CRUNCH YEAR RAGBAG – PART 1

The Palestine Papers

Palestinian Papers: What the Al Jazeera Blockbuster Means MJ
Rosenberg
Palestine Papers confirm Israeli rejectionism Jonathan Cook
The Palestine Papers: Why the leak is so serious Venetia
Rainey
Israel will never get a better deal than the one it rejected
Gideon Levy
Only serious dissent on the Palestinian street will change the
game: Former PLO negotiator Diana Buttu on the ‘Palestine
Papers’ and the Egyptian uprising Alex Kane
Negotiations and the like
Why We Fail – An Analysis Dr. Lawrence Davidson
A False Friend in the White House Steven Walt
Utterly Wrong: U.S. Will Veto The UN Resolution Condemning
Settlements MJ Rosenberg
Good riddance, 'peace process' Josh Ruebner
Global unpopularity wearing down Israeli government Jonathan
Cook
The Next War? Alain Gresh
Security Council deliberations as to UN vote on settlements (US
veto)
Palestinians to Seek UN Recognition for Independent State in
September
The UN is ripe for advancing the Palestinian agenda, Shlomo
Shamir
People get ready – there’s a train a-comin’, Larry Derfner
Middle East Peace Talks Still Deadlocked Despite International
Efforts as Accord on Final-Status Issues Remain Elusive,
Security Council Told - United Nations Security Council
Americans Support Anti-Settlement UN Resolution Mitchell Plitnick
The Death of the Israeli Left – The Final Nail in the Coffin Jonathan
Cook
Why the US will Not “Do Something” about Palestine, Virginia Tilley
With settlement resolution veto, Obama has joined Likud,
Gideon Levy
No, Egyptian uprising won’t hurt the peace process Noam
Sheizaf
'Economic peace' betrays the hand of a grasping Israeli right
Jonathan Cook
Statement by United Nations High Commissioner for Human
Rights, Navi Pillay
Report of the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human
rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967,
Richard Falk
Briefing to the Security Council by Special Co-ordinator for the
MEPP, Robert Serry
We Deserve Better, Angela Godfrey-Goldstein
Egypt
Egypt on the Brink: The Arab World at a Tipping Point? Michael
Hudson
Egypt's uprising and its implications for Palestine Ali Abunimah
Palestinians in Gaza react to Egypt, Tunisia uprisings Pam Bailey
Israel staunchly on the side of Arab tyrannies Yossi Gurvitz
Israel urges world to curb criticism of Egypt's Mubarak Barak
Ravid
Israelis are not hostile to the Egyptian revolution, they are simply
anxious By Noam Sheizaf
Revolution spreads to Egypt's deprived Sinai Mohammed Omer
The Egyptian Revolution: First Impressions from the Field
Mohammed Bamyeh
In Egypt it was silence or shouting. Now it's a great
conversation Ahdaf Soueif
Shy U.S. Intellectual Created Playbook Used in a Revolution
Sheryl Gay Stolberg
The Genie is Out of the Bottle Uri Avnery
Humans are the Routers Shervin Pishevar
For the full Palestinian Papers click here

Palestinian Papers: What the Al Jazeera Blockbuster

Means
By MJ Rosenberg, Political Correction, January 24, 2011
Al Jazeera's stunning revelations about Israeli-Palestinian negotiations
have different meanings for Israelis, Americans and for Palestinians.
The bottom line is that, despite the assurances it gave to the
Palestinian people that it was driving a hard bargain with the Israelis,
the Palestinian Authority accepted Israel's position on every key point:
borders, Jerusalem, settlements, refugees.
On no major issue did the PA hold the line. None.
The Palestinians offered Israel everything Israel wants and Israel still
said "no" with the backing of the United States.
So what does it mean?
For Palestinians, it means that the Palestinian Authority understands
that with the United States solidly backing every Israeli position no
matter how extreme, the only thing it can do is negotiate for crumbs. It
never told the Palestinian people that it was unable to represent them
in any serious way. Its credibility is in tatters, although it is hard not to
have sympathy for the PA. What can it really do when it, not Israel, has
no negotiating partner and, on top of it, America sits on its face like a
thousand pound gorilla?
For Israelis, they can be reassured (if they are on the right) that they
have a government that intends never to give up anything. The
settlements — even mega-settlement Ariel, smack dab in the middle of
the West Bank — are safe. All of Jerusalem will be theirs. Above all,
they need not worry about negotiations because Israel is not really
negotiating. It is playing at negotiating.
The Israeli left learns nothing new here except that the Netanyahu
government has no interest in peace on any terms and that more wars
are inevitable. It needs to bring this government down and elect one
expressly dedicated to ending the occupation. (Yes, that could take
years.)
As for Americans, we learn, as if we didn't know, that due to the
pressure of AIPAC, we simply lie about the whole conflict. We pretend
that the Palestinians still need to make concessions for peace when
there are none left to make. No matter what the provocation — the
brutal attack on Gaza flotilla, the blockading of Gaza, Israel's lies about
the Goldstone Report, the land grabs in Jerusalem, the shootings of
innocent Palestinians, the monstrous behavior of settlers — we are
silent UNLESS we can enthusiastically endorse Israel's position. We are
not an honest broker. We are no broker at all. Worst of all, we know
(the Al Jazeera papers confirm this) that we are endorsing Israeli
positions that we know not to be true.
Why do we do it? The same reason we don't ban assault weapons. A
lobby (only in this case, the lobby of a foreign government) is dictating
our policies with no regard for the greater American good.
So what's next? One, the United States must now absolutely refuse to
veto the UN resolution condemning settlements or demonstrate to the
world that, despite the Al Jazeera revelations, we are still utterly in
Israel's pocket (I won't hold my breath). And, two, the Palestinian
Authority must reach out to Hamas with the goal of calling new
elections in which Palestinians can choose a legitimate democratically-
elected leadership which can then — in the name of all Palestinians —
declare the state.
Yes, such a declaration will be symbolic. But what a symbol! Palestine
will be a country, with a flag flying at the UN and a seat in the General
Assembly. It will not control territory...yet. But it will have a powerful
voice that will be heard throughout the entire world. Nelson Mandela
had a lot less when he started.
There is no alternative. The Palestinians must declare their state and
then reach out to the majority of Israelis who will welcome its
establishment and will join with it to help make a symbol a reality.
Back to Top

Palestine Papers confirm Israeli rejectionism

By Jonathan Cook, The Electronic Intifada, 25th January 2011
For more than a decade, since the collapse of the Camp David talks in
2000, the mantra of Israeli politics has been the same: "There is no
Palestinian partner for peace."
This week, the first of hundreds of leaked confidential Palestinian
documents confirmed the suspicions of a growing number of observers
that the rejectionists in the peace process are to be found on the
Israeli, not Palestinian, side.
Some of the most revealing papers, jointly released by Al-Jazeera
television and Britain's Guardian newspaper, date from 2008, a
relatively hopeful period in recent negotiations between Israel and the
Palestinians.
At the time, Ehud Olmert was Israel's prime minister and had publicly
committed himself to pursuing an agreement on Palestinian statehood.
He was backed by the United States administration of George W. Bush,
which had revived the peace process in late 2007 by hosting the
Annapolis conference.
In those favorable circumstances, the papers show, Israel spurned a
set of major concessions the Palestinian negotiating team offered over
the following months on the most sensitive issues in the talks.
Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian Authority president, has tried
unconvincingly to deny the documents' veracity, but has not been
helped by the failure of Israeli officials to come to his aid.
According to the documents, the most significant Palestinian
compromise -- or "sell-out," as many Palestinians are calling it -- was
on Jerusalem.
During a series of meetings over the summer of 2008, Palestinian
negotiators agreed to Israel's annexation of large swaths of East
Jerusalem, including all but one of the city's Jewish settlements and
parts of the Old City itself.
It is difficult to imagine how the resulting patchwork of Palestinian
enclaves in East Jerusalem, surrounded by Jewish settlements, could
ever have functioned as the capital of the new state of Palestine.
At the earlier Camp David talks, according to official Israeli documents
leaked to the Haaretz daily in 2008, Israel had proposed something
very similar in Jerusalem: Palestinian control over what were then
termed territorial "bubbles."
In the later talks, the Palestinians also showed a willingness to
renounce their claim to exclusive sovereignty over the Old City's
flashpoint of the Haram al-Sharif, the sacred compound that includes
the al-Aqsa mosque and is flanked by the Western Wall. An
international committee overseeing the area was proposed instead.
This was probably the biggest concession of all -- control of the Haram
was the issue that "blew up" the Camp David talks, according to an
Israeli official who was present.
Saeb Erekat, the PLO's chief negotiator, is quoted promising Israel "the
biggest Yerushalayim in history" -- using the Hebrew word for
Jerusalem -- as his team effectively surrendered Palestinian rights
enshrined in international law.
The concessions did not end there, however. The Palestinians agreed
to land swaps to accommodate 70 percent of the half a million Jewish
settlers in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem and to forgo the
rights of all but a few thousand Palestinian refugees.
The Palestinian state was also to be demilitarized. In one of the papers
recording negotiations in May 2008, Erekat asks Israel's negotiators:
"Short of your jet fighters in my sky and your army on my territory, can
I choose where I secure external defense?" The Israeli answer was an
emphatic "No."
Interestingly, the Palestinian negotiators are said to have agreed to
recognize Israel as a "Jewish state" -- a concession Israel now claims is
one of the main stumbling blocks to a deal.
Israel was also insistent that Palestinians accept a land swap that
would transfer a small area of Israel into the new Palestinian state
along with as many as a fifth of Israel's 1.4 million Palestinian citizens.
This demand echoes a controversial "population transfer" long
proposed by Avigdor Lieberman, Israel's far-right foreign minister.
The Palestine Papers, as they are being called, demand a serious re-
evaluation of two lingering -- and erroneous -- assumptions made by
many Western observers about the peace process.
The first relates to the United States' self-proclaimed role as honest
broker. What shines through the documents is the reluctance of US
officials to put reciprocal pressure on Israeli negotiators, even as the
Palestinian team make major concessions on core issues. Israel's
"demands" are always treated as paramount.
The second is the assumption that peace talks have fallen into
abeyance chiefly because of the election nearly two years ago of a
right-wing Israeli government under Benjamin Netanyahu. He has
drawn international criticism for refusing to pay more than lip-service
to Palestinian statehood.
The Americans' goal -- at least in the early stages of Netanyahu's
premiership -- was to strong-arm him into bringing into his coalition
Tzipi Livni, leader of the centrist opposition party Kadima. She is still
widely regarded as the most credible Israeli advocate for peace.
However, Livni, who was previously Olmert's foreign minister, emerges
in the leaked papers as an inflexible negotiator, dismissive of the huge
concessions being made by the Palestinians. At a key moment, she
turns down the Palestinians' offer, after saying: "I really appreciate it."
The sticking point for Livni was a handful of West Bank settlements the
Palestinian negotiators refused to cede to Israel. The Palestinians have
long complained that the two most significant -- Maale Adumim,
outside Jerusalem, and Ariel, near the Palestinian city of Nablus --
would effectively cut the West Bank into three cantons, undermining
any hopes of territorial contiguity.
Livni's insistence on holding on to these settlements -- after all the
Palestinian compromises -- suggests that there is no Israeli leader
either prepared or able to reach a peace deal -- unless, that is, the
Palestinians cave in to almost every Israeli demand and abandon their
ambitions for statehood.
One of the Palestine Papers quotes an exasperated Erekat asking a US
diplomat last year: "What more can I give?"
The man with the answer may be Lieberman, who unveiled his own
map of Palestinian statehood this week. It conceded a provisional state
on less than half of the West Bank.
A version of this article originally appeared in The National, published
in Abu Dhabi.

Back to Top

The Palestine Papers: why the leak is so serious

By Venetia Rainey, The First Post, JANUARY 25, 2011
Following an extraordinary leak of 1,600 documents, including maps,
strategy papers and emails, the search for peace between Israel and
Palestine looked to be in tatters. The documents, apparently leaked
from the Palestinian side, appear to show that while the Palestinians
have made huge concessions during the last decade of peace talks,
nothing they have offered has been good enough for the Israelis.
The concessions included an offer made in 2008 by the Palestinians to
allow Israel to annex all but one of the disputed Jewish settlements
built in east Jerusalem. Tzipi Livni, the then Israeli Foreign Minister,
rejected the proposal because it did not include all the settlements.
The extent of the Palestinian offers are considered by commentators
today so over-the-top that they would never be accepted by the
majority of Palestinian people. As a result, the leak could mean the
collapse of the West Bank's ruling coalition, the PLO (Palestine
Liberation Organization).
how do we know the documents are authentic? The documents were
obtained by the Qatar-based al-Jazeera news network and shared with
the Guardian. The newspaper claims to have identified the bulk as
authentic by consulting former participants in the talks and diplomatic
and intelligence sources.
The US State Department is "reviewing" the documents but "cannot
vouch for their veracity".
The chief negotiator for the Palestinian Authority’s (PA), Saeb Erekat,
who has come out worst from the revelations so far, called them a
"bunch of lies". Ahmed Qureia, another PA negotiator, said that "many
parts of the documents were fabricated, as part of the incitement
against the Palestinian Authority". PLO president Mahmoud Abbas has
claimed that the documents have been purposefully twisted, insisting
that the PA, "say things very clearly. We do not have secrets."
Tzipi Livni, Israeli foreign minister from 2006 - 2009, yesterday put out
a statement saying, "We do not intend to comment on internal records
or Palestinian interpretations, whether they are correct or not."
What are the key points of the leak so far? • Palestinian negotiators
were willing to give up huge swathes of East Jerusalem. This is
controversial because, according to international law, this area has
been illegally occupied by Israel since 1967 and is publicly claimed by
Palestinians for their future capital. But the huge concession, which
included the heavily disputed Arab neighbourhood of Sheikh Jarrah,
was not deemed enough by then foreign minister Tzipi Livni.
• For the first time ever, there was a suggestion that some sort of
international body could be created to control the highly-sensitive
Haram al-Sharif area. Known to Jews as the Temple Mount, the area is
the holiest site in Judaism and the third holiest site in Islam.
Are there more documents to come? Yes. They are mooted to include
reports that:
• The PA was willing to discuss limiting the number of Palestinian
refugees granted the right of return to 10,000 over 10 years.
• Palestinian leaders were tipped off about Israel's plan to invade the
Gaza Strip in late 2008, a claim President Mahmoud Abbas has
strenuously denied in the past.
Who stands to gain from this leak?
Hamas. They have claimed right from the start that negotiations are a
dead end, and have also refused to recognise any peace settlement
negotiated by Fatah, arguing that Mahmoud Abbas’s party are no
longer the legally elected representatives of the Palestinians. They
seized power by force in the Gaza Strip, but were never strong enough
to do so in the West Bank. This information will give them renewed
vigour, and give weight to their idea that diplomacy only leads to a
ceding of Palestinian rights.
Speaking to al-Jazeera from Beirut, a Hamas spokesman said the Fatah
leadership was "not honest". He added: "They have no credibility to
negotiate. They were negotiating for what the Israelis would accept
[and] for what the Americans may support, not what the Palestinians
are looking for. This is why they betrayed their own people."
A small comfort for the Palestinian negotiating team is that the
documents seem to show that Israel did indeed have a willing peace
partner, the complete opposite of the picture the Israelis tried to paint.
Jonathan Freedland, writing in today’s Guardian, said: "In the blame
game that has long attended Middle East diplomacy, this could see a
shift in the Palestinians' favour."
Who stands to lose?
Fatah. Mahmoud Abbas is the leader of the PLO’s largest faction,
Fatah. His official mandate to head the Palestinian National Authority -
the West Bank and Gaza's governing body – ran out in January 2009.
He remains in power, however, despite his government being seen as
corrupt and crucially weak in the face of Israel and the US.
Abbas and his party now face serious opposition from both opposing
factions and their own people. Today’s Guardian editorial said: "The
Palestinian Authority may continue as an employer but, as of today, its
legitimacy as negotiators will have all but ended on the Palestinian
street."
Fatah’s lead negotiator, Saeb Erekat, is shown to be increasingly
desperate in the face of an ever-immovable Israel. In a discussion with
US envoy George Mitchell, he said, "What good am I if I'm the joke of
my wife, if I'm so weak? … They can't even give a six-month freeze to
give me a figleaf."
What are the implications for the peace process? The revelations will
cement the suspicion among the Palestinian people, already fed up
with years of stalemate and political posturing, that there is no point in
negotiating with Israel. As former PLO representative Karma Nabulsi
says: "These officials have led a new generation to believe that
participating in public governance is base and self-seeking, that joining
any political party is the least useful method to advance principals and
create change."
The leaked documents also suggest that a two-state solution could be
an impossible aim. The offers made by the Palestinian negotiators are
already way beyond what most Palestinians would accept, whilst Israeli
officials still say it isn't enough. No matter how far each side stretches,
they can't seem to meet in the middle. These documents bring that
home once and for all.
What will the fall-out be? The leaks will cause few ripples in Israel, as
the leaders have spoken and acted in private exactly as in public. Tzipi
Livni in particular, currently leader of the opposition party, Kadima, will
likely come out of it well. The main Israeli papers - Ha'aretz, Ynet and
the Jerusalem Post - are covering the leak, but not to the extent that al-
Jazeera or the Guardian are, which further suggests that none of this
comes as a big surprise to the Israelis.
In the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, however, these documents will
add fat to an already simmering fire. An atmosphere of discontent and
disillusionment has been hanging over Palestinians since the last
intifada, and there is a high possibility of civil unrest. If nothing is done
to reassure them that there is another way forward to statehood, a
renewed war/intifada may not be far off.

Back to Top

Israel will never get a better deal than the one it

rejected
By Gideon Levy, Haaretz, 27 January 2011
One upon a time there was a farmer who wanted to save on feed.
Every day he would reduce the amount of food for his horse, see that it
worked, and continue cutting and cutting until the horse had nothing to
eat. The horse died.
This hackneyed tale has now been revived, emerging from the
Palestine Papers leaked to the Arabic satellite channel Al-Jazeera.
The Israeli farmer closed his hand, and the Palestinian horse was fit to
die. One of them saved, the other expired. The Palestinians had
already conceded most of their world, and greedy Tzipi Livni insisted:
what about Har Homa and Maaleh Adumim?
Terror has stopped, they're coordinating targeted killings to serve
Israel. Selling their souls to the devil, they're for the closure on Gaza.
Mahmoud Abbas explains, like an Israeli propagandist, that the return
of the refugees will destroy the state of Israel. Maybe 10,000 a year,
they're still trying - in vain. Livni doesn't agree.
They conceded most of the settlements in Jerusalem, the Old City is
also no longer exclusively in their hands, and nothing. Betar Ilit and
Modi'in Ilit are ours, and that's not enough for Israel, as if it has
forgotten that the 1967 borders are the Palestinian compromise.
What more do we want? What more will Israel ask of the dying horse, a
moment before it gives up the ghost? A Palestinian state in greater
Abu Dis? Hatikvah as its anthem? And what will happen then, when the
horse dies? A wild pony will emerge that will never agree to live under
the conditions of the old horse.
Never, but never, will Israel be offered a better deal than the one now
revealed - and what came of it? Israeli rejection. Rejectionism. No, no,
no, absolutely not.
And yes to what? To continuing the occupation, perpetuating the
conflict. From now on we can say to our children: For Har Homa we'll
continue living on the edge of the volcano. That is the terrible truth.
The settlers have vanquished Israel. It is not hard to imagine how
possible it would have been to return the West Bank to its owners had
there not been hundreds of thousands of settlers living in it.
Were it not for this enterprise, there would have been peace. Now that
it is established, Israel is no longer able to get up on its feet and
extricate itself from its stranglehold.
Generations of Israeli diplomats have held discussions with their
Palestinian counterparts, understanding the gravity of the moment,
and even becoming more flexible, until the fear of the settlers seizes
them. Neither Israel's security nor the country's future concerns them,
only the fear of withdrawal, and none of them can overcome it.
They're always close to a solution, within reach and yet light-years
away. All the peace proponents through the generations, Yitzhak Rabin
and Shimon Peres, Ehud Barak, Ehud Olmert and Livni, were fearful of
taking the only step that would bring peace: evacuating settlements.
After the night when the documents were released by Al-Jazeera, with
Livni represented by an announcer speaking English with a particularly
repellent Israeli accent, a major uproar could have been expected the
next day, not only in the Palestinian street and in the Arab world, but
also in the streets of Israel.
And what a (predictable ) surprise: the Palestinians and the Arabs
raised an outcry against the far-reaching concessions of the Palestinian
Authority, threatening to crush it once and for all, and in Israel: silence.
Who cares about another fateful missed opportunity? Who cares that
for this West Bank Story of real estate, Maaleh Adumim and Ariel, we
are condemned to more lives of war, danger and ostracism.
Who cares that for a decade our leaders brazenly lied to us, deceived
us by saying that there's no partner, that the Palestinians are evading
giving answers, that there is no Palestinian proposal, and above all,
that Israel wants peace, not the Palestinians.
We eagerly bought the lies, and now that they've been exposed, we
remain apathetic. Riots? Protests? Fury at those who missed the
chance and misled the nation? Not in our backyard.
Now the horse will gradually die. Once we said that Yasser Arafat was
the last obstacle to an agreement, and that if he would just be
removed peace would come. Now his successor, Abbas, will also fade
away, the most moderate Palestinian leader of all time, deceived,
bitter and despairing.
In Har Homa another neighborhood will be built, in the Balata refugee
camp another generation will rise, determined to wage battle, and in
the streets of Tel Aviv - the good times will roll.
Back to Top

Only serious dissent on the Palestinian street will change

the game: Former PLO negotiator Diana Buttu on the
‘Palestine Papers’ and the Egyptian uprising
By Alex Kane, MondoWeiss, 4 February 2011
The publication of nearly 1,700 leaked files by Al Jazeera on
negotiations between the Israeli government and the Palestinian
Authority has been largely overshadowed by the uprising in Egypt. But
that doesn’t mean they don’t matter for the future of Israel/Palestine.
I recently caught up with Diana Buttu, a former spokesperson for the
Palestine Liberation Organization’s Negotiations Support Unit, a team
that is mentioned throughout the “Palestine Papers” and where it is
suspected the leak came from. Buttu discussed the meaning of the
“Palestine Papers,” what they say about the “peace process,” and the
current Egyptian uprising and what it may mean on the Palestinian
street.
Alex Kane: Could you talk about your overall take on the leaked
documents that have been published by Al Jazeera?
Diana Buttu: Having now gone through a lot of the documents—of
course, not all of the documents, but many of them—the overall
impression that I’m left with is that of a very powerful party, which is
Israel, trying to continue their control and authority over a very weak
party being the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). But the story
doesn’t just stop there.
I think that it’s become, at least clear to me and perhaps to others,
that this mantra we’ve been hearing for many, many years—that we all
know what a solution is going to look like, we all know what a
settlement is going to look like—is actually not the case, particularly
when you read the transcripts of the Israeli officials. That’s one major
thing that I come away with.
The second major conclusion that I walk away with is that of a PLO
leadership stubbornly sticking to one strategy, and only one strategy:
negotiations, and only negotiations, despite the fact that there are so
many other options out there. It’s as though they’ve cornered
themselves by demanding negotiations, and then when they actually
happen, they didn’t have any other strategy to get out of negotiations
in the event that Israel was going to be stubborn.
AK: What would you say these revelations mean for the entire “peace
process”?
DB: I don’t think there really is a “peace process.” There’s been a lot of
process, but not a whole lot of peace, and I just don’t think that things
are going to change. It hasn’t changed over the course of the past 17
years. I don’t think this is going to make the United States wake up,
and it’s certainly not going to make the Israelis wake up, and in fact I
don’t think the PLO will wake up, unless there’s some very serious
dissent, and I just don’t see that happening right now, even though
diaspora Palestinians are quite upset about what’s going on. But we
haven’t seen that translate into anything on the streets of Palestine. I
don’t think this is going to change anything in the “peace process.”
They’re going to continue doing this over and over again because this
is the way they’ve done it for the past 17 years, and unless there is a
sea change of opinion that makes the PLO stand up and take notice or
makes any of the other parties stand up and take notice, I’m afraid
that it’s just going to be the same old, same old.
AK: Given that there’s been a muted reaction on the Palestinian street
at the same time that there’s an uprising going on in Egypt, do you see
any possible connection between these events in the future?
DB: Right now I don’t see that there’s going to be a connection. It’s
important to step back: part of the reason why we’re seeing a muted
reaction in Palestine is because of the way the documents were
presented. Whether you believe the documents or you don’t believe
the documents—and I have no reason to question the documents,
particularly after members of the PLO have come out and verified the
authenticity of the documents—the main problem is that they were
presented in somewhat of a sensationalist way.
One example that I can give is that Al Jazeera tied the assassination of
al-Madhoun, who is a member of Fatah, of the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade,
to the Palestinian Authority (PA), and they tried to claim that because
the Israelis made a request for this man to be assassinated, that
somehow the PA acquiesced or condoned his killing. That’s a bit of a
stretch. There is a lot of security cooperation that takes place between
the PA and Israel—and it’s outrageous, it includes torture and mass
arrest—but there was really no proof to bring it to the level that the PA
was actually collaborating with Israel over this man’s killing.
And so, in the way that the documents were presented, the debate in
Palestine now has not turned into a debate over the main issues, which
are accountability, transparency, red lines, whether we should believe
in this negotiations process, and whether the PLO has adopted
alternative strategies. None of that is going to take place because
instead the debate is currently over whether Al Jazeera crossed the
line. And until we see something different, where it’s not a question of
shooting the messenger, but we have the message that’s presented in
a coherent way without the sensationalism, then I don’t think we’re
going to have any real debate any time soon, unfortunately.
AK: Would you say that there’s been a marked shift in the negotiating
posture of Palestinians since you last were part of a team involved in
negotiations, is that shift represented in the “Palestine Papers,” and
lastly, if so, what does that shift represent?
DB: Yes, there’s definitely a shift, and the reason why there was a shift
is twofold. One is that the second intifada took place, and the PLO was
suddenly stuck. Rather than capitalizing on the intifada, and the people
power that it brought them, they ended up somehow being apologetic
for the intifada and therefore backtracked on some positions. What
were the positions they backtracked from? At the time that I was there,
there was still a claim for the right of return.
It’s interesting, if you look at the documents from roughly 2000-2004,
the positions that are taken are actually quite principled in some
instances. For example, there is a demand for the right of return. There
is the notion that all of the settlements are illegal. There is then a little
bit of a backtrack by saying “land swaps,” but on a one-to-one basis.
And so you see this kind of principled position, but then there’s a
backtracking, and one of the reasons was the intifada and the
complete failure on the part of the PA to use the intifada to their
advantage, to actually harness popular support and alter their
negotiating position.
The second reason, and I think this is the much more dangerous
reason, is that during the period that I was there and a little bit after,
you saw initiative after initiative come forward, and all of these
initiatives, while never accepted by the PLO directly, were tacitly
accepted by the PLO. For example, the Geneva Initiative was
something that was never adopted by the PLO, and yet, you see a
couple of things that are interesting. The first is those commercials you
saw with Erekat and others in which they come forward and say “I
need a partner”—those were all sponsored by the Geneva Initiative.
And if you see, for example, the statements that American officials
have come forward and said, they’ve all been saying the same thing,
which is that “this reflects what happened during the negotiations.”
But it didn’t. It reflects what happened after the negotiations fell apart.
It was their own initiatives that they were putting forward—the
Nusseibeh-Ayalon initiative, the Geneva Initiative—and this is where it
becomes dangerous, because the Americans and others seem to
assume that silence equals acquiescence. And unfortunately, the PLO
falls into the trap of de facto acquiescing to these initiatives, when
they align themselves with these things, such as they did with the
various commercials, and when they don’t come out and completely
reject them. I think this is why we’re now seeing a shift. While there
were principled positions, if you believe in a two-state solution, the PLO
has consistently undermined its own position because they didn’t really
know how to deal with the intifada and because they never really
objected to these major initiatives that were put on the table.
AK: And lastly: I know that you don’t think the papers will have a huge
impact on the ground, but with the combination of what the “Palestine
Papers” revealed and the unrest and uprising in Egypt, do you think
that any of this popular anger in Egypt might be translated onto the
street in Palestine and directed at either the PA or Israel?
DB: Optimism is one thing, but if I’m to speculate, I think the answer is
going to be no. And I think it’s important to keep in mind that what’s
going on in Egypt is a little bit different than what’s happening in
Palestine, and there’s a lot of issues mitigating against another
uprising.
The first is that the government of Salam Fayyad has tried to do a good
job, using donor funds, to create a middle-class, and to give credit, and
all of these sorts of things, and they’ve largely managed to silence a
lot of dissent.
The second major factor is that there is a very repressive police regime
that is now in place. It hasn’t been in place for as long as the Mubarak
regime was in place, but nonetheless this is something new for
Palestinians.
A third factor is that people aren’t really examining the merits of the
papers, but rather in the way they were presented.
And the fourth thing is that the Palestinian street is already very
divided, and if there’s one message that people are calling for, it’s that
of national unity. And I think that people fear that going against the
authority will somehow serve to undermine any attempts at national
unity, even though there really are none right now. There also may be
a fear factor of not wanting Hamas to take over.
It’s not ripe in the same way that Egypt was ripe. Again, not to say that
it won’t happen. I just don’t think it’s going to happen in the short
term.

Back to Top

Why We Fail – An Analysis

By Dr. Lawrence Davidson, 21 January, 2011
According to Laura Rozen, a journalist specializing in foreign policy
matters and writing in Politico (13 January 2011), the Obama
administration is seeking “new ideas from outside experts on how to
advance the peace process.” This is because the president and his
counselors are “utterly stuck” following the failure of last year’s efforts
to strong arm Mahmoud Abbas and bribe Benjamin Netanyahu into
negotiations. Quoting an administration consultant, Rozen tells us
“there is no pretense of progress. With the State of the Union coming
up and the new GOP Congress, they [the administration] are taking a
few weeks to regroup and solicit ideas to push forward and…to give a
real jump-start” to the negotiation process.”
On the surface this would appear to be welcome news. The White
House entourage having this revelation that their process, and that of
their predecessors too, have all failed and so we need some new,
progressive thinking about peace in the Holy Land. Maybe there should
be a new approach that would play to the leverage the U.S. can bring
to bear on both parties (and not just the Palestinians). But then Rozen
proceeds (in a completely dead pan style) to explain to us how the
administration is going about its search for “new ideas from outside
experts.”
Two separate efforts have been set up to brainstorm these new ideas:
1. “One task force has been convened by Sandy Berger and Stephen
Hadley.” Who are they? Berger was National Security (NSC) Adviser to
Bill Clinton. He was a “prominent actor at the Camp David 2000
Summit.” How about Hadley? He was Assistant to Undersecretary of
Defense Paul Wolfowitz during George W. Bush’s first term of office
and then National Security Adviser to the president during Bush’s
second term. In these positions he worked closely and comfortably not
only with Wolfowitz but also men like Dick Cheney and Donald
Rumsfeld.
2. “A second effort [is] led by Martin Indyk.” And who is Martin Indyk?
Indyk served twice as U.S. Ambassador to Israel as well as being a
member of the National Security Council under Clinton. Before that he
was deputy research director for AIPAC and served eight years as the
executive director of the pro-Israel Washington Institute for Near East
Policy (WINEP), which he helped co-found. WINEP is supported by
AIPAC. According to Rozen’s report one of the first things Indyk has
done in his search for “new ideas” is to seek out, among others,
“senior NSC Middle East/Iran adviser Dennis Ross.” And who is Dennis
Ross? Ross was Bill Clinton’s Middle East envoy in the 1990s. Before
that he was on Ronald Reagan’s National Security Council and, along
with Indyk, helped co-found WINEP.
These are the people who the Obama administration is looking to for
new thinking about the peace process. One is left simply amazed at
this development. Almost, but not quite, speechless. For all these men,
Berger, Hadley, Indyk and Ross are strongly biased in favor of Israel,
and among the folks who have been running the U.S. side of the peace
process at least since the 1980s. They are not “outside experts” at all.
They are retreaded inside “experts” whose records, with very minor
exceptions, in regard to the peace process, are ones of failure. Going
to these people for “new ideas” that will “jump-start” peace talks in the
Middle East is like going to Supreme Court Justice Anthony Scalia for a
forward looking and progressive take on the U.S. Constitution. Such an
effort is a standing contradiction. It is a rigged game designed to get
you the opposite of what you claim to seek.
The unavoidable question is why is the Obama administration wasting
its time and our money doing this? The answer has to be first and
foremost domestic politics. Although Barack Obama would,
understandably, still like to make a positive impact on the Palestinian-
Israeli impasse he is convinced that any effort in this regard must
conform to the wishes of domestic political forces led by the Zionist
lobby. For instance, what would happen if he decided that all those
listed above were hopeless failures and, instead of going to back to
them, he was going to turn to, say, Rashid Khalidi, the Edward Said
Professor of Modern Arab Studies at Columbia University? Khalidi is
undoubtedly an expert on the Middle East and the Palestinian-Israeli
question. However, he is also very much in favor of justice for the
Palestinians. If President Obama was to consult Khalidi there would be
an immediate knee jerk reaction in Congress consisting of quite literal
screaming and yelling. AIPAC would call Obama a man seriously
lacking in judgment and Khalidi a friend of terrorists. The president’s
possibilities for re-election would, allegedly, recede dramatically. On
the other hand there is no doubt that he would get “new ideas” from
an “outside expert.”
The political pragmatist might argue, what good are “new ideas” if
they cannot be implemented? But this position accepts the same
assumption noted above, that any U.S. president must be tied down by
the political power of the Zionist lobby. It is, in fact, an assumption that
must be challenged if any future progress is to be made. Thus, the
president should take a chance. He should consider making a new and
forceful initiative and demand Israeli compliance like Eisenhower did at
the end of the Sinai Crisis of 1956. He should go to the American
people and explain what he is doing and why. He should use every
presidential prerogative there is, including the negative ones, to assure
Israeli cooperation, etc. Oh, this is political suicide, answers the
political pragmatist, it will never work. But, as is obvious, nothing else
has worked to date. We are spending enormous sums to subsidize
Israeli obstinance and, according to General David Petraeus, the man
who leads the American effort in Afghanistan, doing so is helping to kill
American soldiers. So, go ahead Mr. President, take the bull by the
horns already.
Alas, he will not. And Rozen’s report is proof positive that the president
will not do this. He is first and foremost a domestically oriented
politician cut out of a very standard mold. Politically, then, it has been
judged safer to resurrect the dead in the form of Berger, Hadley, Indyk
and Ross. So, there you have it. What is necessary for success in the
peace process is always assumed to equal political failure at home. On
the other hand, political success at home (which entails letting the
Zionist lobby set the criteria for what is possible) equals continued
failure of the peace process. It also equals ever increasing danger for
U.S. interests in the Middle East and Muslim world. This latter equation
is not based on an assumption. It is an historically demonstrated fact.
This is why we fail. No one wants to seriously test the old standing
assumptions. Our political system is ossified. It is trapped in a lobby
driven, financially corrupt rut. And until we find a way out of it we are
doomed to go around in circles. That is what the administration’s
pseudo effort at seeking “new ideas from outside experts” amounts to,
going in a circle. Round and Round and Round and Round………
 Back to Top

A false friend in the White House

By Stephen M. Walt, February 20, 2011
Last Friday the United States vetoed a U.N. Security Council Resolution
condemning Israel's continued expansion of settlements in the
occupied territory of the West Bank. The resolution didn't question
Israel's legitimacy, didn't declare that "Zionism is racism," and didn't
call for a boycott or sanctions. It just said that the settlements were
illegal and that Israel should stop building them, and called for a
peaceful, two-state solution with "secure and recognized borders”. The
measure was backed by over 120 countries, and 14 members of the
security council voted in favor. True to form, only the United States
voted no.
There was no strategic justification for this foolish step, because the
resolution was in fact consistent with the official policy of every
president since Lyndon Johnson. All of those presidents has understood
that the settlements were illegal and an obstacle to peace, and each
has tried (albeit with widely varying degrees of enthusiasm) to get
Israel to stop building them.
Yet even now, with the peace process and the two-state solution flat-
lining, the Obama administration couldn't bring itself to vote for a U.N.
resolution that reflected the U.S. government's own position on
settlements. The transparently lame explanation given by U.S. officials
was that the security council isn't the right forum to address this issue.
Instead, they claimed that the settlements issue ought to be dealt with
in direct talks between Israel and the Palestinians, and that the
security council should have nothing to say on the issue.
This position is absurd on at least two grounds. First, the expansion of
settlements is clearly an appropriate issue for the security council to
consider, given that it is authorized to address obvious threats to
international peace and security. Second, confining this issue to
"direct talks" doesn't make much sense when those talks are going
nowhere. Surely the Obama administration recognizes that its
prolonged and prodigious effort to get meaningful discussions going
have been a complete bust? It is hard to believe that they didn't
recognize that voting "yes" on the resolution might be a much-needed
wake-up call for the Israeli government, and thus be a good way to get
the peace process moving again? Thus far, all that Obama's Middle
East team has managed to do in two years is to further undermine U.S.
credibility as a potential mediator between Israel and the Palestinians,
and to dash the early hopes that the United States was serious about
"two states for two peoples." And while Obama, Mitchell, Clinton, Ross,
and the rest of the team have floundered, the Netanyahu government
has continued to evict Palestinian residents from their homes, its
bulldozers and construction crews continuing to seize more and more
of the land on which the Palestinians hoped to create a state.
Needless to say, the United States is all by its lonesome on this issue.
Our fellow democracies -- France, Germany, Great Britain, Brazil, South
Africa, India, and Colombia -- all voted in favor of the resolution, but
not the government of the Land of the Free. And it's not as if
Netanyahu deserved to be rewarded at this point, given how
consistently he has stiffed Obama and his Middle East team.
For more on this latest sad chapter in the annals of American Middle
East diplomacy, see M.J Rosenberg here and here, the Magnes Zionist
here and here, and Gideon Levy here.
As these commentators recognize, the real reason for Obama's
misguided decision was the profound influence of the Israel lobby.
Indeed, few observers have missed this simple and obvious fact. One
can only conclude that Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton's repeated
claims that they are "friends of Israel" and devoted to its security are
nothing more than empty, politically expedient rhetoric. Whatever they
may say, the policies they are pursuing -- including this latest veto --
are in fact harmful to Israel's long-term future. The man who declared
in Cairo on June 4, 2009 that a two-state solution was "in Israel's
interest, the Palestinians' interest, America's interest, and the world's
interest" must have changed his mind, because his actions ever since
have merely hastened the moment when creating two viable states will
be impossible (if that is not already the case). Then remember what
former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said in 2007, "if the two-state
solution fails, Israel will face a South African style struggle for political
rights." And "once that happens," he warned, "the state of Israel is
finished."
If Obama were a true friend of Israel, in short, he'd be doing whatever
he could to keep it from expanding its ruinous occupation and making
the Zionist vision unsustainable. And given that Congress remains
hopeless on this issue, he could have shown he was a true friend by
instructing his U.N. Ambassador, Susan Rice, to vote for the resolution,
as a diverse array of foreign policy experts had suggested. He would
also have devoted some portion of his first two years in office to
explaining to the American people why some "tough love" was needed
on both sides (i.e., not just the Palestinians), and he would have
recruited America's democratic allies in a genuine effort to bring the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict to a fair and stable end. Had he done these
things, most Americans would have supported him. Instead, his lame
actions are just enabling the occupation, and for the most cynical
domestic political reasons (like safeguarding his re-election prospects
in 2012). Even worse, he did it at a moment when the Arab world is in
ferment, and when the voice of the Arab street is beginning to be
heard. But instead of aligning itself with international law, basic
principles of justice, and its own stated position, the Obama
administration caved. Again.
If the United States hopes to be on the right side of history, it is time to
start thinking about what its policy should be when everybody finally
acknowledges that "two states for two peoples" is no longer a practical
possibility. This is going to happen sooner or later, and anyone who is
still advocating for a two-state solution at that point is going to sound
like an ignorant fool. Not because of the flaws in that option, but simply
because it will be impossible to implement. What alternative solution
will the president and secretary of state support then? Ethnic
cleansing? A binational, liberal democracy in which all inhabitants of
Israel/Palestine have equal civil and political rights? Or permanent
apartheid, in the form of disconnected Palestinian Bantustans under de
facto Israeli control? That awkward reality may not be apparent while
Obama is president (which is probably what he is hoping), but it will be
a damning legacy to leave to his successor, as well as a tragedy for
two peoples who have already known more than their share.
Postscript: Some readers may think I am being too defeatist here,
and they might cite in evidence Bernard Avishai's New York Times
Magazine essay detailing the alleged "near-miss" peace talks between
Olmert and Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas in 2008. Avishai's
account portrays the two leaders as close to a deal and suggests that it
would not be that hard to resurrect a similar deal today. It's an
interesting article, but there are at least four problems with his
optimistic account. First, Olmert was the lamest of lame ducks by
2008, because he was due to be indicted on corruption charges and
everyone knew it, so the talks themselves were something of a side-
show. Second, even had this not been the case, it is by no means clear
that Olmert could have sold the Israeli public on the proposed deal.
Third, it is not even clear that the two sides were that close to an
agreement, given Olmert's insistence that Israel could not withdraw
from Ariel and Maale Adumim (two settlement blocs that thrust deep
inside the West Bank). Fourth, and probably most important, political
trends in Israel are headed the other way (among other things, Avigdor
Lieberman wasn't foreign minister back then), which makes the
Olmert/Abbas talks even less relevant. For excellent critical responses
to Avishai's piece, see Noam Sheizaf, Matthew Taylor, and Ilene Cohen.

