US-Led Bahrain Conference Dismissive of Palestinian Rights: American Analyst

TEHRAN (Tasnim) – An American political analyst described the US administration’s so-called “deal of the century” plan as “dreadful” and said the ongoing conference organized by the US in Bahrain to promote the plan ignores the Palestinians’ fundamental rights.

“The June 25 - 26 Peace to Prosperity conference in Bahrain ignores fundamental Palestinian rights — what they’ve been denied since the infamous 1917 Balfour Declaration,” Chicago-based Stephen Lendman told Tasnim in an interview.

Stephen Lendman is a writer, syndicated columnist, activist, News TV personality, and radio show host. He currently writes for MoneyNewsNow.com and VeteransToday.com and hosts, since 2007, a progressive radio show at The Progressive Radio News Hour on The Progressive Radio Network.

The following is the full text of the interview:

Tasnim: Bahrain is hosting the so-called "Peace to Prosperity" conference to discuss what the US has described as the economic part of President Donald Trump's "deal of the century", a plan which aims to consign the Palestinian cause to oblivion. The Palestinian leadership has boycotted the meeting on June 25 and 26 in Manama, leading critics to question the credibility of the event. In your opinion, what goals are the US and Israel pursuing by holding the conference? Would they reach their goals?

Lendman: I’ve written much on Trump’s dreadful deal of the century, a scheme to benefit the US and Israel at the expense of the Palestinian people. It’s unrelated to regional peace, equity and justice, notions the US and Israel abhor. The June 25 - 26 Peace to Prosperity conference in Bahrain ignores fundamental Palestinian rights — what they’ve been denied since the infamous 1917 Balfour Declaration. Calling for the establishment of a nation for Jews (on stolen Palestinian land) was a high crime against humanity.

Endless conflict, occupation, dispossession, and repression, along with social and cultural fragmentation, define conditions for beleaguered Palestinians – over 100 years of suffering, no end of it in prospect, the world community dismissive of their rights.

Discussing Trump’s economic part of the plan puts the cart before the horse. Palestinian officials are justifiably boycotting the conference. The scheme in its entirety ignores fundamental final status issues, including Palestinian self-determination, illegal Israeli occupation, settlements, borders, air and water rights, other resources, the right of diaspora Palestinians to return to their homeland, and East Jerusalem (al-Quds) as the exclusive Palestinian capital.

The economic part of the plan has nothing to do with aiding millions of long-suffering Palestinians. A global investment fund of whatever amount will benefit the US, other Western, and Israeli corporate interests exclusively, neoliberal harshness intended for ordinary Palestinians — along with continued subjugation under Israel’s repressive boot. The plan was dead before arrival. Trump’s anti-Palestinian agenda since taking office alone doomed it.

Tasnim: Some analysts say that the Trump administration’s focus on an economic plan, led by his son-in-law Jared Kushner, is a strategic mistake that could stymie the peace negotiations even before they begin. What is your assessment of the US approach to the conflict and the future of the plan? Is it practical at all?

Lendman: Key for Palestinians is restoring their fundamental political rights. With their own land and self-determination to run it, they’d be free to develop their resources and build a functioning economy with far greater potential than Trump’s deal of the century, offering nothing to ordinary Palestinians than the unacceptable status quo.

Trump’s reluctance to release the plan is because it’s so one-sided, put together by Zionist ideologues Jared Kushner and Jason Greenblatt — dismissive of Palestinian rights.

Tasnim: On Friday, Israeli forces once again opened fire on Palestinians taking part in the peaceful “Great March of Return” protests, along the separation fence between the besieged Gaza Strip and occupied territories, injuring at least 79 peaceful protesters. According to media reports, more than 270 people, including 52 children, have been killed since the demonstrations began in March 2018. Most of the dead and the thousands wounded were unarmed civilians against whom Israel was using excessive force. Why has the international community, particularly the Western mainstream media, made a muted response to the Tel Aviv regime’s crimes against Palestinians so far?

Lendman: Since Great March of Return/Lift the Siege protests began on March 30, 2018, hundreds of nonviolent Gazans were killed, over 26,000 others injured, many seriously with no world community intervention to stop the carnage.

It’s part of Israel’s slow-motion genocide against the Strip’s two million people. Western establishment media, especially in the US, one-sidedly support Israel, permitting the Jewish state to get away with mass murder and much more, accountability never forthcoming. As long as the US supports Israel, nothing positive is forthcoming. Over 70 years of dispossession from their land, along with over 50 years of brutal occupation, could continue endlessly.

I and others call what’s going on US and Israeli slow-motion genocide of the Palestinian people — one of history’s greatest high crimes.

