TEHRAN (FNA)- Former American diplomat and author Michael Springmann says the so-called Deal of the Century aims to convince the “Palestinians to accept less of their country than before” in return for economic development.
Michael Springmann, in an exclusive interview with FNA, said that it appears from what has been revealed about the so-called Deal of the Century that it seeks to persuade Palestinians to give up the control over Jerusalem al-Quds and “accept limited sovereignty in a Palestinian State without weapons” in return for promises of economic development.
Commenting on the promulgation of the so-called Nation-State Law in Israeli Knesset, the analyst said that the legislation exposed “the carefully constructed lies” about the true nature of the regime in Tel Aviv by making official the already practiced discrimination against Arabs and non-Jews.
Michael Springmann is an attorney and former diplomat who lives and works in Washington, DC. He holds two degrees in international affairs in addition to his law degree. Springmann spent nine years as a diplomat. Prior to leaving the US Department of State, he served in its Bureau of Intelligence and Research. Now a writer and political commentator, Springmann is also the author of “Visas for Al Qaeda: CIA Handouts That Rocked the World,” which discusses America’s destabilization of the Balkans, South and Southwest Asia, and North Africa to achieve international goals.
FNA has conducted an interview with Mike Springmann about Israel’s brutal crackdown on Palestinian protesters, the Israeli legislation known as the Nation State Law and also Trump’s so-called "deal of the century”.
Below you will find the full text of the interview.
Q: It seems that killing scores of people and maiming thousands more over the past several months are no indication of what Israel thinks is enough to keep Gaza in check. Do you think Israel’s deadly clamp down on Palestinian protesters is going to end anytime soon?
A: The constant protests highlight Israel’s illegitimacy. They bring or try to bring the world‘s attention to the Zionists’ invasion and occupation of Palestine. With each protest, the Palestinians show that they are not going away.
The crackdown on the protesters demonstrates that Israel is not a peaceful democracy but rather a repressive theocracy that brutalizes anyone differing from the majority in politics, ethnicity, or religion.
In Apartheid Israel’s outlook, the sooner the clampdown succeeds, the sooner the world’s opinion shifts back to what the Zionists want it to be: brave little democratic David fighting the hostile Arab/Muslim Goliath.
Q: What do you think the protests known as ‘Great March of Return’ have accomplished so far?
A: What has the Great March of Return accomplished? Nothing and Something.
The March has not induced the Apartheid Entity of Israel to return to the Palestinians a single square meter of land stolen from them. It has not brought down the wrath of “freedom loving” Europe and the United States with their hypocritical desire for peace on the Israelis. According to Al-Jazeera, between March 30, 2018 and November 18, the Zionists murdered 210 people and wounded 18,000 individuals.
And yet. There is Something.
While Western media show Israeli violence only when directed against Palestinian “aggression”, there is an awful lot of still photos and moving pictures depicting deadly fire directed against Palestinians armed only with their bare hands. Images of medical doctors and health care workers, trained or untrained, being shot down by the Israeli army have gone round the world. This is something that the Zionists have a hard time explaining.
Additionally, in my opinion, the March has aided the creation of a new sense of identity and purpose among the Palestinians, both in Occupied Palestine and abroad in the Diaspora. That is something the Zionists, with all their experience with the Palestinians, never reckoned on.
Q: How do you think the US and some Arab states are complicit in crimes against the Palestinians, especially in light with the discreet links between Israel and Saudi Arabia and other Persian Gulf states?
A: The United States, Saudi Arabia, and several of the [Persian] Gulf States are certainly complicit in crimes against the Palestinians over the years.
Strongly backing the Apartheid Entity, the US has either ignored or condoned or supported what Israel has done and is doing to the Palestinians. The Saudis, for all their past bluster about Zionist mistreatment of the Palestinians, have done little of substance to end it. In fact, the Kingdom has increased its once secret ties and talks with Israel. Consequently, the Saudis now are backing the Zionists. In April 2018, the Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman even said Israel has the right to its own land.
That statement clearly showed that the Kingdom no longer supported Palestine. Any land the Israelis have, they stole from the Palestinians.
In November 2018, the Middle East Eye noted that Israel’s deepening ties with the [Persian] Gulf States have cast Palestinian statehood to the margins. The journal commented that Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and, to some extent, Oman are either turning a blind eye to or are completely ignoring the Palestinian situation. They are toeing the Zionists’ line.