Back to Top

Utterly Wrong: U.S. Will Veto The UN Resolution

Condemning Settlements
By MJ Rosenberg, February 14, 2011
Anyone who thought that the United States has learned anything from
the various revolutions upturning the Arab world has another think
coming. We didn't.
On Thursday, as the Egyptian revolution was culminating with the
collapse of the Mubarak regime, the Obama administration announced
that it intends to veto a United Nations Security Council resolution,
sponsored by 122 nations, condemning Israeli settlement expansion.
This is from AFP's report on what Deputy Secretary of State James
Steinberg told the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
"We have made very clear that we do not think the Security Council is
the right place to engage on these issues," Deputy Secretary of State
James Steinberg told the House of Representatives' Foreign Affairs
Committee.
"We have had some success, at least for the moment, in not having
that arise there. And we will continue to employ the tools that we have
to make sure that continues to not happen," said Steinberg.
There is so much wrong with Steinberg's statement that it is hard to
know where to start.
First is the obvious. Opposition to Israeli settlements is perhaps the
only issue on which the entire Arab and Muslim world is united. Iraqis
and Afghanis, Syrians and Egyptians, Indonesians and Pakistanis don't
agree on much, but they do agree on that. They also agree that the
U.S. policy on settlements demonstrates flagrant disregard for human
rights in the Muslim world (at least when Israel is the human rights
violator).
Accordingly, a U.S. decision to support the condemnation of
settlements would send a clear message to the Arab and Muslim world
that we understand what is happening in the Middle East and that we
share at least some of its peoples' concerns.
The settlement issue should be an easy one for the United States. Our
official policy is the same as that of the Arab world. We oppose
settlements. We consider them illegal. We have repeatedly demanded
that the Israelis stop expanding them (although the Israeli government
repeatedly ignores us). The administration feels so strongly about
settlements that it recently offered Israel an extra $3.5 billion in U.S.
aid to freeze settlements for 90 days.
It is impossible, then, for the United States to pretend that we do not
agree with the resolution (especially when its language was carefully
drafted to comport with the administration's official position).
So why will we veto a resolution that expresses our own views?
Steinberg says that "we do not think the Security Council is the right
place to engage on these issues."
Why not? It is the Security Council that passed all the major
international resolutions (with U.S. support) governing Israel's role in
the occupied territories since the first one, UN Resolution 242 in 1967.
He then adds, with clear pride, that "We have had some success, at
least for the moment, in not having that [the settlements issue] arise
there."
Very impressive. The United States has had no success whatsoever in
getting the Netanyahu government to stop expanding settlements —
to stop evicting Palestinians from their homes in East Jerusalem to
make way for ultra-Orthodox settlers — and no success in getting
Israel to crack down on settler violence, but we have had "some
success" in keeping the issue out of the United Nations.
The only way to resolve the settlements issue, according to Steinberg,
"is through engagement through the parties, and that is our clear and
consistent position." Clear and consistent it may be. But it hasn't
worked. The bulldozers never stop.
Of course, it is not hard to explain the Obama administration's decision
to veto a resolution embodying positions that we support. It is the
power of AIPAC, which is lobbying furiously against a U.S. veto (actually
not so furiously; AIPAC doesn't waste energy when it knows that its
congressional acolytes — and Dennis Ross in the White House itself —
will do its work for them).
The power of the lobby is the only reason we will veto the resolution.
Try to come up with another one. After all, voting for the resolution (or,
at least, abstaining on it) serves U.S. interests in the Middle East at a
critical moment and is consistent with U.S. policy.
But it would enrage the lobby and its friends who will threaten
retribution in the 2012 election.
Simply put, our Middle East policy is all about domestic politics. And
not even the incredible events of the past month will change that.
That is why U.S. standing in the Middle East will continue to
deteriorate. We simply cannot deliver. After all, there is always another
election on the horizon and that means that it is donors, not diplomats,
who determine U.S. policy.

Back to Top

Good riddance, 'peace process'

Don't lament the end of negotiations that put Israeli demands,
backed almost unconditionally by the U.S. and at the
expense of basic Palestinian rights, first and foremost.
By Josh Ruebner, The Los Angeles Times, January 28, 2011
Aaron David Miller, a former Israeli-Palestinian "peace process" point
person in the George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush
administrations, is correct to assert in his Jan. 26 Times Op-Ed article
that the recent cache of formerly secret documents on Israeli-
Palestinian negotiations leaked to Al Jazeera "are bound to have a
chilling effect on a process already in the deep freeze."
He errs, however, in lamenting the potential demise of a U.S.-
sponsored "peace process" that is premised on Israel's demands, not
Palestinian rights.
"As harmful as these leaks are to Palestinians, the Israelis don't look
very good either," Miller notes. The Palestine Papers, as the leaks are
known, portray Palestinian negotiators bending over backward to
concede their rights, with Israel pocketing the concessions while
demanding even more.
Take, for example, a U.S.-Israeli-Palestinian trilateral meeting in 2008
in which the lead Palestinian negotiator offers to allow Israel to annex
all but one of its illegal East Jerusalem settlements, which Israel rejects
out of hand as not being generous enough.
The illegality of its settlements has no consideration whatsoever in
Israel's negotiating posture on the issue, because, as then-Israeli
Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni declared in a 2007 bilateral meeting, "I am
a lawyer.... But I am against law —international law in particular. Law
in general. If we want to make the agreement smaller, can we just drop
some of these issues? Like international law, this will make the
agreements easier."
Miller should have added, however, that the Palestine Papers don't
convey U.S. mediation efforts — under both the George W. Bush and
Obama administrations — in a positive light either. U.S. interlocutors
are portrayed as backing Israel's negotiating positions and pressuring
Palestinians to agree to them. As, for example, when former Secretary
of State Condoleezza Rice told Palestinian negotiator Ahmed Qurei in
May 2008, after he informed her that no Palestinian leader would
accept Israel's future annexation of the illegal Ma'ale Adumim
settlement, "Then you won't have a state!"
Perhaps more than anyone else, Miller should know that the dynamics
of a U.S.-sponsored "peace process," as currently configured, are
bound to fail. In a May 2005 Op-Ed article in Washington Post, "Israel's
Lawyer," Miller candidly admitted that "many American officials
involved in Arab-Israeli peacemaking, myself included, have acted as
Israel's attorney, catering and coordinating with the Israelis at the
expense of successful peace negotiations. If the United States wants to
be an honest and effective broker on the Arab-Israeli issue … surely it
can have only one client: the pursuit of a solution that meets the needs
and requirements of both sides."
Yet this sensible advice goes unheeded every time the United States
attempts to mediate the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and President
Obama's halfhearted attempts to restart negotiations that broke down
last fall after only a few weeks illustrate the point. Politico's Laura
Rozen reported earlier this month that the White House has convened
two different task forces to provide the administration with new ideas
for moving its efforts to achieve Israeli-Palestinian peace forward.
These new ideas are desperately needed, but the president won't find
any by looking in all the old places. The efforts are being headed up by
Sandy Berger, Stephen Hadley, Martin Indyk and Dennis Ross; in other
words, many of the primary architects of failed U.S. "peace process"
efforts under Bush I, Clinton, Bush II and Obama himself, and probably
the exact same people Miller had in mind when referring to "Israel's
attorneys."
Ross, now eclipsing George Mitchell, the special envoy for Middle East
peace, in all but title as the main policymaker on Obama's approach to
the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, is the last person in the world to
look to for new ideas, especially ones that are not biased in Israel's
favor.
In his 2004 book, "The Missing Peace," Ross revealed his management
style: " 'Selling' became part of our modus operandi — beginning a
pattern that would characterize our approach throughout the Bush and
Clinton years. We would take Israeli ideas or ideas that the Israelis
could live with and work them over —trying to increase their
attractiveness to the Arabs while trying to get the Arabs to scale back
their expectations. Why did this pattern emerge? The realities dictated
it."
It is difficult to imagine a statement more revelatory than this of the
United States abdicating any pretension to be an "honest broker."
The Palestine Papers only reinforce and provide additional evidence for
the extreme bias in U.S. policymaking admitted to by Miller and Ross.
Given that the U.S. "peace process" efforts appear to be congenitally
gamed to favor Israel's interests, it's no wonder they fail.
As evidenced by Palestinian diplomatic efforts to take their quest for
statehood to the United Nations this fall, the breakdown of a
profoundly flawed "peace process" opens up new and exciting
opportunities for Palestinians to achieve their long-denied rights and a
just peace. Israel will continue to suppress both of these outcomes as
long as U.S. diplomacy has its back, no matter how egregious its
contempt for human rights and international law is.
Josh Ruebner is the national advocacy director of the U.S. Campaign to End the
Israeli Occupation. He is a former Middle East affairs analyst for the Congressional
Research Service.

Back to Top

Global unpopularity wearing down Israeli government

By Jonathan Cook, The Electronic Intifada, 10th March 2011
Benjamin Netanyahu's advisers conceded last week that the Israeli
prime minister is more downcast than they have ever seen him. The
reason for his gloominess is to be found in Israel's diplomatic and
strategic standing, which some analysts suggest is at its lowest ebb in
living memory.
Netanyahu's concern was evident at a recent cabinet meeting, when
he was reported to have angrily pounded the table. "We are in a very
difficult international arena," the Haaretz newspaper quoted him telling
ministers who wanted to step up settlement-building. "I suggest we all
be cautious."
A global survey for Britain's BBC published on Monday will have only
reinforced that assessment: Israel was rated among the least popular
countries, with just 21 percent seeing it in a positive light.
A belated realization by Netanyahu that he has exhausted international
goodwill almost certainly explains -- if mounting rumors from his office
are to be believed -- his mysterious change of tack on the peace
process.
After refusing last year to continue a partial freeze on settlement-
building, a Palestinian pre-requisite for talks, he is reportedly preparing
to lay out an initiative for the phased creation of a Palestinian state.
Such a move would reflect the Israeli prime minister's belated
recognition that Israel is facing trouble on almost every front.
The most obvious is a rapidly deteriorating political and military
environment in the region. As upheaval spreads across the Middle
East, Israel is anxiously scouring the neighborhood for potential allies.
Unwisely, Israel has already sacrificed its long-standing friendship with
Turkey. With the ousting of Hosni Mubarak, Netanyahu can probably no
longer rely on Egyptian leaders for help in containing Hamas in Gaza.
Israel's nemesis in Lebanon, Hizbzllah, has strengthened its grip on
power. And given the popular mood, Jordan cannot afford to be seen
aiding Israel.
Things are no better in the global arena. According to the Israeli media,
Washington is squarely blaming Netanyahu for the recent collapse of
peace talks with the Palestinians.
It is also holding him responsible for subsequent developments,
particularly a Palestinian resolution presented to the United Nations
Security Council last month condemning Israeli settlements. The White
House was forced to eat its own words on the issue of settlements by
vetoing the resolution.
The timing of the US veto could not have been more embarrassing for
US President Barack Obama. He was forced to side publicly with Israel
against the Palestinians at a time when the US desperately wants to
calm tensions in the Middle East.
Over the weekend, reports suggested that Netanyahu had been further
warned by US officials that any peace plan he announces must be
"dramatic."
Then, there are the prime minister's problems with Europe. Netanyahu
was apparently shaken by the response of Angela Merkel, the German
chancellor, when he called to chastise her for joining Britain and France
in backing the Palestinian resolution at the UN. Instead of apologizing,
she is reported to have berated him for his intransigence in the peace
process.
Traditionally, Germany has been Israel's most accommodating
European ally.
The loss of European support, combined with US anger, may signal
difficulties ahead for Israel with the Quartet, the international group
also comprising Russia and the United Nations that oversees the peace
process.
The Quartet's principals are due to hold a session next week.
Netanyahu's officials are said to be worried that, in the absence of
progress, the Quartet may lean towards an existing peace plan along
the lines of the Arab League's long-standing proposal, based on Israel's
withdrawal to the 1967 borders.
In addition, Israel's already strained relations with the Palestinian
Authority are likely to deteriorate further in coming months. The PA has
been trying to shore up its legitimacy since the so-called Palestine
Papers were leaked in January, revealing that its negotiators agreed to
large concessions in peace talks.
A first step in damage limitation was the resolution at the UN
denouncing the settlements. More such moves are likely. Most ominous
for Israel would be a PA decision to carry out its threat to declare
statehood unilaterally at the UN in September. In that vein, Mahmoud
Abbas, the Palestinian Authority president, said on Saturday that he
expected an independent Palestinian state to become a permanent
member of the UN.
The other prospect facing the PA -- of collapse or being swept away by
street protests -- would be even more disastrous. With the PA gone,
Israel would be forced to directly reoccupy the West Bank at great
financial cost and damage to its international image. Palestinians could
be expected to launch a civil rights campaign demanding full rights,
including the vote, alongside Israelis.
It is doubtless this scenario that prompted Netanyahu into
uncharacteristic comments last week about the danger facing Israel of
sharing a single "binational state" with the Palestinians, calling it
"disastrous for Israel." Such warnings have been the stock-in-trade not
of the Greater Israel camp, of which Netanyahu is a leading member,
but of his political opponents on the Zionist left as they justify pursuing
variants of the two-state solution.
Netanyahu reportedly intends to unveil his peace plan during a visit to
Washington, currently due in May. But on Monday Ehud Barak, his
defense minister, added to the pressure by warning that May was too
late. "This is the time to take risks in order to prevent international
isolation," he told Israel Radio.
But, assuming Netanyahu does offer a peace plan, will it be too little,
too late?
Few Israeli analysts appear to believe that Netanyahu has had a real
change of heart.
"At this point it's all spin designed to fend off pressures," Yossi Alpher,
a former director of the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies at Tel Aviv
University, wrote for the Israeli-Palestinian dialogue website
Bitterlemons. "The object of the exercise is to gain a day, or a week, or
a month, before having to come up with some sort of new spin."
Indications are that Netanyahu will propose a miserly interim formula
for a demilitarized Palestinian state in temporary borders. The
Jerusalem Post reported that in talks with Abbas late last year
Netanyahu demanded that Israel hold on to 40 percent of the West
Bank for the foreseeable future.
His comments on Tuesday that Israel's "defense line" was the Jordan
Valley, a large swath of the West Bank, that Israel could not afford to
give up suggest he is not preparing to compromise on his hardline
positions.
His plan accords with a similar interim scheme put forward by Avigdor
Lieberman, Netanyahu's far-right foreign minister and chief political
rival on the right.
Palestinians insist on a deal on permanent borders, saying Israel would
use anything less as an opportunity to grab more land in the West
Bank. At the weekend Abbas reiterated his refusal to accept a
temporary arrangement.
Herb Keinon, an analyst for the right-wing Jerusalem Post, observed
that there was "little expectation" from Netanyahu that the
Palestinians would accept his deal. The government hoped instead, he
said, that it would "pre-empt world recognition of a Palestinian state"
inside the 1967 borders.
A shorter version of this article originally appeared in The National, published
in Abu Dhabi.

Back to Top

Will there be a strike? and if so, where?

Israel: the next war
The US’s failure under Barack Obama to impose peace
between Israel and the Palestinians makes a new war likely
By Alain Gresh, Le Monde Diplomatique, 29th December 2010
In March 1973 the Israeli prime minister Golda Meir visited US
president Richard Nixon in Washington. He told her that the Egyptian
president Anwar Sadat was prepared to negotiate a full treaty, and
Meir assured him that Israel wanted peace, but that she would prefer
an interim agreement as Cairo was not to be trusted. She said Egypt’s
primary aim was to force Israel to withdraw to the line of 4 June 1967,
then resurrect the UN plan for the partition of Palestine that had been
adopted in 1947; a solution to the problem of Palestine would have to
be discussed with Yasser Arafat and “the terrorists”.
Israeli journalist Aluf Benn reported this conversation, on the basis of
documents disclosed by Wikileaks, and drew a parallel between the
situation then, when Israel’s refusal to negotiate led directly to war and
to Egyptian troops crossing the Suez Canal in October 1973, and prime
minister Benyamin Netanyahu’s current evasive response to President
Barack Obama. Benn notes that Netanyahu, who returned from the US
and rushed to the front in October 1973, “would do well to refresh his
memory by listening to the tape of Meir and Nixon and asking himself
what he can do to avoid repeating her mistakes and keep from
dragging the country blindly toward a second Yom Kippur disaster” (1).
In that war the Israeli army lost 2,600 troops.
Israel’s refusal to accept Obama’s proposal to halt settlements on the
West Bank (but not in East Jerusalem) for three months in return for
unprecedented promises – or bribes, according to columnist Thomas
Friedman (2), who is not known for sympathy to the Arabs – confirmed
that Obama is unable to exert any real pressure on Israel and that
Netanyahu rejects any compromise. Netanyahu, like his predecessors,
claims to want peace but he wants the humiliating peace imposed by
conquest and based on denial of Palestinian rights. In secret
negotiations over the past year, he has repeatedly told the Palestinians
they had to accept Israel’s “security concept”, keeping Israeli troops
stationed in the Jordan valley along the “barrier” (on the Palestinian
side) and the occupation of a substantial part of the West Bank (3). He
did not say how long the occupation would last.
This deadlock is forcing the Israeli army to draw up plans for further
wars based on the “security concept” – that anyone who refuses to
accept Israel’s rule in the region is a “terrorist” to be eliminated. No
other country, not even the US, has such a comprehensive security
concept, which means that Israel is permanently at war. Who will the
Israeli army attack next? Gaza? Two years ago Israeli tanks and aircraft
reduced buildings to rubble and killed hundreds of civilians in what the
Goldstone report describes as “war crimes” and probably “crimes
against humanity”. But Hamas is as strong as ever. How long will Israel
tolerate this? Lebanon? In July-August 2006, the Israeli army failed to
bring down Hizballah but succeeded in destroying the country;
Hizballah is now stronger than ever and the Israeli high command
cannot rule out the possibility of a major operation and occupation of
part of Lebanon (4). Iran? At the risk of starting a major conflict from
Iraq to Lebanon, Palestine to Afghanistan?In the Middle East unrest
inevitably leads to war. This time, unlike 1973, Israel would take the
first direct step, but it will face far more effective enemies and, as
Israeli peace campaigner Uli Avnery points out, the hostility of world
public opinion (5). Brazil, Bolivia and Argentina have recognised the
Palestinian state within the pre-1967 borders and there has been a
letter from 26 European elder statesmen (including Chris Patten,
Giuliano Amato, Felipe Gonzáles, Lionel Jospin, Hubert Védrine,
Romano Prodi, Javier Solana), who are anything but extremists, calling
on the European Union to impose sanctions if the Israeli government
has not reviewed its policy by the spring. Human Rights Watch
published a report on 19 December (Israel/West Bank: Separate and
Unequal) about the systematic discrimination against Palestinians,
calling on the US government to withhold US funding from the Israeli
government equivalent to expenditure on settlements (more than
$1bn).
Avnery concludes: “Somebody wrote this week that America’s support
of Israel is a case of assisted suicide. In Israel, assisting suicide is a
crime. Suicide itself, however, is allowed by our laws. Those whom the
gods want to destroy, they first make mad. Let’s hope we recover our
senses before it is too late.”
(1) Aluf Benn, “Netanyahu is telling Obama what Golda told Nixon”, Haaretz, Tel Aviv,
15 December 2010.
(2) “Reality Check”, The New York Times, 11 December 2010.
(3) Dan Ephron, “16 hours in September”, Newsweek, 11 December 2010.
(4) See Anshel Pfeffer, “Is the IDF prepping for a third war with Lebanon?”, Haaretz,
19 December 2010.
(5) “Ship of Fools 2”, Gush Shalom, Tel Aviv, 18 December 2010.

Back to Top

UNITED
NATIONS S
Security
Council
S/PV.6484
18 February 2011

Provisional

Security Council
Sixty-sixth year

6484th meeting
Friday, 18 February 2011, 3 p.m.
New York
President: Mrs. Viotti (Brazil)

Members: Bosnia and Herzegovina Ms. Čolaković

 China Mr. Li Baodong
Colombia Mr. Osorio
France Mr. Araud
Gabon Mr. Moungara Moussotsi
Germany Mr. Wittig
India Mr. Manjeev Singh Puri
Lebanon Mr. Salam
Nigeria Mr. Onemola
Portugal Mr. Moraes Cabral
Russian Federation Mr. Churkin
South Africa Mr. Sangqu
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Sir Mark Lyall Grant
Northern Ireland
United States of America Ms. Rice

Agenda
The situation in the Middle East, including the
Palestinian question
The meeting was called to order at 3.55 p.m.
Adoption of the agenda
The agenda was adopted.

The situation in the Middle East, including the Palestinian

question
The President: Under rule 37 of the Council’s provisional rules of
procedure, I should like to invite the representatives of Afghanistan,
Algeria, Argentina, Austria, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Belarus,
Belgium, the Plurinational State of Bolivia, Botswana, Brunei
Darussalam, Chile, Comoros, Costa Rica, Cuba, Cyprus, the Democratic
People’s Republic of Korea, Djibouti, Ecuador, Egypt, Finland, Greece,
Grenada, Guatemala, Guinea, Guyana, Iceland, Indonesia, Iraq, Ireland,
Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, the Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Lesotho,
Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Mali, Malta, Mauritania,
Mauritius, Mexico, Morocco, Namibia, Nicaragua, Norway, Oman,
Pakistan, Papua New Guinea, Peru, the Philippines, Qatar, Saint Vincent
and the Grenadines, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Serbia, Slovenia, Somalia,
the Sudan, Sweden, Switzerland, Tajikistan, Tunisia, Turkey,
Turkmenistan, the United Arab Emirates, Uruguay, the Bolivarian
Republic of Venezuela, Viet Nam, Yemen and Zimbabwe to participate
in this meeting.

At the invitation of the President, Mr. Reuben (Israel) took a seat

at the Council table; the representatives of the other
 aforementioned countries took the seats reserved for them at
the side of the Council Chamber.

The President: I should like to inform the Council that I have received
a letter dated 18 February 2011 from the Permanent Observer of
Palestine to the United Nations, which will be issued as document
S/2011/79 and which reads as follows:

“I have the honour to request that, in accordance with its

previous practice, the Security Council invite the Permanent
Observer of Palestine to the United Nations to participate in the
meeting of the Security Council that will be held on Friday, 18
February 2011, on the situation in the Middle East, including the
Palestinian question.”

I propose, with the consent of the Council, to invite the Permanent

Observer of Palestine to participate in the meeting in accordance with
the rules of procedure and the previous practice in this regard.
There being no objection, it is so decided.
The Security Council will now begin its consideration of the item on its
agenda.
Members of the Council have before them document S/2011/24, which
contains the text of a draft resolution submitted by Afghanistan,
Algeria, Argentina, Austria, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Belarus,
Belgium, the Plurinational State of Bolivia, Botswana, Brazil, Brunei
Darussalam, Chile, Comoros, Costa Rica, Cuba, Cyprus, the Democratic
People’s Republic of Korea, Djibouti, Ecuador, Egypt, Finland, Gabon,
Greece, Grenada, Guatemala, Guinea, Guyana, Iceland, India,
Indonesia, Iraq, Ireland, Jordan, Kuwait, the Lao People’s Democratic
Republic, Lebanon, Lesotho, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Malaysia,
Mali, Malta, Mauritania, Mauritius, Mexico, Morocco, Namibia,
Nicaragua, Nigeria, Norway, Oman, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea, Peru,
the Philippines, Portugal, Qatar, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines,
Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Serbia, Slovenia, Somalia, South Africa, the
Sudan, Sweden, Switzerland, Tajikistan, Tunisia, Turkey, Turkmenistan,
the United Arab Emirates, Uruguay, the Bolivarian Republic of
Venezuela, Viet Nam, Yemen and Zimbabwe.
I wish to point out that the draft resolution before the Council contains
a tentative list of sponsors. The official list of sponsors will appear in
the draft resolution that will be issued under the same document
symbol as an official Security Council document.
It is my understanding that the Council is ready to proceed to the vote
on the draft resolution before it.
I shall first give the floor to the members who wish to make statements
before the voting.
Mr. Salam (Lebanon) (spoke in Arabic): At the beginning of this week,
on Monday, 14 February, the occupying Power’s municipal authorities
in Jerusalem adopted a plan to construct 124 new housing units in
what is known as the Ramat settlement. On 16 January, the Israeli
occupying authorities approved a plan to construct 1,400 new housing
units in what is known as the Gilo settlement, south of East Jerusalem.
And on 9 January, the Israeli occupying authorities demolished the
Shepherd Hotel in occupied Jerusalem — a well-known historic
landmark and important part of Palestinian heritage — in a measure to
pave the way to establishing a settlement of approximately 400
housing units.
The truth of the matter is that since the Israeli authorities lifted their
settlement moratorium last September — a moratorium which, as is
well known, was only partial — settlement activity has not returned to
its previous rate. Rather, it has doubled. Some have estimated that, in
the first six weeks since that date, settlement activity caught up with
and surpassed the work that had been partially halted during the
previous 10 months.
It is also worth noting here that, according to a statement issued on 12
February by the United Nations Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator
for the occupied Palestinian territory, the demolition of Palestinian
houses as part of settlement activity in East Jerusalem and surrounding
areas increased by 40 per cent in 2010.
If this is part of the reality of Israeli settlement activity, then where are
the principles of international law — the principles and provisions that
our Organization was built to protect and defend, as stated in the
Charter of the United Nations?
Article 49, paragraph 6, of the Fourth Geneva Convention relative to
the protection of civilian persons in time of war stipulates that “The
Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian
population into the territory it occupies”. In resolution 446 (1979), the
Security Council reaffirmed that the Fourth Geneva Convention applied
to Arab territories occupied by Israel since 1967. It also determined, in
paragraph 1 of that resolution, that

“the policy and practices of Israel in establishing settlements in

the Palestinian and other Arab territories occupied since 1967
have no legal validity and constitute a serious obstruction to
achieving a comprehensive, just and lasting peace in the Middle
East”.

The Council came to that conclusion dozens of years ago, and has
since reiterated it in many resolutions on settlement activity.
If anyone still has any doubts as to the illegality of settlement activity,
the July 2004 advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice on
the wall concluded that
 “the Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian Territory
(including East Jerusalem) have been established in breach of
international law” (see A/ES-10/273, para. 120).

Part 2, article 8, paragraph 2 (b) of the 1998 Rome Statute of the

International Criminal Court classifies as a war crime the

“transfer, directly or indirectly, by the Occupying Power of parts

of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies, or the
deportation or transfer of all or parts of the population of the
occupied territory within or outside this territory”.

In addition, in dozens of resolutions — most recently in resolution

65/104 — the General Assembly has reiterated that settlement activity
in the Arab territories occupied in 1967 were illegitimate and an
obstacle to peace. It has also called for an immediate and complete
halt to that activity.
It is worth noting here that the Road Map, established by the
international Quartet and adopted by the Security Council in resolution
1515 (2003), compels Israel to freeze “all settlement activity (including
natural growth settlements)” (S/2003/529, annex). It also compels
Israel to “immediately dismantle […] settlement outposts erected since
March 2001”.
The Joint Understanding of the 2007 Annapolis Conference also
confirmed the commitment of all parties to continue to fulfil their
respective obligations under the Road Map until a peace treaty is
reached. That of course includes compelling Israel to freeze all
settlement activities. The Council adopted the contents of that
concluding document in resolution 1850 (2008).
In its statements — the most recent of which was issued on 7 February
— the international Quartet has continued to call for the
implementation of the provisions of the Road Map, including a halt to
settlement activity.
These are the provisions of international law on settlements. These are
the resolutions of the General Assembly. These are the resolutions of
the Security Council. This is the legal opinion of the International Court
of Justice. These are the positions of the international Quartet on Israeli
settlement activity.
However, these are the same positions and rulings that Israel has
continued to ignore and challenge — to the point where the number of
settlers in Jerusalem and the West Bank now exceeds 517,000. We
have therefore submitted today’s draft resolution on Israeli settlement
activity, which we invite members to vote on today.
We are proud of the unprecedented number of States — more than
100 — that have agreed to sponsor the draft resolution. We would like
once again to express our special thanks to those States. The purpose
of the draft resolution is to have the Security Council play its required
role and choose the side of justice and righteousness. We therefore
hope that the draft resolution will enjoy unanimous support from the
members of the Council.
We have come to the Council not just because we believe that our
cause is a just one, which it is. We are also here because we believe in
the Charter of the United Nations and in the Organization’s central role
in upholding justice in the world, without which there can be no
international peace and security. We have come to the Council
because, in accordance with Article 24 of the Charter, it is the body to
which the Members of the United Nations have given the primary
responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security.
Today we have come to this Council, and we will continue to return to
this Council as long as a comprehensive, just and lasting peace is not
achieved in our region of the world, and as long as the Arab Palestinian
people are not granted the possibility to enjoy self-determination and
to establish their independent State with Al-Quds Al-Sharif as its capital
— for Jerusalem, O Jerusalem, you are the path of those who have
ascended to Heaven, as sings our country, and you will continue to be
the jewel of all cities.
The President: I shall now put the draft resolution to the vote.
A vote was taken by a show of hands.
In favour:

Bosnia and Herzegovina, Brazil, China, Colombia, France, Gabon,

Germany, India, Lebanon, Nigeria, Portugal, Russian Federation,
South Africa, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern
Ireland

Against:

United States of America

The President: There were 14 votes in favour and 1 against. The draft
resolution has not been adopted, owing to the negative vote of a
permanent member of the Council.
I shall now give the floor to those members who wish to make
statements after the vote.
Ms. Rice (United States of America): The United States has been
deeply committed to pursuing a comprehensive and lasting peace
between Israel and the Palestinians. In that context, we have been
focused on taking steps that advance the goal of two States living side
by side in peace and security, rather than complicating that goal. That
includes a commitment to work in good faith with all parties to
underscore our opposition to continued settlements.
Our opposition to the resolution before this Council today should
therefore not be misunderstood to mean we support settlement
activity. On the contrary, we reject in the strongest terms the
legitimacy of continued Israeli settlement activity. For more than four
decades Israeli settlement activity in territories occupied in 1967 has
undermined Israel’s security and corroded hopes for peace and
stability in the region. Continued settlement activity violates Israel’s
international commitments, devastates trust between the parties and
threatens the prospects for peace.
The United States and our fellow Council members are also in full
agreement about the urgent need to resolve the conflict between the
Israel and the Palestinians on the basis of the two-State solution and
an agreement that establishes a viable, independent and contiguous
State of Palestine once and for all. We have invested a tremendous
amount of effort and resources in pursuit of that shared goal, and we
will continue to do so. But the only way to reach that common goal is
through direct negotiations between the parties, with the active and
sustained support of the United States and the international
community. It is the Israelis’ and Palestinians’ conflict, and even the
best-intentioned outsiders cannot resolve it for them.
Therefore, every potential action must be measured against one
overriding standard: whether it will move the parties closer to
negotiations and an agreement. Unfortunately, this draft resolution
risks hardening the positions of both sides. It could encourage the
parties to stay out of negotiations and, if and when they did resume, to
return to the Security Council whenever they reached an impasse.
In recent years, no outside country has invested more than the United
States of America in the effort to achieve Israeli-Palestinian peace. In
recent days we offered a constructive alternative course forward that
we believe would have allowed the Council to act unanimously to
support the pursuit of peace. We regret that this effort was not
successful and thus is no longer viable.
The great impetus for democracy and reform in the region makes it
even more urgent to settle this bitter and tragic conflict in the context
of a region moving towards greater peace and respect for human
rights. But there simply are no shortcuts. We hope that those who
share our hopes for peace between a secure and sovereign Israel and
Palestine will join us in redoubling our common efforts to encourage
and support the resumption of direct negotiations.
While we agree with our fellow Council members — and indeed with
the wider world — about the folly and illegitimacy of continued Israeli
settlement activity, we think it unwise for this Council to attempt to
resolve the core issues that divide Israelis and Palestinians. Therefore,
regrettably, we have opposed this draft resolution.
Sir Mark Lyall Grant (United Kingdom): I am delivering this
statement on behalf of the United Kingdom, France and Germany.
The United Kingdom, France and Germany are seriously concerned
about the current stalemate in the Middle East peace process. We each
voted in favour of the draft Security Council resolution because our
views on settlements, including in East Jerusalem, are clear: they are
illegal under international law, are an obstacle to peace and constitute
a threat to a two-State solution. All settlement activity, including in
East Jerusalem, should cease immediately.
Our primary goal remains a just and lasting resolution to the Israeli-
Palestinian conflict. We will continue to work actively to turn this
ambition into reality: the creation of a sovereign, independent,
democratic, contiguous and viable Palestinian State, living in peace
and security side by side with Israel. Our views are clearly set out in
the European Union Foreign Affairs Council conclusions, most recently
in December 2009 and December 2010.
We believe that Israel’s security and the realization of the Palestinians’
right to statehood are not opposing goals. On the contrary, they are
intimately entwined objectives. We therefore call on both parties to
return as soon a possible to direct negotiations towards a two-State
solution on the basis of clear parameters.
For those negotiations to be successful, they will need to achieve an
agreement on the borders of the two States, based on 4 June 1967
lines, with equivalent land swaps as may be agreed between the
parties. They will need to achieve security arrangements that for
Palestinians respect their sovereignty and show that the occupation is
over, and for Israelis protect their security, prevent the resurgence of
terrorism and deal effectively with new and emerging threats. The
negotiations must achieve a just, fair and agreed solution to the
refugee question, and they must fulfill the aspirations of both parties
for Jerusalem. A way must be found through negotiations to resolve the
status of Jerusalem as the future capital of both States.
Despite the challenges ahead, the key elements of a solution are well
known. Thanks to work commended by the international community as
a whole, the Palestinian Authority has developed the capacity to run a
democratic and peaceful State, founded on the rule of law and living in
peace and security with Israel. Further delay will reduce, rather than
increase, the prospects for a solution. We therefore look to both parties
to return to negotiations as soon as possible on that basis.
Our goal remains an agreement on all final status issues and the
welcoming of Palestine as a full Member of the United Nations by
September 2011. We will contribute to achieving that goal in any and
every way that we can.
Mr. Churkin (Russian Federation) (spoke in Russian) : The Russian
Federation voted in favour of the draft resolution. Given our
fundamental position, we will not accept any unilateral actions that
prejudge the outcome of negotiations on final status issues. We
strongly urge the Government of Israel at last to comply with the
demands of the international community and to stop settlement
activity, which violates the norms of international law and hinders the
resumption of Palestinian-Israeli negotiations.
Unfortunately, no unanimity was achieved among Security Council
members today, and the draft resolution was not adopted. However,
the issue of Israeli settlement activity remains on the agenda, and the
urgency of solving the issue will only increase.
As a permanent member of the Security Council and a member of the
Quartet of Middle East mediators, Russia consistently continues to
advocate a prompt resumption of direct dialogue between the parties
by cooperating with regional and international partners in seeking a
just and comprehensive peace settlement in the region, in accordance
with Security Council resolutions, the Madrid principles and the Arab
Peace Initiative.
We hope that by implementing the still relevant Russian proposal to
send the first-ever full Security Council mission to the Middle East will
be a useful practical contribution towards assisting the peace process.
Mr. Moraes Cabral (Portugal): Portugal’s position on Israeli
settlements in the occupied Palestinian territory is well known. We
have repeatedly stated that settlements, including in East Jerusalem,
are illegal under international law and an obstacle to peace. That has
also been the consistent position of the European Union. So it would
not surprise the Council if my statement follows that of France,
Germany and the United Kingdom closely.
Settlements thwart attempts to move the negotiations process
forward. They also erode the prerequisites of the two-State solution, a
goal to which we remain firmly committed. All settlement activities in
East Jerusalem and the rest of the West Bank, including natural growth,
should cease immediately.
Our ultimate goal remains that of a lasting, just and comprehensive
peace in the Middle East, based on the creation of a sovereign,
independent, democratic, contiguous and viable Palestinian State living
side by side with Israel and its other neighbours in peace and security.
Therefore, we call on both parties to return as soon as possible to
direct negotiations towards an agreement on all core issues by
September 2011. The parameters of a final status agreement are
known to all, namely, a Palestinian State based on the 4 June 1967
borders; a security arrangement that fully respects the sovereignty of
the Palestinian State, while protecting the security of both Palestinians
and Israelis; Jerusalem as the capital of the two States, in accordance
with modalities to be negotiated between the parties on its status; and
finally, a just, fair and agreed solution to the refugee problem.
The Palestinian Authority has worked diligently in preparing for
statehood. In doing so, it has proved itself a dependable partner and
demonstrated its capacity to assume full sovereignty as an
independent, democratic and peaceful State living in peace with Israel.
As I have previously stated, it is essential that the parties urgently
resume direct negotiations. Our aim is an agreement on all final status
issues. With that in mind, we look forward to active international and
regional diplomatic efforts so that we can indeed welcome Palestine as
a full Member of the United Nations by September 2011.
Mr. Li Baodong (China) (spoke in Chinese): China voted in favor of
the draft resolution drawn up by Arab States on the Israeli settlements.
We deeply regret that the draft resolution was not adopted.
China has always firmly supported the just cause of the Palestinian
people to gain legitimate national rights. At present, Israel continues to
build settlements, which has become a major obstacle to mutual trust
and the resumption of peace talks between Palestine and Israel.
China resolutely opposes Israel’s construction of settlements and the
separation wall in the occupied Palestinian territory, including the West
Bank and East Jerusalem. We firmly support the legitimate demands of
the Palestinian people. China has always maintained that, on the basis
of the relevant United Nations resolutions, the principle of land for
peace, the Arab Peace Initiative and the Road Map to Middle East
peace, Palestine and Israel should conduct dialogue and negotiations
to settle differences so as to ultimately establish an independent State
of Palestine, with the two countries living side by side in peace.
China supports the Security Council playing its due role in the Middle
East peace process. We also hope that the Quartet meeting to be held
on the question of the Middle East will achieve a positive outcome and
will help break the stalemate in the Middle East process.
Mr. Sangqu (South Africa): My delegation regrets that the Council was
unable to adopt the draft resolution before it today. South Africa voted
in favour of the draft resolution, as we joined those that believe that
the illegal Israeli settlement activity has become an obstacle to moving
the peace process forward.
The continued illegal settlement-building changes the geographical
composition of Palestine and has the potential to render the desire to
bring about a two-State solution impossible, which is in line with the
overwhelming call for the creation of the sovereign, independent,
viable and contiguous State of Palestine, coexisting peacefully
alongside the State of Israel on the basis of the 1967 borders, with East
Jerusalem as its capital.
The Council has an obligation to ensure that the peace process moves
forward and that a final settlement can be reached between the
parties. The Council should therefore respond to obstacles, such as the
illegal settlement activity, which hampers the peace process, and thus
poses a threat to international peace and security.
Despite the failure of the Council to act, the peace process must move
forward after today. Both parties are still under the obligation to
comply with their previous agreements and obligations in terms of the
Quartet Road Map, which includes those on illegal settlements. In that
regard, we call on Israel to immediately and completely cease all
settlement activities in the occupied Palestinian territory, including
Jerusalem.
The draft resolution called on the parties to continue their negotiations
on final status issues, which include questions on Jerusalem,
settlements, borders and refugees. It is imperative that the parties do
not abandon the path of negotiations. We in the international
community have an obligation to support the parties in their
endeavour to reach that goal.
Mr. Osorio (Colombia) (spoke in Spanish): In noting the results of the
voting on the draft resolution submitted for the Council’s consideration,
on which Colombia voted in favour, I would like to reaffirm my
country’s conviction that the appropriate path to achieve a lasting
peace between the peoples of Israel and Palestine and the coexistence
of the two States is a negotiated solution, not hostile confrontation.
We voted in favour of the draft resolution, as we have done on other
occasions on this issue, because we believe that settlements
contravene international law and do not comply with the agreements
under the Road Map and the negotiations promoted by the Quartet.
We support bilateral, direct negotiations between Pelestinians and
Israelis as the only possible way to resolve the existing differences. We
share the vision of the creation of two democratic States living in
peace and with defined, recognized and safe borders. We firmly
believe in the need for both parties to act in keeping with international
law and to comply with their respective commitments and obligations.
For Colombia the fundamental principles in the peaceful settlement of
disputes are the obligation not to use force in international relations,
and the free determination of peoples. Israelis and Palestinians cannot
continue to be bogged down in confrontation without confidence. We
vigorously call on them to maintain and intensify the talks between the
parties on the basis of mutual respect and recognition of the identity
and rights of each people. The Palestinians have the right to their own
State that lives in peace with Israel and progresses toward common
prosperity.
Ms. Čolaković (Bosnia and Herzegovina): Bosnia and Herzegovina
voted for the draft resolution, and I wish to explain our position.
Bosnia and Herzegovina is and will remain committed to the two-State
solution, with the State of Israel and an independent, democratic and
viable State of Palestine living side by side in peace and security. We
consider that to be a basic precondition for achieving lasting peace and
security in the region.
One of the main obstacles to achieving that goal is the settlement
activities on occupied land, which are illegal under international law
and are contrary to Israel’s obligation under the Road Map. Bosnia and
Herzegovina calls upon Israel to respond positively to appeals by the
international community and end all settlement activities in occupied
Palestinian territories, including Jerusalem.
Furthermore, we urge the parties to take the necessary decision to
overcome the current obstacles in the peace process as the only way
to secure a better future for their peoples through a resumption of
direct talks.
Mr. Onemola (Nigeria): This Council has consistently expressed
concern over the situation in the Middle East, including the continued
Israeli settlement activities in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. This
issue is of serious concern to my delegation because of its implication
for peace and security in the region. We view the cessation of
settlement activities as a confidence-building measure with the
potential to return the parties to the negotiating table. We therefore
felt constrained to vote in favour of the draft resolution, and we regret
that it was not adopted.
We reiterate that it is time for the parties to this dispute to
demonstrate their undivided commitment to peace. They should
remove all obstacles to the resumption of direct negotiations to resolve
persistent permanent status issues. The Council, for its part, should
continue its supporting role in the peace process, fostering security
and stability within the occupied Palestinian territory.
For our part, we shall remain firmly committed to the goal of seeing a
secure State of Israel living side by side in peace and security with an
independent State of Palestine with recognized borders.
While peace in the Middle East is attainable, it must come on the back
of sustained political will and commitment. The Middle East needs
peace. The world needs peace.
Mr. Manjeev Singh Puri (India): Consistent with our long-standing
position of solidarity with the Palestinian people and our position that
the settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories are illegal under
international law, India co-sponsored the draft resolution and voted in
its favour. It is our sincere hope and expectation that wiser counsel will
prevail among the parties concerned and that the path of dialogue will
be the path followed to realize peace in the region.
Even though the Council today could not adopt the resolution, we
expect that the sentiments expressed by its members will impel the
parties to serious introspection and to the realization that the only way
to resolve the problem is to restart talks on all pending issues so that a
lasting peace is established and that — as mentioned by many in the
Council today — by September 2011 we can welcome to the
international community an independent, viable and united State of
Palestine, living within secure and recognized borders, with East
Jerusalem as its capital, side by side and at peace with Israel.
Mr. Moungara Moussotsi (Gabon) (spoke in French): My delegation
voted in favour of the draft resolution submitted by the non-aligned
countries to encourage the two parties to resume direct talks with a
view to a lasting peace in the Middle East. We thus invite the State of
Israel and Palestine to overcome all differences and to come to an
agreement with a view to resuming direct negotiations and to work
towards a just and lasting peace, with the ultimate goal of creating a
Palestinian State living side by side with Israel within secure and
internationally recognized borders.
The President: I shall now make a statement in my national capacity
as representative of Brazil.
The peaceful resolution of the question of Palestine is, arguably, the
single most important objective for peace and stability in the world. For
its part, the continued expansion of Israeli settlements in the occupied
Palestinian territory became the most important obstacle to concrete
progress in negotiations leading to a just and durable solution to this
question. It is therefore only natural that the Security Council deal with
this issue in a manner consistent with its primary responsibility for
international peace and security. We welcome an increased
engagement by the international community, including through the
Security Council, in this matter.
The draft resolution that we had before us today restated that all
Israeli settlement activities in the occupied Palestinian territory,
including East Jerusalem, are illegal and constitute a major obstacle to
the achievement of peace on the basis of the two-State solution. It
recalled Israel’s obligations under the Road Map endorsed by
resolution 1515 (2003). It also called for the immediate resumption of
credible negotiations.
Brazil co-sponsored the draft resolution not only because we fully
agreed with its content, but also because we firmly believe it could
help us achieve the two-State solution and therefore contribute to the
long-term security and stability of the whole region, including Israel. In
seeking to advance the peace process, we also have in mind Israel’s
right to live in security, free of attacks and threats to its existence.
Brazil and Israel are good friends and important partners, both
bilaterally and through MERCOSUR.
We also co-sponsored the draft resolution because its adoption would
have sent some urgent key messages. The first is that continued
disregard for international obligations relating to settlement
construction poses a threat to peace and security in the region.
Second, halting settlement activities should be seen not as a
concession but as the lawful conduct under international law. Third,
unilateral action shall not prevail. Upholding international law is always
in the interest of peace. The Security Council cannot settle for less.
Over the years, Brazil has supported the fulfillment of the legitimate
aspirations of the Palestinian people for a cohesive, secure, democratic
and economically viable State within the 1967 borders and with East
Jerusalem as its capital, living side by side and in peace with the State
of Israel. As we have strengthened our diplomatic relations with all
countries in the region, we have also deepened our commitment to
stability in the Middle East, our condemnation of all forms of terrorism
and our conviction that the peace process must be accelerated.
Brazil’s recent recognition of the Palestinian State is fully consistent
with our willingness to contribute to a just and lasting solution to the
question of Palestine. As explicitly indicated at that time, that decision
did not mean abandoning the conviction that negotiations between
Israelis and Palestinians are indispensable. On the contrary, we see it
as a stimulus for further negotiations. Only dialogue and peaceful
coexistence with all neighbours can truly advance the Palestinian
cause.
Many years of negotiating efforts have produced a substantial basis
upon which progress can be achieved. It is our hope that the more
intensive schedule of meetings of the Quartet indicates a willingness to
take concrete steps that will lead to an agreement on the final status
issues by September.
We believe that the inclusion of more countries in the peace process,
including developing countries from outside the region and with good
relations with all parties, would bring a breath of fresh air to the peace
process. Brazil stands ready to participate in and support those efforts.
We have been making our contribution to the Palestinian Authority’s
State-building efforts, including through bilateral and IBSA — India,
Brazil and South Africa — cooperation.
In times of unprecedented change in the Middle East, it is even more
urgent that progress be made on the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.
Now more than ever, the brighter the perspectives for Palestinian
statehood, the greater the chances that the region will advance more
steadily towards stability and democracy.
Halting the construction of settlements would be a clear signal of
political will to engage in serious negotiations. To achieve an
agreement, difficult political decisions will be required. Brazil is
confident that the Israeli and the Palestinian leadership will display
statesmanship and will be ready to make the painful concessions
needed for the next generations to enjoy the benefits of peace.
I now resume my functions as President of the Council.
I give the floor to the Permanent Observer of Palestine.
Mr. Mansour (Palestine): I wish to thank you, Madame President, for
convening this important meeting. I wish to express our deep
appreciation for your principled, sincere efforts in this process in your
national capacity and in your capacity as the President of the Security
Council this month.
I also wish to thank Bosnia and Herzegovina for its skilled stewardship
of the Security Council in January, particularly during the Council’s
open debate on 19 January (see S/PV.6470 and Resumption 1) and
throughout the series of consultations undertaken on the draft
resolution on Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territory,
including East Jerusalem, on which the Council has just taken action.
At this time, I also wish to express Palestine’s deep appreciation and
gratitude to Lebanon, the Arab representative on the Security Council,
for its principled efforts and unwavering support throughout this
important exercise.
We also wish to thank the Arab Group for their serious consideration of
this matter, their constant coordination and their strong support. We
express appreciation for the able leadership of the Chairs of the Arab
Group since we began this exercise in December 2010. In that context,
we also extend our appreciation to the important and sincere efforts of
the Arab League Follow-up Committee and its Chair, Qatar, at all levels
in the region, in Cairo and here in New York.
We must also express our appreciation and gratitude to the members
of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) and the Organization of the
Islamic Conference and to the Chairs, Egypt and Tajikistan, for their
sincere efforts and their valuable support and solidarity with Palestine.
In that regard, we also convey our thanks to the members of the NAM
caucus of the Security Council for their consideration and support on
this most important issue.
Of course, Palestine also wishes to extend its deep gratitude to all of
the countries that co-sponsored the draft resolution, from all corners of
the world — from Africa, Asia, Europe and Latin America. Their strong
and principled support was invaluable and illustrated to us once again
the importance, weight and necessity of a collective effort and position
in our work in the international arena as we strive to uphold
international law and make peace and justice a reality.
When we decided to come to the Security Council to address the
critical and dangerous issue of Israel’s ongoing illegal settlement
campaign throughout the occupied Palestinian territory, including East
Jerusalem, we did so with a sensible draft resolution reflecting agreed
language and principles. That represented a responsible and serious
attempt on our part, along with the entire international community, to
address the issue of illegal Israeli settlement activities in order to
remove that obstacle from the path of the peace process.
Our overarching goals remain to bring an end to the Israeli colonization
and occupation of our land and its destruction of the two-State
solution, and to create the appropriate environment and dynamics for
the conduct and ultimate success of genuine peace negotiations for
the achievement of the two-State solution for peace in accordance with
the relevant Security Council resolutions, the Madrid principles,
including the principle of land for peace, the Arab Peace Initiative and
the Quartet Road Map.
Unfortunately, however, the Security Council has failed to uphold its
responsibilities to respond to the crisis in the long search for peace and
security in the Middle East and to legislate the existing global
consensus in demanding that Israel, the occupying Power, immediately
and completely cease all settlement activities in the occupied
Palestinian territory, including East Jerusalem.
We reiterate that it is high time to send a clear and firm message to
Israel that it must comply with its international legal obligations,
including in accordance with the relevant Security Council resolutions,
and cease all of its violations and its obstruction of the peace process.
Israel, the occupying Power, should not question the determination of
the international community to bring an end to those violations,
including its illegal settlement campaign, including in occupied East
Jerusalem. The proper message that should have been sent by the
Security Council to Israel, the occupying Power, is that its contempt of
international law and the international community will no longer be
tolerated.
We fear, however, that the message sent today may be one that only
encourages further Israeli intransigence and impunity. That must be
remedied. Otherwise, we will face a situation in which Israel’s illegal,
reckless and expansionist campaign will put in final jeopardy the
prospects for achieving our collective goal, the goal that will bring
peace and security to our region: the two-State solution for the peace
of an independent and viable State of Palestine living side by side with
Israel on the basis of the 1967 borders.
Despite the negative outcome today — and of course, we appreciate
the positive votes of the 14 countries that voted in favour — we are
calling and will continue to call on the Security Council to uphold its
duties and responsibilities vis-à-vis the question of Palestine, because
we believe in international law and in the central role of the Council in
maintaining international peace and security. The Council must
undertake this role seriously and consciously in the Middle East in its
ongoing attempts to resolve the Arab-Israeli conflict, the core of which
remains the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
The situation on the ground in the occupied Palestinian territory,
including East Jerusalem, is intolerable and the status quo is untenable.
We must continue to uphold our duties towards our people and our just
cause, and will thus continue to consider all of our options at the
United Nations in order to address all of the critical issues we face and
to promote the achievement of a just, lasting and comprehensive
peace settlement. We do this with full conviction and commitment, and
with deepest gratitude and appreciation to all the member States of
the international community whose support and solidarity in this long
search for peace have been so vital and unwavering.
The Palestinian people and their leadership will not forgo their
legitimate national aspirations and will not cease their honourable
efforts to achieve a peaceful resolution of this conflict in all its aspects.
This includes, foremost, bringing a complete end to the Israeli
occupation of the Palestinian land that began in 1967 and the
achievement of the inalienable right of the Palestinian people to self-
determination in their independent State of Palestine, with East
Jerusalem as its capital, where they can live as a dignified and proud
people, enjoying peace, freedom, democracy, security and prosperity
in their homeland.
The President: I now give the floor to the representative of Israel.
Mr. Reuben (Israel): Direct negotiations between Israel and the
Palestinians have been, and still remain, the only way forward to
resolve the long-standing conflict in our region. Therefore, the draft
resolution that was before the Council should never have been
submitted. Instead, the international community and the Security
Council should have called upon the Palestinian leadership, in a clear
and resolute voice, to immediately return to the negotiating table
without preconditions and to renew direct negotiations in order to
resolve all outstanding issues. This is the way to achieve peace.
Indeed, this is the path through which we have reached peace
agreements in the past.
Today’s debate will not assist efforts to bring both sides back to the
negotiating table. In fact, this process, in its adversarial nature, is likely
to harm ongoing attempts to resume negotiations. It sends the wrong
message to the Palestinians, signalling that they can avoid the
negotiating table.
Time and time again, Israel has demonstrated its willingness to take
significant steps — indeed, painful steps — to rebuild confidence
between the two sides. However, these efforts were not met with
similar steps by the other side. Furthermore, Israel’s withdrawal from
the Gaza Strip in 2005, including the painful dismantling of all
settlements, has led to an increase in terror and violence from the
areas that we left.
However, Israel continues to demonstrate its willingness to renew
talks, with the express goal of resolving all outstanding issues. Prime
Minister Netanyahu has called upon the Palestinian leadership to return
to the negotiating table and engage in peace talks in good faith. This
goal is within reach, but will require painful compromises. The road to
peace lies between Jerusalem and Ramallah, which are only 10
minutes apart.
In the Declaration of Principles and the Israeli-Palestinian Interim
Agreement on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, settlements are but
one of the outstanding issues that both sides have explicitly agreed to
address as part of final status negotiations. Any effort to predetermine
a central, permanent State issue in effect prejudges what was agreed
to be directly negotiated between the two sides.
Furthermore, it is not fitting or constructive to isolate this single issue
from all other core matters, such as the security arrangements,
refugees and incitement, as well as the need to address the relentless
rocket fire on Israel by Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip.
As the Middle East continues to undergo dramatic and historic
changes, one wonders whether the issue before us is really the most
relevant for discussion in this Chamber. In conclusion, we would like to
thank the United States for its long-standing and responsible
leadership in this process. Its vote today reflects the understanding
that the only way forward is through direct negotiations between Israel
and the Palestinians. We reiterate our call to the Palestinian leadership
to return to the negotiating table without preconditions, so that
negotiations can resume without further delay.
The President: There are no more speakers inscribed on my list. The
Security Council has thus concluded the present stage of its
consideration of the item on its agenda.

