians.
At that point, if it's a one state, if all the pressures on the Israeli Jews to go ahead and side with democracy over having a Jewish majority and a permanent permanent Jewish state there are permanent majority Jewish run state there, won't there just be a civil war?
Because they're not going to go for that.
Well, I hope not.
I mean, it's the moral thing to do.
I mean, imagine, I don't think there's any doubt about that.
I just fear the worst that they would say, actually, we'll just do another knock.
But if it comes to that, because we're sure as hell not going to give you majority power here.
That's true.
And we understand that this is something that has to be phased out.
It's something that cannot be imposed.
And it requires a great deal of cultural dialogue, political dialogue, and it has to be phased out on the course maybe of an entire generation.
But the issue is this.
Currently, right now, between the River Jordan and the Mediterranean Sea, there are Jews and Arabs who are living and sharing the same space.
They are sharing water.
They are sharing the hills of the West Bank and the Galilee.
They are everywhere.
I mean, not one single town in Israel and not one single place in the West Bank that is vacant of a mix of Arabs and Jews.
But the problem is the kind of laws that govern this mass of people is unfair, and it's racist.
And this is the issue.
So it's really, it may sound, appear to be a giant task, but in reality, it's all about rewriting the laws to give each citizen, each person, each resident of that space between the River Jordan and the Mediterranean Sea equal rights.
It's really that much of a challenge.
And of course, the mentality that rules Israel right now, that of Netanyahu and others, will not accept that.
But just the fact that they will not accept that, it doesn't mean that we shouldn't push for it.
It's the same way that we pushed for the end of apartheid in South Africa, despite the fact that all odds were against us.
And yet somehow, those who pushed for that sort of change prevailed at the end of the day.
This is the kind of change we hope to achieve in Palestine, Israel.
Well, I mean, just look at the fact that we haven't even wasted time talking about these stupid talks because they're nothing but fake stupid talks anyway.
Why even waste time talking about that?
You know what I'll talk about instead?
I'll make a suggestion that instead of apartheid or interchangeable with apartheid, but I'm saying since everybody wants to cry boohoo about apartheid, you know what would be about the term apartheid, not the reality of it, which is worth crying about.
But they cry about the term.
What would be more effective in America anyway would be to make direct comparisons to the old South and the old Jim Crow way of doing things, because that's one thing that Americans are actually really proud of, is that it's not like that anymore.
We got a lot of racism.
We got a lot of problems.
But Jim Crow is over.
And if you compare it to that, it's a direct comparison.
And Americans, they can't even find South Africa on a map, dude, anyway.
So you might as well say this is like Mississippi in the battle days.
Now do you understand?
And they will understand.
Absolutely.
I agree with you, Scott.
And you know, but also it's important to remember that it took Americans a long, long time to reach where they are right now.
And still there are so many challenges to overcome.
Right.
So that's why.
But Americans' opinions about this situation is pretty much going to have to change before very much can change over there.
You know, that's right.
I agree.
And it's just, you know, and I'll tell you another thing, too, as long as I'm telling you stuff instead of asking you stuff.
I think most Americans don't understand that there's an occupation of that.
There is a war.
And then this territory that was foreign territory has been occupied, but the people still live there.
They're just under a foreign martial law for almost 50 years now.
I don't think they understand that.
I think they think that Palestine is already the country next door.
So I think that there's a lot of, you know, maybe there's they're confused about why you would need a two state solution to where, but they never had anyone iron it out for them.
So I think a lot of education on the very basic level is really important.
You know, and there's no question about it, of course.
Yeah.
I mean, I think everybody else in the world pretty much gets as far as I can tell from from what I read around here now.
That is true.
I'm talking to you from London right now.
And, you know, you would never have to contend with these kind of questions, the kind of debates that we have in universities and the media.
Much of this is already understood that the debate is at a much more advanced level.
In the US, it remains a very big challenge.
And I, you know, I could go on and talk about the media and the propaganda and all that.
But there's a lot of work that we need to do ourselves to change that.
Right.
And I'm sorry for saving this till the end.
And we're almost completely out of time.
But in just about half a minute or so, could you talk about the humanitarian situation in Gaza and whether it's gotten any better at all?
It actually got worse with the after the CC overthrew Mohamed Morsi and punished Hamas for their affiliation with the Muslim Brotherhood.
So that kind of line that only that available respite for Palestinians was closed when C.C. came to power.
The situation got a lot worse.
Now, the hope is that because of C.C.'s affiliation with Mahmoud Abbas in the West Bank, hopefully there will be a little bit of some opening, some margin where he would allow for the border between Gaza and Egypt to open up.
Great.
All right.
Well, thank you very much for your time.
I sure appreciate it.
Thank you, Scott.
Sorry, we have to leave it here.
That's Ramzi Baroud, everybody.
He writes at PalestineChronicle.com.
And you can find him at Antiwar.com today.
Palestinian Unity, Hope and Gloom in the Beach Refugee Camp.
Thanks for listening.
See you all next week.
Hey, all.
Scott here.
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