Has George W. Bush finally decided he needs some kind of positive legacy, if only to strengthen his “brand” as a defense / oil industry consultant in the near future? Perhaps. Though one could hardly imagine a more flaccid and lackluster initiative than the one he has set in motion with the Annapolis conference. It took some real effort to sustain the delusion that the United States was some kind of honest broker in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict through Reagan, Bush I, and Clinton; with the current administration, the suggestion is merely laughable. For almost seven years, Bush has aligned himself with some of the most reactionary political forces in Israel. He called Sharon a “man of peace” even as he was smashing the life out of hundreds of Palestinians during the dark days of Spring 2002 (I recall a Newsday article by Ed Gargan from that time describing how IDF soldiers even vandalized a girl’s school, smashing windows, stealing musical instruments, and scrawling obscenities on blackboards). He backed that killer whale with arms, diplomatic support, and cash as settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem expanded and multiplied and the infrastructure of apartheid broke the Palestinian nation into a hundred pieces.

Now Dubya has taken it into his tiny head to visit some of the rubble that he so gleefully helped to generate over his two grisly terms. I’m sure he would be glad to see a peace agreement signed before next January. The fact is, they may well push Abbas to sign some piece of paper in the next year, but it’s not likely to address even the most minimal concerns of the suffering populations in Gaza, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem. As weak and unpopular a leader as Olmert is, he at least has the resources of a functioning state with well established institutions and a military that rivals those of the most powerful of our NATO allies. Abbas is a Palestinian leader chosen by Israel, elected under occupation with no meaningful opposition allowed, and “presiding” over a divided rump state effectively controlled by an invader and superimposed by the ever-expanding footprint of colonialism. Is the world supposed to view this as a negotiation between equals?

In any case, since when is an occupied people expected to negotiate their liberty from the power that illegally invaded and colonized them? Would this have been expected of Poland in the 1940s? Of Hungary in 1956? Shouldn’t we find the very idea morally repugnant, in addition to being a grave breach of international law? For chrissake, even if you could argue with any justice that the Israelis needed to occupy the territories beyond their pre-June 1967 borders for these forty years (a dubious notion), how can anybody… anybody justify the official policy of incentivizing Jewish-only settlements on those lands – a practice that has been in effect from the very beginning of the occupation? If Israelis feel that the very presence of Palestinians poses a danger to them, why do they insist on building colonial outposts in their midst? Palestinians would have to be utter morons to think that the state of Israel had no designs on their land… or that they had any serious intention of giving it back at some point. They would have to be insane to think that the U.S. – and particularly this president – which has financed, at least indirectly, the expansion of Israeli settlements and related infrastructure, will ever act as an honest broker.

If Bush wants “peace” on his resume, he should face facts. Real peace will only come when Israel packs up its settlements and returns to its internationally recognized borders. That’s where negotiations should begin.

luv u,

jp

I heard a Washington Post columnist on NPR (yes, I listen from time to time, gnashing my teeth) talking about his latest book – an extended satirical essay on how our national political leaders in Washington D.C. are a kind of species unto themselves, with their own language, culture, and value systems completely distinct from those of the rest of the country. I know he’s playing this for laughs, but this is the sort of fable that nourishes the very manner of political beast he parodies. I ask you – who runs for national office without attacking some aspect of Washington D.C.? Isn’t that the horse that Dubya rode into town on, as well as nearly all of his predecessors for the past 30 years? They all embark on this mission to clean up the mess in our nation’s capital. Even after seven years in the White House, junior is still reading from that same tired “outsider” script. The reason is simple – people don’t see their desires or priorities reflected in federal policies, so Washington itself is painted as the problem… and a damned convenient one at that.

Well, there is a problem, but it’s not just in Washington. Fact is, it’s in us. We all drink the Kool-Aid that these folks serve up every two years. They tell us we can have roads, bridges, schools, retirement, and a bottomless military budget without paying higher taxes, and many of us believe. They tell us we invaded Iraq to help the Iraqi people (by giving them a one-way ticket to perdition, it turns out), and many of us believe. They tell us our nation can do practically anything it wants in the world and never be wrong, and that sounds good to us, too. We believe because we want to believe… we want to feel good about who and what we are, and not feel guilty about what we’ve done to other people around the world (to say nothing of our fellow citizens, including those unfortunate enough to be stuck in Iraq or Afghanistan). So we give politicians our votes. And if there’s a problem, it’s Washington’s fault.

I know you already know this, but I’ll say it anyway just to remind myself. Those people in Washington D.C. we so revile were sent there by us. They do what they do because they feel confident that between election days we’ll be too busy, too distracted, and too disengaged to have anything to do with the actual process of national governance. They assume (based on experience) that we can be bought off with a few pleasing tales (or by slinging a guitar and talking folksy), while they almost unfailingly serve the interests of those centers of concentrated wealth that own this country. And to a large extent, they are correct. The only way we can stand against those powerful institutions is by building our own popular institutions, by organizing and acting in our own common interests. Corporate America has nothing but money, and we have nothing but numbers – we can prevail if we are willing to abandon the notion that progress comes in a glossy package.

The bought and paid-for politicians will try to convince you that Washington is the enemy. Don’t buy it. Washington will change when we change ourselves and not before.

luv u,

jp