PROPONENTS of the two-state solution to Palestine, that is the creation of two separate states, Israel and Palestine through peaceful negotiations, with East Jerusalem as the Palestinian capital, have received a very bloody nose at the hands of President Obama and the Democratic leadership at the US Democratic convention.
The punch was administered directly by Obama himself who insisted that the convention statement must hail Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.
This passage, however, was resisted by many delegates who booed and jeered the change in policy. So great was the opposition that the vote had to be taken three times.
Presumably now the US embassy will be moved from Tel Aviv, the Israeli capital, to Jerusalem, which is recognised by the UN as being part of Israeli-occupied Palestine and not a part of the state of Israel.
This is the second time that Obama has moved to recognise Jerusalem as the Israeli capital. He did so when he was waging his first presidential campaign in 2008. He was elected president but was forced to change position by the furore caused by his capitulation to the Israeli ruling group, and his betrayal of the Palestinian people.
In 2008 he said: ‘Let me be clear, Israel’s security is sacrosanct. It is non-negotiable . . . The Palestinians need a state that is contiguous and cohesive and that allows them to prosper. But any agreement with the Palestinian people must preserve Israel’s identity as a Jewish state, with secure, recognised and defensible borders. Jerusalem will remain the capital of Israel, and it must remain undivided.’ This had the Zionists cheering from the rooftops – before Obama was forced to withdraw it.
Now he has done it again. This time it is to win the right-wing Zionists and the pro-Zionist vote for the presidency, and also to firm up the alliance with Israel in line with the requirements of the dirty work that is ahead in the Middle East against Syria, Iran, Hezbollah and the Palestinian masses – who are to be condemned to live in a Bantustan.
Obama’s current election campaign has been truly ruthless. It began with the murder of Osama bin Laden, killed and finished off by Seals while he was unarmed – they were determined on his funeral not putting him on trial where he could spill the beans on the imperialists. Obama showed the world that murder was his trade, and while others did the killing he directed it and watched it on screen.
His campaign continued with the recent publication, without any action by the US state to prevent it, of a book that recounted, firsthand, how the murder was carried out – again to show the US right-wing that Obama is a man they can vote for with a clear conscience.
And now he has delivered the killer blow, seeking to destroy the struggle of the Palestinian masses for the benefit of Israel and the anti-Iran alliance.
The next step is to move the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.
These events are another very rude awakening for all those who pin their faith in negotiated peaceful settlements, only achievable through the benign intervention of Israel’s sponsor and protector, the US.
The plain fact of life is that for Obama and US imperialism the Palestinian masses are expendable pawns, whose rights are to be ridden roughshod over in the scramble to garnish a handful of right-wing pro-Zionist votes, in the course of the imperialist war-drive in the Gulf.
The whole two-state solution is now consigned to the rubbish heap of history.
Instead of this farce, what is required is the stepping up of the Arab workers and youth revolution to drive imperialism out of the Middle East and replace the state of Israel with a Palestinian state, with Jerusalem as its capital, where the Palestinian and Jewish workers, as well as all Christians and Muslims, can live side by side.
For this to happen what the Arab masses have won must be defended, in order to go forward. This means defeating the pro-imperialist forces that are trying to destroy Ba’athist Syria for the benefit of Israel and the US, and defending the Lebanese and Iranian people against all of the imperialist and Zionist threats.
Above all the Palestinian masses and youth must unite and organise their revolution alongside all those Jewish workers and youth who can now see that Zionism was and remains a trap for the Jewish people. There must be a massive revolutionary struggle unleashed to replace the state of Israel with a secular and socialist Palestine.
In a period where the world capitalist system is in its greatest crisis ever, this can only be done as part of the struggle for the victory of the world socialist revolution.
