THIRTY years ago on Monday, the United States and the Soviet Union organised a "peace" negotiation in Madrid to "end" the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Spain, the host, had arguably never been home to more pretence than this. Here is why.
First, like today, the Zionist regime then wanted the status quo of occupation to continue. This is the real reason why the Madrid peace negotiation and others that followed, including the Oslo Accords, have failed. But Tel Aviv and Washington had public relations narratives for the failure of peace talks on the ready, as Nathan Thrall writes in The Guardian — want of support from regional states, bad timing, coalition politics or leaders devoid of courage.
If all fails, then there is always the Palestinians to blame. A famous one is, as pointed out by Palestinian researcher Yara Hawari in Al Jazeera, the Palestinians never miss the opportunity to miss an opportunity.
The truth is, the Zionist regime never misses the opportunity to deny Palestinians any opportunity. Madrid may have set the tone for the many failed "peace" negotiations that were to follow. The Palestinians had been humiliated from the word "go", says Hawari.
The Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO), which was leading the Palestinian struggle from Tunisia, was barred from the negotiation upon the insistence of Israel and the US. So were Palestinian advisers.
Worse was to come. While the Israelis insisted on the PLO recognising Israel, they refused to recognise Palestinian sovereignty. "Indeed, throughout the 'peace process', Israel and its foreign backers deliberately disassociated the Palestinian people from their territory by omitting the word 'Palestine' from their lexicon," writes Hawari.
Second, the US administration then, like President Joe Biden's today, was more than happy to fund Tel Aviv's settlement colonialism. This is not only an Israeli irrationality but an American one, too.
The former will only disappear if the latter vanishes first. America must make Israeli occupation of Palestinian land costly to the Zionist regime for any peace process to work. The US can begin by not supplying weapons to Tel Aviv.
Israel, being the only nuclear-armed state in the Middle East, is already the most militarised in the region. Besides, the Zionist regime is using American weapons to commit genocide against the Palestinians. The US knows complicity is a crime, but yet it persists.
Next, the US must condition its US$3 billion annual aid on Israeli withdrawal from Palestinian territories occupied since 1967.
This isn't something new. As Thrall points out, US threats of sanctions against Israel or an arms embargo have worked in the past. There is no reason why it shouldn't work now.
In 1975, president Gerald Ford refused to sign a new arms deal with Israel unless it withdrew from Sinai. It did. President Jimmy Carter similarly threatened to put an end to US military assistance if Israel didn't withdraw from Lebanon in September 1977. It did.
Palestinians, PLO or otherwise, do not have the leverage. The US administration does. But the question is, is Washington sincere about bringing peace to the Middle East? Or to be just to the Palestinians? The answer to both is no. Let's be brutally frank. Washington was never ever sincere about being just to the Palestinians. That is why Madrid failed. That is why Oslo failed. And everything in between.