Back to Top

Palestinians to seek UN recognition for independent

state in September
Associated Press, 10 January 2011
Move part of Palestinians' 'Plan B' of pursuing alternative to a
negotiated peace deal while talks with Israel remain
stalled.
The Palestinian foreign minister says he will seek United Nations
recognition for a Palestinian state in September and is currently
lobbying for votes worldwide.
The move is part of the Palestinians' so-called Plan B of pursuing an
alternative to a negotiated peace deal while talks with Israel remain
stalled. Riad Malki's announcement Sunday followed Chile's recognition
of Palestine, making it the fifth South American country to do so
recently.
While a majority for Palestine in the General Assembly seems possible,
recognition by the Security Council — whose decisions are legally
binding — would likely face an American veto.
The September target date has the month shaping up to be a crucial
one for the Palestinians. It also marks the time frame for President
Barack Obama's goal of reaching a peace deal and Palestinian Prime
Minister Salam Fayyad's hope of having the foundations of the future
state ready.
Fayyad has acknowledged that the recognition drive at the UN will not
necessarily bring realization of a state. But it helps the Palestinians
enshrine their demand that the 1967 borders serve as the basis for
drawing their nation's shape. The Palestinians want their state in the
lands Israel captured in the Mideast war that year — the West Bank,
Gaza and east Jerusalem.
"Such recognition would create political and legal pressure on Israel to
withdraw its forces from the land of another state that is recognized
within the '67 borders by the international organization," Malki, the
foreign minister, told reporters in Ramallah.
He said the Palestinian Authority is working to attain as much
recognition as possible for a state by September, when it will call for a
UN vote. It will initially seek Security Council recognition but, failing
that, will turn to the General Assembly, where the decisions are not
binding but there is no veto.
The Palestinians have made South America a priority. Brazil, Argentina,
Bolivia and Ecuador recognized Palestinian statehood last month, and
Uruguay, Paraguay and Peru are expected to join Chile on that list in
the coming weeks.
Malki said Asia, Africa and the Caribbean were next in line. "In the
Caribbean there are 12 small states ... but these countries have the
same vote that China has in the U.N. General Assembly," he said.
About 100 other countries have recognized statehood — most of them
developing nations — after the Palestinians declared "independence"
in 1988, and a few others, mostly former Soviet republics, did so after
the 1993 Oslo peace accords. In the mid- and late-2000s, Venezuela
and Costa Rica followed suit.
Malki said the Palestinians have been talking to Honduras, Guatemala
and El Salvador as well, and that Spain has promised to recognize
Palestine in September.
Spain would be the first western European country to do so. Former
Communist countries in eastern Europe, including Hungary, Bulgaria
and Romania, were among those who recognized Palestine in 1988.
The Palestinians appear to have a majority in the General Assembly,
but are unlikely to get the go-ahead in the Security Council.
The U.S. routinely vetoes measures Israel considers hostile, and the
U.S. House of Representatives last week passed a resolution
"condemning unilateral measures to declare or recognize a Palestinian
state."
Israeli officials have called the recognition declarations meaningless
and counterproductive to the peace process. Israeli Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu opposes withdrawal to the pre-1967 lines, though
he says he remains committed to negotiating a partition of the land.

Back to Top

The UN is ripe for advancing the Palestinian agenda

The settlements have been defined as the number-one problem
impeding peace, and no Israeli attempt to blame the
stalemate on the Palestinians will be accepted at the UN.
Shlomo Shamir, 22nd February, 2011
NEW YORK - A new era has dawned at the United Nations with regard
to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. From this point on, new, different
rules will characterize discussions of the conflict in the Security
Council.
The most important and, from Israel's standpoint, alarming change is
this: In the one UN body that has the authority to forcibly enforce
resolutions, a new alignment of forces is rapidly taking shape, and a
new distribution of influence is emerging between the United States
and the other four members of the exclusive club of states with
permanent membership and veto power.
The first result of the new era was the Palestinians' proposed resolution
to denounce Israeli settlements. Though the resolution was vetoed by
America in the Security Council vote, it remains inscribed in the
council's annals as a fascinating case and a model to be followed in the
future. Granted, it bore no diplomatic fruit. But it is laden with
important policy implications that will soon be felt in UN decision-
making on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and particularly in the
Security Council.
One diplomat who immediately grasped the meaning of the veto of the
Palestinian initiative was Brazil's ambassador to the UN, Maria Viotti,
who holds the Security Council's rotating presidency. She explained to
The New York Times that the council views the settlements as an
obstacle to peace, and adopting the resolution would have "sent some
key urgent messages." These messages, the Times said, were that
"further settlement construction threatens peace in the region, and
that halting construction has been misrepresented as an Israeli
concession while in fact international law requires it."
What set the stage for the sea change in approaches to the Israeli-
Palestinian conflict at the UN was the lack of progress in talks between
the sides. The awareness among leading UN members of the complete
breakdown in communications between the White House and Israel's
prime minister created a new mood in which Palestinian concerns are
at the top of the international community's agenda. The UN has
become fertile ground for advancing the Palestinian cause.
Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak's disappearance from the stage
strengthened the Palestinians' resolve to oppose America's entreaties
to remove their resolution from the agenda. UN sources say the
absence of Mubarak - a moderating influence who helped ease
tensions when crises arose between Israel and the Palestinian
Authority - has seriously complicated American diplomacy and
undermined America's status as the decisive power in dealing with the
Israel-Palestinian conflict.
"In cases of friction with the PA, the U.S. usually turned to Mubarak,
who was always quick to try to help," explained a diplomat close to the
U.S. delegation. "This time, when the Palestinians obstinately refused
to withdraw their proposed resolution denouncing the settlements, the
U.S. government had nobody to turn to." In the headline of an article
posted on Time magazine's website, one veteran commentator
summed up the situation as follows: "Without Mubarak, U.S. struggles
to shield Israel from diplomatic pressure."
It is clear - and behind-the-scenes statements from UN ambassadors
bolster this conclusion - that the British and French support for the
Palestinian resolution reflected a significant hardening of European
Union attitudes toward Israel. The fact that the two European powers
voted against the U.S. was seen in New York as a clear statement of
the EU's intentions, and of its desire to boost its diplomatic
involvement and become a leading force in advancing the Middle East
peace process.
From Israel's standpoint, the most dramatic result of the drama that
occurred behind the scenes at the Security Council is that the
settlements have been irreversibly and categorically defined as the
number-one problem impeding peace between Israel and the
Palestinians. No Israeli attempt to blame the stalemate on the
Palestinians will be accepted at the UN.
And the fact that 130 member states affixed their signatures in support
of the pro-Palestinian draft resolution was seen in New York as a dress
rehearsal for the declaration of a Palestinian state at the next General
Assembly session in September.

Back to Top

People get ready – there’s a train a-comin’

By Larry Derfner, Jerusalem Post, 23rd February 2011
It’s become pretty clear to me how Israeli rule in the West
Bank is going to end – through Palestinian people power.
I would prefer that the occupation ended in orderly fashion, without
chaos, with the settlers living near the Green Line feeling unthreatened
and the others having plenty of time to relocate. Unfortunately, this is
not happening; I’d hoped the Obama administration would pressure
Israel out of the West Bank, but nobody’s pressuring it out of anything.
The 43-year status quo becomes more entrenched each day.
Still, the bad blood has been rising – among the Palestinians, the
Arabs, Europe, liberal America, and the bad blood in Israel has been
rising in kind. Something’s going to blow, I figured, and my guess was
that Israel would start one war too many, maybe against Iran, or
Lebanon, or Gaza, and masses of Israelis as well as foreigners would
die, and when the smoke cleared it would be recalled that we started
it, and the world would finally run out of patience with us and we would
get out of the West Bank in a lather to avoid being ostracized, to save
ourselves from becoming a Jewish North Korea.
Again, not my preferred way of ending the occupation. But no “good”
way was presenting itself.
And then came Tunisia. And Egypt. And Iran, and Yemen, and Bahrain,
and Libya, and no one knows where this is going to stop.
And it became pretty clear to me that this is how Israeli rule in the
West Bank is going to end – through Palestinian people power. Masses
of Palestinians, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, marching to
IDF checkpoints and outposts, marching to Israeli-only roads, to
settlements, to the security fence – to the nearest Israeli presence and
screaming, “Out! Out!”
And refusing to leave.
WHAT THE hell is the IDF going to do then? Shoot them? Arrest them?
With the whole world not only watching but, for the first time, already
won over by other unarmed Arab masses facing down their
oppressors? What will the IDF do under the eyes of a world that, for the
first time, is seeing Arabs as people like themselves who want
freedom, who deserve it and who are earning it, to say the least, with
their courage?
How will the IDF and the Palestinian Authority police – those who
don’t defect – get all these people to go back home and stay there?
I don’t see it. I think we’re going to have grand-scale anarchy on our
hands – and we won’t be able to solve it by force, and the world will be
on the side of the anarchists.
Impossible? If you say this is impossible, you’ve been on Mars for the
last month. If you’ve been on Earth, the idea of the Arab revolt not
reaching the West Bank is what seems impossible. To me, it’s
inevitable. I’m only surprised it hasn’t started already.
After all, the Palestinians’ “war of the stones,” the first intifada in the
late 1980s, was close to being a model for what’s happening in the
Middle East now. The Egyptians and other Arab rebels have even
adopted the term intifada, which means “shaking off.”
True, the first intifada (not to mention the second one) wasn’t
nonviolent – the Palestinians threw stones and Molotov cocktails. But
they certainly played David to the IDF’s Goliath. And in recent years,
the “popular resistance” – the marches on the security fence in Bil’in
and other West Bank villages – has been all but nonviolent, with only a
few teenagers throwing stones at IDF troops, usually from far
distances.
The Palestinians are the Arab world’s masters at political judo – at
turning the enemy’s superior power against him. This is how civil
disobedience works, and it’s working wonders in the Middle East, so
why on earth shouldn’t it come to the West Bank, too?
It’s a matter of time. Maybe it’ll start Friday with the Palestinians’ “Day
of Rage” against the US veto of the UN resolution against settlements.
If not Friday, it’ll start soon. Something will set it off.
And yes, I’m hoping it happens. If the only other options are occupation
forever or peace following catastrophe – and I think those are the only
other options – I prefer people power.
It’s going to be messy. Bibi Netanyahu will be pounding the table for
negotiations, and the Palestinians massed at the checkpoints,
settlements and security fence will say, “Negotiations? Hmm... how
about no? How about you people just get off our land? How about you
people just get off our necks? Until then, we’re not leaving.”
Who’s going to save our bacon then? Barack Obama? AIPAC? Sarah
Palin?
I don’t know how this is going to play out; there are 300,000 settlers
living in the West Bank, 100,000 of them on the far side of the security
fence. If there’s a “rosewater revolution” or something, if the IDF is
helpless against it and if the whole world sides with the rebels, then
we’re going to have an emergency on our hands over there.
If I were running the government, I would think about building mobile
home parks for settlers – lots of them. I would think about setting aside
billions of dollars to compensate these families for their lost homes.
The image of bewildered, broken families streaming out of the
settlements gives me no joy. I wish this terrible sin that Israel
committed by conquering the Palestinians could be undone in a less
traumatic way. But conquerors tend to grow smug, they think that
because they’re calling the shots they’ve got all the time in the world,
then one day they find out that the earth, in fact, does not stand still.
It’s happened once or twice in history, it’s happening across the Middle
East now, it’ll happen in the West Bank soon. Justice is coming our
way, and I sincerely hope it doesn’t turn out to be too rough.
Back to Top

