By Baher Kamal and Fareed Mahdy
Now that the Palestinian Authority (PA) is further concentrating its efforts on submitting to the UN, next September, a formal demand for the recognition of Palestine as an independent state, the U.S. and Israel are working to prevent the international community from doing so, and proposing new talks with the condition that the Palestinians abandon their legitimate request. Many believe that the Middle East game was already over even before it started.
Photo: Mike Hanini – hanini.org
In fact, a reasonable dose of good memory and a quick look at the roots of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict would be enough to conclude that it had already been solved exactly 114 years ago.
This is the story behind the story: in August 1897, Basel, Switzer- land, hosted the First Zionist Congress. It was the first congress of the Zionist Organisation, which in 1960 became the World Zionist Organisation.
Under the guidance and chairmanship of Theodor Herzl, the founder of modern Zionism, and as a symbolic Parliament for those in agreement with the implementation of Zionist goals, the Congress gathered around 200 delegates from 17 countries.
Ten non-Jews delegates attended but they were expected to abstain from voting. That was maybe the first concrete indication that the Congress was a strict Jewish gathering, for Jewish participants, with an exclusive Jewish agenda.
The Congress formulated the Zionist Platform, and founded the World Zionist Organisation. But it also adopted Hatikvah as its anthem, which later became the national anthem of the State of Israel, created 50 years after the Congress. That was a second but not less important indicator of such an exclusive Jewish agenda, which started to be steadily implemented since 1897.
Israel, Created In 1897
The key issues on the 1897 Zionist Congress agenda were the presentation of Herzl’s plans, the establishment of the Zionist Organisation and the declaration of Zionism’s goals.
More specifically, the version of the programme that was submitted to the Congress stated: “Zionism seeks to establish a home for the Jewish people in Palestine secured under public law.”
The Plan
The political programme, known as the Basel Programme, laid out Zionism’s goals:
“Zionism aims at establishing for the Jewish people a publicly and legally assured home in Palestine. For the attainment of this purpose, the Congress considers the following means serviceable:
1. The promotion of the settlement of Jewish agriculturists, artisans, and tradesmen in Palestine,
2. The federation of all Jews into local or general groups, according to the laws of the various countries,
3. The strengthening of the Jewish feeling and consciousness, and
4. Preparatory steps for the attainment of those governmental grants, which are necessary to the achievement of the Zionist purpose.”
“I Have Founded The Jewish State”–Theodor Herzl Wrote On Sept. 1st, 1897
Theodor Herzl wrote in his diary (Sept. 1, 1897): “Were I to sum up the Basle Congress in a word — which I shall guard against pronouncing publicly — it would be this: At Basle I founded the Jewish State. If I said this out loud today l would be greeted by universal laughter. In five years perhaps, and certainly in fifty years, everyone will perceive it.”
This is exactly what happened — fifty years after, the Jewish State was indeed founded.
A Bank Called “The Jewish Colonial Trust”
Subsequent Congresses founded various institutions for the promotion of this programme, notably a people’s bank known as the Jewish Colonial Trust, which was the financial instrument of political Zionism.
Its establishment was suggested at the First Zionist Congress in 1897 and the first definite steps toward its institution were taken at the Second Zionist Congress in Cologne, Germany, in May 1898, that’s only nine months after the First Zionist Congress in Basel.
A New Fund To ‘Purchase’ Palestinian Lands
For the Fifth Zionist Congress, the Jewish National Fund was founded for the purchase of land in the Land of Israel and later the Zionist Commission was founded with subsidiary societies for the study and improvement of the social and economic condition of the Jews within the Land of Israel.
The Zionist Congress met every year between 1897 and 1901, then except for war years, every second year (1903-1913, 1921-1939).
The Ultimate Goal
In 1942, an “Extraordinary Zionist Conference” was convened and announced a fundamental departure from traditional Zionist policy with its demand “that Palestine be established as a Jewish Commonwealth”.
It became the official Zionist stand on the ultimate aim of the movement. Since World War II, meetings have been organised approximately every four years and since the creation of the State of Israel, the Congress has been held in Jerusalem.
