New developments from Palestine

Few developments had been happening lately in regards to the Palestinian/Israeli conflict. The biggest difference is that the United States decided finally to try to give a chance to supporting new peace negotiations. Since been elected, George W. Bush didn't pay attention to this conflict, but rather decided to take one side against the other.

At the end of last November George W. Bush invited the Palestinians, Israelis and many other countries to the Annapolis Peace Summit. The idea was to have one day meetings to decide on starting the peace negotiations that were to take place a few months after this conference. Earlier in January George W. Bush had a visit to the Middle East region, as he visited Palestine and some of the other countries in the region.

There are few obligations on both sides to be done so a real peace deal can be reached. The international community is demanding both sides agree to their obligations. The Israelis for this time being must retreat back behind the lines of the 1967 war, which means Israel has to respect the resolutions made by the United Nations (UN).

The Israeli settlements are an obstacle always in this peace negotiation. The International Court of Justice and many other countries regard all Israeli settlements in the occupied territories as illegal, citing provisions in the Geneva Conventions which forbid the forced transfer of populations into lands seized in war. Even Bush said that those settlements are an obstacle for peace between Palestinians and Israelis. The only hope in regards to this is that the office of Israeli Prime Minister had announced again that they will be removing some of the smaller and newer settlements. The problem is that every single Israeli Prime Minister promises this but they never actually go through with it.

The apartheid wall that is being built on the Palestinian region is one of the main problems in the meantime. This apartheid wall runs over 650 km (400 miles) inside the West Bank, which breaks up the Palestinian territory. The wall is 8 meters high, twice the height of the former Berlin wall. The wall is another violation of Human Rights restricting and hindering the Palestinian movement around their own territory. This wall is affecting the Palestinians in so many ways that in 2004 the International Court of Justice declared that the wall is illegal and ordered Israel to stop the construction of this wall but until this moment Israel has not complied. Palestinian villages and cities are divided because of this wall and more check points have been implemented. People are only allowed to pass by those check points for very short periods during the day.

Another thing both sides need to really find a solution to is the “Right of Return” of the Palestinian refugees who were expelled from Palestine either in 1948 or 1967 or their families that were born outside Palestine. When you want to talk about the right of return you get to talk about what kind of state solution they will agree on, will it be a two-state solution or one state solution. I remember last November I attended a lecture by an Israeli journalist on campus and he mentioned about how he believes Israel wants to have its own Jewish state structure. They allow any Jewish person who never lived in Palestine or Israel or had any relation to the area to move and live in Israel, but at same time Palestinians who are originally from the region are not allowed to go back yet. So a key to solve this conflict is actually to agree on something in regard to those Palestinian refugees.

As any conflict there must be initiative from both sides to settle down on an agreement. The Palestinians who are resisting against the occupation shouldn’t perform any kind of resistance actions behind the 1967 boarder line. For the last many months the Palestinians had stopped any kind of resistance attacks outside the region, so they should keep it that way and work on solving this conflict.

So through Annapolis what did both sides accomplish? First, they call for negotiations over “all core issues without exception”, that includes all the topics I mentioned earlier. Second, both parties accepted the US decision to serve as a monitor, a role that until now Israel had kept to itself. Third, both parties agreed on implementing the road’s map obligation for each party. But Annapolis failed to deal with some of the major remaining obstacles.

Palestinians are obliged to do everything to bring violence under control. As for Israel, what is expected are not concessions, but rather to meet the obligations imposed by UN resolutions, international law and previous agreements? I believe that Canada and the international community should be fair and monitor and help out to find a final resolution for this conflict.

But in the mean time Israel should stop its attack on Gaza strip. Gaza had been living in the dark since Sunday, January 20^th, when the power plan ran out of fuel and was shut down due to the tightened siege forced by the Israeli army. This will be having a catastrophic effect on 1.5 million residents of Gaza, who are already suffering chronic shortages of fuel, medicine and some basic food things. I’m not going to give you details about the situation over here now, but I encourage you to check it out for yourself and find out how bad it is. With acts like this done by the Israeli government how will peace negotiations be resumed? That’s a question left for everyone to think about.

22/1/2008

* This article was banned from being published in The Silhouette, increasing the number of articles banned for me this year to two. The McMaster Social Sciences Society published it in their newspaper, The Frontline. *