Settlements: a major obstacle to peace By Muhammad Jamil

When the US is not interested in resolving a conflict it resorts to preparing roadmaps that take decades of bickering and debate or are never implemente.
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton recently urged the Israelis and the Palestinians to resume peace talks without preconditions in Washington’s latest bid to return both sides to the negotiations table. Hillary backed the key Palestinian aim of creating a state along the borders that existed before the 1967 Israel-Arab war, but said the lines would be modified through mutually agreed land swaps, presumably to account for some Israeli settlements that would remain. But Chief Palestinian Negotiator Saeb Erekat has demanded that Israel comply with its commitment under the 2003 peace roadmap, which calls for a halt to all settlement activity. It has to be said that the construction of the wall and settlements in the West Bank obscures the possibility of a contiguous Palestinian state. It has now become obvious that the Obama administration has backtracked from its commitment to resolve the issue in a just manner. Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal, in a joint news conference with Germany’s Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle, said that illegal settlements constitute a major obstacle to peace talks. A US-backed peace proposal was first floated in 2002, and in 2003 a road map to peace was worked out, setting a series of benchmarks designed to move Israelis and Palestinians over three years towards the creation of a Palestinian state that would exist in peace with Israel. The Palestinians and Israelis accepted the basic outlines of the plan after it was formally introduced by the then US president Bush in June 2003. The US, European Union (EU), Russia and the UN supported the plan and were to supervise its implementation. However, there has been limited progress toward its goal of a permanent two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It appears that when the US is not interested in resolving a conflict it resorts to preparing roadmaps that take decades of bickering and debate or are never implemented. But when it is serious about resolving an issue, it is done immediately. Take the case of East Timor: a resolution was passed in weeks and implemented to give the people their right to self-determination. On the other hand, for the last sixty years United Security Council resolutions on Kashmir and Palestine have not been implemented. It is regrettable that the US and the West have different benchmarks or standards for Muslim countries. The fact remains that when a public protest fits into the geopolitical designs of western powers, they call it a popular movement and award it with a colour label. In recent years three countries were given colour labels; orange revolution to Ukraine, rose revolution to Georgia and cider revolution to Lebanon. The Kashmiris have not been so lucky. How perceptive was the Greek historian Thucydides when he said, “The strong do as they can and the weak suffer as they must.” It is the cornerstone of US foreign policy to protect Israel, and it lends unqualified support even when it continues to occupy Arab lands and commit atrocities on Palestinians. In July 2004, the International Court of Justice declared the occupation of Palestinian lands by Israel as illegal. It said that Israel was under an obligation to cease forthwith the construction of the wall built in the occupied Palestinian territory including in and around Jerusalem, and to demolish raised structures. The court had called upon the UN General Assembly and Security Council to take action to halt construction work, but to no avail. Unfortunately, the international community seems to be oblivious to the fact that Palestine is one of the flashpoints and real threat to world peace. In fact, the spectre of terrorism it faces today is partly due to Israel’s intransigence to honour its commitment to implement the two-state solution. After Hamas won the elections of the Palestinian Authority, the US and the EU cut off aid to the Palestinian people. And to make things worse for the Palestinians, Israel refused to hand over millions of the Palestinian National Authority’s (PNA) own customs duties, which was nothing but downright theft. There is no denying that the Palestinian people had voted overwhelmingly for Hamas to lead them and, so far, the group has behaved responsibly except when it vociferously demands to stop construction of settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. The problem is that Israel and its backers want Hamas to recognise the State of Israel and disarm, even as Palestinians are being killed and humiliated by Israeli defence forces. Palestinians continue to suffer at the hands of Israeli thugs and each passing day is becoming more repressive and intolerable with relentless Israeli policies of dispossession and deprivation. During the last 40 years, a number of initiatives for peace have been taken in the context of Security Council Resolution 242 but none have succeeded. The Palestinian problem continues to defy any solution, primarily due to the intransigence of Israel, which is supported and encouraged by the US. The Palestinian tragedy has been further compounded by the treachery of the Arabs, duplicity and silence of the international community, and the incompetent leaderships of Muslim countries. With subsequent efforts at negotiated settlement through the Oslo Accord, the Security Council Resolution 242 of November 22, 1967 provided the basic framework for negotiations and peace by “emphasising the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war”, asked for “withdrawal of Israeli armed forces from territories occupied in the Arab-Israel conflict” and respect for “sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence of every state in the area, and their right to live in peace within secure and recognised boundaries”. The Oslo Accord was based on the principle of “Land for Peace”, and the US was a guarantor for the implementation of the agreement. It is well known that the Israeli lobby afflicts the US Congress and the president. President Obama is no exception. The immense power of the Jewish lobby is a proven fact, and there is a perception that nobody on Capitol Hill will dare defy this all-powerful lobby though the US has suffered immensely because of its unqualified support to Israel.

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