The article features a map, here headlined “West Bank – What a One State Reality Looks Like”, where the archipelago of Palestinian controlled/partially controlled areas (A and B) are ‘bathed’ inside the surrounding and disconnecting Israeli Area C (about 60% of West Bank), where Area C has the same color as Israel (blue). Thus, one can clearly see the disconnect of Palestinian Bantustans (Gaza is also seen as a separate enclave).

Entous opens his ‘Tomb-raider’ like exposé:
 

One afternoon in the spring of 2015, a senior State Department official named Frank Lowenstein paged through a government briefing book and noticed a map that he had never seen before”. […] The new map in the briefing book was different. It showed large swaths of territory that were off limits to Palestinian development and filled in space between the settlements and the outposts. At that moment, Lowenstein told me, he saw “the forest for the trees”—not only were Palestinian population centers cut off from one another but there was virtually no way to squeeze a viable Palestinian state into the areas that remained.

This shocking discovery was thus something that had to be shown to President Obama:
 

Lowenstein showed the small map to Secretary of State John Kerry and said, “Look what’s really going on here.” Kerry brought the map to his next meeting with President Obama. The map was too small for everyone in the Situation Room to see, so Lowenstein had a series of larger maps made. The information was then verified by U.S. intelligence agencies. Obama’s Presidency was winding down, but Lowenstein figured that he could use the time left to raise awareness about what the Israelis were doing. “One day, everyone’s going to wake up and go, ‘Wait a minute, we’ve got to stop this to at least have the possibility of a two-state solution,’ ” Lowenstein said.

This shocking secret evidence, as it were, was the impetus to Obama’s final act of defiance against this threat – an abstention at the UN more than a year later, in December 2016, when Obama was a lame duck:
 

Alarmed by Israeli actions depicted in the maps, Obama decided to abstain on a U.N. Security Council resolution condemning the settlements, clearing the way for its passage.

I was telling the first contact who sent me this, who really is a very informed person, that it’s a bit of an insult to the intelligence, because they could have seen all that from the Oslo Accords and thereafter. Indeed, if one looks at the ‘Oslo II’ map of the West Bank and its areas A, B and C, all that is evident. You don’t need the Israeli controlled Area C to be in the same color as Israel to see this. It’s quite straightforward.
 

Oslo map of West Bank anticipates State Department map that supposedly surprised Obama.
 

My contact responded: “Nonetheless, I think it is interesting the New Yorker is bringing this material forward”.

It’s pretty ironic. Obama could have looked at one of the maps of ‘disappearing Palestine’ which are shared so often by Palestinian solidarity activists (see it in Tom Suarez’s article on Jaffa). The series of four maps shows how Zionist control of historical Palestine has expanded from 1946 to this day, where the last map is essentially what Obama was looking at. Shock horror! Palestinian solidarity activists had it right! Israel IS shrinking Palestine!
 

Map of disappearing Palestinian territory
 

And PS all these maps were available to anyone before February 2011 when, mindful of his reelection campaign a year off, Obama vetoed a resolution against the settlements at the U.N.

But now this new “revelation” that suddenly made Obama see the light, brought him to do something amazing when it comes to Israel – he did nothing. I mean, literally – nothing. The US abstained at the UN Security Council vote on Resolution 2334 which condemned all of Israel’s settlements as a “flagrant violation” of international law. In the political reality of today, not standing by Israel when it commits war crimes is considered extremely ‘anti-Israel’. As Hillary Clinton said in her election campaign, “America can’t be neutral when it comes to Israel’s security or survival” –and bear in mind, there she was correcting Trump for suggesting he would be the “neutral guy” on this issue. Even Israel’s left bemoaned the UNSC resolution, and left-leader Isaac Herzog (now off to his new job as head of Jewish Agency to fight the intermarriage “plague”) blamed Netanyahu for causing the disaster by alienating Obama.

Per Adam Entous, this would be “Obama’s final act of defiance against Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli Prime Minister, before Donald Trump took office and put in place policies that were far more accepting of the settlers.”

Before that, Obama would make some critical noises, but increase Israel’s military aid check for the next decade from $31 billion (last decade) to $38 billion (next decade). And he would give a green light to some of Israel’s most atrocious massacres in recent history. As Norman Finkelstein says, “Obama’s record on Israel Palestine is awful. The worst massacres in the history of the conflict since 1982 and the invasion of Lebanon– the worst and most egregious massacres occurred under his watch” […] “Operation Protective Edge, 2014, couldn’t have happened if not for Obama. And throughout the operation, Obama keeps saying that Israel has the right to defend itself, Israel has the right to self-defense”.

So in December 2016 the US stood still and did not side with Israel against the hostile, ‘Israel-bashing’ world represented at the UN, as Trump’s UN ambassador Nikki Haley would put it, and then UN Ambassador Samantha Power let the condemning resolution pass. That’s called radical in our times, almost heroic- a “final act of defiance”.