Middle East Peace Talks Still Deadlocked Despite

International Efforts as Accord on Final-Status
Issues Remain Elusive, Security Council Told
United Nations Security Council, 19 January 2011, SC/10157
Quartet’s Credibility at Stake, Under-Secretary-General Warns
in Briefing
Despite the international community’s recent efforts to resume stalled
Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, negotiations were still deadlocked and the goal
of reaching a framework agreement on final-status issues remained elusive,
B. Lynn Pascoe, Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs, said today.
“We are seriously concerned at the continuing lack of progress in the
search for a negotiated settlement,” Mr. Pascoe said as he briefed the
Security Council on the situation in the Middle East, including the Palestinian
question. “Peace and Palestinian statehood cannot be further delayed,” he
emphasized. With the Quartet-supported deadline for reaching the
framework agreement and completing the Palestinian Authority’s two-year
state-building programme just eight months away, the viability of the political
process and the Quartet’s very credibility were at stake, he warned,
announcing that the Quartet principals would meet next in Munich on
5 February.
He said that during the reporting period, several more Latin American
countries had recognized a State of Palestine based on pre-1967 borders,
while the President of the Russian Federation had reiterated his country’s
long-standing support for statehood during a visit to the Occupied Palestinian
Territory. However, the sharp increase in settlement expansion on the West
Bank, including East Jerusalem, following last September’s lifting of Israel’s
10-month partial freeze on building, continued to undermine trust and
prejudice final-status discussions, he said. Already, work had begun on
2,000 new West Bank units.
Mr. Pascoe went on to say that the demolition of 30 structures in East
Jerusalem and 41 in Area C of the West Bank had displaced 148 Palestinians,
giving rise to serious humanitarian concerns and increased tensions. “I
reiterate the Secretary-General’s call on Israel to freeze all settlement
activity, in conformity with international law and the Road Map,” he said, also
expressing “extreme concern” over the situation in Gaza, including a recent
heightening of tensions. He added that he could “report no progress” in
efforts to further Palestinian reconciliation.
Turning to Lebanon, he said the political crisis there, provoked by
differences over the activities of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon
investigating the 2005 killings of former Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri and 22
others, continued to deepen. Mr. Pascoe reiterated the Secretary-General’s
call on all parties not to interfere with or influence the Special Tribunal’s work
so as not to prejudice the outcome.
Following the briefing, the Permanent Observer of Palestine said it was
“unimaginable” that two years after Israel’s military aggression in Gaza,
Palestinians were still not allowed to rebuild their communities, Israel had yet
to be held accountable for its crimes and Council resolution 1860 (2009) had
not been implemented. He called on Israel to lift, immediately and
completely, its blockade of Gaza and to allow goods and people to flow freely
in and out of the enclave.
He went on to state that Israel’s ongoing aggressive illegal campaign
to alter the demographic composition, status and Palestinian Arab character
of East Jerusalem was destructive and threatened peace. Israel’s settlements
were an “existential threat” to the two-State solution, seriously jeopardizing
almost all other final-status issues, particularly Jerusalem, borders, security
and water. “After years of silence on illegal Israeli settlement activities, the
Security Council, mandated to address such issues endangering international
peace and security, is duty-bound to redress this matter at this critical
juncture,” he said.
Emphasizing the commitment of the Palestinian people and leadership
to peace, he said the second phase of the state-building plan launched by
Prime Minister Salam Fayyad in August 2009 should be completed by August
2011. He thanked the 107 Member States that had recognized the State of
Palestine, calling on the international community to help end the conflict and
usher in an era of peace, security and coexistence.
Among the more than 40 speakers taking the floor, Lebanon’s
representative said that despite international law prohibiting the transfer of
populations by an occupying Power and the Council’s long-standing
declaration that Israeli settlements were illegal, the settler population had
doubled in the almost two decades since the Oslo Agreement, destroying the
land and undermining the basis for a two-State solution.
While recognizing the value of international efforts, particularly those
of the United States, to encourage negotiations, he warned that if the Council
remained ineffective on settlements, its credibility would be damaged since it
would be seen to act under a double standard. That was why Lebanon had
submitted a draft resolution on settlements, he said, thanking the text’s
120 co-sponsors and calling on the Council to adopt it unanimously.
Several speakers condemned Israel’s recent demolition of the
Shepherd Hotel, a historic landmark in East Jerusalem, and its plans to
expand the Gilo settlement by 138 units. The United Kingdom’s
representative described such actions as “deeply unhelpful”.
However, some delegates pointed to positive developments. For
example, India’s representative said that despite the human suffering and
economic distress in Gaza, its economy had expanded 8 per cent in 2010,
and there had been fewer violent incidents than in previous years. He and
other delegates noted that, according to the World Bank, the Palestinian
Authority would be well positioned to create a Palestinian State in the near
future if it maintained its current performance in institution-building and
public services.
Also speaking today were the representatives of the United States,
France, Gabon, Colombia, Russian Federation, China, Germany, South Africa,
Nigeria, Brazil, Portugal, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Egypt (on behalf of the
Non-Aligned Movement), Jordan, Venezuela, Indonesia, Chile, Cuba, Uganda,
Japan, Turkey, Morocco, Malaysia, Tajikistan (on behalf of the Organization of
the Islamic Conference), Philippines, Iran, Norway, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia (on
behalf of the Arab Group), Syria, Algeria, Pakistan, Australia, Sudan and
Bangladesh.
A representative of the European Union delegation also addressed the
Council, as did the Chairperson of the Committee on the Exercise of the
Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People.
The meeting began at 10:29 a.m. and suspended at 1:17 p.m.
Resuming at 2:40 p.m., it ended at 5:23 p.m.
Background
Meeting to consider the situation in the Middle East, including the
question of Palestine, the Security Council was expected to hear a briefing by
the Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs, to be followed by an open
debate.
Briefing
B. LYNN PASCOE, Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs, said
Israeli-Palestinian negotiations remained at a deadlock, while developments
in the Occupied Palestinian Territory and Lebanon had heightened tensions.
George Mitchell, the United States Special Envoy for Middle East Peace, had
visited the region in late December, and Israeli and Palestinian negotiators
had held separate consultations in Washington, D.C., earlier this month.
Reiterating the Secretary-General’s call on the parties to engage
seriously on final-status issues, Mr. Pascoe welcomed the intention of the
United States to be a proactive participant, offering ideas and bridging
proposals when appropriate. He warned, however, that with the Quartet-
supported target dates for reaching a framework agreement on permanent
status and completing the Palestinian Authority’s two-year state-building
programme just eight to nine months away, the viability of the political
process and the Quartet’s very credibility were at stake.
“We are seriously concerned at the continuing lack of progress in the
search for a negotiated settlement. Peace and Palestinian statehood cannot
be further delayed,” he emphasized, adding that the Quartet principals would
meet in Munich on 5 February. He reported that several more Latin American
countries had recognized a State of Palestine based on 1967 borders, while
the President of the Russian Federation had reiterated his country’s long-
standing support for statehood while on a visit to the Territory.
Further expansion of settlements in the West Bank, including East
Jerusalem, continued to undermine trust and prejudice final-status
discussions, he said. The sharp increase in settlement construction had
continued after the end of the moratorium on 26 September 2010, with work
having begun on up to 2,000 new West Bank units. Meanwhile, the
Palestinian Authority continued to make strides in its state-building agenda,
but faced a shortfall estimated at $100 million in external financing or
recurrent expenditures from 2010.
The Under-Secretary-General recalled that on 9 January, the Secretary-
General had issued a statement deploring the demolition of the Shepherd
Hotel in East Jerusalem. He had also expressed deep regret over Israel’s
failure to heed growing international concerns over settlement expansion. “I
reiterate the Secretary-General’s call on Israel to freeze all settlement
activity, in conformity with international law and the Road Map,” Mr. Pascoe
said.
He went on to report that Israeli security forces had conducted 486
search operations in the West Bank, seriously undermining the Palestinian
Authority when the opposite should be the strategic goal. The deaths of four
Palestinians in separate incidents were most worrying, warranting more
transparent investigations and a measure of accountability from Israel, he
said, calling on the authorities to take greater precautions to ensure the
protection of civilians and to refrain from excessive use of force.
Expressing concern over the human rights situation of Palestinians in
East Jerusalem, and opposing their forcible transfer, he said that during the
reporting period, 30 structures had been demolished in East Jerusalem and
41 in Area C of the West Bank, displacing 149 Palestinians. “This is worrying
and gives rise to serious humanitarian concerns while contributing to
heightened tensions,” he said, also expressing “extreme concern” over the
situation in Gaza, including a recent increase in tensions. Calling on
responsible parties to cease acts of violence, he said he could “report no
progress” in efforts to further Palestinian reconciliation, adding that the
United Nations continued to monitor internal tensions.
The Organization also continued to focus on revitalizing Gaza’s
economy and ending the Israeli closure policy, he continued. Import and
export levels had improved from the period before Israel’s June 2010 policy
adjustment, but remained significantly below pre-2007 levels. Israel had
approved $26.4 million in projects by the United Nations Development
Programme (UNDP) and the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for
Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) on 6 January, including seven
more UNRWA schools, bringing the total portfolio of approved United Nations
projects to $136.4 million. The scaling up of goods allowed for export and
their swift delivery would remain a key priority for the world body, he said,
adding that it would also present the Israeli Government with programmes to
revitalize the private sector and rehabilitate public health infrastructure.
Turning to the Syrian track, he expressed regret over the lack of
progress in efforts to promote peace between Israel and Syria. While the
situation in the occupied Syrian Golan remained stable, despite continuing
settlement activity, resolving the conflict on the basis of the relevant Council
resolutions was critical for regional stability, he emphasized.
As for Lebanon, the political crisis provoked by divergent views on the
Special Tribunal for Lebanon continued to deepen, he said, recalling that the
12 January resignation of 10 opposition Cabinet Ministers and one from
President Michel Sleiman’s bloc had forced the collapse of the Government of
National Unity. The Secretary-General had called for continued dialogue
among the parties and respect for Lebanon’s Constitution and laws, while
reiterating his full support for the Special Tribunal’s independent work.
President Sleiman had issued a statement on 13 January, accepting the
resignations and requesting the Government to continue functioning in a
caretaker capacity. Parliamentary consultations to designate a new Prime
Minster had been postponed until 24 January.
On 17 January, the Prosecutor of the Special Tribunal had announced
his submission of an indictment and supporting materials to the pretrial Judge
for confidential review, Mr. Pascoe said. The Secretary-General had noted
that the filing of the indictment was in pursuit of the Special Tribunal’s
mandate to end impunity for the crimes that caused the death of former
Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri and 22 others. The Secretary-General had
reiterated his call on all parties to refrain from attempts to interfere in or
influence the Special Tribunal’s work so as not to prejudice its outcome.
Statements
RIYAD MANSOUR, Permanent Observer of Palestine, said it was
unimaginable that two years after the Israeli military aggression in the Gaza
Strip, the Palestinian people were still being prevented from reconstructing
their communities. There had been no accountability for the crimes
perpetrated by the Israeli occupying forces, resolution 1860 (2009) remained
unimplemented and the Israeli blockade of Gaza continued. He called for the
immediate and complete lifting of the blockade and the sustained opening of
Gaza’s border crossings to the movement of people and goods, which would
be vital to allowing the reconstruction process to get under way and for
economic and social recovery.
Israel continued to carry out illegal settlement activities throughout the
West Bank, including East Jerusalem, in violation of international law, United
Nations resolutions and its Road Map obligations, he said. Its confiscation of
Palestinian land, transfer of more settlers, home demolitions and evictions,
construction of the Wall, imposition of hundreds of checkpoints and other
colonization measures had not ceased. Thousands of new settlement units
had been approved, the historic Shepherd Hotel had been demolished and
settler violence against Palestinian civilians and property continued, he
pointed out.
He went on to underscore that Occupied East Jerusalem in particular
remained the target of an extremely aggressive campaign to alter illegally its
demographic composition, status and Palestinian Arab character. “The
cumulative impact of this illegal Israeli policy on the contiguity, integrity,
unity and viability of the Palestinian Territory has been destructive, with an
equally destructive impact on the drive for peace,” he said. Once again
appealing to the Council to address those violations, he said the occupying
Power’s intensification of settlement activities required an equally intense
response by the international community.
The settlements were linked to, and seriously affected, almost all other
final-status issues, particularly Jerusalem, borders, security and water, he
emphasized, adding that they were an attempt to impose a fait accompli.
Describing the settlements as an “existential threat” to the two-State
solution, he said international action to salvage the prospects for peace was
thus of the utmost urgency. The draft resolution presented by Lebanon
represented a constructive effort to address that burning issue. “After years
of silence on illegal Israeli settlement activities, the Security Council,
mandated to address such issues endangering international peace and
security, is duty bound to redress this matter at this critical juncture.”
He said the Palestinian people and leadership remained committed to
peace. The state-building plan launched by Prime Minister Salam Fayyad in
August 2009 was moving towards implementation of the second phase,
“Homestretch to Freedom”, and should be completed by August, when
national efforts for independence would converge with international efforts.
Expressing gratitude to the 107 Member States that had recognized the State
of Palestine, he called on all members of the international community,
including the Council, to help end the long and tragic conflict and usher in an
era of peace, security and coexistence for the Palestinian and Israeli peoples
as well as the Middle East region as a whole.
ROSEMARY DICARLO (United States) called on both parties to return to
good-faith negotiations towards a two-State solution, emphasizing that there
was no better alternative. Settlement building was corrosive and the United
States did not accept its legitimacy, although the status of existing
settlements would remain subject to negotiations. However, she expressed
particular concern over the demolition of the Shepherd Hotel and Israeli
announcements that new units were to be built.
Pledging to continue pressing ahead, with the parties, for the
resolution of core issues, she said those could only be resolved through
negotiation, not Security Council action. That was why the United States
opposed certain Council actions, she explained. Calling for an end to rocket
attacks by Palestinian militants, the release of Corporal Gilad Shalit and the
lessening of restrictions on Palestinian civilians, she said she was pleased
with Israel’s decision to allow exports from Gaza and its approval of
construction projects there.
Turning to Lebanon, she welcomed the Special Tribunal’s indictments
and urged all parties to allow the constitutional process to determine the next
Government. The United States commended international actors working to
maintain calm and to ensure that the Special Tribunal’s work remained
unimpeded. Finally, she expressed her country’s support for the acquisition
of rights in Tunisia and urged all parties there to proceed calmly towards free
and fair elections.
NAWAF SALAM (Lebanon), citing international law prohibiting the
transfer of populations by an occupying Power, said the Council had also
declared the illegality of Israeli settlement activity for some 40 years. Yet
settlement activity continued and the settler population had doubled since
the Oslo Agreement, he pointed out. Since the lifting of the partial freeze,
settlement activity had accelerated even more, challenging not only
international law, but also destroying the land and undermining the basis for
a two-State solution.
Saying he recognized the value of international efforts to encourage
negotiations, particularly those of the United States, he warned, however,
that if the Council remained ineffective on the question of settlements, its
credibility would be damaged as the Council would appear to operate under a
double standard. That was why Lebanon had submitted a draft resolution on
settlements, he explained, expressing gratitude to the 120 States that had
co-sponsored the text. He called in Council members to adopt it
unanimously, “with a single voice”.
GÉRARD ARAUD (France) said there was a need to create conditions,
politically and on the ground, for negotiations to take place, adding that it
was also necessary to call on the parties to state their positions on the main
final-status issues, as the United States Secretary of State had urged. The
international community and the parties must be able to support all efforts,
he said, noting that his country’s Foreign Minister would visit the region from
19 to 23 January, when she would tell the parties that the support of States in
the region, based on the Arab Peace Initiative, was crucial.
There would be no solution to the conflict until all settlement activity
ended, including natural growth of existing settlements, he stressed,
condemning also the recent demolition of the Shepherd Hotel to make way
for a new settlement. The situation on the ground was likely to undermine
implementation of the Fayyad Plan, which was a tangible achievement for
shoring up Palestinian institutions, he said, adding that France was willing to
organize a second donors’ conference in Paris later in 2011.
He expressed support for the Lebanese authorities, saying his country
remained committed to respecting Lebanon’s institutions, democratic
principles and sovereignty. France encouraged the parties to find a solution
through dialogue, he said, noting that President Nicolas Sarkozy had
proposed an international consultation in that regard. France also supported
the work of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon and called on all parties to
respect its independence and refrain from obstructing its work.
ALFRED ALEXIS MOUNGARA MOUSSOTSI (Gabon) urged both parties to
resume direct dialogue with the objective of creating a viable Palestinian
State within safe, internationally recognized borders. He lauded the efforts of
the United States, the Quartet and countries in the region to renew direct
peace negotiations, stressing that the effective involvement of regional
countries in the peace talks was essential for achieving peace objectives.
Turning to Lebanon, he said the country’s political leaders should engage in
dialogue and pursue national reconciliation in a comprehensive regional
peace process. He renewed support for the United Nations Interim Force in
Lebanon (UNIFIL) to ensure full implementation of Council resolution 1701
(2006).
NÉSTOR OSORIO (Colombia), recounting his country’s long
commitment to a two-State solution and praising the contributions that both
Jewish and Palestinian migrants had made to Colombia, said he was
interested in all approaches aimed at achieving and consolidating a lasting
peace in the region. The peaceful settlement of disputes, the non-use of
force in international relations and self-determination were fundamental
principles for Colombia. Israelis and Palestinians could no longer remain in
confrontation and mistrust, he stressed, calling on both parties to seek a
peaceful and respectful approach on the basis of mutual respect and
recognition of the identity and rights of each people. He pledged his
country’s support for every possible approach aiming to promote sustainable
and balanced solutions in the Middle East.
VITALY CHURKIN (Russian Federation) said President Dmitry Medvedev
was in the region urging the parties to abide by their international obligations
in order to ensure the resumption of negotiations. Israeli settlement activity
made resumption more complicated, he said, adding that other crucial issues
included ending rocket attacks, restoring intra-Palestinian unity and ending
the blockade of Gaza. Expressing hope that the next Quartet meeting,
convened on a Russian initiative, would bring the negotiations closer to a
viable Palestinian State, he said the Russian Federation’s proposal for an
international conference on the issue remained on the table. Turning to
Lebanon, he said recent events there were also of great concern. All action
should remain within the constitutional sphere with the aim of finding
solutions to all contentious issues through dialogue, he emphasized.
Hopefully, the Special Tribunal would be allowed to act on the basis of
evidence rather than political pressure.
WANG MIN (China), noting that the question of settlements was the
greatest obstacle to the resumption of direct peace talks, urged Israel to
cease completely all settlement activity in the West Bank and East
Jerusalem. Stressing the need to create the requisite conditions for building
mutual trust, he welcomed all efforts towards resuming dialogue and
expressed hope that the parties would make common efforts for the early
resumption of talks. The humanitarian situation remained harsh and serious,
he said, adding that it was not conducive to the peace process. It was to be
hoped that the parties concerned would implement the relevant United
Nations resolutions and that Israel would lift the Gaza blockade, he said,
urging the international community to provide the necessary support to the
Palestinian people.
MARK LYALL GRANT (United Kingdom) noted that 2011 marked
20 years since the launch of the Middle East peace process at the Madrid
Conference. “The goal of the international community should be to ensure
that this is the last year of process and the beginning of a lasting agreement
between the parties,” he stressed. The current stalemate was deeply
damaging, and it was critical to find a way to restart negotiations, which were
the best way to achieve a sovereign, viable and contiguous Palestinian State.
For renewed negotiations to succeed, he said, the parties should be clear on
the parameters: a two-State solution, based on the 1967 borders, with
Jerusalem as the future capital of the two States, and a fair settlement of
refugees. All parties must refrain from unilateral action that thwarted peace,
such as the demolition of the Shepherd Hotel as well as plans to expand the
Israeli settlement of Gilo by a further 138 units, he said. “Pushing ahead with
settlement activity is a deeply unhelpful move.”
He expressed increasing concern over the recent incidents in Gaza and
strongly condemned the continuing rocket fire by militants in Gaza. A
durable solution was needed for Gaza, he said, noting that, despite some
progress, such as an increase in import volume, more fundamental changes
were needed for the enclave to achieve pre-2007 trade levels. The United
Kingdom was doing its part, through a package of proposals to expand the
infrastructure of Kerem Shalom, provide security equipment to facilitate
exports, and extend the role of the European Union police mission in the
Occupied Palestinian Territory to provide training in border and crossing
management for the Palestinian Authority. Progress must be judged by
impact on the ground rather than truck numbers, he emphasized. On
Lebanon, he condemned attempts to undermine the Special Tribunal,
stressing that justice must be achieved and impunity for political
assassinations ended.
PAUL WITTIG (Germany) said there was no viable alternative to the
two-State solution, an objective shared by practically the entire international
community and endorsed by the parties themselves. In order to make
progress towards that goal, both parties were urged to return to direct
negotiations and to engage in substance on final-status issues. Both sides,
therefore, must abide by international law and the Road Map’s provisions.
The continuation of settlement activity in the Occupied Palestinian Territory
was illegal and an obstacle to peace, and must stop. The Palestinian side
must refrain from incitement and violence, and Palestinian state-building
must continue. Progress had been achieved in institution-building, including
implementation of the Fayyad Plan.
He said that in order to prevent further isolation and radicalization of
the population in Gaza, the policy of closure must end. Israel’s decision to
ease access to Gaza and allow exports must be fully implemented.
Complementary measures were necessary to allow for Gaza’s economic
recovery, while addressing Israel’s legitimate security concerns. Calling for
the full implementation of resolution 1860 (2009), he said the Israeli soldier
Gilad Shalit must be released without further delay. The international
community’s strong support was crucial for progress in the peace process,
and an even more active role of the Middle East Quartet was needed.
Turning to the issue of Lebanon, he called on all parties to abide by
their obligations under resolution 1701 (2006). Recalling that the Special
Tribunal had been established at the request of Lebanon in order to bring
stability to the country and to end impunity, he said the reasons for
establishing the Tribunal remained valid. He called on all parties to support
the court’s important work, to respect its independence and to refrain from
political interference and coercion. Germany would continue to support the
Tribunal, and while regional efforts aimed at stabilizing the situation were
welcome, “at the same time, we cannot compromise when it comes to
justice”, he said.
BASO SANGQU (South Africa) said the Council should recommit to its
mandate to address all matters of international peace and security without
exception, emphasizing that it could not “outsource” the responsibility to
address the situation in the Middle East. The continuous settlement
construction, the freezing of which was a Palestinian condition for returning
to the negotiating table, seemed to be a major setback for the peace talks,
he said, pointing out that since the signing of the Oslo Accords more than
16 years ago, there had been more displacement of Palestinians, more
curtailment of movement and access, and the building of many more illegal
settlements. The creation of a viable Palestinian State within a peaceful
environment was in Israel’s interest, as its security could only be achieved
through peace, he stressed.
The continuing blockade of Gaza had contributed directly to increased
unemployment and poverty and had caused delays in the provision of
humanitarian assistance, he said, calling on Israel to end the blockade, which
was illegal in terms of international humanitarian law, including article 23 of
the Fourth Geneva Convention, and myriad Council resolutions. He also
condemned the continued shelling of Gaza by Israeli forces, and
concomitantly called on the people of Gaza to refrain from indiscriminately
firing rockets into Israel. Noting that more Member States had recently
recognized the State of Palestine, he said: “We cannot avoid the reality of an
independent State of Palestine. Our responsibility remains to ensure that it is
viable, contiguous and sustainable, and be in a position to exist peacefully
with its neighbour, the State of Israel.”
U. JOY OGWU ( Nigeria) said it was important to reflect soberly on the
circumstances hindering the resumption of direct negotiations. Expressing
her country’s support for the two-State solution, she said it was important
that the Council speak with one voice in calling once again on the parties to
resume direct talks on all final-status issues without further delay. She urged
Israel to take concrete steps to freeze all settlement activities, saying that
new construction approvals were counter to the objective of building
confidence, as was yesterday’s incursion into Gaza, in response to militant
attacks, which had resulted in the death of a Palestinian man.
It was also important for the Palestinians to enhance efforts to forge
internal unity and deal with acts of militancy, she said. Leaders of both sides
must endeavour to overcome all obstacles and demonstrate a strong desire
to engage in a speedy negotiated settlement of all core issues, she said,
adding that the international community should also remain engaged.
Nigeria commended Israel’s announcement of further measures to ease the
blockade of Gaza, and hoped a complete lifting would come sooner rather
than later. On Lebanon, she stressed the need for calm, restraint and
dialogue, and called on all concerned to support that country’s independence
and territorial integrity as well as the mandate of the Special Tribunal.
MARIA LUIZA RIBEIRO VIOTTI (Brazil) said the construction of Israeli
settlements in the occupied territories, which had gained pace since the
settlement moratorium had not been renewed, was not only illegal but also
undermined the peace process, poisoned the political environment and
potentially exposed Israeli settlers to danger. It might risk rendering the two-
State solution politically very difficult to implement. Settlement activity,
therefore, must cease immediately and completely. She called on both
parties, in particular Israel, not to miss any opportunity to make strides
towards the resumption of substantive and action-oriented negotiations.
Brazil had decided to recognize the State of Palestine within the 1967
borders. Adoption of the draft resolution on the Israeli settlements, so far co-
sponsored by more than 120 delegations, would send a signal to the parties
that the international community was serious in its attempt to help ensure
the long-term feasibility of the two-State solution.
Welcoming Israeli measures to ease the blockade on the Gaza Strip,
especially regarding exports of agricultural products, textiles and other
goods, she said that overture should be turned into new development
projects. The “IBSA Forum” (India, Brazil and South Africa) had approved the
project for the partial reconstruction of the Red Crescent Al-Quds Hospital in
Gaza. Easing the blockade, however, was no substitute for fully lifting it. The
collective suffering imposed on Gaza’s entire population, apart from being
unacceptable, played a questionable role as part of an effective security
strategy. Brazil insisted that freedom of movement for people and goods
should be ensured while taking into account Israel’s legitimate security
concerns. Also unacceptable was the launching of rockets and mortars from
Gaza into southern Israel.
Turning to Lebanon, she said the international community must come
together in support of dialogue and foster the spirit of reconciliation and
justice. She urged all political groups in Lebanon to refrain from provocations
and violence and to abide by the relevant Council resolutions.
JOSÉ FILIPE MORAES CABRAL (Portugal) said strong political motivation
from all sides, as well as the strong involvement of the international
community, would ensure the conditions and support for political solutions
that would bring peace, stability, security and economic and social progress
to the Middle East. Portugal supported United States efforts to relaunch a
credible peace process. Nonetheless, developments on the ground continued
to seriously undermine confidence in the process, thwart attempts to
advance negotiations and erode the prerequisites for the two-State solution.
Portugal deeply regretted Israel’s decision not to extend the settlement
moratorium, as well as the resumption of settlement activity as soon as the
moratorium ended. It called upon the Government of Israel to reconsider its
decision and to abide by its international obligations and its commitments
under the Road Map, including dismantling all outposts erected since March
2001. In that vein, he recalled that the Fourth Geneva Convention applied to
the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem.
He said his country condemned all actions that undermined trust and
opposed all unilateral actions that prejudged the outcome of negotiations on
permanent-status issues, including Jerusalem. It also unequivocally
condemned the indiscriminate firing of mortars and rockets by extremist
groups in Gaza against civilian populations in Israel, and called for their
immediate halt. His delegation was deeply concerned with the escalation of
those terrorist attacks during the last month. Taking note of some progress
in the situation in Gaza, Portugal nevertheless called upon Israel to allow the
immediate and sustained opening of the crossings for the flow of
humanitarian aid, commercial goods and persons to and from Gaza, in
accordance with Security Council resolution 1860 (2009). Prime Minister
Fayyad and his Government were progressing steadily in preparing
Palestinian institutions for statehood, and he called upon Palestinian and
Israeli leaders to respond positively to efforts to relaunch meaningful
negotiations on all core issues.
Regarding Lebanon, the Secretary-General had rightly emphasized the
importance of maintaining calm, he said as he called on all Lebanese political
forces to refrain from actions that might escalate tensions, and to seek a
negotiated political solution to the current situation. Portugal reiterated its
full support for the work of the Special Tribunal and that of UNIFIL — in which
it participated — and its commitment to Lebanon’s sovereignty and
independence.
HARDEEP SINGH PURI (India) described as discouraging the stalled
talks, the resumption of settlement activity and the human suffering in Gaza
over the last few months, noting, however, that despite the Strip’s difficult
situation, its economy had grown by 8 per cent in 2010. The World Bank had
reported that if the Palestinian Authority maintained its current performance
in institution-building and public services it would be well positioned to
establish an independent State. There had also been less violent incidents in
2010 than in previous years, he said, warning, however, that the current
impasse could fuel the already combustible situation in the region.
 He recalled that during the International Day of Solidarity with the
Palestinian People, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had reiterated his
unwavering support for the Palestinian struggle for a sovereign, independent,
viable and united State. India had long contributed to the building of
Palestinian capacity and institutions through material and technical aid
programmes, he said. Resources from the IBSA Fund were being used to
partially reconstruct the Al-Quds Hospital in Gaza and to build an indoor
multipurpose sports complex in Ramallah. Genuine peace in the region
required the resolution of other issues, including the restoration of other Arab
lands under Israeli occupation, he said.
Council President IVAN BARBALIĆ (Bosnia and Herzegovina), speaking
in his national capacity, said his country did not recognize the annexation of
East Jerusalem, adding that the Holy City of the three great monotheistic
religions — Christianity, Judaism and Islam — should be the symbol of peace,
freedom of religious expressions and human rights. Underlining the illegality
of all settlement on occupied land, as well as their contravention of Israel’s
obligations under the Road Map, he condemned the destruction of the
Shepherd Hotel and the planned construction of a new illegal settlement in its
place.
On Gaza, he took note of the increased flow of food and consumer
goods into the enclave, but called for the immediate, sustained and
unconditional opening of crossings to humanitarian aid, commercial goods
and people moving to and from Gaza, in accordance with resolution 1860
(2009). Israel’s security concerns, including a complete stop to all violence
and arms smuggling, must also be addressed, he stressed, reiterating his call
for an immediate end to all violence and urging all parties to observe
restraint and avoid further escalation.
Turning to Lebanon, he said a functioning Government of National
Unity was the best guarantee to preserve stability and promote dialogue in
the country. It was therefore essential that Lebanese leaders did their
utmost to prevent a political crisis and find a negotiated solution to the
current situation, he emphasized. Expressing full support for the work and
independence of international criminal courts and tribunals, he called upon all
parties to refrain from interfering in the work of the Special Tribunal for
Lebanon and from prejudging its outcome.
MAGED ABDELAZIZ (Egypt), speaking on behalf of the Non-Aligned
Movement, said the international community must work collectively and
speedily to establish an independent and viable Palestinian State by
addressing all six core final-status issues. Unfortunately, all efforts to ensure
the continuity of direct talks had failed owing to Israel’s illegal settlement
activities. The Non-Aligned Movement therefore called on the Council to be
resolute in demanding that Israel abide by its obligations under international
law and previous agreements. Strongly condemning the imprisonment of
nearly 10,000 Palestinians, he called for their immediate release and for
proper international inspection of their current condition. He went on to
reiterate that the illegal blockade of Gaza must end, re-emphasizing the
urgent need for reconstruction.
Turning to Lebanon, he condemned Israeli violations of that country’s
sovereignty, calling on all concerned parties to implement fully Council
resolution 1701 (2006). He reasserted that all Israeli actions to alter the
occupied Syrian Golan were null and void, and had no legal effect, demanding
that Israel withdraw. Finally, he welcomed the international solidarity in
condemning acts of terrorism that had occurred in his country, but totally
rejected their characterization as attacks against minorities.
ZEID RA’AD ZEID AL-HUSSEIN (Jordan), citing the advisory opinion of
the International Court of Justice, said the demolition of the Shepherd Hotel
last week could neither change the legal status of East Jerusalem as occupied
territory nor turn it into Israeli territory. Israel was virtually alone in
recognizing the legality of such actions, he said, pointing out that it was not
Israeli law that applied in Occupied Palestinian Territory, but international
humanitarian law, as the International Court of Justice had affirmed.
For Israel to offer to hold talks while allowing the continuing usurpation
of Palestinian lands was contemptible, he said, noting that there were now
fears that no comprehensive peace agreement could reverse the
entrenchment of settlers in East Jerusalem, making a durable peace
impossible. Settlement activity must therefore be stopped and a Palestinian
State brought into being, he said. Jordan’s condemnation of settlement
building was not founded on enmity towards the Jewish people, he stressed,
but on a three-decade-long violation of international humanitarian law, as
confirmed by the International Court of Justice.
JORGE VALERO BRICEÑO (Venezuela) said Israeli settlement building
and home demolitions continued without effective United Nations measures
to prevent such abuses. All Israeli settlement activity in the Occupied
Palestinian Territory was illegal and a major obstacle to regional peace. The
international community must demand an immediate end to it, he stressed,
adding that his delegation was one of the co-sponsors of the draft resolution
before the Council. The United Nations should categorically condemn Israel’s
repeated violations of international law and take practical steps to prevent
them, he emphasized, welcoming the growing number of countries,
particularly in Latin America and the Caribbean, to have recognized Palestine
as a free, independent State.
He underlined the importance of next month’s meeting in Cairo of the
International Conference on the Question of Palestine, particularly with
regard to the difficult situation of Palestinian political prisoners in Israeli
prisons and detention centres. That commendable initiative created an
opportunity to address repeated human rights violations, he said, adding that
the daily suffering of Palestinians in Gaza could not be ignored and should
lead to the immediate lifting of Israel’s blockade. He also called on Israel to
respect Lebanon’s sovereignty and avoid conflicts like that of July 2006.
Venezuela encouraged direct negotiations between the parties, as called for
in Council resolution 1701 (2006), he said, urging Member States also to call
on Israel to withdraw from the occupied Syrian Golan.
HASAN KLEIB ( Indonesia) said illegal Israeli settlements undermined
all efforts to restart the peace talks, jeopardized the vision of a two-State
solution and exacerbated regional conflict. The Council must regain its role in
resolving settlement issues, as it had done in 1980 and as mandated by the
United Nations Charter. Indonesia would co-sponsor the draft resolution on
Israel’s illegal settlement activity and hoped it would reverse the Council’s
inactivity over Palestinian suffering, he said, adding that Council must
positively influence the Middle East peace process. He expressed support for
the current surge in diplomacy aimed at relaunching negotiations and
jumpstarting a comprehensive peace process, including the ongoing efforts of
the United States. There must be an alignment between the peace process
and a peace settlement, he said, pointing out that a forced settlement would
be short-lived and hazardous. The need for a peaceful, just, lasting and
comprehensive settlement to the conflict was critical.
OCTAVIO ERRÁZURIZ (Chile), endorsing the statement made on behalf
of the Non-Aligned Movement, recalled that his country had long supported a
two-State solution. Chile lent its resolute support to reinvigorating
negotiations on a comprehensive peace agreement. Calling for the
immediate suspension of Israeli settlement activity, he noted that the Chilean
Government had recognized Palestine as an independent State.
PEDRO NÚÑEZ MOSQUERA (Cuba), supporting the statement made on
behalf of the Non-Aligned Movement, said the international community must
ensure that Israel ended its cruel and illegal blockade of Gaza. He
condemned the settlement activities in the Occupied Palestinian Territory and
demanded that they end immediately, along with the eviction of Palestinian
residents, the construction of the separation wall and the destruction of
Palestinian buildings. The Council’s silence on such matters over the past
two years had allowed Israel to continue its practices, he said.
Direct talks had lasted for less than a month due to the illegal and
destructive practice of settlement construction, he continued. Any measure
or action that Israel took in order to change the democratic and institutional
character of the occupied Syrian Golan were null and void, he said,
demanding Israel’s withdrawal from the area. The Council must shoulder its
responsibility to ensure peace and security in the region, he said, adding that
it was imperative that a peace agreement be reached in 2011, guaranteeing
the Palestinian people’s exercise of self-determination.
PATRICK MUGOYA (Uganda) urged both Israelis and Palestinians to
summon the necessary courage to engage, without delay, in substantive
negotiations on all core issues, including security, borders, settlements,
refugees and Jerusalem. That negotiation process would require courageous
decisions and concessions by both parties. He was deeply concerned about
recent developments that had resulted in stalling the talks. The continued
settlement activity by Israel was a recipe for conflict. The recent demolition
of the Shepherd Hotel and the planned construction of a new settlement were
not conducive to negotiations. He called upon Israel to freeze all settlement
construction, including for natural growth.
He said that under the leadership of President Mahmoud Abbas and
Prime Minister Fayyad, the Palestinian Authority had accomplished significant
progress towards fulfilling its obligations under the Road Map, particularly in
the security sector, institution-building and economic development. Calling
for the complete lifting of the blockade on Gaza, he said that while the easing
of the blockade was welcome, it was evident that humanitarian relief and
reconstruction efforts continued to be hampered. It was essential that both
parties exercise maximum restraint and adhere to the ceasefire in
accordance with resolution 1860 (2009).
KAZUO KODAMA (Japan) said the only way to achieve durable peace
was to achieve the two-State solution through sincere negotiations. As there
was a lack of mutual trust that prevented restarting direct negotiations, he
called on both sides to take steps to create an environment conducive to
direct negotiations. The two parties must abide by their obligations under
previous agreements, most notably, the Road Map. He called on Israel to
freeze its settlement activities in the West Bank, including in East Jerusalem,
and he condemned the demolition of a part of the Shepherd Hotel. Japan did
not recognize any unilateral measures that would prejudge the outcome of
final-status negotiations. He called on the Palestinian Authority to improve
security and fulfil its commitment to cease violence and incitement, and he
strongly condemned the rocket attacks into Israel.
He said that Israeli measures to ease the Gaza blockade was a positive
step, but concerns about the humanitarian situation remained. He stressed
the importance of further easing the blockade while preventing the inflow of
weapons into the Gaza Strip. He welcomed Israel’s easing of restrictions on
movement in the West Bank, which had contributed to the development of
the Palestinian economy, and he sought their further easing.
Concerned about the situation in Lebanon, he expressed his country’s
support for the efforts of President Michel Sleiman towards the early
establishment of a new Government and the maintenance of democratic
institutions. The Special Tribunal was an independent, international and
judicial organization whose work would enhance the rule of law and
contribute to ending impunity. The Tribunal should continue to carry out its
mandate without any interference.
ERTUĞRUL APAKAN (Turkey) said the ongoing state of flux was not at
all conducive to addressing the complex issues involved in the Middle East.
An impasse in which one side undermined the possibility of talks was not
tenable. Israel was imposing its will on the Palestinians through settlements,
evictions, demolitions and similar actions. It was high time for the Council to
make a statement on such unilateral Israeli actions. Meanwhile, the
Palestinians were well positioned to establish their State in the near future
based on 1967 borders.
He said that, despite the diplomacy of the past two years, conditions in
Gaza remained appalling due to the blockade, and Israel had yet to provide a
satisfactory report on the attack on the aid convoy to the area. He pledged
Turkey’s support for all initiatives that could help bring about a fair and
peaceful solution.
MOHAMMED LOULICHKI (Morocco) stressed the importance of
maintaining the momentum that had resulted in the resumption of direct
negotiations in Washington, D.C., where the Palestinian side had expressed
its desire to continue on a path to peace and stability. He welcomed United
States President Barack Obama’s statements on achieving an independent
Palestinian State in a timely manner. The Palestinian side had taken
significant steps to build such a State and to fulfil its obligations. Israel, on
the other hand, had taken unilateral measures to obliterate the Palestinian
presence in the Occupied Territory.
Describing recent Israeli settlement activity, he said his country and its
King, who was the Chair of the Al-Quds Committee of the Organization of the
Islamic Conference, condemned all efforts to change the nature of Jerusalem.
Peace was an urgent requirement in the Middle East, and settlement activity
was impeding it. The two-State solution was the only means to end decades
of conflict. In order to meet that goal, all avenues to restart negotiations
should be pursued, along with efforts to create conducive conditions for their
success, and as a way of averting further violence.
HAMIDON ALI (Malaysia), aligning his delegation with the statements
by Egypt on behalf of the Non-Aligned Movement and Tajikistan on behalf of
the Organization of the Islamic Conference, said that the continued
occupation of Palestinian territory was unacceptable and Israel had time and
again put itself on the wrong side of history, with impunity. He welcomed
international recognition of the illegality of Israeli settlement activity as a
reminder to Palestinians that the world had not forgotten them and that Israel
must fulfil its legal obligations.
On Gaza, he reiterated his call on Israel to lift the blockade and to
expedite the approval of United Nations projects. Provocative actions, such
as the shooting of Palestinian civilians, must stop. Resolving such issues
required the international community to focus all energy on achieving a
comprehensive peace in the region and restoring the inalienable rights of the
Palestinian people, including their right to an independent State. All parties
must act sincerely to achieve those objectives. He urged the Council to act
by bringing into effect its own resolutions on Palestine and the Middle East.
ABDOU SALAM DIALLO (Senegal), Chairperson of the Committee on the
Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People, said continued
Israeli activity in the Occupied Palestinian Territory was the main obstacle to
renewed peace talks. He called on Israel to completely cease all settlement
activity, which ran counter to the goal of achieving success in the final-status
negotiations. Since the expiration in September of Israel’s settlement
moratorium, it had built more than 1,600 units in the Palestinian Occupied
Territory, notably in East Jerusalem. The recent Israeli Government decision
to invest more than $500 million to expand settlements in 2012 showed its
intention to continue illegal settlement activity. It would be useful for the
Council to reaffirm its position on settlements and its intention to have
international law and legitimacy prevail. It behoved the Council to intervene
urgently to prevent the situation from deteriorating.
He expressed hope that the draft resolution on settlement activity
would be unanimously adopted by the Council. The Committee asked the
Israeli Government to extend the settlement moratorium indefinitely, as
doing so would enable the parties to renew serious and direct negotiations.
He urged the Council and the Quartet to reaffirm their principled position on
the settlements, as the future of the peace process was at stake. The Council
must send a message that settlement activities were illegal and incompatible
with peace, and therefore must stop.
SIRODJIDIN ASLOV (Tajikistan), speaking on behalf of the Organization
of the Islamic Conference, said that Israel, the occupying Power, had
methodically intensified its violations in the Occupied Palestinian Territory
through, among other things, confiscating lands, building illegal settlements,
constructing the apartheid wall, erecting checkpoints and imposing the unjust
blockade on Gaza. Al-Quds al-Sharif remained an integral part of the
Palestinian Territory and its illegal annexation by Israel had been rejected by
the international community.
He said that Israel, however, continued to pursue a systematic process
of altering the historical Arab-Islamic identity of the Holy City and changing
its demographic composition. Settlement construction, if allowed to
continue, would make Jerusalem the “capital of hatred, fanaticism and
violence” instead of the “capital of tolerance and coexistence”. Such illegal
Israeli practices would definitely undermine the diplomatic efforts to restart
constructive negotiations. The international community was required to bring
a decisive end to the Israeli settlement policy on Palestinian land, including
East Jerusalem. Israel must comply with the will of the international
community and abide by international law. It must stop building and
expanding illegal settlements.
 The Organization of the Islamic Conference, he said, remained deeply
concerned by Israel’s ongoing air and land violations of Lebanon’s
sovereignty and called on Israel to withdraw fully from the remaining
Lebanese occupied land in the Sheba'a Farms, the Kfar Shouba Hills and the
northern part of al-Ghajar village. The Organization of the Islamic Conference
also reaffirmed that all actions by Israel to alter the legal, physical and
demographic status of the occupied Syrian Golan, as well as the measures to
impose jurisdiction and administration there, were null and void and had no
legal effect. The Organization of the Islamic Conference demanded that
Israel abide fully and immediately with Council resolution 497 (1981) and
withdraw from the occupied Syrian Golan to the lines of 4 June 1967.
PEDRO SERRANO, Acting Head of the Delegation of the European
Union, noted with regret that direct talks between Israelis and Palestinians
had halted since the Council’s last discussion on the Middle East in October
2010. The Union reaffirmed its readiness to contribute to a negotiated
solution on all final-status issues within the 12 months set by the Quartet,
and supported the idea of a Quartet meeting in the coming weeks. The Union
reiterated its call on Israel to end all settlement activities, including in East
Jerusalem. As stated by Union Ministers in December 2010, such settlements
were illegal under international law and were an obstacle to peace. In that
context, the Union strongly condemned the latest developments in East
Jerusalem, most recently the demolition of the Shepherd Hotel on 9 January
and the planned construction of a new illegal settlement.
He noted that the Union’s High Representative, Catherine Ashton, had
visited the region in the first days of 2011, where she had met with
representatives of both parties and discussed with the Palestinian Authority
the implementation of its state-building plan. Political and financial support
from the international community was “essential” in that regard and the
Union urged those who had made financial commitments to deliver on their
promises.
The Union remained extremely concerned, he said, about the
prevailing situation in Gaza and firmly reiterated its calls for the full
implementation of Council resolution 1860 (2009), as well as for the
immediate, sustained and unconditional opening of crossings for the flow of
humanitarian aid, commercial goods and persons to and from Gaza, including
goods and persons from the West Bank. The Union renewed calls on, among
others, those holding the abducted Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit to release him
without delay. The delegation welcomed the announcement by the Israeli
Government concerning new measures to facilitate exports out of Gaza, and
encouraged its swift implementation. It stood ready to work with both parties
towards reaching pre-2007 levels of exports in 2011.
He also reiterated the importance of negotiations on the Israeli-Syrian
and Israeli-Lebanese tracks, as well as the Union’s support for the Lebanese
authorities. In particular, he renewed the delegation’s support for the
Secretary-General’s recent unequivocal statement reaffirming the
independence of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon and his appeal for calm.
The delegation finally underlined the fundamental importance to respect and
ensure promotion and defence of human rights and stressed that human
rights violations must be effectively remedied.
LIBRAN N. CABACTULAN (Philippines) pointed out that, as a major
source of oil and a big market for experts and services, the stability and
progress of the Middle East was essential for world peace. With some
2 million of its citizens living and working in the region, the Philippine
Government attached great importance to the security and safety of every
one of them. He called for the complete and unconditional lifting of Israel’s
blockade of Gaza, saying it was counterproductive and served only the
collective punishment of hapless civilians, particularly women and children.
A nuclear-weapon-free Middle East would be an important building
block for lasting peace and stability in the region, he said, recalling that the
2010 Review Conference of Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of
Nuclear Weapons had considered how to make progress on the 1995 General
Assembly resolution calling for the establishment of such a zone. It had
agreed that the Secretary-General and the resolution’s co-sponsors would
convene a conference in 2012 on the establishment of a nuclear-weapon-free
Middle East. With 2012 “just around the corner”, and in order for the
conference to be successful, all nations in the region must attend and
negotiate in a forthright, give-and-take manner. The conference should not
be turned into a “blaming and naming forum”, he emphasized, noting that it
would present a rare chance to show the seriousness and goodwill of all
stakeholders.
MOHAMMAD KHAZAEE (Iran) said the occupation of Palestine was the
most painful and biggest human tragedy in modern history. More than six
decades of homelessness, massacres, house demolitions and a host of other
crimes were all sufficient for the international community to take decisive
measures to stop the brutalities and bestow upon the people of Palestine
their legitimate rights. It was particularly urgent that the international
community take Israel’s accelerated settlement activity more seriously than
ever, he stressed, welcoming the draft resolution before the Council.
He emphasized that his country’s support of the text was without
prejudice to its non-recognition of the Israeli regime’s legitimacy. Iran called
on all States to support a final solution to the “great historical tragedy”
through a general referendum in which all Palestinians would participate,
regardless of where they lived, in order to determine the kind of system they
desired. As for Lebanon, he said the use of political pressure for the issuance
of a politically motivated verdict by the Special Tribunal would discredit
international justice and negatively impact the region’s stability. Instead,
regional initiatives should be pursued, free from the intervention of big
Powers, he added.
MORTEN WETLAND ( Norway) said 2011 would clearly be a critical
crossroads in the peace process. By August, the Fayyad Administration
would be set to complete its two-year plan for Palestinian state-building and
the agreed time frame of the Palestinian-Israeli negotiations would end. Now
was the time to seize the opportunity as the prospect of a negotiated two-
State solution was at stake. Everyone must stand firm behind the stated goal
of negotiating a framework agreement on permanent-status issues and a
subsequent comprehensive peace treaty, within the agreed timeline. Norway
was greatly encouraged by the World Bank’s assertion in New York last
September that the Palestinian Authority stood ready to create a State in the
near future, he said.
By September, however, there must be a substantial breakthrough on
the political track, he stressed, pointing out that the bottom-up approach to
Palestinian state-building was not sufficient in itself. Questions would arise in
earnest regarding the sustainability of such a State beyond 2011 unless there
was a decisive top-down push. The Palestinian State needed the right
political and economic conditions to break away from its dependence on
donors, he said. Restricted access for Palestinians to resources and markets
in Area C and East Jerusalem as well as foreign markets was a major barrier
to economic growth in the private sector. That potential must be tapped to
fuel the drive to independence. Norway was deeply concerned about the
fragile state of the peace process, he said, calling urgently on the parties to
return to negotiations in good faith.
KHALID ABDALRAZAQ AL-NAFISEE (Saudi Arabia) said the Arab demand
had been and still was the enforcement of international legitimacy, starting
with implementation of Council resolutions 242 (1967) and 338 (1973), and
the principle of “land for just and comprehensive peace”. That required full
withdrawal from occupied Arab territories to the 1967 borders, return of
Palestinian refugees with full recovery of their rights and enabling the
Palestinian people to exercise their right to self-determination and to
establish their independent State with Jerusalem as its capital. It also
required Israel’s withdrawal from the Syrian Golan Heights and the Lebanese
Sheba’a Farms.
He said that in the absence of the international community’s will to
shoulder its responsibilities to establish peace and security, the Israeli
occupation forces applied such policies as building the apartheid wall,
constructing and expanding settlements and financing, protecting and arming
settlers. The indiscriminate demolition of houses — including the demolition
of the historical Shepherd Hotel — would scuttle all peace initiatives, as the
wall and those settlements made it almost impossible to establish a
contiguous, viable Palestinian State. He, therefore, called on the
international community, the United Nations and the Quartet to adopt a
comprehensive strategic approach towards an immediate and complete
cessation of all settlement projects in the occupied territories. Israel should
immediately accept the Arab Peace Initiative, which was the only path to a
lasting and comprehensive peace.
GHAZI JOMAA (Tunisia), speaking on behalf of the Arab Group, said the
international community must make a firm commitment to end Israeli policies
that impeded the peace process in order to avert serious consequences.
Israeli settlement activities were illegal and had derailed the recently
resumed talks, he said, recalling that the international community, including
the Commission of the Arab Peace Initiative, had expended much effort in
trying to restart the talks. It was therefore alarming that Israel persisted in
its illegal practices, including the assassination of Palestinian civilians, the
blockade of Gaza, an increase in expulsions, house demolitions, military
incursions and many others that contravened the Geneva Conventions.
Those practices must all come to an immediate end, he emphasized,
calling on the Council to take up its responsibilities in that regard, and on the
Quartet also to take effective action. The Arab Group called for the lifting of
all impediments to the movement of people and goods into and out of Gaza,
so the inhabitants could enjoy their basic rights. In addition, the Group
opposed any actions aimed at changing the character of Jerusalem, Israeli air
violations in Lebanon as well as Israel’s continuing occupation of the Syrian
Golan and other Arab lands. Any administrative changes made were null and
void, he stressed, adding that there was no alternative to ending occupation.
Firm measures must be taken to deal with the underlying tensions and
ensure civilian rights.
 BASHAR JA’AFARI (Syria), lamenting the Council’s inability to honour its
commitment to protect global peace and security in line with the Charter,
said the situation in the Middle East showed there was a methodical attempt
to violate rights in the region, contrary to the basic tenets of international
humanitarian law. Israel’s aggressive behaviour and unbridled settlement
campaigns in occupied Arab territories had been condemned by the
international community as violations of international law, he said, pointing to
Israel’s eviction of Arabs from their own lands, the creation of foreign
settlements, the construction of a separation wall, the judaization of
Jerusalem and racist practices, all of which were carried out amid a deafening
international silence, connoting complicity.
He said the perpetrators of crimes in Gaza remained unpunished,
adding that such impunity only encouraged Israel to continue its inhumane
blockade. Its response to international appeals for justice had been to attack
the “Freedom Flotilla” in 2010, he said. Israel persisted in its refusal to return
the occupied Syrian Golan and refused to implement Council resolutions that
considered its annexation of the region null and void. The Israeli Knesset had
authorized a law calling for the holding of a referendum before it could
withdraw from the occupied Syrian Golan and East Jerusalem, he said,
describing that action as a clear rejection of international law and the
Council. The Syrian Golan could not be subjected to negotiations, he
emphasized, reiterating his country’s demand for peace and the return of its
usurped land. Until when would Israel remain above the law? he asked.
Would the Council fail to force it to comply with its obligations under
international law?
MOURAD BENMEHIDI (Algeria) said Israel’s recent allocation of
resources to expand settlements through 2012 demonstrated that it was
clearly not on the path to peace, but was intent on undermining any future
prospects for a peace settlement. It was equally clear that such measures
were intended to remove all traces of Palestinian heritage and fortify the
Israeli presence in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. In Gaza, the situation
remained disturbing in terms of human rights and international law, he said,
reiterating Algeria’s demand for the immediate lifting of the illegal blockade.
He also expressed serious concern over the imprisonment of
10,000 Palestinians in Israeli jails, where they were subjected to torture, the
focus of a recent international seminar held in Algiers. He stressed the
responsibility of the Security Council to halt the brutal practices of the Israeli
Government by ensuring compliance with international law.
ABDULLAH HUSSAIN HAROON (Pakistan), endorsing the statement
made on behalf of the Non-Aligned Movement, said he shared the
assessment that the impasse in the peace process was due to an
expansionist Israeli policy which manifested itself in the form of ongoing
settlement activities, a clear violation of international law and a major
provocation. Israel must stop building new settlements and using settlement
activity as a political tool, he stressed. Meanwhile, the Palestinian people had
taken important strides towards building State institutions in two years,
establishing a solid edifice for statehood and removing the pretexts for the
occupation. The goal of a Palestine State by August 2011 was well within
grasp, he said, adding that letting it fall by the wayside would have the same
serious consequences of other missed deadlines. The Security Council should
therefore fulfil its Charter responsibility to ensure that the opportunity was
not lost by calling upon Israel unconditionally to cease all settlement activity
and resume direct negotiations with the Palestinian Authority on all
outstanding issues.
GARY QUINLAN (Australia) said all Member States should welcome the
prospect of an Israeli and a Palestinian State being represented at the sixty-
sixth session of the General Assembly later this year. Israeli and Palestinian
leaders needed to return to direct talks as a matter of urgency, he said,
adding that both sides must refrain from actions that undermined confidence,
including the construction of settlements. Australia unambiguously opposed
new Israeli settlements, he said, describing them as illegal. They actually
undermined the prospects for peace, he added, noting that the now-expired
moratorium on settlements had had a positive impact.
Turning to Gaza, he said the situation in the enclave remained
extremely serious. While welcoming the relaxation of some Israeli
restrictions on access and recognizing its legitimate security concerns,
Australia urged Israel to implement immediately the announced relaxation of
restrictions and to ease them further. As for the situation in Lebanon, he said
all parties must play a constructive role and refrain from any actions that
might create instability. He called on all parties to cooperate with the Special
Tribunal for Lebanon and to allow it to complete its important work.
DAFFA-ALLA ELHAG ALI OSMAN (Sudan) said the United Nations had
adopted many resolutions calling on Israel to end its illegal practices, and the
international community had almost universally agreed that Israeli settlement
activity must end, as it was a serious obstacle to the attainment of a lasting
peace. Settlement activity was currently hampering prospects for
resumption of direct talks. The Security Council should shoulder its
responsibilities by getting Israel to end its settlement activities in order to
pave the way for negotiations leading to the establishment of a viable and
independent Palestinian State. All those who desired such an outcome
should vote for the resolution under discussion.
NOJIBUR RAHMAN (Bangladesh) lamented that the Palestinian people
continued to be denied their fundamental right to self-determination and to
live freely on their own land. That appeared to be a collective failure on the
part of the international community, and more so, on Israel. To achieve a
lasting solution in the Middle East, it was very important to address the key
issue of Israel’s prolonged and illegal occupation of Arab territories. He was
disheartened to see that although the Israeli Prime Minister and Palestinian
Authority President had pledged in September 2010 to seek a framework
agreement on permanent status within one year, the process had suffered a
serious setback — because Israel had not renewed its 10-month settlement
moratorium that had expired at the end of September and because the
Palestinian President refused to resume peace talks with Israel until it ended
all settlement activity.
He said direct negotiations would only succeed if there was sustained
regional and international support for the talks, the parallel process of
Palestinian state-building and the pursuit of a just, lasting and comprehensive
regional peace, as envisaged in the Fourth Geneva Convention, relevant
Assembly and Council resolutions, the land-for-peace principle and the Madrid
Conference terms of reference, which guaranteed Israel’s withdrawal from all
occupied Arab and Palestinian territories to pre-1967 borders, the Road Map
and the Arab Peace Initiative. He reiterated Bangladesh’s long-held position
that the continued illegal occupation of Palestine was the root cause of
regional violence, unrest and destabilization.
 Back to Top

