If you want to play the role of sociopolitical coroner, and
conduct an autopsy on the Trump Mideast Plan, which many believe is Dead On
Arrival, you'll have to concentrate –– not on the work of Dennis Ross and David
Makovsky but –– on their mentality.
To understand the difference between someone's work and their
mentality, we recall the saying that goes like this: “Putting the cart before
the horse.” Think about it, if someone needs to move a load of merchandise from
one place to another, and has a horse-drawn cart to do it with but fails, you
conclude that he's doing something wrong.
To find out what that is, you quiz him and he gives you a deluge
of details. That would be a full account of what he did to make sure that every
part of the horse-cart assembly, from the smallest bolt to the health of the
horse, was in tiptop shape … and yet, he laments that the thing has not worked.
This tells you he did a thorough job checking out the assembly, but that's all.
In fact, you are convinced that every part of the cart assembly is
in tiptop shape. But you also know why the thing isn't working. It's because
the guy is ignorant of the overall philosophy which makes a horse-drawn cart
operational. What you see he has done that’s wrong, is that he put the cart
before the horse, instead of the other way around. So, while his work has been
thorough and impeccable, his grasp of the philosophy pertaining to the
situation he is working on, is missing at the fundamental level.
And that, my friend, is how it was with Dennis Ross and David
Makovsky. You look at the work that they did day-in and day-out, year-in and
year-out, decade after decade, and you'll find it thorough in detail. But the
one thing that was missing in all of this, is the most fundamental part
underlying this philosophy and every philosophy: Intellectual honesty.
And so, while the two authors could draw the map of occupied
Palestine with their eyes closed and could name every Jewish settlement on it,
maybe even recite the million or so Jewish names that moved in and out of those
settlements over the decades, Dennis Ross and David Makovsky did not realize
they were turning justice upside down.
In fact, it was their work, during all these years, that has led
to the current situation. It was the bankruptcy of their philosophical
conception that's haunting them now and forcing them to shout the warning that:
“Trump's peace plan won't have a chance unless Israel shows restraint on
annexation,” which is the title of the piece they published on January 29, 2020
in The Washington Post. The piece clearly shows how much they fear the monster
they created without thinking of the possible consequences.
And these are the consequences that Ross and Makovsky now realize
will demolish the schemes they have been incubating to win over the moral
prostitutes of America, and have them give the bloodsuckers of Israel what they
needed to ethnic cleanse Palestine of its Palestinian population. What happened
instead, was that the Palestinians stoically endured every savage measure
inflicted on them by the Jews and stayed put.
That development has prompted the Trump team to come up with the
plan that it did, and the ever-opportunistic Benjamin Netanyahu took advantage
of the situation by following with the announcement that he will annex still
more Palestinian territory. That's what has alarmed Ross and Makovsky who
explained what such move will do to the Trump peace process. What follows is a
condensed version of what they had to say in this regard:
“Israeli officials have announced they plan to annex the West Bank
settlements. The Trump process will be dead before it starts. The move makes
any agreement superfluous, since Israel is helping itself to the rewards that
it's supposed to gain from negotiations. Annexation will force Arab leaders to
make the Abbas rejection a reality. Once they do, Abbas will take his case to
the UN Security Council, thus provoke a US veto and show how isolated America
and Israel are. Trump should tell Netanyahu he opposes any move to annex.
Annexation of the Jordan Valley will endanger Israel's peace treaty with
Jordan. Annexation of settlements will undermine Israel's ability to separate
from the Palestinians, making a one-state outcome more likely. This would
undermine the Zionist rationale for Israel as a Jewish state. Trump should urge
Israel to demonstrate restraint so the plan has a chance”.
Look at this passage: “Israel is helping itself to the rewards
that it's supposed to gain from negotiations.” That's exactly what Israel has
been doing during the decades that Ross and Makovsky were pretending to help
America find a solution to the occupation of Palestine.
I discussed this reality several times on this blog, warning of
the consequences, but nothing was done to curb the charade that the Jewish
Americans were playing to help Israel while playing the game under the guise of
advancing America's interests. What I could not achieve then has now come to
haunt those who perpetrated the charade.