Page One

U.S. cannot mediate Israel-Palestine peace

Marc Sapir
Monday April 08, 2002

To the Editor: 

 

With the U.S. as mediator, the suppression of the Palestinian people cannot end because the United States is not a neutral party. The United States is Israel's financial sponsor and Israel serves as a permanent United States surrogate for military dominance of the oil dictatorships of the area. The United States does not support a free and independent Palestine. 

Three decades ago the Vietnamese communists refused to negotiate with a succession of South Vietnamese governments because they knew that the United States was behind those governments and that they needed to expose that reality in order to gain a settlement. Once Henry Kissinger was negotiating at the table in Paris the Vietnamese knew that they would get the U.S. troops and bombers out of Vietnam. 

In Palestine the situation is different but the same. Different because Israel is not a U.S. puppet. It is a U.S. surrogate. Israel must be at any peace table as an independent nation, but the way to peace is still with the United States and Israel at the same side of the table out in public, not with the United States pretending to be peace mediator. 

Mediation isn't even the correct terms for this negotiation process. Destruction of Palestine as a people and culture will continue until there is a neutral arbitrator to guarantee a just two state political settlement. 

So far the United Nations seems unwilling to tell the United States to move to one side of the table and cut the bull. 

 

Marc Sapir