Americans Support Anti-Settlement UN Resolution

By Mitchell Plitnick, 19 January 2011
Many of my readers are probably aware that the Palestinians have
been working to bring a resolution to the UN Security Council that
would reaffirm the obvious fact that Israeli settlements are illegal
under international law. The Obama Administration is hemming and
hawing about the resolution, obviously uncomfortable with it but
unable to explain why it would consider vetoing a resolution so
obviously consistent with stated US policy on the matter.
It’s more difficult for Obama than for previous presidents because he
has been so vocal about settlements, but has consistently avoided
taking any concrete action about them. Israel knows very well the
boundaries: they will not respond to mere US statements, but if there
is the threat that the US will take action, they will be much more
responsive. That doesn’t happen often.
In Part 2 of this post [see below], you will find a letter from an
impressive array of former leading diplomats and intellectuals on the
Middle East urging Obama to have his ambassador support the anti-
settlement resolution at the UN.
Here, though, look at this exchange between a reporter and the State
Department’s spokesman, PJ Crowley. The double-talk overflows, and
one finally feels a bit sorry for Crowley being in the position of having
to defend the Obama Administrations actions which clearly contradict
US policy.
QUESTION: Let’s see, where to begin? There are so many places. I’ll –
can I start with the Middle East and the Palestinians talking about this
resolution that they want to put into the Security Council this week which
would condemn Israeli settlement activity. At the same time, they’re
continuing their push to get countries to recognize their independence,
even without a negotiated settlement. They raised the flag at their
mission downtown here today, this morning.
MR. CROWLEY: Which, on that particular point, we had agreed months
ago, but it doesn’t change their status in any way.
QUESTION: Well, no, but their status changed in August.
MR. CROWLEY: No, but the granting permission to raise the flag –
QUESTION: Well, that’s actually part of my question.
MR. CROWLEY: — (inaudible) does not change their fundamental status
of their diplomatic mission here in the United States.
QUESTION: No –
QUESTION: But did you approve their – the status of the –
QUESTION: Well, hold on a second. Hold on a second. The flag issue –
MR. CROWLEY: We digress.
QUESTION: – would be a sideshow. I want to know what you’re going to
do about this resolution at the UN and I want to know if you’re going to
continue to oppose or lobby governments not to do what the Palestinians
want, which is to recognize them as independent.
MR. CROWLEY: Well, we continue to be in conversation with a range of
countries on this issue. Our view hasn’t changed. We’ve made that clear
in our discussions with the Palestinians and others. We do not think that
New York or the UN Security Council is the right forum for this issue, and
we’ll continue to make that case.
QUESTION: Can I follow up on that?
QUESTION: Okay. Well, hold on. What does that mean? If you don’t think
that New York or the Security Council is the right venue, that means that
you will veto a resolution if it’s brought to the Council?
MR. CROWLEY: Well, I’m not going to speculate on what happens from
this point forward.
QUESTION: Well, are you trying to keep – prevent them from, or are you
trying to dissuade them from – and their allies from bringing this to the
Council?
MR. CROWLEY: We have made clear that we do not think that this
matter should be brought before the Security Council.
QUESTION: And when you do that, what do you tell them if it – what does
that mean, exactly?
MR. CROWLEY: Well, what that means is that we believe that –
QUESTION: Are you going to veto it if it comes up?
MR. CROWLEY: – these issues should be resolved through the ongoing
process and through direct negotiations. That is our position. We’ve made
that position clear to those who have an interest in this issue. But again,
I’m not going to speculate on what will happen in the coming days.
QUESTION: All right. Well, as I understand it, the resolution merely
restates what has been U.S. policy for some time, that – basically, it
criticizes settlement activity.
MR. CROWLEY: And again –
QUESTION: Why is it not – why are you opposed to the UN adopting a
resolution that isn’t – that supports existing U.S. policy?
MR. CROWLEY: We believe that the best path forward is through the
ongoing effort that gets the parties into direct negotiations, resolves the
issues through a framework agreement, and ends the conflict once and
for all.
QUESTION: So it’s not the contents that you’re opposed to; it’s simply
the idea of a resolution.
MR. CROWLEY: We do not think that the UN Security Council is the best
place to address these issues.
QUESTION: Can I ask why? Because, I mean, the UN is where Israel was
created, basically. Why is the UN not the place to deal with these issues?
MR. CROWLEY: These are complex issues, and we think they’re best
resolved through direct negotiations, not through the unilateral
declarations, even if those unilateral declarations come in the form of a
multilateral setting.
QUESTION: Plus, it undermines your own efforts. I mean, isn’t that the
real reason, that it undermines your own peacemaking efforts?
MR. CROWLEY: Well, we do not believe that this is a – would be a
productive step.
QUESTION: But the peace process is not working, and your efforts didn’t
achieve anything until now.
MR. CROWLEY: Michel, you’re right; as of this moment today, we do not
have a framework agreement. That does not necessarily say that one is –
that is not a – that’s an achievable task, in our view. And that remains
something that we’re actively engaged in.
QUESTION: Are you contemplating any other – do you have any other
levers at your disposal to persuade the Palestinians not to move ahead of
these two tracks that you’re – you’re saying constantly that you don’t
want them to do it, but they’re forging ahead anyway. What can the U.S.
do in this situation?
MR. CROWLEY: Well, we continue to engage the relevant actors. We do
not think this would be a productive step.
QUESTION: Can you say exactly what will you think would be a
productive step?
MR. CROWLEY: We believe the parties ultimately need to – in order to
reach a framework agreement, they need to get back into direct
negotiations, and we’re working to create the conditions that allows that
to happen.
QUESTION: But that’s been going on for the past two years.
MR. CROWLEY: I understand that.
QUESTION: And if you’re talking about productive steps –
MR. CROWLEY: Well, it’s been going on for longer than that if –
(laughter).
QUESTION: Well, this Administration, it’s been going on for the last two
years. And if you’re talking about productive steps, certainly that process
hasn’t produced anything.
QUESTION: Well, but I mean –
QUESTION: Why not –
MR. CROWLEY: I mean, Matt, you’re –
QUESTION: I guess the fundamental question is –
MR. CROWLEY: You’re leading to a kind of a glass half full, glass half
empty kind of discussion.
QUESTION: Well, yeah, except that the glass doesn’t have any water in it
at all. (Laughter.) It’s not half full or half empty. It’s completely empty.
And I don’t really understand why it is that you would be opposed to a
resolution that simply restates what U.S. policy has been for a long time. I
mean –
MR. CROWLEY: Again, I’m not going to speculate. We’ve made our
position clear. We continue to make our position clear. I’m not going to
speculate on what happens going forward.
QUESTION: Well, you’ve stated the policy, but the position’s not clear,
because – do you think that settlements are illegal or not? And if they’re
illegal when you say them from the podium, then why shouldn’t they be
illegal according to UN resolutions, which you’ve acknowledged all along?
Like why can’t you just restate what you’ve been –
MR. CROWLEY: No, no. Our position on settlements is well known.
QUESTION: Is that they’re illegal.
MR. CROWLEY: It hasn’t changed. You’re talking about is this a
prospective step that moves the process forward? In our view, it would not
be.
QUESTION: Well, do you think that the building of settlements is a
productive step that moves the process forward?
MR. CROWLEY: We believe that unilateral actions on all sides are not
productive.
QUESTION: But you seem to think it’s okay – well, I mean, you don’t like
it but there don’t seem to – you don’t – there’s nothing that you prevent –
you don’t do anything to prevent the Israelis from continuing to build
settlements. I mean, they continue to build them.
MR. CROWLEY: Again, I can continue to state our position, but I’m not
going to speculate on what happens in the coming days.
QUESTION: Can I have a –
QUESTION: Follow-up?
QUESTION: No.
In Part I of this post, we saw the difficulty the State Department
spokesman is having explaining how the Obama Administration can
even consider vetoing a UN resolution that is so obviously in line with
US policy. The letter below was signed by a very impressive list of DC
veterans, including former ambassadors to Israel and other places,
high-ranking former US officials, and leading voices in the world of
Middle East advocacy and education.
The letter argues not only that settlements are illegal, but that the US
has repeatedly emphasized its opposition to Israeli settlements. As
such, a veto of the proposed UN Security Council resolution is
inconsistent with US policy and interests and also in opposition to
international law.
Please spread this letter around and, if you can, please also send it to
your members of Congress. They need to know their constituents
agree with the sentiments here.
Letter to the President of the United States
Washington, DC — 18 January 2011
Dear Mr. President,
In light of the impasse reached in efforts to revive Israeli-Palestinian
negotiations, and as the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) moves
to consider a resolution condemning Israeli settlements in the
Occupied Territory, we are writing to urge you to instruct our
Ambassador to the United Nations to vote yes on this initiative.
The time has come for a clear signal from the United States to the
parties and to the broader international community that the United
States can and will approach the conflict with the objectivity,
consistency and respect for international law required if it is to play a
constructive role in the conflict’s resolution.
While a UNSC resolution will not resolve the issue of settlements or
prevent further Israeli construction activity in the Occupied Territory, it
is an appropriate venue for addressing these issues and for putting all
sides on notice that the continued flouting of international legality will
not be treated with impunity. Nor would such a resolution be
incompatible with or challenge the need for future negotiations to
resolve all outstanding issues, and it would in no way deviate from our
strong commitment to Israel’s security.
If the proposed resolution is consistent with existing and established
US policies, then deploying a veto would severely undermine US
credibility and interests, placing us firmly outside of the international
consensus, and further diminishing our ability to mediate this conflict.
If the U.S. believes that the text of the resolution is imperfect, there is
always the opportunity to set forth additional U.S. views on settlements
and related issues in an accompanying statement. The alternative to a
Resolution – a consensus statement by the President of the UNSC –
would have no stature under international law, hence this option
should be avoided.
As you made clear, Mr. President, in your landmark Cairo speech of
June 2009, “The United States does not accept the legitimacy of
continued Israeli settlements. This construction violates previous
agreements and undermines efforts to achieve peace. It is time for
these settlements to stop.”
There are today over half a million Israelis living beyond the 1967 line –
greatly complicating the realization of a two-state solution. That
number has grown dramatically in the years since the peace process
was launched: in 1993 there were 111,000 settlers in the West Bank
alone; in 2010 that number surpassed 300,000.
The settlements are clearly illegal according to article 49 of the Fourth
Geneva convention – a status recognized in an opinion issued by the
State Department’s legal advisor on April 28, 1978, a position which
has never since been revised.
That official US legal opinion describes the settlements as being
“inconsistent with international law”. US policy across nine
administrations has been to oppose the settlements, with the focus for
the last two decades being on the incompatibility of settlement
construction with efforts to advance peace. The Quartet Roadmap, for
instance, issued during the Bush presidency in 2003, called on Israel to
“freeze all settlement activity, including natural growth.”
Indeed, the US has upheld these principles, including their application
to East Jerusalem, by allowing the passage of previous relevant UNSC
resolutions, including: UNSCRs 446 and 465, determining that the
settlements have “no legal validity”; UNSCRs 465 and 476, affirming
the applicability of the Fourth Geneva convention to the Occupied
Territory; UNSCRs 1397 and1850 stressing the urgency of achieving a
comprehensive peace and calling for a two state solution; and UNSCR
1515, endorsing the Quartet Roadmap.
At this critical juncture, how the US chooses to cast its vote on a
settlements resolution will have a defining effect on our standing as a
broker in Middle East peace. But the impact of this vote will be felt well
beyond the arena of Israeli-Palestinian deal-making – our seriousness
as a guarantor of international law and international legitimacy is at
stake.
America’s credibility in a crucial region of the world is on the line – a
region in which hundreds of thousands of our troops are deployed and
where we face the greatest threats and challenges to our security. This
vote is an American national security interest vote par excellence. We
urge you to do the right thing.
Respectfully yours,
Amjad Atallah, Co-Director, Middle East Task Force, New America Foundation
Bruce Ackerman, Sterling Professor of Law and Political Science, Yale University
Rabbi Leonard I. Beerman, Leo Baeck Temple, Los Angeles
Peter Beinart, Associate Professor of Journalism and Political Science, the City
University of New York; Schwartz Senior Fellow, New America Foundation
Landrum Bolling, Senior Advisor, Mercy Corps
Hon. Everett Ellis Briggs, former US Ambassador, Portugal, Honduras,
Panama; former special advisor to President George H.W. Bush, National Security
Council; former President, Americas Society and Council of the Americas
Hon. Frank Carlucci, former US Secretary of Defense
Hon. Wendy Chamberlin, President, Middle East Institute; former US
Ambassador, Pakistan
Steven Clemons, Founder and Senior Fellow, American Strategy Program, New
America Foundation; publisher, The Washington Note
Hon. Walter L. Cutler, former US Ambassador, Saudi Arabia
Hon. John Gunther Dean, former US Ambassador, Cambodia, Lebanon,
Thailand, India
Michael C. Desch, Professor of Political Science, University of Notre Dame;
Contributing Editor, The American Conservative
Hon. James Dobbins, former Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs
Hon. Joseph Duffey, former Director, US Information Agency
Hon. Wes Egan, former US Ambassador, Jordan
Hon. Nancy H. Ely-Raphel, former US Ambassador, Slovenia; former Counselor
on International Law, Department of State
Dr. John L. Esposito, Professor of International Affairs and Islamic Studies,
School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University
Rabbi Tirzah Firestone, Board of Directors, Rabbis for Human Rights – North
America
Hon. Chas W. Freeman, Jr, former US Ambassador, Saudi Arabia; former
President, Middle East Policy Council
Hon. Edward W. Gnehm, Jr., Professor of Gulf and Arabian Peninsula Affairs,
George Washington University; former US Ambassador, Jordan, Kuwait
Hon. William C. Harrop, former US Ambassador, Israel, Guinea, Kenya,
Seychelles, Zaire
Hon. Carla Hills, former Secretary of Housing and Urban Development and
former US Trade Representative
Hon. Roderick M. Hills, former Chairman, U.S. Securities and Exchange
Commission
Hon. H. Allen Holmes, former Assistant Secretary of State, European Affairs;
former Assistant Secretary, Political-Military Affairs; former US Ambassador,
Portugal
Hon. Arthur Hughes, former Deputy Chief of Mission, Israel; former Deputy
Assistant Secretary, Department of Defense; former Deputy Assistant Secretary
of State, Near Eastern Affairs
Robert Jervis, Professor of International Affairs, Columbia University; former
President, American Political Science Association
Christian A. Johnson, Professor, Hamilton College
Michael Kahn, Professor Emeritus of Psychology, University of California, Santa
Cruz
Hani Masri, Publisher, The Palestine Note
Hon. David Mack, Vice President, Middle East Institute; former US Ambassador,
UAE; former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State, Near Eastern Affairs
Hon. Richard Murphy, former Assistant Secretary of State, Near Eastern and
South Asian Affairs; former US Ambassador, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Mauritania
William Nitze, former Assistant Administrator for International Activities,
Environmental Protection Agency; Trustee, the Aspen Institute
Hon. Robert Pastor, former Senior Director, National Security Council;
Professor of International Relations, American University
Hon. Thomas Pickering, former Undersecretary of State, Political Affairs;
former US Ambassador, Russia, India, Israel, El Salvador, Nigeria, Jordan, United
Nations
Paul Pillar, former National Intelligence Officer, Near Eastern Affairs; Director of
Graduate Studies, Security Studies program, Georgetown University
Hon. Anthony Quainton, former US Ambassador to Kuwait and Peru; former
Assistant Secretary for Diplomatic Security; former Ambassador-at-Large and
Coordinator for Counter Terrorism, State Department
William B. Quandt, Professor, Middle East history, University of Virginia; former
National Security Council Middle East Assistant, President Carter
George Salem, former Solicitor of Labor and Chairman, Arab American Institute
Hon. Roscoe Suddarth, former US Ambassador, Jordan; former Deputy
Assistant Secretary of State, Near Eastern and South Asian Affairs
Andrew Sullivan, Senior Editor, The Atlantic; Editor and Publisher, The Daily
Dish
Hon. Nicholas Veliotes, former Assistant Secretary of State, Near East and South
Asian affairs; former U.S. Ambassador to Egypt and Jordan; former Deputy Chief of
Mission to Israel
Hon. Edward S. Walker, Jr., former US Ambassador, Israel, Egypt, UAE; former
Assistant Secretary of State, Near Eastern Affairs
Hon. Allen Wendt, former US Ambassador, Slovenia; former Deputy Assistant
Secretary of State, International Energy and Resources Policy
Hon. Philip Wilcox, President, Foundation for Middle East Peace; former Deputy
Assistant Secretary of State, Middle Eastern Affairs; former Ambassador-at-Large
and Coordinator for Counter Terrorism, State Department
Col. Lawrence Wilkerson (USA, ret), former Chief of Staff, Department of
State; Visiting Professor, College of William & Mary
James Zogby, President, Arab American Institute

Back to Top

The Death of the Israeli Left

The Final Nail in the Coffin
By JONATHAN COOK, Counterpunch, January 18, 2011
Ehud Barak, Israel's defence minister, appears to have driven the final
nail in the coffin of the Zionist left with his decision to split from the
Labor party and create a new "centrist, Zionist" faction in the Israeli
parliament. So far four MPs, out of a total of 12, have announced they
are following him.
Moments after Barak's press conference on Monday, the Israeli media
suggested that the true architect of the Labor party's split was the
prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, who, according to one of his
aides, had planned it like "an elite general staff [military] operation".
Netanyahu has pressing reasons for wanting Barak to stay in the most
rightwing government in Israel's history. He has provided useful
diplomatic cover as Netanyahu has stymied progress in a US-
sponsored peace process.
Barak had been happy to oblige as the government's fig-leaf, so long
as he was allowed to hold on to his post overseeing the occupation of
the Palestinians. But as Labor became little more than a one-man
show, it was racked with revolts, its MPs and handful of cabinet
ministers regularly threatening to pull out of the coalition.
Netanyahu, however, has a larger purpose in seeking to draft the Labor
party's obituary -- one related to the cementing of a domestic
consensus behind the right's vision of a Greater Israel. The prime
minister is hoping to unpick the last strands of the Israel created by the
founders of Labor Zionism.
Labor's impact on Zionism was truly formative. During the 1948 war,
the party's leaders established Israel as a socialist state -- even if it
was of a strange variety that worried almost exclusively about the
welfare of its Jewish majority and carefully engineered systematic
discrimination against the fifth of the citizenry who were Palestinian.
For the next three decades Labor ran Israel virtually as a one-party
state, centrally directing the economy and its major industries through
the party's affiliated trade union federation known as the Histadrut.
Labor's political power rested on its economic power. Most of Israel's
middle and working classes relied for their employment on state
corporations, the security industries, the civil service and government
firms -- and that ensured votes for Labor.
But as Israel's economy began to wane, so did Labor's electoral
fortunes. The rightwing Likud party -- home to Netanyahu -- won power
for the first time in 1977, championing both the settlements and
economic privatisation. These moves further weakened Labor.
The party recovered only in the early 1990s, under former general
Yitzhak Rabin, who reinvented it as a "peace party". Rabin adopted the
Oslo accords that, it was widely assumed, would eventually lead to
Palestinian statehood.
The Oslo process had its own economic, as well as political, logic. The
Labor party, which had lost its chief rationale following economic
privatisation, now promised that regional peace would open up
lucrative new global markets, especially in China and India. The ultra-
nationalism of Likud was presented as a barrier to trade and growth.
But peace failed to materialise, and the settlements' continuing
expansion steadily eroded the Palestinians' belief in Israel's good faith.
Labor's last shot at peace-making was the Camp David summit of
2000. When Barak, as prime minister, failed to reach a final-status
agreement with the Palestinians, claiming there was "no partner", he
killed off Israel's fickle peace camp and made his party politically
irrelevant again.
In the following years, Barak continued to undermine Labor. In joining
Netanyahu's government, he visibly abandoned Labor's two official
missions: to protect the poor and defend the peace process.
With Netanyahu's help, he now appears to have finished off Labor for
good. His centrist party known as Atzmaut or Independence -- working
inside the government -- will replicate the platform of Israel's large
opposition party, Kadima.
Atzmaut's ideology, Barak has already made clear, will depart from
Labor's. At his press conference he denounced his former colleagues
as representing "the left and post-Zionism".
Avishai Braverman, a dovish and disgruntled Labor minister until
Barak's split, responded bitterly that the new party would be "Likud A
at best and Lieberman B at worst" -- a reference to Avigdor Lieberman,
the ultra-nationalist foreign minister.
Labor's breakup highlights both the continuing shift rightwards in Israel
and Barak's obssessive placing of his personal ambitions above all
else. The defence ministry has become his personal fiefdom.
What will now become of the Zionist left in Israel? The few remaining
Labor MPs will probably either knock on Kadima's door, a natural home
for a growing number of them, or unite with the tiny other left party,
Meretz. Together, the surviving left will struggle to match the paltry
number of Arab MPs. At the next election, the Zionist left may all but
disappear from the parliamentary stage.
Its demise, however, should not be lamented. It has been in terminal
decline for decades.
What its disappearance may do is free up the political landscape for a
real left to emerge in Israel, one less tied to the onerous legacy of
Labor Zionism and prepared to collaborate creatively with the
Palestinian national movements. That is an outcome not considered in
Netanyahu's scheming.
Labor's failure offers a potent lesson for this new left. The old party's
success was dependent on offering the Israeli public not just a political
vision but an economic one too. Israelis will not welcome the
compromises needed for peace unless they believe there are material
incentives to make such sacrifices worthwhile.
The new left already understands the power of the stick of
international sanctions looming over Israel. But it must also offer a
carrot to the Israeli public: a vision in which an Israel at peace with its
neighbours will bring about a better quality of life.
That will be the first, formidable task facing the post-Barak left.

Back to Top

Why the U.S. will not ‘do something’ about Palestine

By Virginia Tilley, February 20, 2011
People are always getting US foreign policy wrong. For over two
decades, people anxious about human rights violations in the Middle
East, especially Israeli occupation, have regularly asked me, “When is
the US going to do X, Y or Z?” When is the US going to put real
pressure on Israel? When is the US going to live up to its rhetoric about
democracy? When is the US going to stop supporting Arab dictators?
The answer was always “never” but the question kept coming.
Especially among the Palestinian movement, the illusion was that, if
the US really knew what was going on, it would “do something”. Vast
amounts of activist work went into publicizing atrocities and trying to
get the US foreign policy establishment to notice so it would “do
something”. Of course, US analysts already knew what was going on
and the US was not going to “do something”—for one simple reason: it
was getting what it wanted from the situation—Israeli cooperation as a
regional power and Palestinian political passivity. Yet the naiveté about
US leverage and motivations persisted and political paralysis was the
result.
Now that the people of the Middle East have had enough and taken
power into their own hands, they are still getting US policy wrong. They
are outraged that the US position has seemed wobbly, uncertain,
vague or vapid and they are especially angry with President Obama.
The US veto of the UN Security Council resolution on Israeli settlements
(the last nail in the coffin for the “do something” crowd, hopefully) was
greeted with scandalized denunciations, although it was always
predictable. Even perceptions that US regional standing is withering,
which it certainly is, have led people to get the US wrong. The
Palestinian Authority under Mahmoud Abbas believes that diminished
US regional power will prevent it from vetoing a UNSC resolution
recognizing the Palestinian state within the 1967 borders. This is
entirely wrong.
There are three fundamental truths about US foreign policy that it is
high time people in the Middle East grasp more fully.
First, the US is a world hegemon. Even with its credibility sinking and
other powers rising, like China, the US comprises about one-fourth of
the entire world’s economy by itself, controls most of the UN as well as
the IMF and World Bank, and has vast influence over states
everywhere. This factor has two effects that matter here. One is that
US will not stop acting like a hegemon until it isn’t one anymore, which
is still a long way off, and no political hegemon in history has ever
acted altruistically. Especially, no hegemon has ever simply backed out
of the affairs of a long-standing client and tossed its own hard interests
to the wind in the name of human freedom. Human rights and
democracy are optional to hegemons: they matter only where they
impact the hegemon’s realist interests. And the driving interests of any
hegemon are wealth and security: to abuse the phrasing of a famous
Jewish philosopher, “the rest is commentary”. To expect a hegemon to
behave any other way is futile fantasy.
The other inescapable effect of US global hegemony is global
dependency on the US. It’s not just that no country in the world is
immune from US economic clout, including both trade and technology
(such as licenses for essential telecommunications and the like). More
directly pertinent to Middle East events is that militaries the world over
(with very few exceptions) are dependent on US spare parts to keep
themselves running. The US need only cut off the spare-part spigot and
the military forces of states around the globe will find their planes,
ships and tanks dead in the water. Asking any state’s military to
paralyze itself this way is futile. This dependency on US prerogatives is
recognized by many today and indeed cited as the evil foundation of
US global influence in propping up dictators. But it also means that the
US has back-channel contacts around the world that are not part of the
public rhetoric, and this is being overlooked. Second, the US is a
democracy. Be warned, all ye lands: democracy is a necessary but not
sufficient condition for good governance. It too can be hijacked by
unprincipled populists to serve graft, inefficiency, corruption and
greed, and this is what has happened in the US. For decades, the
Christian right wing has infiltrated the US school system through its
effective veto over school textbooks. Among other debilitating effects,
this suffocating influence by religious bigots has furthered rampant
popular ignorance both about domestic affairs and the rest of the
world. Ignorance has made a large minority of the voting public
bizarrely gullible to Republicans lies, nativist xenophobia and wild
distractions—such as hysterical accusations that universal health care
would result in “death panels” or that Islamic radicals are about to take
over the Arizona legislature. Washington politics today reflects the
terrible clout of this pro-rich sabotage of public debate. Real debate on
urgent public issues is mostly impossible because it is derailed by fear-
mongering about bogus threats. The old compromise climate in
Washington and Congressional inter-party deal-making—the very heart
of politics, “the art of the possible”—is infamously crippled. This
dysfunctionality in Congress impacts both domestic and foreign policy
because the US constitution places severe limits on presidential power:
no president can govern without the will of the Congress. Today, with
the right wing clamping down, latitude for policymaking by a liberal
president is especially confined.
Previously, US presidents had relative freedom of action regarding
foreign policy, which the US Constitution grants to the Executive
branch. But here we face the third fundamental truth: the Zionist
movement has sunk its bloody talons into US politics (and European
politics) to a degree unprecedented for a hegemon in the modern
world. As US professors Mearsheimer and Walt have famously warned
(along with many others), Zionist lobbyists effectively control the
Congress today on anything regarding Israel: partly through hard
money and the real or imagined leverage to remove representatives
from office, and partly by playing on the severe ignorance of
Representatives and Senators about the way the world really works
(fostered by the crappy school system). For some ninety percent of
Congresspeople, the only country they have visited outside the US is
Israel, on Israeli-government-sponsored propaganda tours. They are,
as a consequence, dupes as well as tools of pro-Israel forces. As the
president cannot pursue foreign policy without at least Congressional
acquiescence, regarding the budget, this influence hamstrings any
president regarding Middle East policy. The Zionist lobby has done the
same in most of the fifty American states, so political influence outside
of Washington cannot be brought to bear on Congress to correct the
situation. Israeli intelligence, which is brilliant, has also persuaded the
US security establishment of its indispensability to the point that US
intelligence is regularly hijacked by Israeli lies (as the shameful
nonsense about “Curveball” freshly highlights).
Worse, bullying and screaming by pro-Israel fanatics in the US media
has converted all attempts at sensible debate about Israel-Palestine to
circular arguments over distracting myths, which about twenty percent
of the US electorate, wallowing in ignorance about the world, can’t
follow. Hence a hefty proportion of the electorate remains saturated
with endemic Israeli-Zionist and Christian-Zionist propaganda about
sweet vulnerable Israel nobly defending the only democracy in the
Middle East against backward anti-Jewish Arab hordes. Thanks to the
blood, sweat and tears of the Arab peoples in the streets over recent
weeks, this clamp on the American imagination about Arabs has been
severely jolted. Let us hope it is fatally damaged. But popular US
Zionism remains a problem that filters up to the White House through
many channels, further steering policy on the Middle East. As a
consequence of these three factors—hegemony, democracy, and
Zionist-lobby subversion—Obama is circumvented in all options by the
Democratic Party that he nominally (temporarily) leads. That party is
dominated in Washington by a hard-core foreign policy party
establishment that is (a) always compromised on foreign policy by
lobbying by the military-industrial complex (and its individual
members’ own personal financial investments in the security industry);
(b) constrained by the Zionist lobby from taking any position
objectionable to Israel; and (c) blind to its effective betrayal of true US
national interests, due both to its venality and its members’ actual
ignorance about the world. The Republic elite establishment is, of
course, still poisoned by neoconservative lies that were disseminated
during the nightmare era of Bush the Younger. But the Democratic
establishment, reshaped by the Bill Clinton era, is also saturated with
overt Zionists, pro-Israel propaganda and overt political dependency on
the Zionist lobby. This bloc is emblemized by the gullibility of Secretary
of State Hillary Clinton, who has appalled people otherwise prone to
support her since her earliest years as an independent politician, when
she so shamelessly sucked up to Jewish-Zionist votes while
campaigning for the Senate in New York State that she was lampooned
by embarrassed Jewish late-night television comedians. Obama is
surrounded by these people and their networks: just getting objective
information is very difficult—although now, thankfully, a little easier
because of the mass Arab uprisings and scandalised commentary now
splashed across the world’s mainstream media. (See an interesting
piece in the New York Times about the White House’s “Nerd
Directorate”.)
On top of this, outsiders may not fully appreciate the special
vulnerability that Obama faces as the country’s first black president. Of
course, this factor is widely known but its depth is often not grasped.
Here those disgusted with him might usefully pause from fascinated
focus on Middle East uprisings to take a closer look at Washington
politics—e.g., cruise the “Politics” section of the Washington Post over
two or three days—to get a handle on it. His skin color alone sends
about 20 percent of the electorate into racist heebie-jeebies. While the
world sits glued to visions of Middle East democracy struggles, a
horrifyingly large portion of US voters is still fastened like mad-eyed
ferrets on Fox News debates about whether Obama was really born in
the US and whether he is in fact a Muslim. The debasement of US
politics is signalled by the horrible fact that idiotic Sarah Palin—a
cartoon of a politician—is actually a serious force in US politics.
The result? President Obama is one of the most politically besieged
presidents in modern times. The US economy is in emergency straits:
he is battling to preserve even truncated health care reforms and
faltering worker’s rights to decent wages against a torrent of
unprincipled Republican lies and manipulation. He will lose all those
battles if the Zionist lobby undertakes to undermine him. In any case, a
US president is not as powerful as people think. The seeming latitude
of Bush the Younger to radically alter US foreign policy—the
neoconservative hijacking of US foreign policy to attack Iraq—was born
along by the pro-Zionist tide created by the three factors above. Any
effort by Obama to swim the other way runs smack against that tide.
And all presidents must have their party establishment behind them. If
Obama loses the Democratic party elite, he will fail on every agenda he
now has on his desk, and he will lose that elite if he takes on Israel’s
settlements or any other Israeli crimes. If he attempted a full-scale
change of policy on Israel, Obama’s frail political boat would sink
directly into the drink – and take his domestic agenda with it. Hence
the Israel’s stranglehold on US foreign policy is translating into a fatal
vulnerability by the White House regarding both foreign and domestic
policy. Hence Obama spent 50 desperate minutes pleading with Abbas
not to make him veto the UN Security Council resolution on
settlements. US domestic policy is being held hostage to Israel’s
foreign policy.
So what does this mean for people scandalised by US policy in the
Middle East? First, don’t expect foreign policy of the US hegemon to
stop being concerned for stability (economic and security) and Israel.
The concern for “stability” will never change—hegemons don’t change
their spots—and the ruinous fixation on Israel won’t change until some
catastrophe alters the US domestic electoral environment regarding
Israel, which will be triggered by events outside the US if it happens at
all. Second, don’t expect Obama to wave a magic wand and transform
US foreign policy by himself. Every speech he makes—sincerely, I
believe—about democracy in the Middle East is instantly undercut or
contradicted by the foreign-policy establishment of Clintonian
Democrats on which he depends for everything and he has very limited
options to transform that establishment. Finally, recognize that namby-
pamby public statements by the White House are not the full
substance of US involvement in Middle East dramas. The White House
has actually contributed quietly but powerfully to the relatively
peaceful transition in Egypt by using all its backroom contacts—
especially personal contacts between US and Egyptian military officers
—to help preclude the open military repression that we now know
Mubarak ordered unleashed and Egyptian generals were debating. The
US is doing the same, hastily if late, in Bahrain. This isn’t close to what
people want from the US but it has certainly reduced the death count.
(Consider what is happening in Libya, where comparable hegemonic
influence is missing.)
Rather than look to the hegemon to abandon and undercut its former
dictator clients, we must look to the lesson of recent events. If there is
any single glaring lesson from the present tectonic shift in Middle East
politics, it is that the peoples of the region have immense power to
transform the situation themselves. As a hegemon, the US is in fact
neutral about human rights abuses; Obama and others may personally
care about human rights, but as a state actor on the world stage the
US is, again, concerned only about stability favourable to its trade and
security. When the people themselves make repressive regimes
unstable, then the US will back whatever measures restore that
stability. Where democracy promises to make countries more stable,
the US will support it. People in the streets, in other words, will reshape
US foreign policy through their power in the streets and not by futile
appeals to the hegemon’s (nonexistent) better nature.
The exception, of course, is US policy regarding Israel, where US policy
is entirely destructive to stability. And this brings us at last to the
lesson for Palestine—and this lesson is glaring: stop expecting the US
to “do something” to change the status quo in Israel-Palestine.
Corrupted by the Zionist lobby, US policy about the Palestinians and
Israel will change only after the Palestinians transform their movement
to demand full democracy and so compel the same overwhelming
global sympathy that Egypt, Bahrain, Libya and other Arab countries
are now reaping. When they do this, Zionism will stagger and fall under
the weight of its own lies. For the main Zionist lie is that stability can
be achieved through racist partition of the country (on its own terms).
In fact, stability depends on justice, and justice and racism are
contradictions in terms. As in Egypt, Bahrain, Libya, Morocco, Algeria,
Yemen, South Africa and everywhere else, only one road leads to real
freedom in Palestine: absolute rejection of ethnic/sectarian supremacy
in any form, full democracy, unity, and equal rights for all. May the
Palestinians seize that banner and shout it out on al-Jazeera and
Twitter and Facebook like other peoples in the region. May they take to
the streets in their millions, insisting on full rights in their own country,
send several hundred thousand people over the hideous Wall with
signs saying “We are coming home!” and restore justice to the land. I
hope they do this soon, for their own sakes, and not wait for any party
or “authority” to lead the way. But I must admit to praying they do it
soon also for the sake of US politics, foreign and domestic. For, through
a strange twist of fate, US foreign and domestic policy has become
intertwined in ways that make the future health of my home country
just as dependent on the vision and determination of the Palestinian
people on their own liberation.
Back to Top

With settlement resolution veto, Obama has joined

Likud
An America that understands that the settlements are the
obstacle should have joined in condemning them.
By Gideon Levy, Haaretz, 20th February 2011
This weekend, a new member enrolled in Likud - and not just in the
ruling party, but in its most hawkish wing. Located somewhere
between Tzipi Hotovely and Danny Danon, U.S. President Barack
Obama bypassed Dan Meridor and Michael Eitan on the right and
weakened their position.
The first veto cast by the United States during Obama's term, a veto he
promised in vain not to use as his predecessors did, was a veto against
the chance and promise of change, a veto against hope. This is a veto
that is not friendly to Israel; it supports the settlers and the Israeli
right, and them alone.
The excuses of the American ambassador to the UN won't help, and
neither will the words of thanks from the Prime Minister's Office: This is
a step that is nothing less than hostile to Israel. America, which Israel
depends on more than ever, said yes to settlements. That is the one
and only meaning of its decision, and in so doing, it supported the
enterprise most damaging to Israel.
Moreover, it did so at a time when winds of change are blowing in the
Middle East. A promise of change was heard from America, but instead,
it continued with its automatic responses and its blind support of
Israel's settlement building. This is not an America that will be able to
change its standing among the peoples of the region. And Israel, an
international pariah, once again found itself supported only by
America.
This should have disturbed every Israeli. Is that what we are? Alone
and condemned? And all for the continuation of that worthless
enterprise? Is it really worth the price? To hell with the UN and the
whole world is against us?
We can't wrap ourselves in this hollow iron dome forever. We must
open our eyes and understand that if no country, aside from
weakening America, supports this caprice of ours, then something
fundamental is wrong here.
Israel, which is condemned by the entire world but continues merrily
on its way, is a country that is losing its connection to reality. It is also
a country that will ultimately find itself left entirely to its fate. That is
why America's decision harmed Israel's interests: It continued to blind
and stupefy Israel into thinking it can go on this way forever.
A friendly U.S., concerned for Israel's fate, should have said no. An
America that understands that the settlements are the obstacle should
have joined in condemning them. A superpower that wants to make
peace, at a time when Arab peoples are rising up against their regimes
and against the U.S. and Israel, should have understood that it must
change the old, bad rules of the game of blanket support for the ally
addicted to its settlements.
A friendly America should have mobilized to wean Israel of its addiction
Only it can do so, and it should have started, belatedly, at the Security
Council on Friday.
But promises of change and of real concern for Israel are one thing,
and diplomatic behavior is another: another automatic veto, as if
nothing has changed. Obama or George W. Bush, there's no difference.
When Ambassador Susan Rice said that the draft resolution risked
hardening the positions of both sides and could encourage the parties
to refrain from negotiations, she misled. She knows that what prevents
negotiations and hardens positions is continued building in the
settlements.
And when the Israeli Foreign Ministry said it is "peculiar that the
Security Council should choose to consider one single aspect" of
Israeli-Palestinian negotiations "while ignoring the wider scope of
events in our region," it, too, misled. Do the Foreign Ministry's
spokesmen really believe there is a serious party that would agree to
Israel creating irreversible facts on the ground without let or
hindrance?
And to call this "one single aspect?" Perhaps it is only one, but it is
certainly the most destructive. And thus it is the one the world sought
to condemn - and rightly so.
Moreover, this veto was not cast during ordinary days. These are days
of boiling lava in the region. If there were a responsible government in
Israel, it would have stopped settlement building long ago - not only to
deflect fire from Israel, but to promote an agreement that has never
been more vital for it.
If the U.S. had been a responsible superpower, it would have voted for
the resolution on Friday to rouse Israel from its dangerous sleep.
Instead, we got a hostile veto from Washington, shouts of joy from
Jerusalem and a party that will end very badly for both.

Back to Top

No, Egyptian uprising won’t hurt the peace process

By Noam Sheizaf, +972Mag, 1 February 2011
(simply because there is no such thing)
Yesterday, Politico’s Laura Rozen posted this tweet:
On Isr/Egypt, official tells me while Egypt unrest demos status quo
unstable, makes Isr hunker down, less willing to “take risks for peace.”
Hey, wasn’t that the Israeli reply to… just about any event in recent
history?
Turmoil in Lebanon? Further proof that Israel can’t take risks. The
publication of the Palestine Papers? PM Netanyahu concludes that he
could go on building in East Jerusalem. Unilateralism? it’ s bad for
peace. International community’s involvement? You guessed it: A
disaster for Peace.
Avigdor Lieberman, the Israeli Foreign Minister, says we shouldn’t
negotiate with President Abu-Mazen because he has no real authority
over his people. And we shouldn’t, god forbid, allow new elections in
the Palestinian territories, because the Hamas would only get stronger.
A united, Fatah-Hamas government, is clearly out of the question, and
if the Palestinian president tries to go to the UN, we have the answer
ready: the US should veto it, because it’s bad for peace.
Until recently, Israel used to say that democracy in the Arab world is
the key to peace and stability. This is Netanyahu in 1993 (h/t Aeyal
Gross):
“Here, in a nutshell, is the main problem of achieving peace in the
Middle East: Except for Israel, there are no democracies. None of the
Arab regimes is based on free elections, a free press, civil rights and
the rule of law”
Now Netanyahu is talking about a “tremendous threat” from the
changes in Egypt, and the Israeli Right claims that the Arabs “are not
prepared” for democracy and that the reform movement puts the
peace process in danger. It seems that even if all Palestinians join the
Likud tomorrow, an Israeli minister would explain why this is bad for
the peace process, and three hundred House representatives would
sign a letter condemning Arab Rejectionism. All in the name of peace,
of course.
The truth is there is no peace process, and it’s not because of the
Palestinians, the Syrians, the Iranians, the reform movement or the
coaching staff of the Minnesota Vikings. There is simply no point in
talks with Israel right now. The Israeli government refuses to commit to
evacuating settlements, refuses to discuss borders or even open maps
and refuses to talk to Syria. In recent months, some ministers wanted
to come out publicly with a “peace plan” that would leave the
Palestinians with something like 60 percent of the West Bank, but even
that was too radical for this government.
Two years after he returned to the PM office, Netanyahu has yet to
come up with some sort of practical offer for the two state solution –
the vision he claimed to have adopted. Perhaps this is asking too much
of him. All Netanyahu wants is to engage in meaningless talks that
would go on forever, because that’s his only way of handling the
mounting international pressure.
For that exact reason, the only way to push things forward is to apply
even more pressure on Jerusalem.

Back to Top

'Economic peace' betrays the hand of a grasping

Israeli right
Jonathan Cook, The National, 1st February, 2011
The peace process between Israel and the Palestinians was widely
pronounced dead last week as hundreds of official documents leaked
to Al Jazeera television showed Palestinian negotiators had agreed to
make major concessions on Jerusalem, refugees and borders.
But there were few indications that Israel's leaders are in mourning. In
fact, as the US-sponsored peace talks have gradually faded from view
over recent months, Benjamin Netanyahu, the country's prime
minister, has been happily reverting to his default position on solving
the conflict: "economic peace".
Mr Netanyahu's policy applies in practice only to some Palestinians –
Gaza's population of 1.5 million continues to struggle under a still-
oppressive, although marginally eased, blockade. But in the West
Bank, Israeli officials say, life is looking up: the sparser checkpoints
mean freedom of movement and trade is being restored, and economic
growth is climbing steadily as a result.
Spin aside, however, the goal of economic peace is more concerned
with Israel's diplomatic advantage than the welfare of Palestinians. It is
a stalling tactic to evade a peace deal that would require the drawing
of borders between two states, Israel and Palestine. Mr Netanyahu
hopes that with economic peace he can buy a few more years to
entrench his vision of a one-state solution – Greater Israel.
The response of the international community, and more importantly of
the Americans, to his alternative "peace" is not yet clear. But in the
meantime both Palestinians and ordinary Israelis are stepping into the
breach to expose the contradictions inherent in Mr Netanyahu's
approach.
Two separate episodes lats month – both relating to a boycott of the
settlements – suggested that the Israeli right's policy is opening a can
of worms Mr Netanyahu and his supporters will find hard to digest.
The first was the decision last month by 155 leading academics –
including three winners of the country's most prestigious award, the
Israel Prize – to refuse to cooperate with a newly upgraded university
in the settlement of Ariel, some 15 miles inside the narrow West Bank.
The professors' "boycott" – as it has been termed, and denounced, by
the Israeli government – follows a similar announcement by some of
the country's best-known actors, who have refused to perform in Ariel's
theatre as part of national tours.
The government has brought these matters to a head by seeking to
cement Ariel's place in the Israeli public consensus as an indivisible
part of Israel, even though the settlement is located almost as deeply
in the West Bank as the Palestinian city of Nablus. Ariel's population of
18,000 barely qualifies it as a town, and yet ministers have made it a
priority to build a national theatre and upgrade its college into a
university. There are now half as many students as residents in Ariel.
The other notable incident was a demand made by a wealthy
Palestinian-American businessman, Bashar al Masri. He has required all
contractors helping to build a new Palestinian city in the West Bank
called Rawabi to sign an agreement refusing to use Israeli products
originating from the settlements or work in the settlements
themselves.
Rawabi, which is being funded by Qatar and will eventually be home to
40,000 Palestinians, is one of the visible fruits of Mr Netanyahu's
economic peace. But the news that at least a dozen Israeli firms, keen
to be included in the project, had already signed up to the boycott
clause was greeted with shock in Israel.
The Palestinian businessman, who points out that he is simply
enforcing the Palestinian Authority's policy to boycott the settlements,
expects many more Israeli companies to follow suit.
Israeli government ministers and hawkish members of the parliament
are calling for a counter-boycott of the companies that have accepted
Mr al Masri's condition. Aryeh Eldad, of the right-wing National Union
party, summed up the mood: "Anyone building Rawabi should know
that they won't build Tel Aviv."
But it has been the Israeli right's very refusal to pursue any kind of
peace process that is breathing life into the boycott campaign for both
Palestinians and Israelis, whether through conscience or necessity. Mr
Netanyahu's economic peace has created the space for Israelis to join
Palestinians in defining the borders Mr Netanyahu refuses to concede.
The boycott is a weapon that the Israeli right genuinely fears. Its
adoption by Palestinians, and the fledgling support it is winning from
the Israeli left, will spur on the boycott and sanctions campaign already
being promoted by international activists, including Jews in the
diaspora.
Mr Netanyahu's "peace policy" is only magnifying these troubles. He
needs to intimidate the Israeli left and tarnish its reputation in the eyes
of the Israeli public to stop the boycott campaign from spreading
domestically.
That is one of the goals of the witch-hunt committee put before the
Israeli parliament last month to investigate human rights organisations
and their funding. It has also fuelled the comparison recently made by
Avigdor Lieberman, the far-right foreign minister, between the left and
terrorists. These and other assaults finally awakened the Israeli left to
protest in the thousands.
Mr Netanyahu's aim has been to persuade the international community
that the issue of the settlements and their expansion can be divorced
from the threat they pose to Palestinian statehood and a peace deal.
But in reality, his economic peace has thrust the problem of the
settlements' legitimacy sharply back into the spotlight.
As he is starting to learn, the more the right represses the left, the
more it proves the value and need of the boycott. This is a battle Mr
Netanyahu cannot win.

