Why has peace in the Middle East remained so elusive?
Obstacle to Peace: The US Role in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict provides the answer while also explaining why you won’t hear it from U.S. government officials or the mainstream media.
With incisive and provocative analysis, Jeremy R. Hammond provides a meticulously documented account that explodes popular myths and deconstructs standard narratives about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
For anyone seeking a better understanding of the conflict’s root causes, the true reasons for its persistence, and the way forward, Obstacle to Peace delivers the knowledge and insights to effect the paradigm shift that is necessary for a just peace to be achieved.
‘carefully documented and highly informative’ – Noam Chomsky
In Obstacle to Peace, you’ll learn:
- How US and Israeli policies have strengthened Hamas
- Why Israel implemented an illegal policy of collectively punishing the civilian population of Gaza, and how it’s been able to do so with impunity
- What really happened during Operation Cast Lead and Operation Pillar of Defense, two of Israel’s large-scale military assaults on the defenseless Gaza Strip
- What the so-called ‘peace process’ is and why the US pursues it so aggressively
- Why Israel attacked the Mavi Marmara in international waters, and why the US defended the killing of nine peace activists on board
- How Israel has maintained its occupation of Palestine and what must happen to bring it to an end
- What must occur for Palestinian refugees to have a realistic hope of exercising their right to return to their homeland
- How and why the US mainstream media manipulate information so as to manufacture consent for US foreign policy
- How to decipher the euphemistic language used by the government and media to deceive the public
- How the United Nations helped create the conflict and how Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has played a duplicitous role
- What the Goldstone Report was, what its findings were, and why it so upset the US and Israel
- How, despite congenial rhetoric to the contrary, the Obama administration has continued the longstanding US policy of rejecting the rights of the Palestinian people
- And much more!
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FOREWORD
PREFACE
1. THE RISE OF HAMAS IN GAZA
UN General Assembly Resolution 181
The Threat of Peace
The Political Ascension of Hamas
‘Operation Summer Rains’
The Hamas ‘Coup’ in Gaza
The 2008 Ceasefire
Senator Obama’s ‘Unshakeable Commitment’ to Israel
The Collapse of the Ceasefire
2. ‘OPERATION CAST LEAD’
Hasbara
Israel’s Rejection of a Ceasefire
Defending Israel’s War Crimes
The US’s Rejection of a Ceasefire
‘No Humanitarian Crisis’
‘They Are Doing Good’
Israel Ignores a UN Ceasefire Resolution
It’s ‘Hard’ for Israel Not to Kill Civilians
The ‘Education’ of Hamas
3. THE ‘PEACE PROCESS’
Resolution 242
Resolution 194
The Oslo Accords
Camp David
Taba
The Road Map
Sharon’s ‘Disengagement Plan’
Annapolis
4. OBAMA’S ‘NEW BEGINNING’
American and Israeli Exceptionalism
‘The Most Moral Army in the World’
US Policy on Israel’s Settlements
The Cairo and Bar-Ilan Speeches
Punishing Gaza
US Aid to Israel
5. THE GOLDSTONE REPORT
The Report of the UN Fact-Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict
The Response from the US and Israel
Attacking the Messenger
A Case Study in Congressional Hypocrisy
The ‘Illegal but Legitimate’ Doctrine
‘An Evil, Evil Man’
6. ‘SERIOUS ABOUT PEACE’
The Settlement ‘Freeze’
Negotiations ‘Without Preconditions’
Leading Palestinians to Certain Conclusions
Israel’s ‘Cast Lead’ Self-Exoneration: Update
A ‘Hiccup’ in US-Israeli Relations
Getting ‘Tough’ on Israel
7. MURDER ON THE HIGH SEAS
Israel’s ‘Passionate Defenders’
Israel’s Legal Argument
A ‘Good Deal’ for Gaza
Israel’s ‘Cast Lead’ Self-Exoneration: Second Update
The Report of the UN Fact-Finding Mission on the Flotilla Attack
The Turkel Commission: Another Israeli ‘Whitewash’
8. THE ‘SPECIAL RELATIONSHIP’
Rewarding Israel for Violating International Law
Obama’s ‘Diplomatic Bind’
Fatah-Hamas Reconciliation: ‘A Formula for War’
Goldstone’s Betrayal
‘The 1967 Lines’
Obama Speaks to AIPAC
Mr. Netanyahu Goes to Washington
Freedom Flotilla II
9. THE STATEHOOD ‘PLOY’
‘Defensible Borders’
The ‘Jewish’ and ‘Democratic’ State of Israel
The Bias of the New York Times
Israel Seeks a ‘Moral Minority’
The Palmer Report
Averting the ‘Sideshow’ at the UN
Israel’s Benevolent Occupation
10. THE QUESTION OF PALESTINE
Championing the Status Quo
Palestine’s Application for UN Membership
A ‘Theatre of the Absurd’
Palestine’s UNESCO Membership
‘A Lost Year’
At the UN General Debate
Operation ‘Pillar of Defense’
A Historic Vote
CONCLUSION
NOTES
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Gene Epstein is Economics and Books Editor at Barron’s, the financial weekly.