But let’s get back to that map. Are we really supposed to believe that Obama didn’t know? That just because he hadn’t seen a map with those colors (or looked at a ‘disappearing Palestine’ map), that he never really understood the Bantustan-effect of the Oslo accords and the acts of the Israeli governments thereafter? Did the President not know that the Oslo accords were not meant to create a Palestinian state, but rather “less than a state” as even Israeli Prime Minister Rabin said just before he was assassinated?
Let’s take Lowenstein’s “not seeing the forest for trees” notion seriously. What is it saying? That there’s so much obfuscation surrounding Israel’s occupation and settlement policy, that it’s incredibly hard to see the full picture, the “forest”. Alright, it can be confusing, I’ll give it that much. In his book ‘Knowing Too Much’, Norman Finkelstein cites Dennis Ross, one of the architects of the Oslo agreements, relating to these areas A, B and C (P. 421). Brace yourselves:
 

[Ross’s] account focuses primarily on the minutiae of the negotiations […], which future historians will require a Rosetta stone to decipher. Consider this hieroglyphic from Ross’s text:
‘In our secure call the next day, Bibi [Netanyahu] raised my original bridging idea – not so much the notion of 11+2 as his being able to say he had done something less than 13, and Arafat and Clinton being able to say it was a 13 percent transfer of territory. But now Bibi said he did no know how to actually do this. There needed to be an area of special status that would make up the difference between what he was doing for the further redeployment and the total we were asking for. I saw an opening here and probed: Is the problem that roads or an economic zone can’t cover sufficient territory to reach the 13 percent given the size of the FRD [further redeployments] you can do? Yes, was the answer, and he could simply not increase the size of the B area – an area where Israelis retained the security responsibility but the Palestinians had the civil responsibility. Previously, I had raised the idea of creating what might be termed a “B-“ area – an area that gave the Palestinians more authority than in the C areas, but less than a full-fledged B area. Bibi had explored it, but also said it was not doable. I revisited this idea now but with a slightly different twist. What if we created an area that you could say was a “C” and they would be able to say was a “B”?’

I hope you’re still there and did not get lost in the ABC forest. And what does all this ABC really spell? It spells Apartheid, it spells Bantustans. That’s what it’s really about. And if anyone had any high hopes about it in the 1990’s, it’s about time to dispel them.
Let’s not just return to the ‘special map’ that was shown to Obama. Let’s return to that ‘disappearing Palestine’ map and be simple about it. Because what is it really showing? It is showing how Zionist machinations and conquests have been slicing up Palestine even before 1948. The 1947 UN ‘Partition Plan’ suggested 55% of historical Palestine be given to the Jewish polity, which made up one third of the population at the time and owned about 7% of the land. The major three enclaves of each respective polity were mostly contiguous through slim crossing points (Jaffa being an exception; and Jerusalem, let it be added, was suggested to be a Corpus Separatum, a separate area under international auspices). Come 1948, and Israel severed these areas from one another – shrunk Gaza, shrunk the West Bank and overtook the Galilee.

At this point, when looking at map 3 of the ‘Disappearing Palestine’ (1949-1967), we could already be saying that the prospect of a Palestinian state on the remains of historical Palestine is bleak – because Gaza is completely severed from the West Bank. Nonetheless, the Oslo Accords of the 1990’s did treat the two enclaves as part of one entity (with a road connecting them). The PLO had already accepted the possibility of a ‘Palestine’ on pre-1967 lines in 1988, long before the famous (or infamous) ‘peace process’. Nonetheless, Israel worked incessantly to sever Gaza from the West Bank, even before the peace-process began. Amira Hass mentions this effort frequently.

In other words, Israel is saying one thing, that it wants peace, but on the other hand taking actions which imply that this ‘peace’ is not about offering Palestinians statehood in any real way, but rather a limbo of limited ‘authority’ in disconnected enclaves which Israel controls. Let me spell the ABC out again: Bantustans.

So now we are told that Obama, at some point, saw the light, saw “the forest for trees”, because of the ingenious discovery of a State Department official who had seen it first – and realized that Israel was dissecting the West Bank, and that the anatomy of that dissection appeared to be in direct opposition to any notion of a “2-state’ solution, because anything that wasn’t ‘Israel’ was completely dissected and disconnected.

But was Obama really seeing the forest, or just a small section of it?

The ‘disappearing Palestine’ maps, in general, offer a wider view of the bigger historical forest, pointing to a pattern which corresponds logically with the settler-colonialist designs of the Zionist movement and its manifestation as Israel. It is about a gradual elimination of Palestine.

And what should be done about it? We are told that Obama made a drastic move – abstention. And then Trump effectively cancelled the reservations and sided wholly with Israel. But sanctioning Israel is apparently outside the scope of possibility. Thus Israel continues with its crimes, continues to shrink Palestine, and smart diplomats confuse us with their ‘ABC’, apparently so much so that even Presidents cant see the forest for trees. Or so they say.

So maybe it really is time for simple people, those who do view ‘disappearing Palestine’ maps, to take action where politicians fail to act and fail to see. Palestine is really disappearing. It’s a genocidal pattern, and you’re seeing it happen in real time.