Back to Top
Statement by United Nations High Commissioner for
Human Rights, Navi Pillay
11 February 2011
Jerusalem

Good afternoon,

It is a great pleasure to be here, on my first

visit to the occupied Palestinian territory and
Israel since I took up office as UN High
Commissioner for Human Rights.
I was received with courtesy by the
Government of Israel and the Palestinian
National Authority, meeting with both
President Shimon Peres and President
Mahmoud Abbas, as well as with Prime
Minister Salam Fayyad, and a number of
Ministers, state officials and other interlocutors in Israel and in the
occupied Palestinian territory (oPt). I would like to express my deep
appreciation for the good cooperation which has characterized this
visit.
I met Palestinian victims of human rights violations in a variety of
locations in the oPt, including East Jerusalem and several towns and
villages in the West Bank and Gaza. I and my team also met with
victims in Sderot, West Jerusalem and the Negev desert. They
explained their extreme hardships to us with great patience and
dignity, and left me with a profound impression of the difficult human
rights situation of so many civilians, because of the conflict, occupation
and discriminatory laws and practices.
I also had very informative meetings with four different groups of
exceptionally dedicated human rights defenders in Jerusalem,
Ramallah and Gaza City.
Collectively, my many interlocutors raised a wide range of complex
multi-layered human rights issues and situations, intertwined with the
ever-present, and ever complicating, security concerns and political
considerations.
As High Commissioner, my mandate is independent and impartial and
my comments, reports and actions are always firmly rooted in
international human rights law. I do not do politics, I do law. I am
particularly concerned about whether or not the rule of law is being
applied in line with international standards.
With regard to human rights in Israel and the occupied Palestinian
territory (oPt), I have one paramount concern, which has been
reinforced by what I’ve seen and heard during my visit. This is that the
politics of conflict, peace and security are constantly leading to the
downgrading, or setting aside, of the importance of binding
international human rights and humanitarian law.
International human rights law and international humanitarian law are
not negotiable. No individual or state can be considered exempt, if
they violate the law.
I wish now to outline some of those international legal principles,
relating to the occupation of Palestinian territory, before moving on to
some more specific issues both in the oPt and in Israel itself.
The settlement of Israeli citizens in the occupied Palestinian territory is
clearly prohibited under international law. As a result, all State actions
in support of the establishment and maintenance of the settlements,
including incentives to create them and the establishment of
infrastructure to support them, are illegal under international law. They
should be stopped altogether. The idea that a partial or temporary halt
is a valuable concession in the peace process, to be traded against
something else, is turning the law on its head.
The annexation of East Jerusalem contravenes customary international
law, as confirmed by Security Council and General Assembly
resolutions. This has also been recognized by the International Court of
Justice. Because of its illegality, the annexation has not been
recognized by any State. Under international law, East Jerusalem
remains part of the West Bank and is occupied territory.
All settlement-related activities, and any legal or administrative
decision or practice that directly or indirectly coerce Palestinians to
leave East Jerusalem, including evictions, demolitions, forced
displacements and cancelation of residence permits on a
discriminatory basis, should be halted and restrictions on access to
East Jerusalem by other West Bank inhabitants should be lifted. The
confiscation or expropriation of private property in the occupied
territory, including East Jerusalem, is in almost all cases also illegal.
East Jerusalem is being steadily drained of its Palestinian inhabitants,
in clear-cut defiance of Security Council resolutions.
The International Court of Justice, in its 2004 advisory opinion, stated
that establishing the Wall, or barrier, inside occupied territory is
prohibited under international law. Some 85 percent of the wall, when
it is completed, will be located inside occupied territory, and therefore
illegal. It will also have effectively sequestered around 9.5 percent of
West Bank territory.
The combined effects of the illegal settlements and the Wall, that has
been diverted illegally to protect them, have been devastating on the
social, economic and cultural rights of many thousands of Palestinians.
Families are divided from each other and from their neighbours, from
their agricultural land and other sources of income, from their water
sources and from other important infrastructure and services, including
schools, health clinics and hospitals. Their new neighbours, the illegal
settlers, often treat them with contempt, hostility and even physical
violence. The settlers receive massive protection from Israeli security
forces, but hardly any protection is being provided to the Palestinians
living next door.
I have visited a few of those Palestinians affected by the Wall and
settlements. It is only when you learn about the cruelly cramped and
circumscribed situation imposed on individual fellow human beings,
and see for yourself the full-frontal assault on their dignity, that you
can really begin to understand the true horror of the policies that are
stifling their social, cultural and economic prospects, and crippling their
morale. A striking case was that of Mr. Sabri Ghareeb, whose home
was boxed in by Israeli security fences effectively isolating him and his
family from their community.
You have to see for yourself the contortions of the Wall as it snakes
around settlements, dividing lands and villages, sometimes boxing in
single dwellings, and scarring the landscape and the lives of
thousands; and you have to talk to its victims, to get a glimpse of the
intensely negative impact the fragmentation of the West Bank by the
Wall, settlements and checkpoints is having on human rights, peace,
development and the Palestinians’ right to self-determination. Many of
the affected Palestinians facing displacement because of the grave
deterioration in their way of life, are refugees who have already been
displaced once or twice before and during the 1948 and 1967 wars.
I have been struck by the complacency with which the entirely
avoidable predicament of Palestinians affected by the Wall and
settlements is treated by Israeli authorities with whom I have
discussed these issues. They tend to be brushed aside as though they
are minor matters. They are not. They are clear-cut violations of
human rights on a very large scale.
Another overarching human rights concern is the lack of accountability
on many fronts. Individual officials and members of the security and
military forces in Israel and the oPt, including the de facto authorities
in Gaza, have been violating international human rights law for years,
with few prosecutions, successful or otherwise.
War crimes and crimes against humanity are two of the most serious
crimes, and credible allegations that they have been committed must
be properly investigated.
In addition, extremists among the Israeli settlers who commit abuses
against their Palestinian neighbours, including both physical attacks
and destruction of property, such as olive trees, and infrastructure
including mosques, tend to escape unpunished.
This culture of impunity leads to more abuses against and between
civilians, stimulates anger and resentment on all sides, and impedes
the peace process.
In the West Bank, I was encouraged by the strong statements of
commitment to the promotion and protection of human rights made by
officials at the highest level. Prime Minister Salam Fayad noted his
government’s readiness to enter into a full memorandum of
understanding with my office. Ministers confirmed the willingness of
the Palestinian National Authority to ensure access to detention
facilities and their desire to work on a national human rights plan of
action. They are already working towards implementing obligations
under international human rights law with a view to subsequent
ratification of international human rights treaties once statehood is
achieved.
I am encouraged to learn that the latest draft of the new penal code
includes provisions for abolishing the death penalty and protecting
women from violence. The Minister of Justice noted the efforts to
include more women in the judiciary.
However, I did express my concern to Palestinian National Authority
officials relating to recent reports about arbitrary detention and ill
treatment in detention, and emphasized the need to respect and
protect the role of a vibrant civil society and the Independent
Commission for Human Rights.
In Gaza, I visited one of the many UNRWA schools and was moved by
how Palestinian children expressed their commitment to human rights,
peace and reconciliation.
I commend Gaza human rights defenders and civil society
organizations for their courageous efforts to promote human rights,
accountability and the respect for the rule of law. In particular, I wish to
salute the many organizations devoted to the rights of women in Gaza.
Their work is absolutely essential. Recent crackdowns by the de-facto
authorities, including forced closures of NGOs as well as efforts to limit
the independence and unity of the Independent Commission for
Human Rights, are unacceptable. One human rights defender told me
that civilians were in the 'eye of the storm between Fatah and Hamas.’
I also met fishermen, families and individuals in Gaza affected by the
so-called buffer zone linked to the blockade. The blockade of Gaza is
illegal, and is not warranted by Israel’s legitimate security concerns. It
must be lifted.
Rockets continue to be fired from Gaza into Israel, including at least
eight since I began my visit last Sunday. I urge the militants in Gaza to
halt firing rockets immediately. They are not only committing war
crimes and continuing to terrorize large numbers of civilians, they are
also doing a disservice to the Palestinian people by placing a major
obstacle in the path of the peace process and playing into the hands of
those who wish to maintain the blockade.
Yesterday, before entering Gaza, I visited Sderot in Israel and saw the
long-term tension and trauma created by these indiscriminate attacks
on towns in western Israel. The Mayor of Sderot asked me to hand over
a letter to the Mayor of Gaza City proposing they work together to
improve understanding between their communities. I applaud this
initiative, and have taken steps to ensure that his letter will be
delivered.
Gilad Shalit has now been held by Hamas for more than four and half
years. While I was in Gaza I repeated my call for his release on
humanitarian grounds, and conveyed the message that, at a minimum,
regular visits by the ICRC and communications with his family must be
permitted.
I remain troubled by numerous human rights issues, including women’s
rights and the use of the death penalty, related to actions by the de-
facto authorities in Gaza, and my concerns on these issues were also
clearly conveyed to them.
Many Gazans still feel the tragic impact of Operation Cast Lead on their
daily lives. Accountability for war crimes and crimes against humanity
committed during the conflict remain to be addressed by all parties. I
was deeply moved by the extremely distressing situation of family
members of Palestinian detainees and prisoners in Israel who have not
been able to visit their relatives and loved ones for more than four
years.
In Israel, I discussed a range of discrimination-related issues including
the treatment of Palestinian citizens of Israel, migrants, asylum
seekers and refugees, the on-going demolition of unrecognized
Bedouin villages in the Negev, and the rhetoric and other actions
apparently aimed at curbing the freedom and effectiveness of Israel’s
human rights defenders.
Israel is a country which prides itself on its democracy. Among the
finest defenders of that democracy are the judicial system, and the
extremely robust media and civil society organizations.
Israel’s Supreme Court is strong and independent and has often acted
as a restraint on the executive in matters relating to human rights,
including for Palestinians. There are however question marks about the
implementation of Supreme Court decisions by the army and other
state authorities. During my visit, I met with both the former and
current Presidents of the Supreme Court.
Discrimination is a problem that has been highlighted to me. It is most
apparent in the markedly different treatment of Palestinians and
settlers living side by side in the occupied territory. Palestinians in the
oPt who are suspected of crimes are dealt with by military courts,
whereas settlers are dealt with under civil law.
I am concerned at the repeated demolition of “unrecognized” Bedouin
villages in the Negev Desert, and after meeting one man who told me
his village had just been demolished for the 15th time, I dispatched
two members of my team to visit this and neighbouring villages and
report back to me. This is an issue we will continue to watch closely.
One of my main concerns is the current pressure that is being applied
to Israel’s famously strong, independent and generally very
professional human rights defenders. This is manifested in a dramatic
increase in inflammatory rhetoric aiming to discredit them and
undermine their work. This is a very troubling development. A strong
and independent civil society is, like a free media and an independent
judiciary, a cornerstone of an open democratic society. Israel should
defend and be proud of its civil society organizations.
All these problems that I have raised are solvable. Palestinians and
Israelis are equally entitled to security and human rights, neither of
which can be pursued at the expense of the other. I am encouraged by
the fact that all my interlocutors during this visit took human rights
seriously and showed preparedness to engage on the issues raised.
END
Back to Top

United Nations
A/HRC/16/72
General Assembly Distr.:
General
10 January
2011
Original:
English
Human Rights Council
Sixteenth session
Agenda item 7
Human rights situation in Palestine
and other occupied Arab territories

Report of the Special Rapporteur

on the situation of human rights in
the Palestinian territories occupied
since 1967, Richard Falk

Summary
The report addresses Israel’s compliance with its obligations under
international law, in relation to the situation in the Palestinian
territories that it has occupied since 1967. Israel’s persistent lack of
cooperation with the fulfilment of the mandate of the Special
Rapporteur, as well as other United Nations human rights mechanisms,
is highlighted. The Special Rapporteur focuses attention on concerns
regarding the expansion of Israeli settlements, in particular in East
Jerusalem, the consequences of the Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip
and the treatment of Palestinian children detained by Israeli
authorities.
Contents
Paragraphs
Page
I.
Introduction........................................................................................................
............... 1–9 3
II. Reviving the direct peace
talks......................................................................................... 10–13 6
III. Continuing expansion of settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories
…………….. 14–19 8
A. The de facto annexation of East
Jerusalem...................................................................….15–16 9
B. Expulsions from East Jerusalem as a means to
annexation .......................................... 17–19 10
IV. West Bank roads and international complicity in perpetuating the
occupation………...20–22 11
V. Continuation of the Gaza
blockade ...............................................................................23–25 13
VI. Abuse of children by Israeli authorities in the occupied
territories..............................26–31 14
VII.
Recommendations..............................................................................................
..............32 17

I. Introduction
1. Unfortunately, the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human
rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967 needs to again
call to the attention of the membership of the Human Rights Council
the continuing refusal of the Government of Israel to allow the
Rapporteur to visit the occupied Palestinian territories. Repeated
attempts have been made to engage the Government of Israel in
discussion with the hope of reversing the policies that led to the
detention and expulsion of the Special Rapporteur from Ben-Gurion
Airport on 14 December 2008, but so far without any response. Efforts
will be made to seek the necessary cooperation of the Government of
Israel in relation to the obligation of the Special Rapporteur to
discharge official undertakings of the United Nations. Such cooperation
should be understood as a fundamental legal obligation incident to
membership in the Organization.
2. As repeated efforts to call this situation to the attention of the
Human Rights Council and the General Assembly have to date
produced no positive results, the Special Rapporteur appeals on the
occasion of this report for a more robust attempt to secure the
cooperation of the Government of Israel. It should be recalled that
Article 104 of the Charter of the United Nations declares that the
Organization “shall enjoy in the territory of each of its Members such
legal capacity as may be necessary for the exercise of its functions and
the fulfilment of its purposes”. Article 105, paragraph 2, specifies that
those who represent the United Nations shall enjoy in the territory of
State Members: “such privileges and immunities as are necessary for
the independent exercise of their function in connexion with the
Organization”. These provisions were elaborated in the Convention on
the Privileges and Immunities of the United Nations, adopted by the
General Assembly on 13 February 1946, and then implemented via the
Agreement between the Swiss Federal Council and the Secretary
General of the United Nations, dated 19 April 1946. Article VI, Section
22, thereof, entitled “Experts on Missions for the United Nations”, is
particularly relevant, setting forth the rather extensive duties of
Members to cooperate with such representatives as special
rapporteurs and to avoid interfering with their independence.
3. It should be pointed out that the Government of Israel has also not
cooperated with other recent important initiatives of the Human Rights
Council relating to the occupied Palestinian territories, including the
report of the United Nations Fact-Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict
(A/HRC/12/48) and the report of the independent international
factfinding mission to investigate violations of international law,
including international humanitarian and human rights law, resulting
from the Israeli attacks on the flotilla of ships carrying humanitarian
assistance (A/HRC/15/21). This pattern of non-cooperation with official
undertakings of the Human Rights Council should produce a concerted
attempt by this organ and the Office of the Secretary-General to do
what can be done to obtain the future cooperation of the Government
of Israel.
4. Closely related to issues associated with non-cooperation are several
outstanding matters bearing on non-implementation. The report of the
International Fact-Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict on the basis of
its findings of severe and systematic violations of international
humanitarian law recommended that several steps be taken to assess
the accountability of the perpetrators of criminal acts committed
during the Gaza conflict (2008/09). There is currently no sign of any
attempt to mobilize effective support for the implementation of these
recommendations. Moreover, evidence of an Israeli willingness to
impose credible levels of accountability for criminal acts of its soldiers
and leaders in accordance with international standards remains
absent. These conclusions were reaffirmed by the report of the
Committee of independent experts that assessed investigations by
Israel and the Palestinian sides into the Gaza conflict (A/HRC/15/50). In
addition, the same conclusions seem to pertain to the report of the
independent international fact-finding mission on the incident of the
humanitarian flotilla of 31 May 2010.1 Thus, a strong impression is
being formed within the international community that a lack of political
will exists with which to implement recommendations based on
authoritative findings that Israel has been guilty of flagrant violations
of international humanitarian law and international criminal law. This
impression of unwillingness to push forward with implementation
fosters widespread perceptions of impunity with respect to the conduct
of Israel, and in the case of flotilla incident limits and delays the
opportunity of flotilla passengers to pursue remedies for harms
unlawfully inflicted. This dynamic of evasion and delay weakens overall
respect for international law, as well as the credibility of the Human
Rights Council in relation to its own initiatives. More substantively, it
deprives the Palestinian people living under occupation of their rights
to receive the benefits of protection conferred in circumstances of
occupation by international law and, specifically, the Geneva
Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War
(Fourth Geneva Convention) and the First Additional Protocol to the
Geneva Conventions of 1949.
5. Given the long duration, the severity and continuing nature of the
violations of many fundamental legal obligations of Israel as the
occupying Power, these failures of implementation of international
humanitarian law are experienced on the ground through various acute
forms of abuse and suffering endured on a frequent, often on a daily,
basis by the civilian population of the occupied Palestinian territories.
Many political leaders have confirmed this assessment in recent
months, and yet the organized international community remains silent.
For instance, the Foreign Minister of Germany, Guido Westerville, after
a recent visit to Gaza declared that the persistence of the blockade
was “not acceptable”.2
6. Furthermore, the report of the Independent International Fact-
Finding Mission on the incident of the humanitarian flotilla found that
the violence used by the Israel Defence Forces when the flotilla was
attacked was “not only disproportionate but demonstrated levels of
totally unnecessary and incredible violence” as well involving “an
unacceptable level of brutality”.3 The report concludes that the Israeli
attack resulted in “grave violations” of international human right and
humanitarian law, as specified in article 147 of the Fourth Geneva
Convention.4 It also solicits cooperation from the Government of Israel
to identify the perpetrators of this violence, whose identity was hidden
by masks worn during the attack on the flotilla. Such information was
being sought “with a view to prosecuting the culpable”. 5 As a result of
these findings, the Government of Israel is obliged to end the blockade
in all its aspects with a sense of urgency, to cooperate in the
identification of perpetrators of the violence and of the leaders
responsible for the underlying policies so that effective procedures of
accountability can be employed and finally to compensate individuals
and surviving family members in appropriate amounts for the unlawful
harm suffered. Moreover, civil society actors that engage in such
missions for genuine humanitarian purposes should be allowed to carry
out their work without interference.
7. The Rapporteur believes that there are important issues of language
that arise from the cumulative effects of Israeli violations of
international humanitarian law, human rights law and criminal law. It
becomes misleading to treat these violations as distinct behavioural
instances disconnected from broader consequences that are either
designed by intention or the natural outcome of accumulating
circumstances (so-called “facts on the ground”). These concerns about
language are accentuated because Israel is the stronger party in
diplomatic settings and generally enjoys the unconditional support of
the United States of America. Indeed, unlawful Israeli behaviour that
starts out as “facts” have over time been transformed into
“conditions”, or in the words of the American Secretary of State, Hilary
Clinton, “subsequent developments” that are treated as essentially
irreversible. Such transformation is true of several aspects of the
occupation, including at a minimum the settlement blocs and
accompanying infrastructure of roads and security zones, as well as
the separation wall. To call appropriate attention to the effects and
implications of these unambiguously unlawful patterns, and their
somewhat perverse ex post facto attempted “legalization” and
“normalization” requires stronger expository language to better
understand the unbridled assault upon Palestinian rights and prospects
for meaningful selfdetermination. It is against this background that
this report has decided to employ such terms as “annexation”, “ethnic
cleansing”, “apartheid”, “colonialist” and “criminality” as more
adequately expressing the actual nature of the situation in the
occupied Palestinian territories. Such labels can be perceived as
emotive, and admittedly require a finding by a court of law to be
legally conclusive. However, such language, in the Special
Rapporteur’s view, more accurately describes the realities of the
occupation as of the end of 2010 than the more neutral-seeming
description of factual developments that disguises the structures of
this occupation which has undermined the rights under international
law of the Palestinian people for 43 years.
8. Against this background, the Rapporteur deems it appropriate at this
time to renew the call of the former Special Rapporteur on the
occupied Palestinian territories, John Dugard, for a referral of the
situation to the International Court of Justice for an authoritative
decision as to whether, “elements of the [Israeli] occupation constitute
forms of colonialism and of apartheid”.6 It should be emphasized that
the crime of apartheid is no longer attached to the racist policies of the
South African regime that generated the International Convention on
the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid. It is now a
crime associated with an “institutionalized regime of systematic
oppression … by one racial group over any other racial group …
committed with the intention of maintaining that regime”.7 The crime
of apartheid is also treated as “a grave breach” of article 85,
paragraph 4 (c), of the First Geneva Protocol, an international treaty
with 169 parties, and widely regarded as universally binding because it
is declaratory of customary international law. As will be illustrated in
the present report, the dual discriminatory structure of settler
administration, security, mobility, and law as compared to the
Palestinian subjugation seems to qualify the long Israeli occupation of
the West Bank as an instance of apartheid. The referral to the
International Court of Justice should also seek clarification as to
whether the pattern of continuing unlawful settlement, manipulation of
residence credentials, expulsions in East Jerusalem qualify as “ethnic
cleansing” and, if so, how this behaviour should be viewed from the
perspective of the international law of belligerent occupation.
9. It is also important to underscore what should be self-evident,
namely, that Israel has State responsibility for all violations of
international humanitarian law in the territories under occupation,
above all, for the settlements. State responsibility cannot be evaded by
delegation or failure to deal with violations of Palestinian rights in the
occupied territories arising from the behaviour of municipal or private
sector actors, as in connection especially with claims of unlawful
settlement building and ethnic cleansing allegations in East Jerusalem.
II. Reviving the direct peace talks
10. At present, there has been a pause in the peace negotiations
between Israel and the Palestinian Authority and feverish diplomatic
efforts are being made to continue discussions between the parties.
These efforts are relevant to the Rapporteur, as the generally accepted
route to the fulfilment of the right of self-determination for the
Palestinian people living under occupation has been to achieve an
Israeli withdrawal in accordance with Security Council resolution 242
(1967) or on the basis of an agreement between the parties. Whether
such negotiations can be effective and legitimate is itself a much
contested question that will not be considered here, nor will the
presumed outcome of establishing an independent Palestinian state in
the occupied territories be assessed from the perspective as to
whether the accumulation of facts on the ground has made such an
outcome unattainable as a practical matter. In a recent report to the
General Assembly (A/65/331), the Special Rapporteur put forth the
argument that the developments in the West Bank and East Jerusalem
have transformed a de jure framework of occupation into a de facto
condition of annexation. The Rapporteur remains convinced that Israeli
settlements, including related infrastructure roads, buffer zones and
the separation wall, continue to be the single most important obstacle
to resuming the peace talks, assuming that such talks can make
constructive contributions to the realization of Palestinian rights, which
is far from self-evident. The Palestinian Authority has repeatedly said
that it would not resume negotiations without an unqualified freeze on
settlement expansion, including East Jerusalem. President Mahmoud
Abbas stated: “We want a complete cessation of settlement
construction. We don’t want to be deceived with another moratorium
or a half moratorium or a quarter moratorium. If they want us to talk to
the direct talks, the settlements must stop completely”.8 The chief
Palestinian negotiator, Saeb Erekat, made the same avowal: “There are
no compromises over settlement construction … The Israeli
government must choose between peace and settlements, because it
can’t combine the two together”.9
11. Further, the Rapporteur believes that there are grounds for concern
with respect to maintaining the rights of the Palestinian people in
relation to the inducements offered to Israel to extend the partial
moratorium on settlement expansion. Since this question is one of
principle, it remains relevant despite the announcement of the
Government of the United States that it will no longer press the
Government of Israel to freeze settlement expansion. It is important to
bear in mind that the unlawfulness of the settlements has been
confirmed over and over again by reference to the textual language of
article 49(6), of the Fourth Geneva Convention, by decisions and
resolutions of the General Assembly and the Security Council and by
numerous statements on the part of respected world leaders.
Therefore, providing Israel with substantive benefits for temporarily
and partially halting an unlawful activity that infringes on Palestinian
prospects for self-determination raises disturbing issues of principle
and precedent. The former American Ambassador to Israel, Daniel
Kurtzer, has referred to such an effort by the United States to renew
the negotiations as designed “to reward Israel for its bad behavior” in
the past and present.10 It is also widely reported that, if Israel accepts
the offer, it will never again be asked to impose a moratorium on
settlement expansion in either the West Bank or East Jerusalem. What
is most relevant here is the disregard of the legal rights of the
Palestinians living under occupation. If a pattern of repeated violation
of rights, as here, is to be treated as a new platform of legality, then a
terrible precedent is being established for these parties and generally.
There can be no positive significance to a negotiating process that
incorporates an acceptance and legitimization of Israeli settlements
and their infrastructure of roads, which constitute a fundamentally
unlawful dimension of the prolonged Israeli occupation of the West
Bank and East Jerusalem. In this respect, only a permanent
commitment to freeze settlement growth would signal the minimal
good faith required to support the belief that peace talks are a viable
path at this stage to reach the essential goals of Palestinian self-
determination and a sustainable peace with security for both peoples.
12. On the matter of Palestinian self-determination, the most basic
right whose exercise is precluded by the continuation of the
occupation, Palestinian Authority has stated that if the talks fail it will
establish a Palestinian state on its own even in the face of the
occupation. President Abbas expressed this view as follows: “If we fail
in [the negotiations], we want to go to the United Nations Security
Council to ask the world to recognize the Palestinian state”.11 This is
consistent with the frequently discussed plans for Palestinian
statehood articulated by the Palestinian Authority Prime Minister,
Salam Fayyad. Mr. Fayyad has announced plans for constructing in the
West Bank the institutional components of Palestinian statehood, and
his efforts have been viewed as credible and impressive in many
independent quarters.12 In Mr. Fayyad’s recent words, “I firmly believe
[Palestinian statehood] can happen. We need to build up a sense of
inevitability about this. I think it will happen next year”.13 A report
issued by the World Bank in October 2010 also encouraged these
expectations, suggesting that if the Palestinian Authority maintains “its
performance in institution-building and delivery of public services …, it
is well-positioned for the establishment of a Palestinian state at any
point in the near future”.14 Nevertheless, it needs to be understood
that such a Palestinian state could be viewed as falling far short of
realizing the minimum content of an acceptable enactment of self-
determination, lacking in resolution of outstanding core issues such as
refugees, Jerusalem, borders, water and settlements. In a notable
recent development, with many legal and political implications, Brazil
and Argentina formally recognized Palestine as a state within its 1967
borders, which in effect, seems to be the territorial vision of Palestinian
self-determination contained in Security Council resolution 242 (1967)
(subject to minor border adjustments, but not sufficient to allow
annexation of the settlement blocs in “exchange” for largely arid land
abutting Gaza, or to transfer Arab villages currently behind the green
line) and encompassing the crucial non-territorial issue of refugees.
13. Another matter of concern for the Rapporteur during the reporting
period is the passage of an Israeli law that would subject any
agreement reached in intergovernmental negotiations to be made
subject to a national referendum unless approved by 80 or more
members of the Knesset.15 If an agreement were to be reached that
embodied the rights and duties of the respective governmental actors,
adding internal requirements of approval by either a parliamentary
super-majority or a national referendum would only unnecessarily
burden that process. Saeb Erekat has gone a step further and stated
that the new legislation “is making a mockery of international law”. 16
States do customarily require some form of legislative endorsement of
international treaty obligations. In this instance, the public validation
by Israel of any agreement reached might add to its political legitimacy
and the likelihood of future respect and, if it failed to gain sufficient
Israeli support, could signal the unsustainability of the agreement.
Thus, this new constraint on the finality of a negotiated settlement can
at best be viewed as ambivalent, and not itself unlawful, although it
might be imprudent, if the objective is to end the conflict through a
negotiated agreement, a position that is increasingly confronted by
doubts.
III. Continuing expansion of settlements in the occupied
Palestinian territories
14. Given the centrality that has been accorded by both sides to the
settlement phenomenon, the Rapporteur believes that more detailed
attention to the facts and legal implications of recent settlement
expansion seems appropriate. The Israeli 10-month selfdelimited
“moratorium” on settlement expansion in the West Bank expired on 26
September 2010, leading to the breakdown of the briefly resumed
peace process and giving rise to lengthy negotiations aimed at re-
establishing the moratorium that have now been abandoned. However,
several points must be noted. First, the 10-month moratorium did not
stop settlement construction but only slowed the pace of expansion in
some parts of the West Bank;17 it did not purport to freeze settlement
construction in occupied East Jerusalem, contending, contrary to the
international legal and political consensus, that the whole of Jerusalem,
as expanded by Israeli law since 1967, is unoccupied, and that the
whole city is the capital of Israel, leaving no part of the city to be
available as the capital of a future Palestinian state. In the West Bank,
settler construction of public facilities such as schools and community
centres as well as thousands of housing units already under
construction continued unabated during the moratorium. Second,
according to the movement Peace Now, a surge of settlement building
took place in the first six weeks following the end of the moratorium on
26 September.18 Further, the settlers managed to start to build 1,629
housing units, and to dig the foundations for 1,116 of them. Work
started in 63 settlements, 46 of them east of the separation wall and
17 on the western side of it. In all of 2009, according to the Israeli
Central Bureau of Statistics data, work on 1,888 new housing units
have started. Had the construction continued at the same speed
without the moratorium, there would have been 1,574 units during the
10-month period. In the six weeks following the end of the freeze, the
settlers managed to start a similar number of units attesting to the
reality that the settlement freeze was no more than a 10-month delay
in the construction.19 In fact, the rate of settlement construction
quadrupled compared to what it had been during the two years before
the moratorium.20 Third, and perhaps most importantly, the underlying
premises of the moratorium were never drawn into question, namely,
that it was a matter of Israeli discretion to initiate or terminate a
settlement freeze. Official diplomacy never considered the relevance
of the continuing violation arising from the presence of the settlements
or the questionable status of the 500,000 Israeli settlers who now
reside in the West Bank and East Jerusalem and benefit from a
preferential legal and administrative structure, which contributes to
the impression of apartheid (as a result of its discriminatory, coercive
and ethnically specified characteristics). In this respect, the magnitude
of the settlement phenomenon, combined with its persistence and
character, also warrant concern that the occupation is a form of
colonialist annexation that has been established with a clear intention
of permanence.
A. The de facto annexation of East Jerusalem
15. The Israeli insistence on excluding East Jerusalem from the partial
moratorium and its overall attitude toward its status is of further
concern to the Rapporteur. Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, along
with other Israeli leaders, has repeatedly confirmed continuing
rejection by Israel of United Nations resolutions and other relevant
aspects of international law recognizing that the occupied Palestinian
territory includes East Jerusalem. Mr. Netanyahu dramatized this point
when he recently stated that “Jerusalem is not a settlement –
Jerusalem is the capital of the State of Israel. Israel has never
restricted itself regarding any kind of building in the city, which is
home to some 800,000 people – including during the 10-month
construction moratorium in the West Bank. Israel sees no connection
between the peace process and the planning and building policy in
Jerusalem, something that hasn’t changed for the past 40 years”.21
Although such an assertion amounts to defiance of international law, it
is a significant expression of Israeli diplomatic posture, casting further
doubt on what could be expected to emerge from a negotiating
process that attempts to foreclose a fundamental Palestinian right to
have the part of historic Jerusalem occupied by Israeli in 1967 as its
national capital. Again, it is disturbing to note the absence of formal
objection by the international community and interested Governments
to such an Israeli posture taken in advance of negotiations.
16. The Rapporteur finds that by December 2010, the pace of
settlement expansion in East Jerusalem had in fact escalated. On 4
November 2010, the Government of Israel issued tenders for 238 new
housing units in the East Jerusalem settlements of Pisgat Zeev and
Ramot22 and the following day announced plans for construction of
1,352 new housing units elsewhere in East Jerusalem. Continued
construction in addition to settlers’ forcibly taking over Palestinian
homes in East Jerusalem has resulted in the expulsion of Palestinian
residents from their homes. Palestinian families, some of whom have
lived in their homes for generations, have been expelled by Israeli
police and settlers. In July 2010, a large Palestinian family that had
lived in their home in the Old City for more than 70 years was expelled
by police-backed settlers who then took over the house.23 In November
2010, settler organizations took control of two houses in Palestinian
neighbourhoods of Jabal al- Mukkaber and al-Tur in East Jerusalem
resulting in forcible eviction of several Palestinian families from their
homes.24 The Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood has also been the subject of
persistent attempts by Israeli settler groups to take over land and
property in order to establish new settlements in the area. As a result,
over 60 Palestinians have lost their homes and another 500 remain at
risk of forced eviction, dispossession and displacement in the near
future.25 In Silwan neighbourhood of East Jerusalem, Israeli families
have forcibly taken over Palestinian homes, turning them into guarded
settlement compounds flying Israeli flags.26 Many of the settler
organizations are backed by private donors from abroad,27 raising the
issue of international complicity, as well as Israeli State responsibility,
with these continuing violations of international law. Moreover, The
Government of Israel and the Jerusalem Municipality support the
settlers’ actions in Palestinian neighbourhoods in East Jerusalem and
the Old City by allocating private security guards, paid for by taxes, to
protect the compounds; sending security forces to accompany
takeover of Palestinian houses; funding and promoting building and
development projects in the compounds; and transferring Government
assets to the control of the organizations.28 This support further
illustrates the institutional and systematic discrimination against the
Palestinian residents of Jerusalem by Israel, as well as ongoing Israeli
efforts to create what are euphemistically called “facts on the ground”
for the annexation of East Jerusalem.

B. Expulsions from East Jerusalem as a means to annexation

17. The Special Rapporteur believes that the expulsions from East
Jerusalem go beyond those linked to house seizures or demolitions –
and beyond the immediate dire consequences to individuals and
families facing the loss of their homes – and form part of the broader
picture of annexation, not as an Israeli legal claim but enacted
increasingly as evidence of an Israeli political project. Israel carries out
new punishments against Palestinians in Jerusalem, including threats
of the revocation of Jerusalem residency rights of Palestinians living
legally in Jerusalem.
18. In one of the most egregious examples, in July 2010, four
Palestinian citizens of Israel, who were elected members of the
Palestinian Legislative Council, including one former Council minister,
were given notice that their right to Jerusalem residency was being
revoked, after the four politicians refused to renounce their ties to
Hamas.29 Efforts to expel these parliamentarians were resumed in the
summer of 2010 and finally, on 8 December 2010, one of these
individuals was deported from Jerusalem.30 The expulsion of the
Council’s members from Jerusalem is a violation of the article 49(6) of
the Fourth Geneva Convention, which explicitly prohibits the forcible
transfer of protected persons. It also sets a particularly dangerous
precedent for the removal of more than 270,000 Palestinians living in
East Jerusalem.31 As the Special Rapporteur has noted before, it is
particularly worrying that Israel appears ready to forcibly transfer
these individuals based on their supposed lack of allegiance to the
state of Israel.32 Israel, as an occupying Power, is prohibited from
transferring civilian persons from East Jerusalem and from forcing
Palestinians to swear allegiance or otherwise affirm their loyalty to the
State of Israel. The revocation of residency permits, home demolitions
and evictions, settlement construction, the separation of East
Jerusalem from the rest of the West Bank and its annexation to Israel,
and other Israeli measures to push Palestinian residents out of the city
will cumulatively make the creation of a viable Palestinian state, with
its capital as East Jerusalem, impossible.33
19. The evidence mounts that from a longer vantage point, the overall
pattern combining forced expulsions of Palestinians outwards and of
Government-supported voluntary transfers of Israeli settlers inwards
reflects a systematic policy of Israel to set the stage for an overall
dispossession of Palestinians and the establishment of permanent
control over territories occupied since 1967. According to a United
Nations report, forced population transfer, or ethnic cleansing, is
defined as the “systematic, coercive and deliberate … movement of
population into or out of an area … with the effect or purpose of
altering the demographic composition of a territory … particularly
when that ideology or policy asserts the dominance of a certain group
over another”.34 There is no question that, with its policy of Palestinian
expulsion and dispossession in Jerusalem, Israel continues to be
responsible for a gradual, incremental, yet cumulatively devastating
policy designed to achieve the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians.
IV. West Bank roads and international complicity in
perpetuating the occupation
20. The Rapporteur strongly believes that the wider infrastructure of
occupation and in particular the dual system of roads represents a
growing violation by Israel, the occupying Power, of the International
Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of
Apartheid and, more pertinently, of apartheid as an instance of a crime
against humanity as specified in the statute governing the operations
of the International Criminal Court. The dual system of roads, as
correlated with legal regimes, creates two domains in the West Bank:
one for privileged Israeli settlers and the other for subjugated
Palestinians living under an occupation. This is particularly visible in
the Government and international funding of a network of alternative
roads designed to facilitate Palestinian travel, while institutionalizing
Israeli military control over the existing main roads, which are then
accessible only to Israeli settlers. Many of these roads are also being
constructed or upgraded in Area C – the approximately 62 per cent of
the West Bank, which according to the 1995 Oslo agreement remains
under Israeli administrative and military control, and where the
material conditions of the Palestinians living in Area C compares
extremely unfavorably with conditions in areas A and B, and even with
the wretched conditions under blockade in Gaza. In those cases, the
roads remain under control of the occupying Power and thus largely
inaccessible to Palestinians (except those very few who obtain a
permit), while the international aid and money used to pay for the
roads is money – diverted from funding streams ostensibly aimed at
improving the lives of Palestinians living under occupation – instead
benefits the occupying Power.
21. The Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs has
reported that Israeli authorities continue to implement measures to
restrict Palestinian movement and access and, at the same time, to
facilitate the movement of Israeli settlers.35 These measures include,
namely, the expansion of the alternative (“fabric of life”) road network;
checkpoints (including partial checkpoints); and the unstaffed
obstacles, including roadblocks, earthmounds, earth walls, road gates,
road barriers and trenches.36 These measures exact a price from
Palestinians. For example, the “fabric of life” roads, which often require
the seizure of private Palestinian lands, reconnect a few of the
Palestinian communities that were disconnected due to the restricted
access of Palestinians to a main road or due to the obstruction of a
road by the separation wall. They, however, continue to reinforce the
exclusion of Palestinians from the primary road network and
undermine the territorial contiguity between different areas.37
22. Whether inadvertently or not, the role of the international donor
community has led to a consolidation of Israeli control in the West
Bank through the two-tiered system of roads. The United States
Agency for International Development (USAID) has acknowledged that
all its West Bank projects in Area C, including road construction, must
be carried out through prior coordination with the Government of
Israel.38 In other words, USAID and American taxpayers are financing,
and thereby further entrenching, the Israeli de facto annexation of the
West Bank.39 In one specific example, USAID announced in June 2010
that United States taxpayers had paid for road construction in the West
Bank, boasting that “after completion of a road project in the southern
West Bank, trade between Dahriyeh and the neighboring city of Beer
Sheva (approximately 100,000 residents total) increased
dramatically”. The West Bank area between Dahriyeh and Beer Sheva
40

lies largely within Area C, thus aid funds designated for Palestinian
residents is instead helping Israel finance the occupation. In another
example in a nearby area, Nidal Hatim, a resident of Battir village near
Bethlehem, described his inability to use Route 60, the main road from
Bethlehem to his home village and the principal north-south traffic
artery through the West Bank; “To go on the highway, we have to go
through the checkpoint and turn around. I have a West Bank
Palestinian ID, so I can’t go through the checkpoint”. 41 Instead, he
takes a side road that is currently being built by the Palestinian
Authority with USAID support. The side road, still under construction,
weaves around and under the four-lane Route 60, which is now used
mostly by Israeli settlers. Upon completion, this “fabric of life” road is
expected to be the sole access point connecting the villages in the
western section of Bethlehem governorate with the urban area of
Bethlehem.42 According to the Israeli human rights organization
B’Tselem, “the dual road system in the West Bank will in the long run
cement Israeli control. The tunnel that connects with Battir can be
controlled by one army jeep”.43 The Palestinian Authority grants
approval for some of the roads. However, that does not change the
legal consequence of an outside-Government funding infrastructure
that consolidates the process of de facto annexation already under
way in the occupied Palestinian territory. Such funding could arguably
result in the outside Government supplying the funds being deemed
complicit in the illegal occupation.
V. Continuation of the Gaza blockade
23. It is important to underscore at the outset the conclusions drawn
by the report of the independent international fact-finding mission on
the incident of the humanitarian flotilla. The report reached a series of
conclusions that are likely to become authoritative so far as the
international assessment is concerned and have some wider policy
implications with regard to the continuing blockade and occupation of
Gaza. Perhaps, the most important of these implications, as of 31 May
2010, is “the firm conclusion that a humanitarian crisis existed” at the
time in Gaza on the basis of a “preponderance of evidence from
impeccable sources” that “is too overwhelming to come to a contrary
opinion”.44 The report of the Mission further concludes that the
existence of a humanitarian crisis is enough by itself to make the
blockade “unlawful”45 and, by extension, to regard the interception of
the flotilla in international waters as a violation of international law. 46 It
should be noted that the core unlawfulness of the blockade, quite
independent of its overall humanitarian effects, is that it constitutes a
clear, systematic and sustained instance of collective punishment
imposed on an entire civilian population in direct violation of article 33
of the Fourth Geneva Convention. One dramatic further finding is “that
a deplorable situation exists in Gaza”, such that action by
humanitarian organizations to break an unlawful and cruel blockade of
this sort is fully justified.47 This is especially so when, as here, “the
international community is unwilling for whatever reason to take
positive action”.48 Such an interpretation of the situation confronting
the people of Gaza, and having persisted and worsened ever since
Israeli sanctions were imposed in 2006 and dramatically escalated by
the blockade established in 2007, is a powerful vindication of the
humanitarian rationale for the flotilla offered by its organizers and
denied by Israeli officials, who repeatedly refute that any humanitarian
crisis exists in Gaza.
24. The Rapporteur has found that the situation of the civilian
population in Gaza continues to be of critical concern. In 2010, Israeli
uses of force resulted in 58 Palestinians killed in Gaza (including 22
civilians) plus 233 Palestinians injured (including 208 civilians).49 Israel
has declared a buffer zone that extends for 1,500 metres into Gaza
from the border fence (comprising 17 per cent of Gaza), and Israeli
military personnel fire at farmers and children who are pursuing
normal peaceful activities close to the border.50 Israeli naval forces
also restrict Gaza fishing boats to three nautical miles from shore and
fire warning shots should these boats go beyond this limit. 51 These
characteristics of the ongoing Israeli relationship to Gaza are strongly
confirmatory of the legal and factual assessment that Gaza remains an
occupied territory.
25. Despite the announced easing of the blockade after the flotilla
incident of 31 May 2010, the dire humanitarian situation persists in
Gaza.52 Unfortunately, despite some selective easing of the blockade,
its essential features persist with continuing hardship and hazard for
the entire civilian population of Gaza.53 The most recent statistics
available, for instance, suggest that an average of 780 truckloads per
week of humanitarian goods had entered Gaza in late November 2010
(as compared to 944 truckloads after the reported easing of the
blockade on 20 June 2010) and this total was only 28 per cent of the
weekly average before the blockade was imposed in June 2007.54
According to a recent report by 25 non-governmental organizations,
Gaza requires 670,000 truckloads of construction material to rebuild
after the Israeli assault in January 2009. However, the Israeli
authorities have only permitted an average of 715 truckloads per
month since the “easing” of restrictions in June 2010. 55 At this rate it
will take 78 years to rebuild Gaza, with a completion date in 2088. It is
also notable that 53 per cent of the total import was for food items as
compared to 20 per cent prior to the blockade, suggesting the decline
of the non-food requirement for civilian normalcy. There has also been
no increase in industrial fuel since the beginning of 2010. As a result,
total available electricity is 40 per cent below the estimated daily
demand of 280 MW.56 Daily power cuts of up to 12 hours negatively
affect such essential services as water supply, sewage treatment and
removal, and health facilities.57 Twenty per cent of Gazans have access
to water only for one day out of five (and then for 6–8 hours), fifty per
cent have access only one day in four; and a further thirty per cent
every second day.58 In September 2010, the United Nations Relief and
Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA)
reported that, owing to the continuing blockade, it cannot meet the
enrolment needs of 40,000 Gazan school children.59 These facts
demonstrate the persistence and unlawful character of the blockade,
being both a form of unlawful collective punishment amounting to a
crime against humanity and a denial of material necessities to a
civilian population living under occupation in violation of international
humanitarian law.
VI. Abuse of children by Israeli authorities in the occupied
territories
26. In 2010, there were several reports of the abuse of Palestinian
children in the West Bank including East Jerusalem. It is recalled that
children are treated as entitled to high standards of protection in
situations of arrest or when enduring occupation. Article 37(b) of the
Convention on the Rights of the Child provides: “The arrest or
imprisonment of a child shall be used only as a measure of last resort
and for the shortest appropriate period of time”. Article 76 of the
Fourth Geneva Convention specifies that “Proper regard shall be paid
to the special treatment due to minors”. Further, Article 77, paragraph
1, of the First Additional Protocol to the Geneva Conventions reinforces
this legal obligation as follows: “Children shall be the object of special
respect and shall be protected against any form of indecent assault.
The Parties to the conflict shall provide them with the care and aid
they require, whether because of age or for any other reason”. The
treatment by Israeli authorities of Palestinian children living under
occupation does not at all comply with these provisions.
27. The Rapporteur utterly deplores and strongly condemns the fact
that, since 2000, 1,335 Palestinian children (including 6 children in
2010) have been killed as a result of Israeli military and settler
presence in the occupied Palestinian territories.60 The arbitrary opening
of fire by Israeli military against Palestinian children is particularly
appalling. Since March 2010, Israeli soldiers along the border with Gaza
have shot 17 children while they collected building gravel in the Gaza
buffer zone to support their families. The children were shot whilst
working between 50 and 800 metres from the border. Adults and
children continue to do this dangerous work as Israeli authorities
refuse to allow the entry of construction material into the Gaza Strip
and there are few job opportunities available.61
28. The Rapporteur is further dismayed at the continual arrests and
detention of Palestinian children by Israeli authorities. In 2010, Israeli
authorities arrested children at checkpoints, off the street or, most
commonly, from the family home. In the case of house arrests, large
numbers of Israeli soldiers typically surrounded the family home in the
middle of the night. Children were beaten or kicked at the time of
arrest and put at the back of a military vehicle where they were
subject to further physical and psychological abuse on the way to the
interrogation and detention centre. Upon arrest, children and their
families were seldom informed of the charges against them.62 Children
were often subject to abuse during interrogation.63 At the end of
October 2010, 256 children remained in Israeli detention, including 34
between the ages of 12–15 years.64 As of August 2010, 42.5 per cent of
Palestinian children in Israeli prisons were not held in facilities separate
from adults.65
29. The continued reports of inhumane and degrading treatment,
including sexual assault, of children in detention is further deplorable.
In Silwan neighbourhood of East Jerusalem, at least 81 minors from
Silwan have been arrested or detained for questioning (mostly in the
middle of the night), the vast majority on suspicion of stone-throwing
following confrontations between Palestinians and settlers in the
neighbourhood, where there is tension resulting from settlers’ taking
control of houses and archeological sites.66 Some of those arrested
were under the age of 12. An increasing number of testimonies by
children and their families pointed to gross violations of the rights of
children during interrogation.67 In the Ariel settlement in the occupied
West Bank, children reported that they had been given electric shocks
by Israeli interrogators in the settlement.68 The children, one as young
as 14 years of age, were each accused of throwing stones at a settler
bypass road in the occupied West Bank. Following the electric shocks,
the boys provided their interrogators with confessions, although they
maintained their innocence.69 In May 2010, a 14-year-old boy reported
that his interrogator in the Israeli settlement block of Gush Etzion, in
the occupied West Bank, attached car battery jump leads to the boy’s
genitals and threatened to electrify the cable. After further abuse, the
boy confessed to throwing stones, although he maintains his
innocence.70
30. Each year, approximately 700 Palestinian children (under 18) from
the West Bank are prosecuted in Israeli military courts after being
arrested, interrogated and detained by the Israeli army.71 Observers
have been shocked by the disparities between the special regard for
children imposed by international legal norms and the actual practices
of Israeli military and security forces. A recent visit by a British
Parliamentary group is illustrative: Sandra Osborne, after visiting a
military court used to prosecute children at Camp Ofer, near Ramallah,
remarked during a Parliamentary debate on the subject, “it was a visit
to a military court that shocked us to the core”.72 Among the shocking
features were the following: the child defendants – 13 and 14 years of
age – were brought into the courtroom with their legs shackled in
changes and handcuffed, usually behind their backs; their jail
sentences were lengthened by as much as three times unless they
pleaded guilty; the judge had no interaction with the child defendants
and was reported never even to look at them; proceedings and signed
confessions were in Hebrew, a language most of these children did not
know.73 The scene being described resembles the administration of
justice in the South Africa of apartheid that the Special Rapporteur
visited on a formal mission on behalf of the International Commission
of Jurists in 1968.
31. The apartheid dimension of this abusive atmosphere is also
accentuated by the dual legal system that is operative in the occupied
territories, with settler children – who are rarely apprehended in any
event for their violent act – being prosecuted in Israeli civilian courts,
while Palestinian children are brought before the military court system.
Among the discriminatory features of the two systems is the imposition
of higher degrees of accountability at lower ages, Palestinians being
held responsible as adults at the age of 16, while the Israeli age is 18.
The failure to uphold minimum standards in relation to the treatment
of Palestinian children detained and imprisoned is an extreme violation
of Israeli obligation to do all that is possible, subject to reasonable
security measures, to respect the status of protected persons as
mandated by the Fourth Geneva Convention. Such an assessment is
rendered more disturbing when account is taken that almost all of
these arrests of children are generated by their resistance to unlawful
patterns of Israeli settlement building and expansion, along with
related ethnic-cleansing measures being applied at an accelerating
rate in East Jerusalem.