Q: In July 2018, the so-called Nation State Law was adopted by Israeli Knesset. What do you think the legislation shows about the nature of the regime in Tel Aviv?
A: Israel’s July 2018 promulgation of its Nation-State Law finally stripped away the carefully constructed lies about the “country’s” true nature. Three points demonstrate this.
1. The law asserted that the right to exercise self-determination is “unique” to the Jewish people. This means only Jews have the right to vote, only Jews have the right to control the country and only Jews have the right to make decisions for all the inhabitants there.
2. Hebrew, according to the law, is now Israel’s official language. Arabic, widely spoken among the millions of Israeli Arabs, was downgraded to a “special status” from being an official language. In effect, this downgraded the Arabs to subordinate people. That action turned the Arabs left after ethnic cleansing into a subject people. This shows them to be subhuman, “Untermenschen”, just as the Nazis regarded the Jews.
3. The law establishes Jewish settlements as a national value. It requires the government to encourage and promote their establishment and development. Clearly, the goal is to drown the remaining Arabs in a sea of Jewish colonies.
What does this boil down to? Jewish supremacy, Jewish racism, Jewish apartheid. And don’t forget, this is all highly undemocratic— in the so-called “only Democratic State in the region.”
Institutional discrimination against Arabs is now official. Before, it had always been sub rosa, done but never openly talked about. Some American Jews objected but took no effective action. Their government said and did nothing.
Q: Many believe that the continuing illegal Israeli settlement activities have hammered nail after nail into the coffin of a diplomatic solution. What do you think about that?
A: In my view, Israel’s continual colonization of Palestinian land isn’t hammering nails into diplomacy’s coffin. Rather, the Zionists are attempting to create facts on the ground such that it would prove difficult to reverse or otherwise alter them, i.e., new houses, towns filled with Zionists, roads reserved for Jews, and so on. All supplied with Palestinian water and other resources.
Much like American 19th century policy in the Pacific Northwest (Washington State, Oregon, Idaho), the Israelis are planting occupiers to buttress their political claims to the region. The Americans were challenging the British Empire which also wanted the area. However, the British were far away and the Americans very near. And the American colonists kept coming. Ultimately, London decided that war was useless — armed conflict would not stop the steady infiltration of settlers.
However, diplomacy, real diplomacy, is one way of resolving the Apartheid Entity’s encroachment on Palestinian territory. Simply give the Israelis increasingly distasteful choices: for every colony planted, for every pre-existing colony — cut something greatly desired by the Zionists. Visas to Europe or the US; military hardware; financial subsidies (the American taxpayer gives Israel $10 million a day). End the import of flowers, hummus, beauty products produced by the Zionist Entity, generally using Palestinian resources. This would be Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions by governments.
The US and European idea of diplomacy is talk without results. And if it concerns Palestine, their concept of diplomacy is to force the Palestinians to accept whatever terms the Israelis offer.
Exchanging real diplomacy for sham diplomacy would start driving nails into the coffin the Zionists have built for themselves.
Q: The current administration in the US has been boasting about their new plan for Palestine and even calling it the deal of the century. What do you think would be in the new deal for Palestinians?
A: President Donald J. Trump’s “deal of the century” is Madison Avenue hype for making things worse for the Palestinians. To date, Trump and his Zionist relatives and advisers have slashed UNWRA’s budget, moved the American embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, and devised a new definition for refugees.
According to the reprehensible former US ambassador to the UN, Nikki Haley, Palestinian refugees are only the 750,000 people driven out of their country at gun point in 1948. They have no right of return in open disregard of international law. Moreover, their descendants, now numbering between 7 million and 11 million, depending on how you count, are not refugees either. And they have no right of return, again contrary to international law.
From the little that’s been revealed about the Deal of the Century, it seems to involve paying the Palestinians to accept less of their country than before. Essentially, it includes bribes consisting of housing, subsidies, and an airport. There’s talk of economic development for Gaza, whatever that is, plus requiring the Palestinians to cede control over al-Quds (Jerusalem) and accept limited sovereignty in a Palestinian State without weapons.
The plan simply refuses to recognize reality and all the attendant political issues. It’s basically an effort to help the Apartheid Entity destroy what’s left of Palestine and the Palestinians.
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