What wasn’t said about Dayton’s speech?

Shawqi Issa

When a Palestinian reads Mr. Dayton’s speech of May 7^th, 2009 in Washington, he reads it differently from any other, especially from Americans and Israelis. The Palestinian will feel, with each line he reads, that his dignity and pride is being hurt and torn apart. By the end of the speech, he will feel that his dignity has diminished and shrunk as far as humanly possible. As Mr. Dayton entered the Zionist institute to present his speech, it was clear that he placed the dignity of Palestinians as the target of an ongoing assault. This, he did, while making insulting Palestinians his personal mission.

The key point in Mr. Dayton’s speech and the most important part was that he clearly comes from a Zionist point of view in all of what he said. (This was inadvertently,  and conveniently, left out of most of the articles in the Arab press written about the speech. Most of such articles only wanted to bash the other Palestinians who cooperated with Dayton, which is now a usual occurrence.) As he operated and spoke from that standpoint, he built his theory (if it can be called that) on the basis that the whole problem is the Palestinians. He thinks that a solution can only be reached if he is to succeed in converting the Palestinian security forces into ones, who, first and foremost, protect the security of Israel. Then he ridiculed the conflict into that of making sure teenage girls in West Bank can visit their friends after dark without fear of being attacked, or that of arresting and punishing wrongdoers without the interference of their families. Therefore, he called his theory “Peace through Security”. He put the cherry on the sundae, as he described this as “no longer an impossible dream”, as he showed how much he is faithful to Zionism, when he inappropriately quoted Herzl who saying: “if you will it, it is not a dream.” 

It is clear Mr. Dayton didn’t do his homework, and didn’t learn from history. This seems natural since, at least we know from his speech that, the American team, unlike non-American members of the team, is not allowed to mix with Palestinians. American members of the team cannot enter Palestinian areas freely according to the American travel restrictions. As he continued, he talked about the invaluable knowledge of people you work with that can only be achieved through living with them. Here, he ironically spoke as if he was an expert who knew everything about Palestinians and the conflict, forgetting what he said about the travel restriction that prevent him form “mixing” with Palestinians. Perhaps, Mr. Dayton underestimated the intelligence of his audience, or simply insulted it.  

From a geographical standpoint, Mr. Dayton and his American team, as he said, work day and night all week, including weekends, at the American general consulate in Jerusalem. This is a building that no Palestinian is allowed to reach without a special permit issued by the Israeli intelligence. (This includes Palestinians who are American citizens living in the occupied territories.) Perhaps this is why Mr. Dayton has never heard the story of a Palestinian officer, who served for years after Oslo in the joint Israeli Palestinian petrol. He used to patrol streets in the occupied territories to protect Jewish settlers. During this time he, along with his Israel patrol-unit partners, would discuss their daily live issues peacefully. After the Intifada started, he saw how Israeli soldiers humiliated, shot and killed his fellow Palestinians including children. The result? He shot the Israeli soldiers who he served with them. I think, Mr. Dayton, this story dispatches your theory completely. You could have added this story, to your Churchill-story repertoire.  

This however is trivial to Mr. Dayton. He is not interested in a permanent, just solution to the conflict; however, he is very interested in creating the “New Palestinians”. The sole purpose of these “New Palestinians”, to Mr. Dayton, is for them to be trusted by Israel as substitutes to its troops in the OPT.  With them, there will be on earth peace, good will toward men. 

Mr. Dayton also mentioned examples from the deployment of his “New Palestinians” in Hebron and the Israeli onslaught on Gaza.  (Here, he mentioned the war on Gaza like an afterthought, a dispensable detail in a pool of such details. He, a General in the armed forces, holds Israel attempt to stop the firing of projectiles from Gaza as the reason behind the events of last January. I think it is safe enough to say he did not believe that. A junior, inexperienced officer would not believe that the war’s purpose was to stop the firing of the projectiles. Mr. Dayton, moreover, never mentioned the war crimes that Israel committed during that war.) The examples that he used of the value of the New Palestinians in pursuing “peace through security” – he knows full well that they would never lead to true peace, and can only be seen as another one of the many, many jokes he told throughout his speech. 

Mr. Dayton should understand that any peacemaker must start from the fact that the Palestinian people are the victims of Zionism brutality and racism. Then admit that the continuation of building settlements is a settlement-big roadblock in the way of peace. Furthermore, a seeker of peace must admit to the right of Palestinians to consider Zionism and Israel their enemy until real peace is achieved. Any seeker of peace, who does not start with these principles, will never find peace. 

The truth of the matter is that I don’t care if Mr. Dayton realizes these facts or not, because in the end he will pass much like Balfour, Kissinger, and Ross, and he will surely be followed by Blair and others. What matters to me is if Palestinian leaders realize this very fact. These Palestinian leaders including those on both sides of the country; the ones who cooperate with Dayton, and those who cooperate with Carter, must realize this fact.  

Mr. Carter handed out medals in Ramallah one day, and he met Gaza leaders, who welcomed him and assured him their concurrence with the 1967 borders as borders for the Palestinian state, two days later. Those who cooperate with him ignored the fact that in the day in between those events, Mr. Carter was in the settlement of Gosh Atsion. This is all while he confirms, whenever he has a chance,  his respect of the international law, which, by the way, makes the existence of this settlement illegal. Moreover, Mr. Carter, a compassionate conservative, wants to wash away all the sins of the conflict to achieve peace. He didn’t say that the settlers made mistakes and violated international law.  All  the while he seemed certain that they would atone for their sins for the sake of peace. Mr. Carter had the nerve to say, while he sat among settler war criminals, that their illegal settlement is important and in a strategic location and there is no reason to remove it. Did we hear a single, even if a timid, critique of Mr. Carter from Hamas, or any other? All we heard was praise for this freedom fighter’s mission to achieve peace. 

I don’t want to go through further details of Mr. Dayton’s speech and his insults to our people and to our former Secretary of the Interior, simply because, what matters most to me, and should do so to all Palestinians, is that what he built his entire speech on will never lead to peace.         

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