VII. Recommendations
32. The Special Rapporteur recommends that:
(a) Intensified efforts be made to induce Israel to cooperate
with the proper discharge of this mandate, including allowing
access to the occupied Palestinian territories by the Special
Rapporteur;
(b) Efforts be undertaken to have the International Court of
Justice assess allegations that the prolonged occupation of the
West Bank and East Jerusalem possess elements of
“colonialism”, “apartheid” and “ethnic cleansing” inconsistent
with international humanitarian law in circumstances of
belligerent occupation and unlawful abridgements of the right
of self-determination of the Palestinian people;
(c) Intensified efforts be made to attach legal consequences to
the failure by Israel to end the blockade of the Gaza Strip in all
of its dimensions;
(d) The Human Rights Council organize an inquiry, possibly
jointly with the International Committee of the Red Cross or
the Government of Switzerland, into the legal, moral and
political consequences of prolonged occupation, including
prolonged refugee status, with an eye toward convening
Governments to negotiating further protocols to the Geneva
Conventions of 1949;
(e) Steps be taken by the Human Rights Council to implement
the recommendations of the report of the United Nations Fact-
Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict in the light of the failure
of Israel to address allegations in a manner that accords with
international standards as well as the conclusions of the
Independent International Fact-Finding Mission into the
incident of the humanitarian flotilla;
(f) Measures are taken to ensure that no Palestinian child is
detained inside Israel or in the occupied Palestinian territories
in contravention of article 76 of the Fourth Geneva Convention;
children are not brought before military courts; cases of
mistreatment and abuse of children are thoroughly and
impartially investigated; and all evidence against children
obtained through ill-treatment or torture be rejected by the
courts.

1 At the time of the submission of this report, there is still outstanding the report and
recommendations of the Panel of Inquiry into the flotilla incident established by the
Secretary-General and the Turkel Commission formed by the Government of Israel.
2 Ma’an News Agency, “German minister calls on Israel to lift Gaza blockade,” 8
November 2010.
3 A/HRC/15/21, para. 264.
4 Ibid., para. 265.
5 Ibid., para. 267.
6 A/HRC/4/17, summary, tenth paragraph.
7 See Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, article 7, para. 2 (h).
8 Khaled Abu Toameh, “Abbas: Israel seeking to ‘close door to right of return’”, The
Jerusalem Post, 8 November 2011.
9 Ibid.
10 “With settlement deal, U.S. will be rewarding Israel's bad behavior”, Washington
Post, 21 November 2010. Robert Fisk has phrased an objection in even harsher
language: “The current American bribe to Israel, and the latter’s reluctance to accept
it, in return for even a temporary end to the theft of somebody else’s property would
be [normally] regarded as preposterous”. “An American bribe that stinks of
appeasement”, The Independent, 20 November 2010.
11 “Abbas: Israel seeking to ‘close door to right of return’”.
12 See e.g. Robert Serry, “Is the two-state solution fading?”, 27 April 2010, speech at
Truman Institute, Hebrew University.
13 Reuters, “Palestinians demand immediate statehood to counter Israeli
“unilateralism’” 9 November 2010.
14 World Bank, “A Palestinian State in Two Years: Institutions for Economic Revival”
(September 2009), para. 3.
15 See Chaim Levinson, “Knesset mandates referendum to withdraw from annexed
land”, Haaretz, 23 November 2010.
16 “Erekat on referendum: Israel making a mockery of int’l law”, The Jerusalem Post,
23 November 2010.
17 See Peace Now, “Eight Months into the Settlement Freeze”, 2 August 2010.
18 See Peace Now, “In 6 weeks the settlers almost made up for the 10 months
Settlement Free,” 13 November 2010.
19 Ibid.
20 See International Middle East Media Center, “Rate Of Israeli Settlement
Construction Quadrupled In Last Month”, 21 October 2010.
21 Attila Somfalvi, “PM responds to Obama: Jerusalem not a settlement”, Yediot
Aharanot, 10 November 2010.
22 Amnesty International UK, “East Jerusalem: Israel’s 238 housing units plan
threatens Palestinian human rights”, 15 October 2010.
23 Harriet Sherwood, “Israeli settlers evict Palestinian family from their home of 70
years”, The Guardian, 29 July 2010.
24 B’Tselem, “New settler enclaves in East Jerusalem”, 2 December 2010.
25 Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs – occupied Palestinian territory
(OCHA-OPT), “Fact sheet: The Case of Sheikh Jarrah”, October 2010.
26 See e.g. Wadi Hilweh Information Center Silwan, “Settlers took over a house in Al-
Farouq neighborhood in Silwan”, 23 November 2010.
27 See “New settler enclaves in East Jerusalem”.
28 Ibid.
29 See B’Tselem, “In dangerous precedent, Israel revokes residency of four
Palestinians affiliated with Hamas from East Jerusalem and acts to forcibly transfer
them”, 18 July 2010.
30 Associated Press, “Israel expels Hamas MP jailed over Jerusalem status”, 9
December 2010.
31 “In dangerous precedent, Israel revokes residency”.
32 Statement of the Special Rapporteur, “Israel must avoid further violations of
international law in East Jerusalem,” 29 June 2010.
33 Carter Center, “Carter Center Calls for End to East Jerusalem Deportations,
Respect for International Law” (22 July 2010). Available from
www.cartercenter.org/news/pr/palestine-072210.html.
34 The Human Rights Dimensions of Population Transfer, including the Implantation
of Settlers, Preliminary Report prepared by A. S. al-Khawasneh and R. Hatano
(E/CN.4/Sub.2/1993/17), paras. 15 and 17.
35 OCHA-OPT, “West Bank Movement and Access Update” (June 2010).
36 Ibid.
37 Ibid.
38 Letter from USAID dated 9 June 2010. Available from
www.usaid.gov/wbg/misc/2010-WBG-11.pdf.
39 See further Akiva Eldar, “US taxpayers are paying for Israel’s West Bank
occupation”, Haaretz, 16 November 2010: “The roads are one of the initiatives of the
United States Agency for International Development for building infrastructure in
underdeveloped countries. Israel has already proudly left the club of developing
countries and is not among the clients of USAID. Nevertheless, it appears the Smith
family of Illinois is making the occupation a little less expensive for the Cohen family
of Petah Tikva.”
40 USAID, “Fact Sheet: Water Resources and Infrastructure”, (June 2010). Available
from www.usaid.gov/wbg/misc/WRI%20-%20INP%20Fact%20Sheet.pdf.
41 Nadia Hijab and Jesse Rosenfeld, “Palestinian Roads: Cementing Statehood, or
Israeli Annexation?”, The Nation, 30 April 2010.
42 “West Bank Movement and Access Update”.
43 “Palestinian Roads”. See also Badil, “The implications of losing access to route
60”. Available from www.badil.org/en/documents/category/33-ongoing-displacement.
44 A/HRC/15/21, paras. 261 and 263.
45 Ibid., para. 261.
46 Ibid., para. 262.
47 Ibid., para. 275.
48 Ibid., para. 276.
49 OCHA-OPT, “Protection of Civilians Weekly Report”, 10–23 November 2010.
50 See OCHA-OPT, Between the Fence and a Hard Place, (2010). See the next
chapter for further on this topic.
51 Ibid.
52 See Prime Minister Netanyahu’s Office’s statement following the Israeli Security
Cabinet meeting, 20 June 2010. Available from
www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/Government/Communiques/2010/Prime_Minister_Office_stateme
nt_20-Jun-2010.htm.
53 See generally Amnesty International UK et al, “Dashed Hopes: Continuation of the
Gaza blockade”, 30 November 2010. See also Gisha, “Unraveling the closure of Gaza:
what has changed and what hasn’t since the Cabinet decision and what are the
implications?”, July 2010. Available from
www.gisha.org/UserFiles/File/publications/UnravelingTheClosureEng.pdf. For further
update, see also Gisha, “Facts Behind MFA Report on ‘Easing’ of Gaza Closure”.
Available from www.gisha.org/index.php?
intLanguage=2&intItemId=1890&intSiteSN=119.
54 “Protection of Civilians”.
55 “Dashed Hopes: Continuation of the Gaza blockade”.
56 Ibid.
57 Ibid. See also OCHA-OPT, “Gaza’s electricity crisis: the impact of electricity cuts on
humanitarian situation”, May 2010.
58 Ibid.
59 UNRWA, “40,000 students turned away from UNRWA schools due to Gaza
closure”, 15 September 2010.
60 See Defence for Children International/Palestine Section (DCI-Palestine),
“Detention Bulletin: November 2010”.
61 Ibid.
62 DCI-Palestine, “Submission to European Parliament Sub-Committee on Human
Rights: Hearing on Situation in Prisons in Israel and Palestine”, 25 October 2010.
Available from www.dcipal.org/english/doc/press/Prison_Conditions_EU_Parliament_25_Oct_2010.pdf.
63 Ibid.
64 DCI-Palestine, “Detention Bulletin: October 2010”.
65 “Submission to European Parliament Sub-Committee on Human Rights” (citing
figures provided by the Israeli Prison Service). See also B’Tselem and Hamoked,
“Kept in the Dark: Treatment of Palestinian Detainees in the Petah Tikva
Interrogation Facility of the Israel Security Agency”, October 2010, p. 33.
66 See generally B’Tselem, “Caution: Children Ahead - The Illegal Behavior of the
Police toward Minors in Silwan Suspected of Stone Throwing”, December 2010. See
also, Wadi Hilweh Information Center, “Silwanian Children at the Frontline”, 12 May
2010. Available from http://silwanic.net/?p=2966.
67 See, “Child protection laws broken during Silwan interrogations”, The Jerusalem
Post, 25 November 2010.
68 DCI-Palestine, “Detention Bulletin, September 2010”.
69 Ibid.
70 Ibid. DCI-Palestine and PCATI have submitted complaints against the Israeli army
and police interrogators and demanded an investigation into reports that an Israeli
interrogator in the settlement of Gush Etzion attached car battery jump lead to the
genitals of a 14-year-old boy in order to obtain a confession to stone throwing.
71 “Submission to European Parliament Sub-Committee on Human Rights”.
72 Haaretz, “Otherwise Occupied/Labour is concerned”, 13 December 2010.
73 Ibid.

Back to Top

ROBERT H. SERRY
SPECIAL COORDINATOR FOR THE MIDDLE EAST PEACE PROCESS
---
BRIEFING TO THE SECURITY COUNCIL
ON THE SITUATION IN THE MIDDLE EAST
24 February 2011

Madam President,
1. Since our last meeting, the Middle East region has been witnessing
dramatic political transformations – but stagnation in the Israeli-
Palestinian negotiations. It is true that the shifting regional dynamics
have added uncertainty to the environment of an already difficult
Middle East peace process. However, progress towards a negotiated
solution that addresses all core issues would make a critical
contribution to stabilizing the region. When Quartet Principals met in
Munich on 5 February, they affirmed that Israeli-Palestinian and
comprehensive Arab-Israeli peace are imperative to avoid outcomes
detrimental to the region.
2. Let me convey to Council members the Secretary-General’s
profound concern at the continued impasse in the political process. I
must in all frankness report low confidence and trust of the parties in
each other and in international efforts to help them overcome their
differences. The parties are unlikely to overcome the deficit of trust
without a credible and effective international intervention in the peace
process.
3. In our view, it is becoming increasingly clear that a more concrete
and substantive basis would have to be laid out for the parties to
engage. The Quartet must play its full role in this regard. When the
Quartet met in Munich on 5 February, it reiterated its commitment to
the two state-solution and a conclusion of the talks by September 2011
and reaffirmed that the outcome of negotiations should end the
conflict and the occupation that began in 1967. The Quartet agreed a
way forward towards a further Quartet Principals meeting. Envoys are
working to meet separately with the parties, as well as with
representatives of the Arab Peace Initiative Committee. In its
discussions with the parties, the Quartet will give serious consideration
to their views on how to bring about resumed negotiations on all core
issues, including borders and security.
4. The longer the impasse in talks persists, the greater our concern
that tensions on the ground will unravel modest achievements and
stand in the way of a negotiated solution. Actions that risk prejudging
the outcome of negotiations are particularly unhelpful. In this context,
Israel continues to build some 2,000 units begun in the West Bank
after the moratorium expired on 26 September – a regrettable
development, as was noted by the Quartet. We call on Israel to heed
the calls of the international community and the provisions of
international law and the Roadmap, by freezing all settlement activity,
including natural growth, and dismantling outposts. I note that,
notwithstanding the recent results in the Security Council, all members
of the Security Council strongly oppose continued settlement activity.
5. This extends to East Jerusalem, where a number of settlements were
announced for expansion in past weeks, including 56 new units in
Ramot, and 13 units in the heart of the Palestinian neighbourhood
Sheikh Jarrah. We urge the parties to refrain from provocative actions
at this sensitive time.
6. Israeli authorities demolished 66 Palestinian-owned structures in
Area C and East Jerusalem, displacing over 100 people and otherwise
affecting another 220, particularly impacting the livelihoods of
vulnerable herding communities, while construction of adjacent
settlements continued.
Madam President,
7. Adversity on the ground has not stopped the Palestinian Authority
from forging ahead with its statebuilding agenda. With significant
achievements realized over the past years, and further reforms
underway, it is my clear view that the strong institutions now
established represent the basis of a state-in-waiting. The further
realization of progress is fundamentally constrained by the Israeli
measures of occupation that deny territorial contiguity and inhibit
freedom of movement. The continued divisions among the Palestinians
are also a serious concern in that regard.
8. Palestinian security forces continued to make strides in the
maintenance of law and order in the West Bank. Economic activity is
on the rise, and we positively note Israel’s removal of some further
obstacles to support this trend: easier access to Nablus via the
Huwwara checkpoint; increased tourist access to Bethlehem; and more
predictable access for meat and dairy products into East Jerusalem
from the rest of the West Bank.
9. On 4 February, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu agreed with Quartet
Representative Blair on a package of measures designed to help
improve Palestinian livelihoods and support economic growth both in
the West Bank and in Gaza. It is imperative that these steps be
facilitated and implemented in full. More and speedier easing
measures by the Government of Israel are urgently needed to shore up
the statebuilding effort. The confidence built over the past years
should enable Israel to further roll back elements of occupation.
10. My visit to Hebron on 25 January impressed on me the importance
of enabling the PA to develop in Area C. I visited the densely populated
neighborhood of Qaizun in Area A, overlooking empty space in area C
next to Israeli settlements. The Governor and the Mayor of Hebron
underlined the importance and urgency to use at least some of this
area to accommodate Hebron's natural growth by expanding its
residential and industrial area there. This situation applies to many
more Palestinian urban centers and I urge Israel to address these
pressing Palestinian needs.
11. The Government of Israel's commitment to allow Palestinian
security forces to deploy into seven towns in Area B, as part of the
package agreed with Quartet Representative Blair, is a step forward.
However, as Prime Minister Fayyad has impressed upon me repeatedly,
the presence and operations of Israel’s security forces within
Palestinian population centres which are meant to be under Palestinian
security control is a major concern. In the past month alone, there
were 434 incursions which resulted in one Palestinian killed, 96 injured
and 379 arrested. We also remain concerned at violent incidents at
checkpoints, which injured one Arab Israeli and two Palestinians during
the reporting period. On 20 January, an alleged Islamic Jihad militant
opened fire against an Israeli position near Jenin and was consequently
shot and killed by the Israeli soldiers.
12. Demonstrations continued against the barrier, which deviates from
the Green Line in contravention of the advisory opinion of the
International Court of Justice, resulting in seven Palestinian injuries and
numerous arrests. Allow me to stress that the right of peaceful and
nonviolent protest must be upheld.
13. Israeli forces arrested two settlers on 30 January in connection with
one of two incidents where two Palestinians were shot and killed by
settlers. Settlers also injured nine Palestinians. Settler impunity
remains a concern. A report released by the Israeli human rights group
Yesh Din indicates that, since 2005, less than 10% of alleged attacks
by settlers against Palestinians in the West Bank have resulted in an
indictment.

Madam President,
14. During the reporting period, a number of steps were taken by the
Palestinian Authority aimed at responding to expectations for political
reform. On 8 February the Government of Prime Minister Fayyad called
for local elections to be held on 9 July. President Abbas declared on 17
February that presidential and legislative elections should also be held
as soon as possible both in the West Bank and Gaza. Hamas has so far
rejected the calls for elections absent full reconciliation.
15. Prime Minister Fayyad submitted the resignation of his government
on 14 February and was immediately tasked by President Abbas to
form a new government. I note the important suggestion of Prime
Minister Fayyad to form a Government of national unity based on the
principle of non-violence, as a first step to advance reconciliation.
16. Several hundred demonstrators took to the streets of Ramallah last
week demanding that their leaders end their differences and re-unite,
and a network of 81 Palestinian non-profit organizations from the West
Bank, Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip publicly called on 21 February for
rival Palestinian factions to end their disagreement. I urge all
Palestinian factions to show responsibility and heed the legitimate calls
of the Palestinian people for reunification.
17. It is critical that the donor community continues to support the
Palestinian Authority and buttress the reform agenda, even if the
Palestinian Authority has been able to halve its dependence on
budgetary assistance between 2008 and 2011. Thus far in February,
the Palestinian Authority has received over US$80m in support for
recurrent expenditures. A new international donors’ conference for the
Palestinian State will be held in Paris in June. This will be preceded by a
meeting of the Ad Hoc Liaison Committee on 13 April.

Madam President,
18. I was last in Gaza last week, on 16 February, and it remains a high
priority in all my engagement to seek to improve the situation in Gaza
on the basis of the respect for calm, and a significant improvement in
the socio-economic conditions that have deteriorated so badly in
recent years in the aftermath of the Hamas takeover and the Israeli-
imposed blockade.
19. I regret to report to the Council that the reporting period was
marked by an increase in violence with an escalation of rockets attacks
emanating from Gaza, Israeli air raids and repeated confrontations in
the border area with Israel. 19 mortar shells and 15 rockets were fired
indiscriminately from Gaza towards Israeli civilian areas. As recently as
yesterday, three Grad rockets were fired at the city of Be’er Sheva,
damaging a house. On 31 January, three Grad rockets were fired,
narrowly missing a wedding celebration in Netivot. Also on 23
February, a ten-year old girl was killed in the southern Gaza strip when
an explosive device went off while being prepared by militants. We
condemn rocket attacks and once again call for their immediate
cessation. We are urging the de-facto authorities to intensify their
efforts to maintain calm.
20. Israeli forces responded overnight to the recent rocket attack with
air raids against Hamas facilities in the Strip. On 23 February, Israeli
forces also used tank fire against militants allegedly detonating an
explosive device near the border fence and firing mortars. The
operation injured 11 Palestinians, including militants from Islamic Jihad,
killing one. During the night of 17 February, three Palestinians were
shot and killed by Israeli security forces near the border fence in Gaza
as they were allegedly planting explosive devices, while the de-facto
authorities contend they were fishermen. During the reporting period,
Israel conducted ten further incursions and four air strikes into Gaza, in
which two Palestinian militants and 27 Palestinian civilians were
injured. We call on Israel to exercise maximum restraint and to ensure
protection of civilians. All parties must respect international
humanitarian law.
21. We remain concerned at the depressed economic situation in Gaza
and the continuing impact of Israeli closure measures. At the same
time, I note positively the Israeli approval of 14 additional UN
infrastructure projects in Gaza, including seven UNRWA schools,
bringing the total number of approved UNRWA schools to 20. The total
amount of approved projects now stands at 155.4 million USD. It is
important that implementation now proceed smoothly, which will
require streamlined entry of material and adequate capacity at the
crossings. Import levels are more significant than before Israel’s policy
adjustment in June 2010, but far from meeting pre-2007 levels. The
needs in Gaza remain vast, and we hope that both import and export
levels can be scaled up within the framework of implementation of SCR
1860. The UN is also in discussions with the Government of Israel on a
process – led by the Palestinian Authority with UN monitoring – for the
commercial import of construction materials for the private sector.
22. High Commissioner for Human Rights Pillay visited the occupied
Palestinian territory and Israel during the reporting period and
expressed her concern at the violations of human rights. Amongst
others, she spoke out against settlement activity in the West Bank,
including in East Jerusalem, and the associated regime of obstacles to
movement, given their devastating impact on human rights, peace,
and development. She also met with victims of rockets in Sderot on 10
February and urged the militants in Gaza to stop committing war
crimes by firing these rockets.
23. Staff Sergeant Gilad Shalit has been detained by Hamas for over
1700 days. We reiterate our appeal for his release and for
humanitarian access to be granted without delay. We continue to
express concern about the several thousand Palestinians in Israeli
prisons.
24. The Rafah crossing was closed from 30 January 2011 to all traffic,
including humanitarian cases. We welcome the gradual reopening of
the crossing since 18 February.

Madam President,
25. Let me turn now to regional events. As regards developments in
Egypt, where a transition is underway that must serve the interests of
the Egyptian people, we take positive note of reaffirmed commitments
by Israeli and Egyptian authorities to regional stability and peace. We
note with appreciation that Israel is allowing 300 Palestinians living in
Libya to enter the West Bank as a humanitarian gesture.
26. We regret the lack of progress towards peace between Israel and
Syria. We are concerned about a new campaign to encourage
additional Israeli settlement in the occupied Syrian Golan, aiming to
recruit 140 new families during 2011. In the interest of regional
stability and to realize the Arab Peace Initiative, the conflict between
Israel and Syria should be resolved on the basis of relevant Security
Council resolutions.
27. In Lebanon, the collapse of the Government on 12 January led to an
increase in the level of political tension in the country, which
culminated in a series of demonstrations in support of caretaker Prime
Minister Hariri that took place on 24 and 25 January, mostly in the
northern city of Tripoli and some areas in Beirut. The demonstrations
ended as Prime Minister Hariri called for calm. The Secretary-General
welcomed the statement issued by Prime Minister Hariri and called on
all parties to maintain calm and avoid any acts of violence.
28. On 25 January, and following two days of constitutionally-mandated
consultations with all parliamentary groups, President Sleiman
requested Mr. Najib Mikati to form a new Government. Mr. Mikati’s
consultations are still continuing. On behalf of the Secretary-General,
we would like to convey his hope that the new Government will meet
the aspirations of all Lebanese, and his call on this Government to
abide by all the international obligations that Lebanon has undertaken.
29. On 14 February, a political rally took place in Beirut to
commemorate the sixth anniversary of the assassination of former
Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri and 22 others. The Secretary-General issued
a statement on that occasion in which he reaffirmed the commitment
of the United Nations to the efforts of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon.
30. On 22 February, the Lebanese caretaker Minister of Labour signed
an administrative decree regulating the implementation of the labour
law amendments that were approved by Parliament in August 2010.
This represents an important and positive step that will contribute to
improving living conditions of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon. While
progress is being made in the reconstruction of the Nahr el Bared
refugee camp, funding remains a major concern. The United Nations
urges the international community to renew its financial support to the
reconstruction of Nahr el Bared so that progress can be sustained.
31. The overall situation in the UNIFIL area of operations remained
quiet and stable. Israeli violations of Lebanese air space have
continued to take place on an almost daily basis.

Madam President,
32. I indicated in my December briefing that I believed the credibility of
the international community, including the Quartet, would be at stake
in 2011. It is now all the more urgent and crucial that it respond to this
test. To this end, the Quartet intends to engage the parties in serious
talks including on substance and support them in finding ways back to
the negotiation table. I also believe that there should be a readiness to
offer more concrete suggestions for those negotiations, if that is what
it takes to enable decisive progress toward peace. I hope the leaders
will join in this effort by acting responsibly and in keeping with their
peoples’ aspirations for stability and peace. This, in my view, is the
right lesson to draw from the changes that are taking place in the
region.
Thank you, Madam President.
Back to Top

We deserve better
By Angela Godfrey-Goldstein, Jerusalem Post, 28th February 2011
Home demolitions,
settlement expansion and
evictions derail the peace
process.
As the peace process grinds to
a halt, the government yet
again displays contempt for human rights and international law,
breaking repeated promises to stop seizing land, homes and
businesses from their rightful owners.
Israeli hubris has been increasingly on display this past year in east
Jerusalem, where the government has been targeting non-Jewish
residents, evicting families from homes they’ve lived in for
generations, demolishing homes and businesses, displacing hundreds
of people. These policies reflect a repressive discrimination.
Photo by: Reuters
Last year, more than 430 non-Jewish homes and livelihood structures
were demolished in east Jerusalem and the West Bank – a 60 percent
increase over 2009. This affected thousands of Palestinians, and made
600 homeless, according to UN statistics. While Israel cites building
violations, government policies reveal a discriminatory process that
denies building permits to non-Jewish residents.
Israel is everywhere seizing Palestinian land, creating Jewish-only cities
and roads, and the newly passed state budget is geared to strengthen
those policies. In fact, Jerusalem municipal policy is trying to force a
demographic of 70% Jewish and 30% non-Jewish. Currently, some
60,000 east Jerusalem residents are at risk of home demolitions and
displacement.
Human Rights Watch, in its new report “Separate and Unequal,”
confirms this discrimination. It states that in east Jerusalem’s al-Bustan
neighborhood, Israel hasn’t issued a single building permit since 1967.
Nearby, in Har Homa, more than 20,000 settlers have moved in over
the past 13 years. So while Israel destroys non-Jewish homes, it builds
settlements.
HOME DEMOLITIONS and settlement growth have been cited as major
obstacles to peace by US President Barack Obama, Vice President
Joseph Biden, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Gen. David Petraeus,
the 9/11 Commission, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and many
foreign policy experts.
Yet we hear too little about the illegal home demolitions and
settlement expansion. Instead, we hear the tired refrain of how the
Palestinians missed another opportunity for peace.
While armed settlers terrorize Palestinians in the West Bank, and
Gazans live under illegal collective punishment, Palestinians have been
quietly and steadfastly building a state. Palestinian leaders are, against
all odds, performing the miraculous task of keeping the peace in the
face of regular violence against them by radical Jewish settlers.
The missed opportunity is not on the part of the Palestinians, but on
the part of Israel, the US and the international community. For the US,
it’s another missed opportunity to show true leadership.
Israel is the largest recipient of US foreign aid, and withholding this aid
is the only message the government understands. By continuing to
support Israel as it violates human, civil and religious rights, the US
gets weaker while Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran get stronger. For the
international community, talk has been cheap. Leaders condemn
Israel, but offer little sustained action, as recently demonstrated in
Munich by the Quartet’s conservative message endorsing the status
quo and by the infamous US veto at the Security Council last Friday.
Where do we go from here? One obvious route is to sit back and see
how much longer Palestinians accept being the targets of settler
violence, demolitions, evictions and land confiscations. That is akin to
waiting for a tinder box to catch fire.
An alternative is for world governments to hold Israel accountable and
demonstrate increasing support for a Palestinian state based on the
internationally recognized 1967 lines; more than 100 countries
recognized those lines in 1988. Recently Brazil, Argentina, Bolivia,
Ecuador, Guyana, Russia and Chile confirmed that recognition. Civil
society increasingly sees this as a solution. By advocating an
independent, sovereign Palestinian state, free of occupation, we can
end the stalemate. Only by ending this stalemate can Israel have a
normal, secure and healthy future, free of terrorism.
We deserve far more from our leaders than this endless vicious cycle in
which Israel promises to stop its immoral behavior, then continues
while the world watches and the Palestinians suffer.
We deserve vision. We deserve progress. We need change, before this
situation erupts yet again in ever-more-traumatic violence.

Back to Top

Egypt on the Brink: The Arab World at a Tipping

Point?
By Michael Hudson, Jadaliyya, 1 February 2011
Hosni Mubarak is still President of Egypt but his days in power are
numbered. There will be no Mubarak dynasty either. The authoritarian
order in Egypt and throughout the Arab world has been profoundly
shaken. The ousting of Ben Ali in Tunisia, a remarkable event in itself,
now appears to have been the trigger for a far broader upheaval that is
shaking regimes across the region. Since Muhammad Bouazizi set
himself alight in Tunisia on December 17, self-immolations have taken
place in Egypt, Algeria, Mauritania, Saudi Arabia and Yemen.
Unprecedented demonstrations have since spread to Algeria, Jordan,
and Yemen. Remember too that all this was taking place against the
backdrop of a tense regional environment: the dangerous paralysis in
the Palestinian-Israeli peace process, a simmering crisis in Lebanon,
continuing uncertainties over Iraq, and the Iranian nuclear issue.
Egypt As a Catalyst?
Egypt, with a population of over 80 million, is not only the largest
country by far in the Arab world, it is also strategically and centrally
situated astride Africa and Asia, and has exerted profound political,
cultural and social influence in the modernization of the whole region
since the late eighteenth century. During the rule of the charismatic
Gamal Abdel Nasser from 1952 to 1970 Egypt dominated the Arab
world. To be sure, under his successors Anwar Sadat and Hosni
Mubarak, who aligned Egypt with the U.S., Egypt’s influence in regional
affairs waned; but by virtue of its size and history this country
commands a privileged place in the Arab imagination. Thus, it has
served as a model of authoritarianism for the region and were it to
dissolve into chaos or, preferably, a liberal democratic system similar
to today’s Turkey the demonstration effect could be significant. That
is why Arab ruling elites from the Atlantic to the Gulf must be losing
sleep these days.
Political scientists who until recently were pronouncing Arab
authoritarianism as too deeply rooted to fail are now discovering so
many reasons why Mubarak is facing the most serious challenge of his
long career. There is the economic argument: despite decent
aggregate growth, unemployment and a rising cost of living are fueling
popular protest. There is the administrative argument: corruption and
bureaucratic mismanagement have gotten out of hand. There is the
social argument: Egypt’s youth are alienated, the educational system
is in decay, families and marriages are under stress. But above all
there is the political argument: the president and his ruling party have
become increasingly authoritarian over time. The respected Egyptian
political scientist Mustapha Kamel Al-Sayyid, in a lecture at the Middle
East Institute in Singapore a month before the crisis exploded,
described the blatantly un-free parliamentary elections staged by the
Mubarak regime, which brought its authoritarian habits to a new
low. “Stagnation will continue if things remain as they are,” he
said, “but they may not remain as they are because people’s reactions
show that they do not accept it.” If the people have taken to the
streets to demonstrate that they do not accept authoritarianism in
Tunisia and Egypt, why should they not do the same thing in other
authoritarian Arab countries?
A “Model” for Other Arab Countries?
Many of the conditions that help explain the eruptions in Tunisia and
Egypt are present in other Arab countries. In the non-oil rich states like
Morocco, Algeria, Jordan and Yemen we see the same volatile social
cocktail: a youth bulge, vast unemployment, inadequate education,
and gross economic inequality. Little wonder that their rulers are
belatedly trying to ease conditions that will take years to
remedy. Jordan is offering subsidies; Yemen (where tax evasion is
endemic!) is cutting taxes. Too little, too late?
Will the Arab oil-rich states be immune? Perhaps so if the present
upheaval is seen as being driven exclusively by economic
deprivation. But there are two other powerful political factors
fomenting popular anger: entrenched authoritarianism and
subservience to America’s strategic agenda for the Middle East—
especially its tacit support for Israel’s oppression of the
Palestinians. Petro-rulers as different from each other as Mu’ammar al-
Qadhafi in Libya and King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia have condemned
the popular upheavals, with Qadhafi voicing support for the disgraced
Ben Ali in Tunisia and Abdullah excoriating the protesters on the
streets of Egypt as infiltrators, who “in the name of freedom of
expression, have infiltrated into the brotherly people of Egypt, to
destabilize its security and stability and they have been exploited to
spew out their hatred in destruction, intimidation, burning, looting and
inciting a malicious sedition.” Might it be said, quoting Shakespeare,
that “they doth protest too much?” Is it time to reexamine the
proposition often expressed by Western observers that the oil-rich
authoritarian monarchies are the ideal model for the Arab world,
because they are rooted in a traditional (i.e., patriarchal tribal) culture
and seem to convey an image of Islamic legitimacy?
Where Are the Islamists?
And speaking of Islam, where are the Islamists in the recent upheavals
in Tunisia and Egypt? There is scant indication that Islamist
organizations played a major role. Yet to believe the conservative U.S.
media one would understand that what we are seeing is an Islamist
terrorist conspiracy. And virtually every Arab regime has fanned this
alleged threat in order to win U.S. military, financial and political
support. But this is an oversimplification of the complex realities of
Arab society and political culture. In Egypt the Muslim Brotherhood has
been so slow to get on board the upheaval that it risks its own
credibility. As for Al-Qa’ida, it is nowhere to be seen. The fact is that
the protest movement is driven less by the slogan “Islam is the
solution” than by a popular revulsion at authoritarianism, corruption,
poor governance, and subservience to U.S. strategic priorities (of which
Israel is at the top). Certainly the Muslim Brotherhood will emerge as
a main player along with others in any new Egyptian political order, but
don’t expect the Arabs to welcome an Iranian or Taliban-style regime.
Dilemma for the U.S. and Israel
The Obama administration’s confused and timid reaction reflects all
too clearly the dilemma it faces. Egypt is a lynchpin of the American
security architecture for the greater Middle East. Egypt helps
guarantee Israel’s interests. Omar Suleiman played a key role in
helping Israel seal off Gaza in their common effort to dislodge the
Hamas government there. Successive administrations have poured
money into Egypt to secure its regime and reinforce its client status. A
radical Islamic takeover in Egypt would constitute the worst possible
scenario for Washington and Tel Aviv. But for Israel even the evolution
of a new Egypt along Turkish lines would be anathema. Once again,
the U.S. is caught between its professed ideals of promoting
democracy and freedom and its perceived interest in a Middle East
whose publics (and their anti-American, anti-Israeli opinions) are
sidelined from political participation by friendly authoritarian rulers. So
far the protesters in Egypt are not targeting America, and Washington
has a moment of opportunity to do the right thing and get behind the
transition. But its response so far is weak and hypocritical. If it comes
down on the side of the old status quo its real adversaries in the region
—Iran and the radical movements—will benefit.
Whither Egypt? Whither the Arab World?
The revolution in Egypt has begun. Mubarak is on his way out. Gen.
Omar Suleiman, pillar of the intelligence establishment and reliable
friend of Washington, looks to be the man in charge of a transitional
regime. But transitional toward what? Doubtless the U.S. government,
Israel, and the pro-American authoritarian regimes in the Arab world
are desperately hoping that he will keep Egypt from falling into the
hands of the popular opposition, let alone the Islamist currents. The
higher ranks of the Egyptian military must share this orientation, given
its historically lucrative ties with the Pentagon. But the middle and
lower ranks may be another matter entirely. After all, it was middle-
rank officers of Islamist sympathies who assassinated President Anwar
Sadat in 1981. And it is hard to believe that the multiple strands of
Egypt’s new “people power” are ready to accept Omar Suleiman as an
agent of genuine change, even though some of them have viewed him
as definitely preferable to a Mubarak dynasty.
Egypt is at a turning point. If it turns toward a continuation of military-
dominated leadership supported by the business elite we will not have
seen the end of turmoil. Popular forces, including the Muslim
Brotherhood, cannot continue to be excluded from meaningful
participation. One must hope that the transitional government will do
the right thing and open up the political arena for full participation and
an early (and this time free) election. The Muslim Brothers didn’t make
this revolution but they will need to be part of the new order—an order
that also includes centrists, leftists, and liberals. Perhaps Dr.
Muhammad El Baradei will emerge as the revolution’s
representative. A genuinely representative Egyptian government will
reject the slavish pro-American, pro-Israeli clientelism of its
predecessor. That need not mean that Egypt will become a spearhead
for anti-Western, anti-Israeli projects. On the contrary, a genuinely
legitimate Egyptian government could set a prominent example for
non-authoritarian, participatory government throughout the region and
play a decisive role in leading the Middle East out of its present
dysfunctional condition.

Back to Top

Egypt's uprising and its implications for Palestine

By Ali Abunimah, The Electronic Intifada, 29 January 2011
We are in the middle of a political earthquake in the Arab world and the
ground has still not stopped shaking. To make predictions when
events are so fluid is risky, but there is no doubt that the uprising in
Egypt -- however it ends -- will have a dramatic impact across the
region and within Palestine.
If the Mubarak regime falls, and is replaced by one less tied to Israel
and the United States, Israel will be a big loser. As Aluf Benn
commented in the Israeli daily Haaretz, "The fading power of
Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak's government leaves Israel in a
state of strategic distress. Without Mubarak, Israel is left with
almost no friends in the Middle East; last year, Israel saw its
alliance with Turkey collapse" ("Without Egypt, Israel will be
left with no friends in Mideast," 29 January 2011).
Indeed, Benn observes, "Israel is left with two strategic allies in the
region: Jordan and the Palestinian Authority." But what Benn does
not say is that these two "allies" will not be immune either.
Over the past few weeks I was in Doha examining the Palestine Papers
leaked to Al Jazeera. These documents underscore the extent to
which the split between the US-backed Palestinian Authority in
Ramallah headed by Mahmoud Abbas and his Fatah faction, on the
one hand, and Hamas in the Gaza Strip, on the other -- was a
policy decision of regional powers: the United States, Egypt
and Israel. This policy included Egypt's strict enforcement of the
siege of Gaza.
If the Mubarak regime goes, the United States will lose enormous
leverage over the situation in Palestine, and Abbas' PA will lose one
of its main allies against Hamas.
Already discredited by the extent of its collaboration and capitulation
exposed in the Palestine Papers, the PA will be weakened even
further. With no credible "peace process" to justify its continued
"security coordination" with Israel, or even its very existence, the
countdown may well begin for the PA's implosion. Even the US and
EU support for the repressive PA police-state-in-the-making may no
longer be politically tenable. Hamas may be the immediate
beneficiary, but not necessarily in the long term. For the first time
in years we are seeing broad mass movements that, while they
include Islamists, are not necessarily dominated or controlled by
them.
There is also a demonstration effect for Palestinians: the endurance of
the Tunisian and Egyptian regimes has been based on the
perception that they were strong, as well as their ability to terrorize
parts of their populations and co-opt others. The relative ease with
which Tunisians threw off their dictator, and the speed with which
Egypt, and perhaps Yemen, seem to be going down the same road,
may well send a message to Palestinians that neither Israel's nor
the PA's security forces are as indomitable as they appear. Indeed,
Israel's "deterrence" already took a huge blow from its failure to
 defeat Hizballah in Lebanon in 2006, and Hamas in Gaza during the
winter 2008-09 attacks.
As for Abbas's PA, never has so much international donor money been
spent on a security force with such poor results. The open secret is
that without the Israeli military occupying the West Bank and
besieging Gaza (with the Mubarak regime's help), Abbas and his
praetorian guard would have fallen long ago. Built on the
foundations of a fraudulent peace process, the US, EU and Israel
with the support of the decrepit Arab regimes now under threat by
their own people, have constructed a Palestinian house of cards
that is unlikely to remain standing much longer.
This time the message may be that the answer is not more military
resistance but rather more people power and a stronger emphasis
on popular protests. Today, Palestinians form at least half the
population in historic Palestine -- Israel, the West Bank and the
Gaza Strip combined. If they rose up collectively to demand equal
rights, what could Israel do to stop them? Israel's brutal violence
and lethal force has not stopped regular demonstrations in West
Bank villages including Bilin and Beit Ommar.
Israel must fear that if it responds to any broad uprising with brutality,
its already precarious international support could start to evaporate
as quickly as Mubarak's. The Mubarak regime, it seems, is
undergoing rapid "delegitimization." Israeli leaders have made it
clear that such an implosion of international support scares them
more than any external military threat. With the power shifting to
the Arab people and away from their regimes, Arab governments
may not be able to remain as silent and complicit as they have for
years as Israel oppresses Palestinians.
As for Jordan, change is already underway. I witnessed a protest of
thousands of people in downtown Amman yesterday. These well-
organized and peaceful protests, called for by a coalition of Islamist
and leftist opposition parties, have been held now for weeks in
cities around the country. The protesters are demanding the
resignation of the government of Prime Minister Samir al-Rifai,
dissolution of the parliament elected in what were widely seen as
fraudulent elections in November, new free elections based on
democratic laws, economic justice, an end to corruption and
cancelation of the peace treaty with Israel. There were strong
demonstrations of solidarity for the people of Egypt.
None of the parties at the demonstration called for the kind of
revolutions that happened in Tunisia and Egypt to occur in Jordan,
and there is no reason to believe such developments are imminent.
But the slogans heard at the protests are unprecedented in their
boldness and their direct challenge to authority. Any government
that is more responsive to the wishes of the people will have to
review its relationship with Israel and the United States.
Only one thing is certain today: whatever happens in the region, the
people's voices can no longer be ignored.