About Jonathan Ofir
Israeli musician, conductor and blogger / writer based in Denmark.

Courtesy: https://mondoweiss.net/

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US abstains in demanding Israel to halt settlements on Palestinian land, allowing Security Council to pass resolution. The resolution declares Israel’s settlements in the West Bank, “including East Jerusalem,” to be illegal under international law

The UN Security Council voted on December 23 in favour of a resolution demanding the halt of settlement activity by Israel on occupied Palestinian territory with the United States notably abstaining. The resolution was put forward at the 15-member council for a vote on Friday by New Zealand, Malaysia, Venezuela and Senegal a day after Egypt withdrew it under pressure from Israel and US president-elect Donald Trump.

Israel and Trump had called on the United States to veto the measure.

"This is a day of victory for international law, a victory for civilised language and negotiation and a total rejection of extremist forces in Israel," chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat told Reuters news agency.

"The international community has told the people of Israel that the way to security and peace is not going to be done through occupation … but rather through peace, ending the occupation and establishing a Palestinian state to live side by side with the state of Israel on the 1967 line," Erekat said.
A full text of the resolution may be read at the end of the story.

In the United States, the vote was condemned by congressional leaders from both parties and by heads of the best known Jewish organizations. The Anti-Defamation League said it was “outraged over the U.S. failure to veto this biased and unconstructive UNSC resolution.” The American Jewish Committee was “deeply disappointed.”

Organizations on the left took the other side. Americans for Peace Now welcomed the U.N. vote, saying the resolution “is pro-Israel in the deepest sense of the term, supporting Israel’s existence and security, and standing against those who would sacrifice both at the altar of settlements, for an ideological, expansionist agenda.”  J Street praised the U.S. decision to abstain rather than veto, claiming the U.N. resolution “reaffirms the need for a two-state solution and calls for a halt to actions by both sides that serve to undermine the prospects for peace.”

Relations between Israel and the United States sank on Friday to their lowest point in years after the Obama administration declined to veto a resolution in the United Nations Security Council declaring Israel’s settlements in the West Bank, “including East Jerusalem,” to be illegal under international law.

Israeli leaders reacted with fury. A statement from the prime minister’s office called the resolution “shameful” and said that Israel would not observe it. It went on to charge that the “Obama administration not only failed to protect Israel against the U.N.’s obsession with Israel, it collaborated with the UN behind Israel’s back.”

The government was backed by Yair Lapid of the opposition Yesh Atid party, who declared that Israel is united against the resolution and “regarding the U.N. vote there is no division in Israel between opposition and coalition.” Labor Party and Zionist Union chair Isaac Herzog, trying to sound a patriotic note while attacking Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, condemned the resolution but blamed Netanyahu for pursuing policies that left Israel isolated.
 
In fact the resolution didn’t say much that hasn’t been said countless times before. It condemned Israeli settlements in the West Bank — “including East Jerusalem” — as illegal “under international law” and “a major obstacle to the achievement of the two-State solution and a just, lasting and comprehensive peace.”

The resolution was adopted with 14 votes in favour to a resounding round of applause. It is the first resolution the Security Council has adopted on Israel and the Palestinians in nearly eight years.

"Israel rejects this shameful anti-Israel resolution at the UN and will not abide by its terms," a statement from the office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said.
The United States' abstention was the biggest rebuke in recent history to longstanding ally Israel, allowing the Security Council to condemn its settlements and continuing construction in Palestinian territory as a "flagrant violation" of international law.

The resolution said Israel's settlements on Palestinian territory occupied since 1967, including East Jerusalem, have "no legal validity.

It demanded a halt to "all Israeli settlement activities", saying this "is essential for salvaging the two-state solution".

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi had backtracked on the move to condemn Israel's settlement policy on Thursday after receiving a phone call from US president-elect Donald Trump, who spoke out in favour of a US veto.    

Israeli Ambassador to the UN Danny Danon said his government had expected a US veto of "this disgraceful resolution".    "I have no doubt that the new US administration and the incoming UN secretary general will usher in a new era in terms of the UN's relationship with Israel," said Danon after the vote.Trump said in a tweet: "As to the UN, things will be different after Jan 20th."

Israeli Ambassador to the UN Danny Danon

Trump is likely to be a more staunch supporter of Netanyahu's right-wing policies. He named a hardline pro-Israel ambassador and vowed to move the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

Israeli settlements are seen as a major stumbling block to peace efforts as they are built on land the Palestinians see as part of their future state. The United Nations maintains that settlements are illegal, but UN officials have reported a surge in construction over the past months. Israeli Energy Minister Yuval Steinitz accused the US of abandoning Israel by abstaining."This is not a resolution against settlements, it is an anti-Israel resolution, against the Jewish people and the state of the Jews. The United States tonight has simply abandoned its only friend in the Middle East," Steinitz, who is close to Netanyahu, told Channel Two News.

