I Support a Palestinian State

What's going to happen regarding a possible government shutdown?  I don't give a twit.  As far as I'm concerned, the government shut down once Elon Musk got control of it back in January.  Let the government shut down.  It will hasten the breakup of the United States, and hopefully a few of the ten or twelve countries that emerge from the dissolution of the Union will recognize a Palestinian state.

In an effort to end the nearly eighty-year old conflict in the Middle East once and for all, over 150 countries have recognized the right of the nation of Palestine to have a state.  But, as is so often, when it comes to the nations of the world achieving virtual unanimity on an issue, the United States remains an outlier.  Having rejected the Law of the Sea Treaty, the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, the International Criminal Court, and several climate-change agreements, the United States will not support the rights of the Palestinian people - whom Newt Gingrich once called an "invented people" - to have a country of their own, living side by side with Israel. Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, India, Indonesia, Ireland - Ireland - Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Turkey, and the United Kingdom - the British! - all recognize a state for the Palestinian people. But the United States, a nation born out of colonialism and freed from the rule of a global empire, refuses to do so.

This has nothing to do with Trump.  This has everything to do with the influence of the American-Israeli Political Action Committee (AIPAC) and the Christian right.  AIPAC promotes Zionism, the belief that the Jews are entitled to as much land as deemed necessary for a Jewish state and the justification for the displacement of Palestinians from their homes and the right of Jewish settlers to create new Israeli towns on Palestinian land, while the Christian right views the Jewish state as a necessary prelude to the Second Coming, in which the predominantly majority Palestinians are not welcome to witness unless they accept Christ, less they be condemned with unrepentant Jews.

I support and recognize a Palestinian state.

You remember what I said a couple of years ago - that as a Catholic and as an American of Irish origin, I believe that the Irish Catholic diaspora in the United States should support the Palestinians because of Ulster.  But not just because of those six imprisoned counties that have been under British colonial domination and separated from the Irish homeland for over a hundred years.  It is also because of English domination of Ireland that began with the Anglo-Norman invasion of Ireland in 1171 and gradually led to total Irish capitulation to the English in 1542 and to 380 years of oppression.  Any American of Irish origin would and should agree that the plight of the Palestinians under Israel is no different.  Imagine a country so rich and powerful that it is able to take the land of another people and force said people to live in squalor and poverty and deny them dignity, condemn their culture, ridicule their religious allegiances, and occupy their land for the benefit of themselves and not for any of its rightful people . . . and cause them to starve and suffer without regret because it can.

That is not fair.

That is the Palestinian people under Israel since 1948.  That was the Irish people under England and then Great Britain until 1922.  Too many Republicans and Democrats - many of them Irish!  - have acquiesced in Israel's control over the West bank and Gaza, and too many American leaders on both sides of the aisle have paid little if any more than lip service to the need to alleviate the suffering in Gaza and have not done a thing to stop Israeli attacks on the Gazan people.  

Again . . . that is not fair.

When Irish President Michael Higgins speaks out against genocide of the Palestinians at at Holocaust remembrance ceremony, he is reminding the Israelis and the Jewish diaspora to show charity toward the Palestinian people and to protest the Israeli government's savage war against a people.  And he is branded an anti-Semite.  Why is President Higgins so vocal about this?  Consider the Irish.  Remember the suffering of Ireland throughout its history.  The Irish do.  The Irish diaspora, especially its American contingent, should.  And just as I hope that one day the occupied territories of Antrim, Armagh, Down, Fermanagh, Londonderry, and Tyrone, the six counties of British-ruled Ulster, will be reunited with Ireland . . .

. . . I hope that one day the occupied territories of the West Bank and Gaza will become an independent Palestine.

What's going to happen with the federal government?  Again, I don't give a twit.

Free

Hamas has released several hostages taken on October 7 at the start of the Israel-Hamas conflict, including a four-year-old American girl whose parents were killed by Hamas militants, during a four-day truce, which, as of this writing, may end today or may even be extended.  Many more people are calling for a cease-fire - myself included - as Israel wants it made plain that its operation against Hamas in Gaza is not over.  Far from it - it wants to eliminate Hamas (the group's name is an Arabic acronym for "Islamic Resistance Movement") as a militant organization and directly rule the Gaza Strip.  No one in Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's cabinet, least of all Netanyahu himself,  wants a two-state solution despite the fact that President Biden wants it and despite the fact that it's the only recourse.  

As for the borders of a Palestinian state, they will likely be close to the borders of the current Occupied Territories of the West Bank and Gaza, so at least the Palestinians have the river and the sea.  Perhaps Gaza, a territory of 2.3 million people crammed into an area half again the size of Washington, D.C., can in peacetime serve as an important seaport for a Palestinian state and can also be transformed into a cozy seaside haven at the nexus point between Africa and Asia.  But it will be an exclave, and that's not that worst thing that could happen to a future nation of Palestine.  Other countries - Russia, Azerbaijan, Angola, the United States (Alaska?) have exclaves, and they manage.

Meanwhile, President Biden deserves some credit for his diplomatic skills in getting as many hostages released as he has, and some Democratic strategists believe that it will mitigate the friction between mainstream Democrats and young voters and Islamic voters disappointed so far with Biden's handling of the conflict and his tilt to Israel.  Trump wouldn't have gotten these people released.  Trump only has the support of people who want to see Palestinians bombed into the Stone Age.

So, a second Trump Presidency is still a possibility . . .. 😉