Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, August 2009, page 56
Waging Peace
Nakba Events at UCLA
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ZIAD ABU-RISH discussed the Zionist colonization of Palestine at a May 16 program on the Nakba at UCLA, where he is a doctoral candidate in history. He pointed out that two of the conditions set by the United Nations to admit Israel into the world body were for it to produce a Constitution and to observe U.N. Resolution 194, calling for the return of Palestinian refugees or for compensation.
Israel has met neither condition. Abu-Rish stressed that an Israeli Constitution has not been forthcoming because it would have to spell out the treatment of Palestinian refugees.
A May 19 program entitled “U.S. Policy and the Palestine Question” featured attorney Noura Erekat and Dr. Bassam Haddad of George Mason University as part of UCLA’s Palestine Awareness Week.
Erekat, who is the legal advocate for the U.S. Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation, said the strength of the Israeli lobby lies in the absence of an effective Arab lobby in the U.S. The Israeli lobby enjoys an influence that is 200 times stronger than its adversary’s, she declared.
A solution to this imbalance, she suggested, may be found in a new organization, the American Association for Palestinian Equal Rights <www.aaper.org>.
According to Erekat, negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians are passé because any time the two sit down at a table, dialogue ends at a stand-off. “The Palestinians want recognition of what was done to them in 1948 and the right of return,” she noted. “The Israelis demand an existential recognition.”
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu presents a scary image, Erekat stated. “He is the exact opposite of Barack Obama in that he creates an imagery for the rest of the world in doublespeak of economic development in the West Bank and expansion of Jordan Valley settlements.”
Dr. Haddad interjected that the U.S. can’t criticize Israel’s military occupation of Palestine while it is occupying Iraq.
—Pat McDonnell Twair