Some 430,000 Israeli settlers currently live in the West Bank and a further 200,000 Israelis live in East Jerusalem, which the Palestinians see as the capital of their future state.
The passage of the resolution changes nothing on the ground between Israel and the Palestinians, and likely will be all but ignored by the incoming Trump administration

The resolution formally enshrined the international community's disapproval of Israeli settlement building, and could spur further Palestinian moves against Israel in international forums.Sharif Nashashibi, a London-based analyst of Arab political affairs, however said to sections of the international media that this resolution will be just one of many UN resolutions that Israel will flout."We don't have any mechanism to put tangible pressure on Israel to abide by this resolution, so I fear that despite the passing of this resolution, the Security Council has still proved itself largely irrelevant to this conflict," Nashashibi said.

Before the vote a senior Israeli official said if adopted there was "zero chance" the Israeli government would abide by the measure. Under the UN Charter, UN member states "agree to accept and carry out the decisions of the Security Council
 
Text of Egyptian-drafted resolution 2334 on settlements, approved by the UN Security Council, on December 23, 2016.
 
The Security Council,
Reaffirming its relevant resolutions, including resolutions 242 (1967), 338 (1973), 446 (1979), 452 (1979), 465 (1980), 476 (1980), 478 (1980), 1397 (2002), 1515 (2003), and 1850 (2008),

Guided by the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations, and reaffirming, inter alia, the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by force,

Reaffirming the obligation of Israel, the occupying Power, to abide scrupulously by its legal obligations and responsibilities under the Fourth Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War, of 12 August 1949, and recalling the advisory opinion rendered on 9 July 2004 by the International Court of Justice,

Condemning all measures aimed at altering the demographic composition, character and status of the Palestinian Territory occupied since 1967, including East Jerusalem, including, inter alia, the construction and expansion of settlements, transfer of Israeli settlers, confiscation of land, demolition of homes and displacement of Palestinian civilians, in violation of international humanitarian law and relevant resolutions,

Expressing grave concern that continuing Israeli settlement activities are dangerously imperilling the viability of the two-State solution based on the 1967 lines,
Recalling the obligation under the Quartet Roadmap, endorsed by its resolution 1515 (2003), for a freeze by Israel of all settlement activity, including “natural growth”, and the dismantlement of all settlement outposts erected since March 2001,

Recalling also the obligation under the Quartet roadmap for the Palestinian Authority Security Forces to maintain effective operations aimed at confronting all those engaged in terror and dismantling terrorist capabilities, including the confiscation of illegal weapons,

Condemning all acts of violence against civilians, including acts of terror, as well as all acts of provocation, incitement and destruction,

Reiterating its vision of a region where two democratic States, Israel and Palestine, live side by side in peace within secure and recognized borders,

Stressing that the status quo is not sustainable and that significant steps, consistent with the transition contemplated by prior agreements, are urgently needed in order to (i) stabilize the situation and to reverse negative trends on the ground, which are steadily eroding the two-State solution and entrenching a one-State reality, and (ii) to create the conditions for successful final status negotiations and for advancing the two-State solution through those negotiations and on the ground, 

1. Reaffirms that the establishment by Israel of settlements in the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967, including East Jerusalem, has no legal validity and constitutes a flagrant violation under international law and a major obstacle to the achievement of the two-State solution and a just, lasting and comprehensive peace;

2. Reiterates its demand that Israel immediately and completely cease all settlement activities in the occupied Palestinian territory, including East Jerusalem, and that it fully respect all of its legal obligations in this regard;

3. Underlines that it will not recognize any changes to the 4 June 1967 lines, including with regard to Jerusalem, other than those agreed by the parties through negotiations;
4. Stresses that the cessation of all Israeli settlement activities is essential for salvaging the two-State solution, and calls for affirmative steps to be taken immediately to reverse the negative trends on the ground that are imperilling the two-State solution;

5. Calls upon all States, bearing in mind paragraph 1 of this resolution, to distinguish, in their relevant dealings, between the territory of the State of Israel and the territories occupied since 1967;

6. Calls for immediate steps to prevent all acts of violence against civilians, including acts of terror, as well as all acts of provocation and destruction, calls for accountability in this regard, and calls for compliance with obligations under international law for the strengthening of ongoing efforts to combat terrorism, including through existing security coordination, and to clearly condemn all acts of terrorism;

7. Calls upon both parties to act on the basis of international law, including international humanitarian law, and their previous agreements and obligations, to observe calm and restraint, and to refrain from provocative actions, incitement and inflammatory rhetoric, with the aim, inter alia, of de-escalating the situation on the ground, rebuilding trust and confidence, demonstrating through policies and actions a genuine commitment to the two-State solution, and creating the conditions necessary for promoting peace;

8. Calls upon all parties to continue, in the interest of the promotion of peace and security, to exert collective efforts to launch credible negotiations on all final status issues in the Middle East peace process and within the time frame specified by the Quartet in its statement of 21 September 2010;