And that was the concrete indication that the Zionist programme has already decided to establish Jerusalem as the capital of the Jewish State of Israel.
The Jewish Lobbies
Further on, the World Jewish Congress (WJC) was founded in Geneva in 1936 as an international federation of Jewish communities and organisations.
According to its mission statement, the World Jewish Congress’ main purpose is to act as “the diplomatic arm of the Jewish people”.
Membership in the WJC was declared open to all representative Jewish groups or communities, irrespective of the social, political or economic ideology of the community’s host country.
The World Jewish Congress is supported by those communities and individual members who as concerned Jewish citizens want their voices to be heard on matters of concern to the Jewish people.
Special Credentials At The UN
The WJC has special credentials and recognition at the United Nations and many of its institutions, commissions and sub-bodies. Its headquarters are in New York, and the organisation maintains international offices in Brussels; Jerusalem; Paris; Moscow; Buenos Aires, and Geneva.
This is an indication of the formal promotion of what is known as Israeli or Jewish lobbies, mainly in Western countries.
The WJC is made up of five regional branches: WJC North America, the Latin American Jewish Congress, the European Jewish Congress, the Euro-Asian Jewish Congress, and the WJC Israel.
Besides, Jewish communities in 92 countries are directly affiliated to the World Jewish Congress. The last meeting of the WJC Plenary Assembly, attended by over 400 delegates from 62 countries, was held in Jerusalem in January 2009.
Middle East, A Conflict Born With A Jewish Solution
From all the above, it is evident that what happened on the Middle East stage, had been planned by the 1897 Zionist Congress. It would be the exclusive mission of the successive Israeli governments to find ways how to ensure its strict implementation.
In fact, the Jewish State of Israel has been created; all Palestinian territories have been occupied; Jewish settlements have been established on all of the them; Jerusalem has been unilaterally declared as the capital of Israel, and the Jewish lobbies have been active everywhere to help further implement the Zionist Programme.
This programme has no room for a fully independent, sovereign, viable Palestine State as agreed by the international community since 1948.
In short, nothing else should have ever been expected but the present situation.
What is Obama Doing?
The current Israeli government led by Benjamin Netanyahu, in a correct fulfilment of its role in the Zionist Programme, has repeatedly heralded the real state of affairs – that is, no return to the 1967 borders; Israel for Jewish people only; Jerusalem is the capital of Israel only; full security for Israel only; no sovereignty to a Palestinian state; no return of Palestinian refugees, and no stop to Israeli settlements.
Why, President Obama?
- Why then did President Obama decide to state on Sept. 23, 2009 before the United Nations General Assembly that “the time has come to re-launch negotiations — without preconditions — that address the permanent-status issues: security for Israelis and Palestinians; borders, refugees, and Jerusalem”? Similar statements have been repeated in other occasions.
- Why did he emphasise that “the goal is clear: two states living side by side in peace and security — a Jewish State of Israel, with true security for all Israelis; and a viable, independent Palestinian state with contiguous territory that ends the occupation that began in 1967, and realises the potential of the Palestinian people”?
- Why did the U.S. president say that he “does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements”?
- Why is Obama still insisting in giving the impression that another solution is possible?
- Is it part of a new game of securing U.S. full control over what his predecessor called the Great Middle East project?
- Is it, subsequently, an effort to save the face of Arab regimes, those who are close allies to the U.S. and key part of its agenda, and who based the justification of their totalitarian rule on the ‘fight for the Palestinian cause’?
- Or it is just that the U.S. establishment has not informed the “most powerful man on earth”, that’s the U.S. formal president, that the solution to the so-called Middle East conflict had already been set 112 years ago and so far successfully implemented?
With or without new talks, fake mediations and false promises, the world may have to chant –shamefully and sadly– a loud (or silent?) ‘Requiem for Palestine’ Copyright © 2011 Human Wrongs Watch
This article can be republished, sourcing to Human Wrongs Watch http://human-wrongs-watch.net
Baher Kamal
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 
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