Surely all freedom and justice loving people have to welcome the rise of ordinary people in revolt against autocratic rulers that we have seen in the Middle East. The events of Tunisia, Egypt, Bahrain, Syria, and Yemen have shown that ordinary people are able to overcome fear and dare their governments to crack down on them, while being unarmed to a large degree. Libya is the one country where the line between an unnamed popular uprising and an armed civil war became blurred and with NATO now fighting on behalf of one faction it is no longer clear where popular sentiment lies.

Veteran political analyst Tom Englehardt argues that it is hard to find precedents in history for this level of mass uprising. (Note that this was written back in February before the US and NATO got involved in Libya.)

Never in memory have so many unjust or simply despicable rulers felt quite so nervous — or possibly quite so helpless (despite being armed to the teeth) — in the presence of unarmed humanity. And there has to be joy and hope in that alone.

Even now, without understanding what it is we face, watching staggering numbers of people, many young and dissatisfied, take to the streets in Morocco, Mauritania, Djibouti, Oman, Algeria, Jordan, Iraq, Iran, Sudan, Yemen, and Libya, not to mention Bahrain, Tunisia, and Egypt, would be inspirational. Watching them face security forces using batons, tear gas, rubber bullets, and in all too many cases, real bullets (in Libya, even helicopters and planes) and somehow grow stronger is little short of unbelievable. Seeing Arabs demanding something we were convinced was the birthright and property of the West, of the United States in particular, has to send a shiver down anyone’s spine.
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The nature of this potentially world-shaking phenomenon remains unknown and probably, at this point, unknowable… That the future remains — always — the land of the unknown should offer us hope, not least because that’s the bane of ruling elites who want to, but never can, take possession of it.

Nonetheless, you would expect that a ruling elite, observing such earth-shaking developments, might rethink its situation, as should the rest of us. After all, if humanity can suddenly rouse itself this way in the face of the armed power of state after state, then what’s really possible on this planet of ours?

Another veteran journalist John Pilger writing on the same day has this to add:

The revolt in the Arab world is not merely against a resident dictator but a worldwide economic tyranny designed by the US Treasury and imposed by the US Agency for International Development, the IMF and World Bank, which have ensured that rich countries like Egypt are reduced to vast sweatshops, with half the population earning less than $2 a day. The people’s triumph in Cairo was the first blow against what Benito Mussolini called corporatism, a word that appears in his definition of fascism.

How did such extremism take hold in the liberal West? “It is necessary to destroy hope, idealism, solidarity, and concern for the poor and oppressed,” observed Noam Chomsky a generation ago, “[and] to replace these dangerous feelings with self-centred egoism, a pervasive cynicism that holds that [an order of] inequities and oppression is the best that can be achieved. In fact, a great international propaganda campaign is under way to convince people – particularly young people – that this not only is what they should feel but that it’s what they do feel.”

Like the European revolutions of 1848 and the uprising against Stalinism in 1989, the Arab revolt has rejected fear. An insurrection of suppressed ideas, hope and solidarity has begun.

In the US fear has been successfully used to keep people docile and accepting of the most atrocious violations of their constitutional rights. The oligarchy will be viewing the fearless uprisings in the Arab world with some concern and you can be sure that there will strenuous efforts to make sure that those feelings of hope and courage do not spread to the US.

If, as is possible, the UN General Assembly in September recognizes a Palestinian state based at least somewhat on the 1967 borders, what happens next? In the short run, nothing much. The Palestinians have little power and the US will exert all its influence to make sure that nothing changes significantly. But that could change if non-violent protests in the region against Israeli policies become a mass movement.
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The winds of change sweeping over the Middle East are indicators of what the future might hold for Palestinians. What has been hopeful is that movements to demand justice in Egypt and Tunisia based on mass non-violent marches and protests have borne fruit. On the other hand, similar movements in Yemen, Syria, and Bahrain are being violently suppressed. Libya is a special case in that the opposition took up arms early and have allied themselves with the US and NATO and is thus more like an armed insurrection against the government.
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As the Israel lobby uses its power over the US government to keep stalling while the Israeli government and its settlers encroach on Palestinian land, we should try and see where this process might lead. Richard Falk, Professor Emeritus of International Law at Princeton University, says that Israel’s lack of interest in arriving at a two-state solution is obvious:

In many respects, Obama’s speech, aside from the soaring rhetoric, might have been crafted in Tel Aviv rather than the White House. It is a tribute to Israel’s extraordinary influence upon the US media that has been able to shift the focus of assessment to the supposed Israeli anger about affirming Palestinian statehood within 1967 borders. It is hardly a secret that the Netanyahu leadership, aside from its shrewd propaganda, is opposed to the establishment of any Palestinian state, whether symbolic or substantive.