9. Urges in this regard the intensification and acceleration of international and regional diplomatic efforts and support aimed at achieving, without delay a comprehensive, just and lasting peace in the Middle East on the basis of the relevant United Nations resolutions, the Madrid terms of reference, including the principle of land for peace, the Arab Peace Initiative and the Quartet Roadmap and an end to the Israeli occupation that began in 1967; and underscores in this regard the importance of the ongoing efforts to advance the Arab Peace Initiative, the initiative of France for the convening of an international peace conference, the recent efforts of the Quartet, as well as the efforts of Egypt and the Russian Federation;

10. Confirms its determination to support the parties throughout the negotiations and in the implementation of an agreement;

11. Reaffirms its determination to examine practical ways and means to secure the full implementation of its relevant resolutions;

12. Requests the Secretary-General to report to the Council every three months on the implementation of the provisions of the present resolution;

13. Decides to remain seized of the matter.
 

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The announcement last week by the United States of the largest military aid package in its history – to Israel – was a win for both sides.

Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu could boast that his lobbying had boosted aid from $3.1 billion to $3.8bn a year – a 22 per cent increase – for a decade starting in 2019.

Netanyahu has presented this as a rebuff to those who accuse him of jeopardising Israeli security interests with his government’s repeated affronts to the White House.

In the past weeks alone, defence minister Avigdor Lieberman has compared last year’s nuclear deal between Washington and Iran with the 1938 Munich pact, which bolstered Hitler; and Netanyahu has implied that US opposition to settlement expansion is the same as support for the “ethnic cleansing” of Jews.

American president Barack Obama, meanwhile, hopes to stifle his own critics who insinuate that he is anti-Israel. The deal should serve as a fillip too for Hillary Clinton, the Democratic party’s candidate to succeed Obama in November’s election.

Also read: Churches Rip Israel for Occupation and ‘Prison-Like’ Gaza

American president Barack Obama, meanwhile, hopes to stifle his own critics who insinuate that he is anti-Israel. The deal should serve as a fillip too for Hillary Clinton, the Democratic party’s candidate to succeed Obama in November’s election.

In reality, however, the Obama administration has quietly punished Netanyahu for his misbehaviour. Israeli expectations of a $4.5bn-a-year deal were whittled down after Netanyahu stalled negotiations last year as he sought to recruit Congress to his battle against the Iran deal.

In fact, Israel already receives roughly $3.8bn – if Congress’s assistance on developing missile defence programmes is factored in. Notably, Israel has been forced to promise not to approach Congress for extra funds.

Netanyahu’s agreement to such terms has incensed Israeli loyalists in Congress such as Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, who had been fighting Netanyahu’s corner to win an even larger aid handout from US taxpayers. He accused the Israeli prime minister on Friday of having “pulled the rug from under us”.

As Ehud Barak, Netanyahu’s former defence minister, also pointed out in a series of TV interviews in Israel, the deal fails to take into account either inflation or the dollar’s depreciation against the shekel.

Also read:University of California Berkeley (Cal) reinstated a student-led course on Palestine

A bigger blow still is the White House’s demand to phase out a special exemption that allowed Israel to spend nearly 40 per cent of aid locally on weapon and fuel purchases. Israel will soon have to buy all its armaments from the US, ending what amounted to a subsidy to its own arms industry.

Netanyahu preferred to sign the deal now rather than wait till the next president is installed, even though Clinton and her Republican challenger, Donald Trump, are expected to be even more craven towards Israel. That appears to reflect Netanyahu’s fear that the US political environment will be more uncertain after the election and could lead to long delays in an agreement, and apprehension about the implications for Israel of Trump’s general opposition to foreign aid.

Washington’s renewed military largesse – in the face of almost continual insults – inevitably fuels claims that the Israeli tail is wagging the US dog. Even the New York Times has described the aid package as “too big”.

Nonetheless, Washington’s renewed military largesse – in the face of almost continual insults – inevitably fuels claims that the Israeli tail is wagging the US dog. Even the New York Times has described the aid package as “too big”.

Since the 1973 war, Israel has received at least $100bn in military aid, with more assistance hidden from view. Back in the 1970s, Washington paid half of Israel’s military budget. Today it still foots a fifth of the bill, despite Israel’s economic success.

But the US expects a return on its massive investment. As the late Israeli politician-general Ariel Sharon once observed, Israel has been a US “aircraft carrier” in the Middle East, acting as the regional bully and carrying out operations that benefit Washington.

Almost no one implicates the US in Israeli attacks that wiped out Iraq and Syria’s nuclear programmes. A nuclear-armed Iraq or Syria, however, would have deterred later US-backed moves at regime overthrow, as well as countering the strategic advantage Israel derives from its own large nuclear arsenal.

Israel’s US-sponsored military prowess is a triple boon to the US weapons industry, the country’s most powerful lobby. Public funds are siphoned off to let Israel buy goodies from American arms makers.

In addition, Israel’s US-sponsored military prowess is a triple boon to the US weapons industry, the country’s most powerful lobby. Public funds are siphoned off to let Israel buy goodies from American arms makers. That, in turn, serves as a shop window for other customers and spurs an endless and lucrative game of catch-up in the rest of the Middle East.

