THE US-sponsored three-day conference held this week in the Gulf state of Bahrain to unveil the first stage of Donald Trump’s ‘deal of the century’ has been met with anger and demonstrations in Palestine and throughout the Arab world.
Every Palestinian faction boycotted this conference which had the support only of America’s allies amongst the feudal Gulf state rulers.
The conference was billed by the Trump administration as being the economic component of his ‘peace deal’, a deal he boasts ‘will be the foundation for an Israeli-Palestinian peace’.
The political component which Trump intends to try and impose on the Palestinians has yet to be revealed.
According to Jared Kushner, Trump’s advisor, son-in-law and the main architect of this deal, the reason for splitting the ‘peace’ proposals in two is because the economic plan is ‘less controversial’ than the political ‘settlement’ that Trump has up his sleeve to impose on the Palestinian people – a one-state solution with Israel as the only state and Palestinians driven out!
If this conference was thought to be uncontroversial, then Trump and Kushner were badly mistaken.
Along with boycotting the conference, Palestine and neighbouring Lebanon erupted at its start with thousands taking to the streets demonstrating their determination not to see Palestine sold for a pittance.
Thousands protested in the Moroccan capital Rabat on Sunday demanding their government not to participate and in the Jordanian capital Amman, protesters attempted to march on the US embassy with banners proclaiming, ‘We won’t sell our martyrs’ blood in Bahrain.’
In Tunisia, trade unions mobilised against a travel agency that is organising trips to the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem.
In fact, the opposition of the people throughout the region and their support for the Palestinian struggle against Zionist occupation was such that even the most ardent supporters of US imperialism only sent along minor officials to participate in the conference.
Israel itself was not invited to attend as the furore of having Israel present at a supposed ‘peace’ conference boycotted by Palestinians would have sparked off even bigger eruptions on the streets.
The grand economic plan unveiled amounts to nothing more than Washington asking the wealthy Gulf oil producers like Saudi Arabia to stump up $50 billion to ‘invest’ in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip.
In a blatant attempt to bribe Jordan, Egypt and Lebanon to get on-board with Trump’s plan, nearly half this amount would be distributed to them.
Critics across the Middle East are calling this a change from ‘land for peace’ (Israel withdrawing its illegal occupation of Palestinian territories in return for a peace settlement) to one of ‘money for peace’.
In fact, this money doesn’t even exist and is just a wish of Kushner and Trump; they want to buy Palestine for a pittance using the vague promise of money at some time in the unspecified future.
The plan avoids even mentioning the real cause of economic hardship experienced by Palestinians – the brutal Israeli occupation and theft of Palestinian lands through illegal settlements and annexations along with the transformation of Gaza into a massive prison camp for its people guarded by barbed wire and enforced by murderous Israeli snipers.
The drive by the Israelis is to create a Bantustan for Palestinians, along the lines of those under the racist apartheid regime in South Africa, where Palestinians have to live with no rights to remain on their land and can be ejected into neighbouring countries at the will of the Israeli government.
Palestinians have fought heroically against the oppression of the Zionist occupiers and their struggle for their own independent viable state has won the support not only of the masses in the region but amongst the working class throughout the world.
The working class in Britain must now come forward in support of the Palestinians by organising to kick out this Tory government which is arming the Israeli regime and going forward to a workers government that will immediately recognise the independent state of Palestine with Jerusalem as its capital and give it all the financial and physical support it requires to prosper.
