By Khaled Amayreh

American Consul General to Jerusalem Michael A. Ratney on Monday, 23 June, addressed the 56th annual convention of the American Federation of Ramallah, Occupied Palestine (AFRP), held for the first time in Ramallah.

Speaking before more than 1500 Palestinian-Americans, Ratney said the U.S. government was still committed to the "peace process," saying that the two-state solution “required building a strong and self-sustaining economy."

He didn't explain how such an economy can be built let alone sustained in the presence of a sinister foreign military occupation and absence of any semblance of Palestinian sovereignty.

Incidentally, a few hours before Ratney's speech in Ramallah, Israeli forces rampaged through the town, storming shops and businesses, vandalizing property and further humiliating the already demoralized police forces of Palestinian Authority (PA) Chairman Mahmoud Abbas as these forces had to content themselves with just looking on, watching the Jewish Gestapo gang up on Palestinian citizens.

More to the point, the American Consul-General, who invoked the missing and purportedly kidnapped three Israeli settlers, didn't even allude to the murder by Israel of six Palestinians this week, including a 13-year-old child in Dura, Mohamed Jehad Dudin, who eyewitnesses said was killed in cold blood and without any provocation by trigger-happy Israel soldiers raiding his neighborhood.

Furthermore, the America diplomat made no mention of thousands of Palestinian political and resistance prisoners, languishing in Israeli dungeons and detention centers, many without charge or trial.

Response

By meticulously examining Ratney's remarks, I can assume that the respected American diplomat is exuding a shockingly high level of hypocrisy, mendacity and dishonesty. The lack of rectitude in his speech is amply conspicuous.

I don't wish to indulge in a point-by-point rebuttal of Ratney's remarks. In the final analysis, the destructive American role in the Middle East has long been explained and exposed rather ad nauseam.

None the less, I wish to make the following points to make the record straight:

I strongly believe that the U.S. can not build peace in the ME for the following reasons:

1-The American government doesn't really have a will of its own when it comes to Israel and Palestine. Successive U.S. governments are hopelessly subject to powerful Jewish pressure groups which control those who are in control in Washington. This is not a passing facetious remark by an exasperated Palestinian who is indignant over unlimited and unrestricted American support and backing of Israel 's criminal colonialism. It is rather a reminder of solemn confessions and statements made by eminent American figures, including prominent academics, a former president and clergymen of impeccable credentials.

2-The US is not sufficiently honest to broker peace between its ally, Israel and the Palestinians due to its natural propensity to support Israel- right or wrong. The U.S. has never taken any meaningful stance against Israel, even when Israel went far beyond the pale, which occurred numerous times and continues to occur, virtually on a daily basis.

3- The U.S. has said nothing and done nothing to prevent Israel from effectively decapitating all realistic prospects for peace as the Nazi-like entity continues to pursue a relentless campaign to seize as much Palestinian land as possible, thus killing any remaining chances for the creation of a viable and territorially contiguous Palestinian state. Indeed, the shockingly obsequious U.S. approach toward Israel represents the exact antithesis of all claimed lofty American ideals about dedication and commitment to human rights and civil liberties.

4-The US has been trying to bribe the Palestinians with the precarious promise of economic prosperity. However, 20 years of "Oslo" have proven the utter impossibility of achieving economic prosperity under a foreign military occupation. Indeed, 20 years of "peace process" have given us neither peace nor liberty, nor economic prosperity. Instead, we have been affronted with a police state without a state that is at Israel's beck and call. But the Palestinians, while wishing for an honorable, dignified and above all just peace with our neighbors, will never accept a Palestinian judenrat that would torment us on Israel's behalf.

5-Hence, with the U.S. being effectively Israel's lawyer, besides being Israel's guardian-ally, is utterly unfit to serve as honest broker between Israel, the criminal aggressor, and its Palestinian victims.

I have been closely following American policy in this part of the world ever since the Roger plan in the late 1960s. And I have reached the inevitable conclusion that the American role in brokering peace between Israel and the Palestinians can be compared to that of a "judge" who tells a rapist and his tormented and humiliated victim to "just sort it out amongst yourselves."

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Khalid Amayreh is a veteran Palestinian journalist living in occupied Palestine