The first F-35 fighter jets to arrive in Israel in December – their various components produced in 46 US states – will increase the clamour for the cutting-edge warplane.

Israel is also a “front-line laboratory”, as former Israeli army negotiator Eival Gilady admitted at the weekend, that develops and field-tests new technology Washington can later use itself.

The US is planning to buy back the missile interception system Iron Dome – which neutralises battlefield threats of retaliation – it largely paid for. Israel works closely too with the US in developing cyber­warfare, such as the Stuxnet worm that damaged Iran’s civilian nuclear programme.

But the clearest message from Israel’s new aid package is one delivered to the Palestinians: Washington sees no pressing strategic interest in ending the occupation. It stood up to Netanyahu over the Iran deal but will not risk a damaging clash with Israel and its loyalists in Congress over Palestinian statehood.

Some believe that Obama signed the aid agreement to win the credibility necessary to overcome his domestic Israel lobby and pull a rabbit from the hat: an initiative, unveiled shortly before he leaves office, that corners Netanyahu into making peace.

Hopes have been raised by an expected meeting at the United Nations in New York on Wednesday. But their first talks in 10 months are planned only to demonstrate the unity necessary to confound critics of the aid deal.

If Obama really wanted to pressure Netanyahu, he would have used the aid agreement as leverage. Now Netanyahu need not fear US financial retaliation, even as he intensifies effective annexation of the West Bank.

Netanyahu has drawn the right lesson from the aid deal – he can act again the Palestinians with continuing impunity and lots of US military hardware.
 

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Image: U.S. soldiers near Bagram Airfield, Afghanistan, a few months after President Obama formally declared the war in Afghanistan over. (Photo: U.S. Department of Defense/cc)

'15 years later, lives lost, billions spent…'

U.S. soldiers near Bagram Airfield, Afghanistan, a few months after President Obama formally declared the war in Afghanistan over. (Photo: U.S. Department of Defense/cc)
Despite a vow to withdraw thousands of U.S. troops from Afghanistan by 2017, President Barack Obama this week veered the opposite direction, widening the U.S. military's role in the entrenched, 15-years-long conflict.

The Washington Post reported on Thursday evening that the Obama administration's new measures "authorize U.S. troops, stationed in Afghanistan on a dual training and counterterrorism mission, to begin accompanying conventional local forces on the battlefield in a way that now occurs only with elite Afghan forces."

On Friday, AP noted that the new authorization will also "expand the military's authority to conduct airstrikes against the Taliban."

This week's expansion of the war in Afghanistan follows Obama's decision in September to send Special Forces back into combat in the war-torn nation to fight the re-emergence of the Taliban—less than a year after the president declared the war in Afghanistan over. (The United States also continues to unleash civilian-killing drone strikes on the beleaguered Afghan population.)

An anonymous senior Defense official attempted to defend the decision from critics in an interview with the Post, saying that Obama's authorizations will "maximize the use and effectiveness of our troops supporting the Afghan forces in those select instances in which their engagement can enable strategic effects on the battlefield."

"How widely commanders apply the 'strategic effect' measure will determine the extent to which the authorities thrust the United States back into operations like those it conducted before Obama ended formal combat operations at the close of 2014," the newspaper noted.

Moreover, "it's not clear what effect a small force in Afghanistan, even with new operational authorities, can have in the country’s vast and complex battlefield," the Post wrote. "So far, 2016 has provided no sustained break, with heavy fighting in Helmand and a series of terrorist attacks in Kabul. Even after the United States conducted a strike that officials believe killed former Taliban leader Akhtar Mohammad Mansour in Pakistan, officials expect a punishing fighting season this summer."

Peace-minded progressives decried President Obama's decision and the never-ending war on Twitter:
 
Source: Common Dreams

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Monopoly rights stifle and not promote innovation. Barriers to research collaboration can grow, diffusion of knowledge suffers and access to knowledge and innovation is harmed under any strong IP system.
 
The same is the story when applied to the fields of 3 D printing. Patents, designs and layouts were not applicable to such technologies when the foundational tools emerged in the case of all these generic technologies. Scientists had to be pushed to treat some of these cases as IP by the technology transfer offices of the US universities.
 
Did a strong IP regime work for the benefit of the pharmaceutical industry after the adoption of TRIPS Agreement? The policy does not demonstrate how a regime favouring maximum possible incentive for IP owners and the granting of monopolies will be able to ensure the “socio-cultural development” of India.
 
Analysis of the impact of the patents granted on new chemical entities (NCEs) by this author in the forthcoming publication for the two hundred sixty two drugs introduced in India since 1995 indicates that the market power of foreign firms is on the rise due to the adoption of the product patent in various therapeutic groups such as anti-cancer, cardiovascular, central nervous system, diabetes, urology and other such non-communicable diseases.
 