This was much was confirmed by the release of the Palestine Papers that showed that, behind closed doors – even when the Palestinian Authority made concession after concession in response to Israeli demands – the Israeli negotiating partners seemed totally unresponsive, and appeared disinterested in negotiating a genuine solution to the conflict.

Obama’s speech in which he spoke of negotiations for a Palestinian state “based on 1967 borders with mutually-agreed swaps’, rather that being a sell-out of Israel is actually a huge concession to them and encourages even further Israel in the expansion of its illegal settlements policies in the West Bank and means that Israel can demand even more land from the Palestinians in return for removal of some settlements. As Falk says, “If anything this is a step back from the 1967 canonical and unanimous Security Council Resolution 242 that looked unconditionally toward “withdrawal of Israel armed forces from territory occupied in the recent conflict””

Falk adds that once you take away his rhetorical skills, Obama’s failures on the Middle East become transparent.

With these considerations in mind, it is not at all surprising that Obama’s approach to the Israel/Palestine conflict remains one-sided, deeply flawed, and a barrier rather than a gateway to a just and sustainable peace. The underlying pressures that produce the distortion is the one-sided allegiance to Israel, saying: “Our commitment to Israel’s security is unshakeable. And we will stand against attempt to single it out for criticism in international forums.”

This leads to the totally unwarranted assessment that failure to achieve peace in recent years is equally attributable to Israelis and the Palestinians, thereby equating what is certainly not equivalent. Consider Obama’s words of comparison: “Israeli settlement activity continues, Palestinians have walked away from the talks.” How many times is it necessary to point out that Israeli settlement activity is unlawful, and used to be viewed as such – even by the United States government – and that the Palestinian refusal to negotiate comes while their promised homeland is being despoiled not only by settlement expansion and settler violence, but by the continued construction of an unlawful barrier wall well beyond the 1967 borders. Obama never finds it appropriate to mention Israel’s reliance on excessive and lethal force, most recently in its response to the Nakba demonstrations along its borders, or its blatant disregard of international law, whether by continuing to blockade the entrapped 1.5 million Palestinians locked inside Gaza or by violently attacking the Freedom Flotilla a year ago in international waters – while it was carrying much needed humanitarian aid to the Gazans – or by the ethnic cleansing of Palestinian neighbourhoods in East Jerusalem.

Falk suggests that the events of the so-called Arab spring might have the effect of bypassing the weak and ineffectual Obama government in favor of more direct action.

In a profound sense, whatever Obama says at this point is just adding more words which are beside the point. He has neither the will nor the capacity to exert any material leverage on Israel that might make it more amenable to respecting Palestinian rights under international law, or to strike a genuine compromise based on mutuality of claims. Palestinians should not look to sovereign states, or even the United Nations, and certainly not the United States, in their long and tormented journey to realise a just and sustainable destiny for themselves.

Their future will depend on the outcome of their struggle, abetted and supported by people of good will around the world, and increasingly assuming the character of a nonviolent legitimacy war that mobilises moral and political pressures that assert Palestinian rights from below. In this regard, it remains politically significant to make use of the UN and friendly governments to gain visibility and legitimacy for their claims of right. It is Palestinian populism, not great power diplomacy, that offers the best current hope of achieving a sustainable and just peace on behalf of the Palestinian people.

There are moves for the Palestinians to request the UN General Assembly that meets in September to vote on Palestinian statehood, most likely based on the 1967 borders. Israel is fiercely opposed to this move and its lobby in the US will make sure that the US does all it can to thwart it. But unlike the Security Council, there is no veto power in the General Assembly so the US will have to strong-arm as many countries as it can to try and reject the move.

But this is not going to be easy. Most of the rest of the world has seen through the US-Israeli ‘peace process’ charade a long time ago and realize that Israel has no intention of voluntarily allowing a Palestinian state and has to be forced into accepting one. Only those countries that desperately need the US for whatever reason will oppose this move.