Why Bahrain was Chosen as Venue of Palestine’s Sellout?

By: Kayhan Int’l 

The Persian Gulf island state of Bahrain, ruled by the repressive Aal-e Khalifa minority regime of pirate origin, is making world headlines these days – both in the so-called mainstream media of an increasingly isolated US, and the independent media of the free world – mainly because of two gatherings.

One is "in Bahrain”, whose rulers desperately cling to the American apron for survival in vain, and the other is "on Bahrain”, whose long suppressed majority, inspired by the model of freedom presented by the Islamic Revolution, is aspiring to be masters of its own destiny – on the pattern of Iraq following fall of the Ba’th minority dictator, Saddam.
The one in the Bahraini capital Manama starts today under the deceptive theme ‘Economic Investment and Peace for Prosperity in Palestine’ as part of the so-called ‘Deal of the Century’ drafted by US President Donald Trump’s Jewish son-in-law Jared Kushner for the grand sellout of the Palestinian people as permanent thralls to the usurper Zionist entity.
The other started last night in holy Qom, with scholars of various countries in attendance under auspices of Bahrain’s senior-most religious figure, Ayatollah Sheikh Isa Qasim – in exile in Iran – and titled: "The Youth Resistance Movement & Commemoration of the Martyrs of Bahrain.”
At the Manama gathering attended mainly by reactionary and unrepresentative Arab regimes, the delegates are being entertained to Trump’s vision of the future for Gaza City, which looks like Tel Aviv: a bustling metropolis with casinos, bars, discos, and scintillating beaches for barely clad men and women, beckoning tourists from around the world, and of course, immune from any Israeli airstrikes for having traded national and Islamic values for the decadent culture of the West.
And Trump’s or more properly Jared the Jew’s vision doesn’t stop there. It draws an imaginary picture of a free to travel 5-billion-dollar highway and railway connecting Gaza with the West Bank of Jordan River, without the current Israeli roadblocks, and major international investors injecting billions of dollars of capital into the Palestinian economy (fifty billion dollars over a ten-year period), doubling GDP and removing all vestiges of poverty.
But wait, the Americans, the Zionists, and the oil-rich Persian Gulf potentates are not dangling this dazzling bait for nothing. They mean business and they want the Palestinians to part with Islam’s third holiest city, Bayt al-Moqaddas, including the sacred al-Aqsa Mosque, which Israel will convert into a Jewish temple.
Moreover, there will be no more talk of any Palestinian state, neither the return of the Palestinian refugees from other countries to their ancestral homes, nor any mention of the term ‘Palestinian citizens’, who henceforth will be known as ‘Israeli Arabs’ having second class status to their Zionist overlords.
All it needs for implementation is the signature of the Palestinian Authority (PA), whose assent means legal sealing of the ‘Deal of the Century’ that will grant powers to the Zionist regime, with approval from the UN, the active involvement of the US, and the tacit support of the reactionary Arab regimes, to brutally crush Hamas, Islamic Jihad and all other Islamic/nationalist organizations refusing to sell their homeland.
For the moment Mahmoud Abbas has decided to boycott the Bahrain meeting, but is under intense pressure from both elements inside his PA for making money (which actually does not exist) and the Arab states, especially the Wahhabi cultish regime of Riyadh – the milk cow which slavishly serves the US and now its newfound Zionist cousins.
It is clear to anyone with an iota of intelligence that only a fool will fall for the ‘Conspiracy of the Century’. It means those pushing forward this deal, from Trump to his trumpeters among the Arabs, are living in a fool’s paradise. They haven’t reckoned the resolve of the Resistance Front, which is growing stronger by the day and is determined to liberate Palestine – against heavy odds and no matter the cost.
But the question is: Why, of all Arab states, Bahrain was chosen as the venue for this scandalous gathering?
The answer is obvious. A rootless regime, not even having any clan pretensions to continue its repressive rule, and depending for survival on the US 5th fleet, is the exact replica of Israel. The Aal-e Khalifa pirates who with British help seized Bahrain in early 19th century, is depopulating Bahrain of its original inhabitants and like the Jewish influx to Palestine from around the world, is settling people of all other countries in order to change the island state’s demography.
Thousands of Bahrainis are living in exile, while thousands linger in prisons, and so far 800 citizens have been stripped of their nationality.
The reign of terror in Bahrain makes the conference in holy Qom all the more important, and holds out high hopes of liberation – Insha Allah (God Willing) sooner than that of Palestine. 
It is only the iron resolve of the Youth Resistance Movement and the sacred blood of the martyrs that have the power to triumph over tyrants – as the Saudi clan will also soon find out to the perpetual dismay of the US and Britain.