The data clearly reveals that the market power of foreign firms would have been greater had India opted for early TRIPS implementation like many of the countries in Latin America did and made their industries as well as people suffer the adverse consequences of a strong intellectual property regime.[6]
 
In fact, far more contrary –and interesting –evidence is directly available from the pre-TRIPS period. The Green Revolution took place in India without any IP protection for the breeders of new varieties of seeds.
 
The Indian pharmaceutical industry became the pharmacy of the Third World because of the rejection of the strong intellectual property rights (IPRs) system in the 1970s. Since the domestic pharmaceutical industry supplies a large number of pharmaceuticals to the regulated markets of US and Europe and is the lifeline for patients particularly in the developing world, it is paradoxical that the policymakers of the Modi Government choose to do little more than give lip service to India's global role in the case of generic pharmaceuticals. With no mention at all of the use of critical safeguards in India's patent law such as compulsory licenses, parallel imports or support for patent oppositions, it seems there was some merit to the news of India's assurances to the US industry that compulsory licenses will no longer be issued in India.  
 
The policy focuses on improving the IPR output of National Research Laboratories, Universities, Technology institutions and researchers by encouraging and facilitating the acquisition of IPR.

It proposes to link research funding and career progression with the creation of IPR and includes this as a key performance metric for public funded R&D institutions as well as Technology institutions. Although it is clear that the policy suggests the harnessing of intellectual property by public institutions to be undertaken in a big way (through, for example, the patenting or licensing of research results) and the partnering of public institutions with the private sector, it chooses not to ask the obvious question of what has been the outcome of the perusal of precisely such policies in the laboratories of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) and the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR).

Since the mid-1990s, CSIR researchers were directed to file patents but the policy failed to yield patents that could earn CSIR revenue. A vast majority of patents obtained by CSIR (2001–2010) lie idle and have not able to generate licensing revenue to the extent of covering even four to five percent of the cost incurred on the filing of patents by the CSIR. 

The policy on patenting has cost the CSIR not just money to maintain these patents in India and abroad, it has also directed CSIR away from more important directions. In order to generate IP that can be commercialised, the laboratories are required to plan patent portfolios without which enforceable IP will not get generated.

It is not enough to celebrate the intellectual property of individual researchers. Indian patents are the outcome of non-collaborative individual organisation based efforts, both for industry and research institutions. Analysis indicates that 90 per cent are single entity patents and the percentage was as high as 96 per cent in 2010 for India’s US patents. Only seven per cent of the total patents are outcomes of collaborative R&D.[7]

Even in the case of patents filed with the Indian Patent Office (IPO), a large majority (75 per cent) were filed and obtained by individual assignees. Both R&D institutions and industry have been acting separately in their pursuits of technology development related investments.

The same can be said of the collaboration between the academic institutions, universities and research institutions that have been granted patents—the trend is to “go-alone”.

The Indian scenario on international collaboration is no different. Analysis indicates that industry collaboration with universities and R&D laboratories is also negligible. There have been no more than 0–10 patents in any given year. Analysis of the patent assignment database of the USPTO indicates that only 173 out of the total 2420 patents obtained during the period resulted in licensing of other entities.

Further examination reveals that 32 of the 173 patents were instances of internal trading. Just 7.15 per cent of India’s patents were licensed on the whole and 5.83 per cent of the total, if we leave out cases where the transfer was to one’s own subsidiary[8]. 

Clearly, the message of this analysis is that the Indian industry and R&D organisations are not at the stage of development wherein the patent strategy is going to yield much returns. It seems that our policymaking is not informed by Indian reality but by pressures on and of the multinationals. Multinationals and R&D organizations abroad do not treat the challenge of IP generation without a strategy. They spend money on patent litigation. Does India want its laboratories to focus on science or litigation?

It is also a matter of significant concern that India is ranked quite low on the index of creativity and innovation; we are at 56, somewhere pretty low down on the ladder.

Further, it should not be forgotten that if publicly funded laboratories are encouraged to patent their research contributions, seek exclusionary rights and make money from the private sector from their research contributions, the tax payers will be paying twice.

The private sector will include the total R&D expensesincurred in the cost of product after adding a huge mark-up.

Why should the policymakers opt for exclusive licensing of public IP?

Exclusive licensing is an important element of a strong IP system. This is a matter of serious concern. The policy proposes to establish and strengthen IP facilitation centers as nodal points in industrial and innovation university clusters.
Evidence on the performance of Science and Technology (S&T) parks is not very encouraging with regard to IP based entrepreneurship from India. There is significant gap between scientists and industry with regards to important factors in the process of technology transfer from publicly funded R&D sector to private sector industry. Scientists consider the lack of motivation and demand from industry for investment in indigenous technology development to be a key barrier to sustainable collaboration.

Experience of success with IP based entrepreneurship and technology transfer from National Research and Development Corporation (NRDC), National Innovation Foundation (NIF) and Technology and Information Forecasting and Assessment Council (TIFAC), SIBRI and BIRAC of Department of Biotechnology is hardly encouraging. 

However, thanks to the high voltage propaganda that favors a strong IP, the same mantra of IP based entrepreneurship is repeated. Take the case of NRDC which manages the IP generated from the programme aimed at technological self-reliance[9] (PATSER) of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research (DSIR).

