'Battle' for Sustainable Peace Shifts from War in 2009 to Diplomacy in 2017

At the beginning of President Barack Obama's administration, coinciding with the then-recent end of the Cast Lead war Israel's second war on Gaza in 3 years, the first was the Summer Rain 2006 war, an op-ed was published proposing a change in policy to a new presidential administration:

 


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/23/AR2009012303459.html


The Washington Post letter editors picked the following letter for printing (second letter on the page view click 'next' to see part of the letter):


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/29/AR2009012903759.html

Letter writer David L. Frishberg, of Arlington, singled out one sentence of the column for dispute:


 Yousef Munayyer suggested that a fundamental shift in U.S. policy is needed if progress is to be made toward a lasting peace, that rejectionist parties in Palestinian politics come straight out of the refugee camps and that "most Palestinians owe their tragedies to the very genesis of Israel."


I sent the following letter that wasn't picked for publication:


to the editor,
Yousef Munayyer wrote in his Jan. 24, 2009 column "A New Mideast Approach," 






http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/23/AR2009012303459.html 

  "Most Palestinians owe their tragedies to the very genesis of Israel."
  The sentence is an accurate reflection of strains of zionist politics infusing the Israeli national narrative ranging from the fortunately outlawed Kach Party to current [2009] talk of Israel's "demographic problem" or "transfer" of Palestinian Arab residents, among but not limited to, Avigdor Lieberman of the Israel is Our Home (Yisrael Beiteinu) party.  Finally, the old zionist saying describing Palestine as "a land without a people for a people without a land" started the denial of the very existence, much less separate ethnic, cultural, religious, historic much less personal, identity of non-Jewish residents living on land now under Israel's control.

[end]

Updated to a 2017 context, the 'Stop Apologizing" video ad https://youtu.be/dFGWJ1vlf44 [link dead or may only load from phone and tablet 'mobile device' page views]   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dFGWJ1vIf44 [link loads computer page views] supporting the Knesset campaign of the Habayit Hayehudi (Jewish Home) party list headed by Naftali Bennett in the March 2015 Knesset election, echoes the past omission of civil legal equality for all faiths from the public discourse about Israel-Palestine conflict resolution.  



The Israeli political party campaign ad, featuring a candidate who has gone on to serve as both Education and Economy Ministers in the 2013 and 2015 Unity coalition governments, also continues the denial of Israeli policy contributions to continued conflict rather than conflict resolution, between people living on land where Israel controls freedom of movement of people and goods. 


The Cast Lead war of 2009 was followed by the Pillar of Defense/Cloud war in November 2012 (also after a USA Presidential election) and the Protective Edge/Solid Cliff war from June-August 2014.


By 2017 and the beginning of a new presidential administration, the 'battle' for a sustainable peace, between people of all faiths sharing the same land, has shifted to diplomacy from war. The USA Ambassador to the UN, on Dec 23, 2016, abstained from voting, rather than using her veto for the second time as in 2011, on UN Security Council resolution 2334 condemning Israeli (and Jewish-only for purposes of residency) settlements in the West Bank as an obstacle to peace as well as being internationally illegal.   


H. Res. 11 was the reaction to the abstention rather than veto,


http://docs.house.gov/billsthisweek/20170102/BILLS-115hres-Israel-PIH.pdf

passed in the House of Representatives on Jan 5, 2017,

http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2017/roll011.xml


condemning Pres. Obama's UN Ambassador Samantha Power for not vetoing the resolution, as ex-UN Ambassador Susan Rice had done in February 2011. 


S. Res. 6

https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/senate-resolution/6/text


echoes H. Res. 11 in the Senate 


https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/senate-resolution/6/cosponsors 



Hat tip to 


http://uscpr.org/campaigns/tell-congress-not-oppose-un-resolution-israeli-settlements/  

for links to House and Senate vote, co-sponsor and bill text sites.