Saturday, July 26, 2008

Removing essence from hopes for peace

July 26, 2008


Removing essence from hopes for peace

PARALLEL TO its continued drive to increase Jewish presence through building and expanding settlements in the occupied West Bank, Israel is also engaged in a disinformation campaign. Reports are on the increase that Jewish settlers in the West Bank are confronting the government's (alleged) plans to evict them from their colonies there and are warning that they would challenge any such effort. Thus, the impression that one gets is that of some 200,000 armed settlers ready to engage the army in a battle and this poses a dilemma to the government's plans to demolish "illegal" settlements as part of a peace agreement with the Palestinians.
That assertion could not be any more distant from the truth. First of all, Israel has no plans whatsoever to demolish any settlement in the occupied West Bank. On the contrary, it is carrying out plans to expand existing settlements and build new ones, thus creating new facts on the ground that would make it all the more difficutl to work out a fair and just peace agreement with the Palestinians. There is indeed confrontations between the army and settlers in the West Bank, but most of them are blown out of proportion in the media with the aim of convincing the world that Israel does have a serious problem in its hands when it comes to settlements in the occupied territory.
The overall conflict over settlements buries the reality that the Palestinians face on a daily basis in the West Bank. The arrogant and humiliating — and often violent — manner the settlers treat them. They are spat at and are the subject of abuse by armed settlers at every given opportunity. Anyone who poses the slightest challenge faces the risk of being assaulted with the assailants walking off without any fear of prosecution.
The latest such incident came last week when some 150 settlers attacked Palestinian farmers in a West Bank village, damaging crops and property. The settlers set fire to agricultural fields in what was called a "a full fledged pogrom" against the Palestinians, particularly in view of the fact that Israeli soldiers present in the area did not intervene.
Israel currently has some 150 Jewish-only settlements and more than 120 "outposts" in the West Bank. The occupation authorities say that some of the "outposts" are illegal and would be removed but are doing practically nothing to this effect. Nearly 400,000 Jews live in the settlements, including colonies that were built in occupied Arab East Jerusalem.
The Geneva Conventions state that “The Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies.” Underinternational law, "the establishment of the settlements leads to the violation of the rights of the Palestinians as enshrined in international human rights law. Among other violations, the settlements infringe on the rights to self-determination, equality, property, an adequate standard of living, and freedom of movement.'
Israel maintains that the Geneva Conventions do not apply to the Palestinian territories, a position that is endorsed and supported by the US.
The inherent Israeli argument is that there was never a Palestinian state and that the land it occupied in 1967 was from Jordan. As such, Israel not only maintains but also believes, that Jews who lived in pre-1948 Palestine have as much right as Muslims and others who lived there before the creation of the state of Israel in 1948 to settle there.
Given that is the foundation of the Israeli "claim" to the West Bank, it becomes all the more clear that there would or could never be a fair and just agreement with the Palestinians. And that was what was emphasised by the disclosure on Thursday of Israeli plans to build the so-called Maskiot settlements in the Jordan Rift Valley in the occupied West Bank.