In royalty paying projects, there was only one case where the firm paid on a regular basis. In most cases it was paid for one or two years by the firms. The amount of royalty paid varied widely, from as low as Rupees 954 to Rupees 86 lakhs. Most common reasons mentioned for non-commercialisation were either that the technologies developed were obsolete or there was no market demand for the technology developed[10].

The policy considers IP rights as private rights. The policy wants to promote IPRs as marketable financial assets. The policy views IP as an economic tool. But intellectual property is a regulatory tool for the government. The government should not be using it only as an incentive.

The government needs to provide safeguards to protect public interest when statutory monopolies are being offered to IP owners. The objectives and instruments of policy need to be guided by a social contract between state and society on the basis of the consequences of intellectual property regime for the development process.

As a regulatory tool, the state has to ask how and what benefits will corporates deliver and what kind of costs it entails to the Indian people.

A social bargain should reward or grant incentives to innovators but not without asking what kind of innovation and access to innovation is being offered by this particular system of reward,that is, exclusive rights through IP.

Incentive has to be as per the stage of development and be commensurate with the quality of intellectual property. Intellectual property has to maximize disclosure, diffusion and dissemination, access to knowledge, and public interest.
The policy is vague in how such a balance is to be achieved and how the rights of IP owners will be implemented in a manner conducive to social and economic welfare and to prevent misuse or abuse of IP rights. Although the policy speaks of encouraging open source drug discovery (OSDD), it is well known that the OSDD programme is no longer being pursued by CSIR.

While the policy speaks of promoting free and open source software, it could have given a genuine boost to the idea of open source in the areas of software, seeds and creative publishing if the government was willing to announce a public procurement policy for encouraging open source in software and seeds.

The policy should have announced a law favoring open source licensing. Special licenses for non-exclusive dissemination of intellectual property could have been encouraged. Twenty-five countries including Australia, Belgium, Croatia, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary and Italy provide for legislative support to open source[11].

The policy also refers to open innovation as part of the promotion of corporate social responsibility (CSR). Open innovation is practiced by large companies as a programme of collaborative R&D strategy, and it is not a CSR activity for them. Apart from the NIF (National Innovation Foundation) which has tried collaborating with Big Bazar to market the “outcomes of grassroots innovations” (wherein also we are yet to see the market being developed for such innovations), there are not too many corporate social responsibility (CSR) examples which can be multiplied by the R&D organizations. The CSIR has many rural technologies to offer from its own shelf, but we have not seen large companies being willing to transfer these technologies to the base of pyramid population. 

The policy provides for the enhancement of the capacity of IP enforcement agencies at various levels, including strengthening of IPR cells in State police forces. It proposes to adjudicate IP disputes through Commercial courts. The policy marks a major departure from the earlier well-stated understanding by BakshiTekchand and Justice Iyengar committees[12] that guided the framing of Indian patent law. These committees created the Patent Act, 1970.

The model patent act provided for granting of rights for the use of new processes for the benefit of the pharmaceutical and food industries and laid the basis for creative imitation or reverse engineering approach which led the Indian R&D institutions to create over fifty new chemical reactions processes for more than one hundred essential drugs.

The policy states in writing that the government will engage constructively in the negotiation of international treaties and agreements. It also states that it will examine accession to some multilateral treaties which are in India's interest. Is this a signal that India could be party to Trans-pacific partnership (TPP) where the TRIPS plus agenda is already in place?

Needless to say, the IP maximalist agenda of the new IPR policy will warm the heart of the US government in a big way. It seems that the government wanted to gift something to the USA, and decided on gifting the IPR policy. This particular gift to the US must be withdrawn. It should be prevented from becoming the national policy.

The policy seeks respect for IP and in its usual style the present government wants this message to be taken to the schools, colleges and public.

It wants to involve multinational corporations in the IP awareness programmes. The policy proposes to strengthen and spread IPR facilitation centers. The policy proposes to open up the traditional knowledge digital library (TKDL) to the corporates. What is of greatest concern perhaps is the targeting of the judiciary through “awareness” and “training” on an IP maximalist agenda that is likely to threaten the fine balance between public interest and IP that the courts have struggled to maintain. This is going to be a big change.

The policy says India will remain committed to the Doha Declaration on TRIPS Agreement and Public Health with no real provisions of the policy dedicated to the actual use of public health safeguards in India's patent law.

Nor can it be ignored that the Government of India agreed to give in to the US Government’s twenty-first century issues of trade and investment at the Nairobi Ministerial at the WTO. According to the United States Trade Representative (USTR), the Doha Development Agenda is dead. There has been no progress.

Needless to say, the IP maximalist agenda of the new IPR policy will warm the heart of the US government in a big way. It seems that the government wanted to gift something to the USA, and decided on gifting the IPR policy. This particular gift to the US must be withdrawn. It should be prevented from becoming the national policy.
 
(The author is Convener, National Working Group on Patent Laws)

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