Same old, same old – Israel wins again

Israel is where it has liked to be over the past several decades, allowing itself to be perceived as the victim of terror while at the same time occupying and terrorizing the citizens of Palestine. While negotiations drag on, while more land is settled, while the brutality of the occupation continues, notes Jim Miles.

As I sit and read the announcements from today’s first discussions from Annapolis, all I can see is another dismal failure for peace and another year long “negotiation” process that like Oslo, Camp David, the ‘road map’ all lead to the same place. That place, as so clearly denoted by the late Tanya Rinehart, is nowhere.

Today the leaders – Omert and Abbas – “have agreed to re-start negotiations to reach a comprehensive peace deal by the end of 2008.” Bush it was noted in the article “did not stay for the rest of the conference, leaving Annapolis as soon as the speeches were over.” He too is obviously quite happy with the status quo in Israel’s favour.

In the past, the Israelis have quite willingly agreed to negotiations, going even further at times as with the Gaza “withdrawal” as another smokescreen to continue with their settlement policy of both expanding existing settlements, allowing more illegal outposts, declaring more and more of Palestinian lands as military areas, and continuing with their house demolitions, roadblocks and detention of the Palestinian people. Nothing has changed, still going nowhere. More...