Back to Top

Palestinians in Gaza react to Egypt, Tunisia uprisings

By Pam Bailey The Electronic Intifada, 29 January 2011
As news of the uprisings in a growing number of Arab countries spread
like wildfire around the world, residents of other countries
struggling under their own oppressive governments and soaring
unemployment were celebrating on the streets, on Twitter and on
Facebook. The occupied Gaza Strip was no exception.
"We, as Palestinians, salute the Tunisian people and any Arab nation
rising against injustice," said Saber Zanin, coordinator of the Local
Initiative Committee for Beit Hanoun in the northern Gaza Strip.
However, perhaps the most excited were the youth of Gaza, who
saw the uprisings in Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen and Jordan as evidence
of the latent power of their generation.
"There was much excitement from what happened. I spent the whole
day just following up with what was going on in Tunisia and I was
actually very proud with what the people have done," said
Sameeha Elwan, a 23-year-old blogger, shortly after the uprising
there. "It gave me some hope and I got back the faith I have in
people."
Jehan "JeJe" al-Farra, a 20-year-old English literature student, said
immediately after the Tunisian uprising, "The message I got from
the Tunisian movement is that the people are the cause of change.
If there is any change you want you have to do it yourself. If you
wait on the world, you will have to wait and wait and wait. The only
way you can do anything is to revolt."
The biggest challenge facing the Arab world today is youth
unemployment. According to Foreign Policy magazine, North
Africa and the Middle East now have the highest percentage of
young people in the world. Sixty percent of the region's' people are
under the age of 30, twice the rate of North America. And with the
unemployment rate at 10 percent or more, the area also has the
highest regional rates of joblessness; for young people, it's four
times that.
However, it's even worse in Gaza. The Sharek Youth Forum (recently
shut down by the Hamas government), reported that approximately
60 percent of youth between the ages of 15 and 30 were unable to
find jobs in 2009 despite a high university matriculation rate.
In the West Bank, appointed Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority
Prime Minister Salam Fayyad immediately saw the parallels
between Gaza and Tunisia and spent more than two hours on 16
January talking to forty Palestinian journalists at his Ramallah office
about the economic situation and living conditions in the West Bank
and Gaza Strip. He attempted to reassure the journalists that
economic conditions were good in spite of reports on the rise in
consumer prices and relatively high unemployment and poverty
figures.
The Gaza-based, Hamas-led Palestinian Authority government, as well
as Islamic Jihad, organized demonstrations in downtown Gaza City
celebrating the Tunisian uprising. In a statement to the Ahlul Bayt
news agency, a Hamas spokesman said the movement "respects
the will and choice of the Tunisians and assures it will stand by
them." Fathi Hammad, foreign minister in the Gaza-based
government, added, "We are with the Tunisians in choosing their
leaders, no matter what sacrifices it takes." He didn't seem to
consider the possibility that the same power could be turned
against his party which won the last Palestinian legislative election
to be held, in January 2006.
However, Muayed Elmishal, a leader of the Sora youth group in Gaza,
saw a similarity between the Tunisians' frustration and that of
young Palestinians: "The Tunisian people suffered dictatorship for
long years, and promises of democracy and freedom were never
delivered. The Palestinian people are experiencing the same thing:
After the democratic elections in 2006, never repeated until this
moment, we have two separate governments -- one in the Gaza
Strip and the other in the West Bank. This has caused deep
frustration among the Palestinians and made them feel desperate
to do something."
The authors of the Gaza Youth Break Out manifesto -- which
published on Facebook an angry call for help that lashed out at
Hamas, the United Nations, the United States and Israel -- agreed.
"There is an uprising coming to Gaza," said one, who asked not to
be named due to fear of retaliation.
Despite this frustration, nearly everyone in Gaza is in agreement that
there is one big difference between Tunisia and Palestine: the fact
that Palestinians are under occupation by Israel, which they view as
responsible for the majority of their problems.
"The Tunisian people have problems with big corruption in their
government; that's their main problem," said Ghassan al-Khaldi, a
civil engineer, shortly after the Tunisian uprising. "We may not like
our government, but the Palestinian people have one primary
enemy -- Israel, which takes our lands, our dreams, our sons."
Egypt, however, is a different story. Its government cooperates with
Israel in keeping the people of Gaza imprisoned within their
cramped, occupied territory. Opinions about what they want and
 what will happen as a result of the ongoing uprising in Egypt vary
within Gaza -- ranging from euphoria, to skepticism that Mubarak
would actually fall, to concern that the alternative to Hosni Mubarak
will be an Islamist government like Hamas, which has become
unpopular among many Palestinians in Gaza.
Wasim Zaher, member of a new youth group called Yala, said "I don't
think the uprising in Egypt will make Mubarak fall but I hope it will
make him and the Egyptian government correct their policies for
the Egyptian people and toward Palestine and Gaza."
Whatever the assessment, there's no doubt people in Gaza are
watching closely as the people power moves closer to their border.

Back to Top

Israel staunchly on the side of Arab tyrannies

By Yossi Gurvitz, +972Mag, 29 January 2011
The Sum of All their Fears: Why Israelis react with fear and
loathing to the Egyptian revolution
It’s yet unclear whether the Mubarak regime will survive the next few
days – there are conflicting reports saying his sons and wife have
already fled Egypt – and it’s not clear which will be the next regime to
topple: There are demonstrations in Jordan, Yemen – not all that
unusual there, admittedly – and, surprisingly enough, Saudi Arabia.
We seem to experience what looks like an Arab Spring of Nations,
beginning with Tunisia – yet the Israeli public, as well as its leadership,
are discontent. An uprising against vampires like Ben Ali and Mubarak,
who held their offices for decades, not only fails to excite them, it
practically frightens them. The Israelis have placed themselves,
automatically, on the side of the Arab tyrants.
After all, Israel is pretty comfy with them; they don’t surprise you. An
anonymous Israeli minister – I guess it’s Boogie Ya’alon, a former army
chief of staff and current Likud politician, since he has the requisite
indoctrination - told Time yesterday that, as a principle, Israel prefers
democracies “because democracies do not initiate wars” (he probably
forgot about Iraq). But, on the other hand, “I’m not sure the time is
right for the Arab region to go through the democratic process”.
Of course not. The timing is never right. After all, Israel only wants the
Arabs to be democratic so it can avoid making peace with them. The
demand that the Arab countries become democracies before there will
be any peace initiatives – since there is no point in making peace with
unpopular tyrants – was the core Nathan Sharansky’s book, the one
George W. Bush loved so much. Now, when the revolutions are here,
Israel shows its true colors: it’s on the tyrants’ side.
Our security establishment likes telling us that a revolution in Egypt or
any other Arab country will automatically end with the Muslim
Brotherhood or some other Islamist faction taking over. Maybe. On the
other hand, this is Mubarak’s hoary position – and needless to say, he’s
not a disinterested party. It is also the position of Israeli intelligence,
which once more failed to foresee the collapse of the Tunisian
dictatorship and the heavy riots in Egypt; yet another failure in a long
string.
This prognosis, however, may rely on one sample only: That of Iran,
which is not even an Arab country. The Iranian revolution is 30 years
old; we have seen it lose its young generation. Islamists have come to
power in Algeria, but did not have the chance to govern; the army
deposed them, initiating a long and bloody civil war. An Islamic party
came to power in Turkey, and while it’s clear it’s not a festival of
freedom, it is not Iran, either.
The Brotherhood did not start the riots. In Tunisia, they came only after
Ben Ali fled, and their chances are doubtful. In Egypt, the Brotherhood
is the oldest and most organized opposition group – and they still came
in late. According to reports today, when some Brotherhood activists
broke out in cries of “Allahu Akbar”, they were over-shouted by other
activists, chanting “Muslims, Christians – we’re all Egyptians”. Egypt, it
is worth noting, has a semi-democratic past: During the reign of King
Farouq, it had an active parliament and free and exuberant press.
Mubarak is the third tyrant in a military dynasty – Nasser and Sadat
were the first two – which did its best to wipe out this tradition. When a
pundit tried to tell Al Jazeera yesterday – which, by the way, did a
fabulous job – that the democracy of the times of Nasser should be
restored, he caused a bitter smile.
As I said, we can’t know yet how the Egyptian revolution will turn out.
But it is sickening to see the Israeli consensus demanding that when
Arabs think of their future, they should imagine a hobnailed boot
crushing their faces forever, in order to protect Israelis from their own
fears. This concepts demonstrates, again, how much Israelis view
Arabs as savages who can neither govern themselves, nor develop.
They always need a strongman to keep them down. This concept tells
us much more about Israelis than about their neighbours.

Back to Top

Israel urges world to curb criticism of Egypt's

Mubarak
By Barak Ravid, Haaretz, 31 January 2011
Jerusalem seeks to convince its allies that it is in the West's
interest to maintain the stability of the Egyptian regime.
Israel called on the United States and a number of European countries
over the weekend to curb their criticism of President Hosni Mubarak to
preserve stability in the region.
Jerusalem seeks to convince its allies that it is in the West's interest to
maintain the stability of the Egyptian regime. The diplomatic measures
came after statements in Western capitals implying that the United
States and European Union supported Mubarak's ouster.
Israeli officials are keeping a low profile on the events in Egypt, with
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu even ordering cabinet members to
avoid commenting publicly on the issue.
Senior Israeli officials, however, said that on Saturday night the Foreign
Ministry issued a directive to around a dozen key embassies in the
United States, Canada, China, Russia and several European countries.
The ambassadors were told to stress to their host countries the
importance of Egypt's stability. In a special cable, they were told to get
this word out as soon as possible.
EU foreign ministers are to discuss the situation in Egypt at a special
session today in Brussels, after which they are expected to issue a
statement echoing those issued in recent days by U.S. President
Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
Obama called on Mubarak to take "concrete steps" toward democratic
reforms and to refrain from violence against peaceful protesters,
sentiments echoed in a statement Saturday night by the leaders of
Britain, France and Germany.
"The Americans and the Europeans are being pulled along by public
opinion and aren't considering their genuine interests," one senior
Israeli official said. "Even if they are critical of Mubarak they have to
make their friends feel that they're not alone. Jordan and Saudi Arabia
see the reactions in the West, how everyone is abandoning Mubarak,
and this will have very serious implications."
Netanyahu announced at Sunday's weekly cabinet meeting that the
security cabinet will convene Monday to discuss the situation in Egypt.
"The peace between Israel and Egypt has lasted for more than three
decades and our objective is to ensure that these relations will
continue to exist," Netanyahu told his ministers. "We are closely
monitoring events in Egypt and the region and are making efforts to
preserve its security and stability."
The Foreign Ministry has called on Israelis currently in Egypt to
consider returning home and for those planning to visit the country to
reconsider. It is telling Israelis who have decided to remain in Egypt to
obey government directives.

Back to Top
Israelis are not hostile to the Egyptian revolution,
they are simply anxious
By Noam Sheizaf, +972Mag, 30 January 2011
There are many Israeli positions that should make one angry
these days. The reaction to the Egyptian uprising is not one of
them
This weekend, several writers on +972 Magazine claimed that Israelis
are generally hostile to the Egyptian revolution and that they prefer to
side with President Hosni Mubarak (examples here, here and here). I
believe this to be inaccurate, maybe simply untrue.
Yes, recent events took Israeli pundits, experts, and leaders by
surprise, and in the first days of protest, they tended to estimate that
the demonstrations would soon die out and the president would
survive. This is the reason for some of the public comments that
seemed to be downplaying the importance of protest. But frankly, who
wasn’t surprised? No one in the West imagined that Mubarak’s regime
was so fragile. The determination of the protesters found the Egyptian
opposition leaders themselves unready, and it took them a day or two
before they joined the protesters (or three days, in the case of the
Muslim Brotherhood). Blaming Jerusalem alone for not recognizing the
full potential of the uprising is ridiculous.
I was watching Israeli networks over the past few days, and I found
their coverage to be pretty similar to those on CNN or Sky, and more
balanced and professional than FOX News. Channel 1 had a reporter in
Cairo broadcasting live on Friday, and he was clearly exited by the
protest. In other TV stations, there were lively exchanges between
those who saw the risks involved in an Egyptian revolution (these were
mainly the military correspondents) and those who were impressed
and even moved by the Egyptian cry for freedom.
Israelis never liked President Mubarak very much. Unlike the late
Jordanian King Hussein, Mubarak was perceived as cold and aloof, even
patronizing. To be sure, nobody thought of him as “our guy.” Mubarak
was simply the person you do business with.
There is a consensus in Israel that peace with Egypt is the greatest
strategic asset the country has, after its special relationship with the
US. Except for some on the extreme Right, the dominant view is that
Israel should do business with whoever will be calling the shots in
Cairo. Mubarak kept the peace – so Israeli leaders trusted him. The
same could happen with his successor.
On Channel two on Friday, Tzvi Mazal, a rightwing diplomat and former
ambassador to Egypt, said that the revolution is a blessing for both
Israel and the Egyptian people (today, in an op-ed in Maariv, Mazal
claimed that the peace treaty with Israel is not at risk, and that the
prospect of an Islamic regime resulting from the revolution are very
low). Other pundits expressed concern over the possibility of a Muslim
takeover in Egypt. Following Hamas’ rise in Gaza and recent moves by
Hezbollah in Lebanon, that is the main Israeli fear. I think Israelis tend
to exaggerate these risks, but I can understand the reasons for them. If
there is any hostility to the Egyptian revolution in Israel, I think it is
because of these fears, and not due to a patronizing attitude towards
the Arab world, as some writers suggested (though this sentiment
might also exist among some people).
Regardless of the revolution’s outcome, Egypt will remain a great
nation, and one of the region’s major powers. Many Israelis understand
and respect that. Right now, I feel that the dominant view is that it is
for the Egyptian people to decide who rules them. To be honest, I think
that a full embrace of the revolution by the current Israeli government
would have embarrassed Egyptian opposition leaders more than it
could encourage them. I actually believe that the government did the
right thing in keeping mostly silent on these events.
On a personal level, when I think of Egypt, my grandparents are the
first to come to my mind. Born in Basra, Iraq, they were both fans of
Egyptian culture. At home, they watched Egyptian films which they
borrowed from a special video store in our town. They listened to
Egyptian music and spoke Arabic with their friends. Had they lived to
see this moment, I think they would have been thrilled and exited by
the images coming from Cairo.
Back to Top

Revolution spreads to Egypt's deprived Sinai

By Mohammed Omer, The Electronic Intifada, 1 February 2011
SINAI (IPS) - A Bedouin youth casually spreads out a piece of cloth
before a police headquarters in Sheikh Zwayyed town in Sinai, the
vast desert area to the east of Cairo across the Suez. "I will leave
when Mubarak leaves," he says.
He joins hundreds of others. They have broken through into the police
station already, and are now camping there to demand a change in
government. Most youth are Bedouin, originally a nomadic tribe in
the desert, who've been fighting for their rights for years. Over the
last few days they feel they're winning.
The police are rapidly leaving their posts, but some still appear in
uniform. One uniformed policeman stands quietly to the side. He is
in danger, he seems no danger to others at all. What would he do if
attacked? "Just take my uniform off and join the protest," he tells
IPS. "Or maybe just go over to the Palestinian side."
A youth who gives his name as Hassan Washah has headed off towards
Gaza already. To the tunnels underneath the Egyptian-Gaza border,
and then in hope of heading home at last to the Buriej refugee
camp in Gaza.
Washah had been in prison for years. He was freed by a vast crowd of
Bedouin youth who advanced on the jail where he had been kept
with scores of others. There was no resistance reported from the
police and jail staff; many in fact were reported to have offered
assistance.
Sinai is home to many prisons. Countless prisoners have found sudden
freedom -- nobody seems to know what they were in jail for, and no
one wants to ask.
New groups have taken charge, and it's hard to say who these are.
Several check-posts have been set up all the way between Cairo
and Sinai. "Who are you," says a man at one of these checkpoints.
This IPS correspondent offers him his Palestinian passport. He
glances at it, upside down, and pockets it. After some time he gives
it back.
State security in plain clothes, riot police, secret police, the army,
Bedouin youth, protesters who had come from Cairo to spread the
word -- no one seems to know who the people at these check-
points are.
Makeshift barricades have been set up all over Sheikh Zwayyed.
Looters have run amok. Shops and houses have visibly been
stripped of chairs, tables, telephones, files, desks. Some of all this
has been burned in heaps.
Cars have been wrecked. Some had been driven into storefronts so the
shops could be looted. Others were overturned and burned. It
seems a shattered war zone. There has been at least some
resistance by police.
"There have been many clashes between Bedouin youth and the
security forces," says a young man sitting on the side of the road. A
few minutes later, shooting begins, not far away. "It will end soon,"
the young man says calmly. He seemed in no doubt who would
prevail.
There is no doubt either that Bedouin youth are fully armed. It is not
clear where they got their weapons from. Nothing seems certain
here, and nobody asks questions.
By all accounts there have been many casualties. Again, nobody knows
how many, and no one can say what treatment they have been
able to get, if any.
The sound of the shooting intensifies. It seems to be directed towards
the state security building nearby. The building also houses a large
number of prisoners. The youth are determined to clear the
building of any police loyal to the regime, and to free all prisoners.
The area appears to have drawn many powerful and armed groups that
have converged to free their associates and relatives from the
prisons. They look determined to succeed. Some of the men carry
heavy weapons.
The groups mingle freely with local Bedouin youth. The deprivation
across this area is greater than Cairo has ever known. And the
anger seems greater too.
With the anger, Bedouin youth now present a face of triumph. "It is a
revolution," one says simply.
Back to Top

The Egyptian Revolution: First Impressions from the

Field
By Mohammed Bamyeh
Never has a revolution that seemed so lacking in prospects gathered
momentum so quickly and so unexpectedly. The Egyptian Revolution,
starting on January 25, lacked leadership and possessed little
organization; its defining events, on Friday, January 28, occurred on a
day when all communication technologies, including all internet and
phones, were barred; it took place in a large country known for sedate
political life, a very long legacy of authoritarian continuity, and an
enviable repressive apparatus consisting of more than 2 million
members. But on that day, the regime of Hosni Mubarak, entrenched
for 30 years and seemingly eternal, the only regime that the vast
majority of the protesters had ever known, evaporated in one day.
Though the regime continues to struggle, practically little government
exists. All ministries and government offices have been closed, and
almost all police headquarters were burned down on January 28.
Except for the army, all security personnel disappeared, and a week
after the uprising, only few police officers ventured out again. Popular
committees have since taken over security in the neighborhoods. I saw
patriotism expressed everywhere as collective pride in the realization
that people who did not know each other could act together,
intentionally and with a purpose. During the ensuing week and a half,
millions converged on the streets almost everywhere in Egypt, and one
could empirically see how noble ethics—community and solidarity, care
for others, respect for the dignity of all, feeling of personal
responsibility for everyone--emerge precisely out of the disappearance
of government.
Undoubtedly this revolution, which is continuing to unfold, will be the
formative event in the lives of the millions of youth who spearheaded it
in Egypt, and perhaps also the many more millions of youth who
followed it throughout the Arab world. It is clear that it is providing a
new generation with a grand spectacle of the type that had shaped the
political consciousness of every generation before them in modern
Arab history. All those common formative experiences of past
generations were also grand national moments: whether catastrophic
defeats or triumphs against colonial powers or allies.
This revolution, too, will leave traces deep in the social fabric and
psyche for a long time, but in ways that go beyond the youth. While
the youth were the driving force in the earlier days, the revolution
quickly became national in every sense; over the days I saw an
increasing demographic mix in demonstrations, where people from all
age groups, social classes, men and women, Muslims and Christians,
urban people and peasants—virtually all sectors of society, acting in
large numbers and with a determination rarely seen before.
Everyone I talked to echoed similar transformative themes: they
highlighted a sense of wonder at how they discovered their neighbor
again, how they never knew that they lived in “society” or the meaning
of the word, until this event, and how everyone who yesterday had
appeared so distant is now so close. I saw peasant women giving
protestors onions to help them recover from teargas attacks; young
men dissuading others from acts of vandalism; the National Museum
being protected by protestors’ human shield from looting and fire;
protestors protecting captured baltagiyya who had been attacking
them from being harmed by other protestors; and countless other
incidents of generous civility amidst the prevailing destruction and
chaos.
I also saw how demonstrations alternated between battle scenes and
debating circles, and how they provided a renewable spectacle in
which everyone could see the diverse segments in social life
converging on the common idea of bringing down the regime. While
world media highlighted uncontrolled chaos, regional implications, and
the specter of Islamism in power, the ant’s perspective revealed the
relative irrelevance of all of the above considerations. As the
Revolution took longer and longer to accomplish the mission of
bringing down the regime, protestors themselves began to spend more
time highlighting other accomplishments, such as how new ethics were
emerging precisely amidst chaos. Those evidenced themselves in a
broadly shared sense of personal responsibility for civilization—
voluntary street cleaning, standing in line, the complete disappearance
of harassment of women in public, returning stolen and found objects,
and countless other ethical decisions that had usually been ignored or
left for others to worry about.
There are a number of basic features that are associated with this
magnificent event that are key, I think, to understanding not just the
Egyptian Revolution but also the emerging Arab uprisings of 2o11.
Those features include the power of marginal forces; spontaneity as an
art of moving; civic character as a conscious ethical contrast to state’s
barbarism; the priority assigned to political over all other kinds of
demands, including economics; and lastly autocratic deafness,
meaning the ill-preparedness of ruling elites to hear the early
reverberations as anything but undifferentiated public noise that could
be easily made inaudible again with the usual means.
First, marginality means that the revolution began at the margins. In
Tunisia it started that way, in marginal areas, from where it migrated
to the capital. And from Tunisia, itself relatively marginal in the larger
context of the Arab World, it travelled to Egypt. Obviously the situation
in each Arab country is different in so far as economic indicators and
degree of liberalization are concerned, but I was struck at how
conscious the Egyptian youth were of the Tunisian example preceding
them by just two weeks. Several mentioned to me their pride in
seeming to accomplish in just a few days what Tunisians needed a
month to accomplish.
Marginality appears to have been an important factor within Egypt as
well. While much of the media focus was on Tahrir Square in central
Cairo, to which I went every day, the large presence there was itself a
manifestation of a possibility that suddenly became evident on January
25, when large demonstrations broke out in 12 of Egypt’s provinces.
The revolution would never have been perceived as possible had it
been confined to Cairo, and in fact its most intense moment in its
earlier days, when it really looked that a revolution was happening,
were in more marginal sites like Suez. The collective perception that a
revolution was happening at the margins, where it was least expected,
gave everyone the confidence necessary to realize that it could happen
everywhere.
Second, in every sense the revolution maintained throughout a
character of spontaneity, in the sense that it had no permanent
organization. Rather, organizational needs—for example governing
how to communicate, what to do the next day, what to call that day,
how to evacuate the injured, how to repulse baltagiyya assaults, and
even how to formulate demands—emerged in the field directly and
continued to develop in response to new situations. Further, the
revolution lacked recognized leadership from beginning to end, a fact
that seemed to matter most to observers but not to participants. I saw
several debates in which participants strongly resisted being
represented by any existing group or leader, just as they resisted
demands that they produce “representatives” that someone, such as
al-Azhar or the government, could talk to. When the government asked
that someone be designated as a spokesperson for this revolt, many
participants flippantly designated one of the disappeared, only in the
hope that being so designated might hasten his reappearance. A
common statement I heard was that it was “the people” who decide. It
appeared that the idea of peoplehood was now assumed to be either
too grand to be representable by any concrete authority or leadership,
or that such representation would dilute the profound, almost spiritual,
implication of the notion of “the people” as a whole being on the move.
Spontaneity was a key element also because it made the Revolution
hard to predict or control; and because it provided for an unusual level
of dynamism and lightness—so long as many millions remained
completely committed to a collective priority of bringing down the
regime, represented in its president. But it also appeared that
spontaneity played a therapeutic and not simply organizational or
ideological role. More than one participant mentioned to me how the
revolution was psychologically liberating, because all the repression
that they had internalized as self-criticism and perception of inborn
weakness, was in the revolutionary climate turned outwards as positive
energy and a discovery of self-worth, real rather than superficial
connectedness to others, and limitless power to change frozen reality. I
heard the term “awakening” being used endlessly to describe the
movement as a whole as a sort of spontaneous emergence out of a
condition of deep slumber, which no party program could shake off
before.
Further, spontaneity was responsible, it seems, for the increasing
ceiling of the goals of the uprising, from basic reform demands on
January 25, to changing the entire regime three days later, to rejecting
all concessions made by the regime while Mubarak was in office, to
putting Mubarak on trial. Removing Mubarak was in fact not anyone’s
serious demand on January 25, when the relevant slogans condemned
the possible candidacy of his son, and called on Mubarak himself only
not to run again. But by the end of the day on January 28, the
immediate removal of Mubarak from office had become an unwavering
principle, and indeed it seemed then that it was about to happen. Here
one found out what was possible through spontaneous movement
rather than a fixed program, organization or leadership. Spontaneity
thus became the compass of the Revolution and the way by which it
found its way to what turned out to be its radical destination.
It proved therefore difficult to persuade protestors to give up the
spontaneous character of the Revolution, since spontaneity had
already proved its power. Spontaneity thus produced more confidence
than any other style of movement, and out of that confidence there
emerged, as far as I could see, protestors’ preparedness for sacrifice
and martyrdom. Spontaneity also appeared as a way by which the
carnivalesque character of social life was brought to the theater of the
revolution as a way of expressing freedom and initiative; for example,
among the thousands of signs I saw in demonstrations, there were
hardly any standard ones (as one would see in pro-government
demonstration). Rather, the vast majority of signs were individual and
hand-made, written or drawn on all kinds of materials and objects, and
were proudly displayed by their authors who wished to have them
photographed by others. Spontaneity, further, proved highly useful for
networking, since the Revolution became essentially an extension of
the spontaneous character of everyday life, where little detailed
planning was needed or possible, and in which most people were
already used to spontaneous networking amidst common everyday
unpredictability that prevailed in ordinary times.
But while spontaneity provided the Revolution with much of its
elements of success, it also meant that the transition to a new order
would be engineered by existing forces within the regime and
organized opposition, since the millions in the streets had no single
force that could represent them. Most protestors I talked to, however,
seemed less concerned about those details than with basic demands
the fulfillment of which, it appeared, guaranteed the more just nature
of any subsequent system. As finally elaborated a week after the
beginning of the Revolution, these demands had become the following:
removing the dictator; resolving the parliament and electing a new
one; amending the constitution so as to reduce presidential power and
guarantee more liberties; abolishing the state of emergency; and
putting on trials corrupt high officials as well as all those who had
ordered the shooting of demonstrators.
Third, remarkable was the virtual replacement of religious references
by civic ethics that were presumed to be universal and self-evident.
This development appears more surprising than in the case of Tunisia,
since in Egypt the religious opposition had always been strong and
reached virtually all sectors of life. The Muslim Brotherhood itself
joined after the beginning of the protests, and like all other organized
political forces in the country seemed taken aback by the
developments and unable to direct them, as much as the government
(along with its regional allies) sought to magnify its role.
This, I think, is substantially connected to the two elements mentioned
previously, spontaneity and marginality. Both of those processes
entailed the politicization of otherwise unengaged segments, and also
corresponded to broad demands that required no religious language in
particular. In fact, religion appeared as an obstacle, especially in light
of the recent sectarian tensions in Egypt, and it contradicted the
emergent character of the Revolution as being above all dividing lines
in society, including one’s religion or religiosity. Many people prayed in
public, of course, but I never saw anyone being pressured or even
asked to join them, in spite of the high spiritual overtones of an
atmosphere saturated with high emotions and constantly supplied by
stories of martyrdom, injustice, and violence.
Like in the Tunisian Revolution, in Egypt the rebellion erupted as a sort
of a collective moral earthquake—where the central demands were
very basic, and clustered around the respect for the citizen, dignity,
and the natural right to participate in the making of the system that
ruled over the person. If those same principles had been expressed in
religious language before, now they were expressed as is and without
any mystification or need for divine authority to justify them. I saw the
significance of this transformation when even Muslim Brotherhood
participants chanted at some point with everyone else for a “civic”
(madaniyya) state—explicitly distinguished from two other possible
alternatives: religious (diniyya) or military (askariyya) state.
Fourth, a striking development after January 28 was the fact that
radical political demands were so elevated that that all other
grievances—including those concerning dismal economic conditions—
remained subordinate to them. The political demands were more clear
that any other kinds of demands; everyone agreed on them; and
everyone shared the assumption that all other problems could be
negotiated better once one had a responsible political system in place.
Thus combating corruption, a central theme, was one way by which all
economic grievances were translated into easily understandable
political language. And in any case, it corresponded to reality because
the political system had basically become a system of thievery in plain
daylight. For months before the revolution, virtually everyone had a
story to tell me about the ostentatious corruption of the business-cum-
political elite that benefited most from the system. They tended to be a
clique clustering around Mubarak’s son. Some of its members,
reportedly, stood behind the recruitment of thugs who terrorized the
protestors for two long days and nights on February 2-3.
Fifth, as everywhere in the Arab World, a key contributing factor was
autocratic deafness. The massive undercurrent of resentment that
fueled this volcano was stoked over years by the ruling elites
themselves, who out of longevity in office and lack of meaningful
opposition completely lost track of who their people were and could no
longer read them, so to speak. They heard no simmering noise before
the Revolution, and when it erupted they were slow to hear it as
anything other than an undifferentiated noise. The one-way direction of
autocratic communication allowed for no feedback and presented
every recipient of its directives as either audience or point of
incoherent noise. Throughout the Revolution this deafness of ruling
structures was evident in the slow and uncertain nature of government
response. On the day following the January 25 demonstrations, editors
of government newspapers belittled the events. On January 28, when
all Egypt was in flames and many world leaders had issued some
statement of concern, the Egyptian government remained completely
silent—until Mubarak finally spoke at midnight, saying the exact
opposite of what everyone had been expecting him to say. He thought
he was making a major concession, but one which—as any intelligent
advisor would have told him—could only be interpreted as a
provocation, resulting in several more days of protests. Then on
February 1 he made another speech, also thinking that he was making
major concessions, although again, it was received by many protestors
as the height of arrogance.
He was, in a sense, always responding to what he must have
understood as incoherent noise, emerging from undifferentiated
masses that could be allayed by the appearance of compromise. Arab
state autocracies had long been accustomed to approach their people
with either contempt or condescension. They were no longer skilled at
any other art of communication (although Muhammad Shafiq, the new
prime minister, has been trying to do his best in those arts). Clearly,
autocratic deafness was a major factor in escalating the revolution.
Many protestors suggested to me that what Mubarak said on January
28 would have resolved the crisis had he said on January 25, when he
said nothing. And what he said on February 1 would also have resolved
the crisis, had he said it on January 28.
When none of these concessions succeeded in diffusing the crisis,
Mubarak’s new appointees had no serious arguments to explain why
he wanted to stay in power for just a few more months, and in the face
of a determined revolt that did not in fact challenge many other parts
of the system. On Feb. 3 his new prime minister said that it was not
common in Egyptian culture for a leader to leave without his dignity.
He cited as evidence the salute given to king Farouk as the free
officers forced him to leave Egypt in 1952! And on the same day, his
new vice president opined that it is against the character of Egyptian
culture to so insult the character of the father, which he claimed (in a
moment of forgetfulness of the revolution just outside) Mubarak was to
the Egyptian people. And the president himself asserted on that same
day that he could not possibly resign, since otherwise the country
would descend into chaos--astonishingly, still not realizing what
everyone else in the country knew: that it was already there.
In the absence of autocratic deafness, all successful politicians,
including manipulative ones, know that one art of maneuver consists of
anticipating your audience’s or enemy’s next step, so that you are
already there before it is too late. Here we had the exact opposite
situation: a lethargic autocracy, having never known serious contest,
was unaware of who its enemies had become, which in this case was
more or less the vast majority of the country. That on February 2 some
of Mubarak’s supporters found nothing better to do than send camels
and horses to disperse the crowd at Tahrir, seemed to reflect the
regime’s antiquated character: a regime from a bygone era, with no
relationship to the moment at hand. It was as if a rupture in time had
happened, and we were witnessing a battle from the 12 th century.
From my perspective in the crowd, it was as if they rode through and
were swallowed right back into the fold that returned them to the
past. By contrast, popular committees in the neighborhood, with their
rudimentary weapons and total absence of illusions, represented what
society had already become with this revolution: a real body,
controlling its present with its own hands, and learning that it could
likewise make a future itself, in the present and from below. At this
moment, out of the dead weight of decades of inwardness and self-
contempt, there emerged spontaneous order out of chaos. That fact,
rather not detached patriarchal condescension, appeared to represent
the very best hope for the dawn of a new civic order.
Back to Top

In Egypt it was silence or shouting. Now it's a great

conversation
The fall of Hosni Mubarak – and the instruments of state
oppression – have allowed the Tahrir Square mindset to spread
By Ahdaf Soueif, The Guardian, 8th March 2011
Protesters in Tahrir Square celebrate Hosni Mubarak's resignation. Photograph:
Suhaib Salem/Reuters
Shortly before midnight on Wednesday 9 February, I was with a friend
in a small coffee shop in Zamalek, the Cairo district where I live. It was
that period when Hosni Mubarak's government had unlocked the jails,
turned thousands of violent criminals loose, "vanished" the police from
the streets of the cities and switched off most of the lights. There was
a curfew in place from 6pm, but we, and the coffee shop, were ignoring
it. We had been in Tahrir Square (where else?) and left it ringing with
chants, speeches and debate. But we felt cold and were looking for
something to eat before going to our respective homes.
It was less than 48 hours before the fall of Mubarak. That morning al-
Shorouk newspaper had carried a brief item on the report which my
friend – let's call him MH – and I, along with48 others, had lodged the
previous day with the public prosecutor, demanding an investigation
into Mubarak's wealth. Other truants from Tahrir headed for the sushi
bar upstairs and we were mostly alone, until a man came in carrying a
notebook, sat in the opposite corner and started to work. He was
maybe in his late 30s. Smart casual. I thought I clocked him clocking us
but I wasn't sure.
As we were leaving he stood up and intercepted us at the door. Quietly
he asked if we were MH and AS. We were, we said. I've been thinking
about how to reach you; may we speak? So we stepped outside and he
told us that he had been collecting evidence of the Mubaraks' financial
misdemeanours and had put together one complete case: it's not very
much, he said, only around $13m (£8m) – but it's watertight. And on a
napkin braced against the plate-glass window of our coffee shop he
drew the diagram of the financial structure he had uncovered.
We gave him our email addresses, agreed that we did not need to
know his name and he went to find an internet cafe. Within an hour the
documented case had arrived – from "an Egyptian" – in our mailboxes.
The next day it was appended to the prosecutor's report.
When I tell this story to friends outside Egypt their first reaction is:
"Didn't you think it might be a set-up?" And the truth is that, no, we
didn't. We trusted him. Why? Well, I didn't think about it at the time
but, looking back, it's clear: MH and I – and our anonymous friend –
were behaving within the framework established in the liberated Tahrir
Square on 28 January: we, the people, were rejecting the Mubarak
strategies that were meant to make us suspicious and fearful; to turn
us against each other.
And we were right. A few days after Mubarak's fall we met our friend
once more, again on a late-night quest for coffee and cheesecake. This
time we learned his name and exchanged phone numbers – and I left
him and MH deep in napkins and diagrams tracking further millions.
There was a moment in Tahrir, early on, when sitting on a low wall I
watched two young men walking towards me, deep in conversation.
One was saying: "The parliamentary system will be better for us
because we need to break away from the cult of the leader," and the
other interrupted: "But the 'leader' doesn't have to be a dictator; he
could be a useful …" and then they were out of earshot. I gazed after
them, feeling I had witnessed something extraordinary. And I had: I'd
seen two men, openly, on a Cairo street, discuss an issue bordering on
the political. It was the normalcy of it that was so extraordinary, and
that was a measure of the repression we had been living under.
People had expressed themselves before, of course, but the violence of
the regime was such that dissent had to be shouted. You shouted or
you shut up. And people shouted – with rising frequency.
This revolution was born of the protests that started with the great
march against the Iraq war in 2003 and were continued by Kefaya and,
later, other groups, and spread so that by 2011 every sector of society
was shouting. It was in 2004 that protest slogans started to pinpoint
what would become the targets of this revolution: "Down, down with
Hosni Mubarak," broke a barrier of fear. And next came: "State
security, tell us straight / Where's our security? Where's our state?"
My moment of personal unease came on Saturday 5 February. I'd been
to the square, gone to a studio to do an interview, then rushed home
to keep a 6pm appointment with an Indian TV crew. A moment after I'd
let the two young women with all their equipment into the flat, my
doorbell rang again. It was the concierge's daughter. Excuse me, she
said, but who are the people who have just come to see you? Since
when, I said, do you ask such questions? Well, she said, the [state
security] intelligence came round asking if there were foreigners or
media visiting any residents. It's your home and you can do what you
like, but we'll have to report to them.
I did the interview. I even insisted on making tea. But I packed an
overnight bag, and when the young women left, I left with them. I did
the next interview on the phone, locked in my car in a dark dark
garage. Then I stayed at my brother's.
The apparatus of repression was – after the ousting of Mubarak – the
first target of the revolution: "The people demand the dismantling of
state security." This is not as mad as it sounds, because the security of
the Egyptian state is actually in the care of the National Security
Organisation. The State Security Intelligence Service was invented
more recently for use against internal "enemies". Us.
On Friday 4 March, after Ahmad Shafiq, the last-minute prime minister
appointed by Mubarak, finally resigned, and minutes after the new
prime minister had spoken in Tahrir, people noticed plainclothes men
carrying garbage bags out of state security headquarters in Alexandria.
They intercepted the men and found the bags contained shredded
documents. The people formed a cordon and insisted nothing leave the
building. State security went on the attack. The army, after standing on
the sidelines for a while, came in on behalf of the citizens. Within
minutes the people had moved on state security buildings across
Egypt, and everywhere they found documents being shredded or
burned, and computers stripped of their hard disks. But they found
enough files to show the enormity of the operation that had been in
place against the Egyptian people. They found prisoners in
underground cells, and they found the pink bathroom of Habib al-Adly,
the minister of the interior, who is now on trial.
For one hallucinatory evening our young people were inside the state
security buildings rescuing files (pictured) and taking our calls as we
urged: "Find my file."
People found files on their parents and grandparents. They read
information about themselves. They found files that seem to indicate
that the plan to use horse and camel thug cavalry on the people was
designed for the moment when Gamal Mubarak, Hosni's son, would be
slotted in as president, and files that seem to indicate that the
bombing of the Church of the Two Saints in Alexandria on New Year's
Eve, which killed 21 worshippers, was planned in the ministry of the
interior. They found – and took the testimony of – the companion of
Sayyid Bilal, the young Muslim who was accused of carrying out the
attack and tortured to death to extract a "confession". Then they
handed everything over to the army in the presence of senior judiciary.
Two days later the thugs came back. But now the revolution belongs to
everybody, and they won't let go of it.
A taxi driver tells me he fought for Tahrir as he has to work 16 hours a
day and can't imagine how many his children will have to work to stay
alive. A man I chat with outside the parliament building turns out to
have worked in the office of the minister for industry and has been
keeping a diary of all the transgressions he's witnessed. He's lodging
them with the prosecutor. A newspaper seller says the police collected
protection money and bribes and left them with him until the end of
their shift.
A woman says that when her son was framed on a drug-dealing charge
the police had "dared" to write "unemployed" in the profession box;
was it his fault he was unemployed? Who is it that has ruined our
country?
"Everyone who loves Egypt/Come and help build Egypt." That was the
cry that went up when Mubarak's departure was announced.
Some 4,000 years ago, Egypt descended into a great chaos that lasted
two centuries. In the literary "complaints" of that time the refrain is the
despairing, rhetorical: "To whom should I speak today?" For us, it's the
worst thing: to have no one to speak to. And when we, 4,000 years
ago, managed to speak to each other again, the result was the Middle
Kingdom: a thousand years of great civil projects, commerce and art.
Today, everywhere in the country, a great conversation is going on.
After the revolution
11 February After 18 days of protests, the Egyptian vice-president Omar
Suleiman announces that President Hosni Mubarak is to step down with
immediate effect. Power is handed to the Supreme Council of Egyptian
Armed Forces.
13 February Egypt's new military rulers announce parliament is to be
dissolved and the constitution suspended. The Supreme Council of
Egyptian Armed Forces in a television broadcast outlines its commitment
to forming a "free democratic state", adding that it will remain in power
for six months, until a new civilian government can be formed and a new
constitution drafted and submitted to a referendum.
15 February: Judge Tarek al-Beshry is selected by the military to head
the eight-member constitutional reform panel. Its proposals will be put to
a national referendum on 19 March.
18 February Protesters undertake a "victory march" and gather in Tahrir
Square to mark the first week of Mubarak's resignation. Protests in Tahrir
Square continue about the role of the military council and the need for
elections.
21 February David Cameron becomes the first world leader to visit Egypt
since the ousting of Mubarak as part of a tour of the Middle East.
26 February Protesters in Tahrir Square calling for the resignation of
prime minister, Ahmed Shafiq, are dispersed by the military, using stun
guns and batons and firing shots into the air.
28 February Egyptian public prosecutor announces Mubarak is to have
his assets frozen. Mubarak is also issued with a foreign travel ban.
3 March Prime Minister Ahmed Shafiq resigns amid calls he is too close to
the old regime. Former transport minister Essam Sharaf, who stepped
down from the cabinet in 2005, is announced as his successor.
5 March Two hundred protesters storm Egypt's state security agency
building, demanding an end to emergency laws. Prime Minister Essam
Sharaf calls on protesters in Tahrir Square to help rebuild the country
saying "I am here to draw my legitimacy from you."
7 March New Egyptian cabinet, headed by Sharaf, takes office following a
ceremony in Cairo. The cabinet will take over control of Egypt's affairs
from the supreme council until parliamentary and presidential elections
are held.

Back to Top

Evan McGlinn for The New York Times

Gene Sharp, 83, is known for writing about nonviolence.

Shy U.S. Intellectual Created Playbook Used in a

Revolution

By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG, New York Times, February 16, 2011

BOSTON — Halfway around the world from Tahrir Square in Cairo, an
aging American intellectual shuffles about his cluttered brick row
house in a working-class neighborhood here. His name is Gene Sharp.
Stoop-shouldered and white-haired at 83, he grows orchids, has yet to
master the Internet and hardly seems like a dangerous man.
But for the world’s despots, his ideas can be fatal.
Few Americans have heard of Mr. Sharp. But for decades, his practical
writings on nonviolent revolution — most notably “From Dictatorship to
Democracy,” a 93-page guide to toppling autocrats, available for
download in 24 languages — have inspired dissidents around the
world, including in Burma, Bosnia, Estonia and Zimbabwe, and now
Tunisia and Egypt.
When Egypt’s April 6 Youth Movement was struggling to recover from a
failed effort in 2005, its leaders tossed around “crazy ideas” about
bringing down the government, said Ahmed Maher, a leading
strategist. They stumbled on Mr. Sharp while examining the Serbian
movement Otpor, which he had influenced.
When the nonpartisan International Center on Nonviolent Conflict,
which trains democracy activists, slipped into Cairo several years ago
to conduct a workshop, among the papers it distributed was Mr.
Sharp’s “198 Methods of Nonviolent Action,” a list of tactics that range
from hunger strikes to “protest disrobing” to “disclosing identities of
secret agents.”
Dalia Ziada, an Egyptian blogger and activist who attended the
workshop and later organized similar sessions on her own, said
trainees were active in both the Tunisia and Egypt revolts. She said
that some activists translated excerpts of Mr. Sharp’s work into Arabic,
and that his message of “attacking weaknesses of dictators” stuck with
them.
Peter Ackerman, a onetime student of Mr. Sharp who founded the
nonviolence center and ran the Cairo workshop, cites his former
mentor as proof that “ideas have power.”
Mr. Sharp, hard-nosed yet exceedingly shy, is careful not to take credit.
He is more thinker than revolutionary, though as a young man he
participated in lunch-counter sit-ins and spent nine months in a federal
prison in Danbury, Conn., as a conscientious objector during the
Korean War. He has had no contact with the Egyptian protesters, he
said, although he recently learned that the Muslim Brotherhood had
“From Dictatorship to Democracy” posted on its Web site.
While seeing the revolution that ousted Hosni Mubarak as a sign of
“encouragement,” Mr. Sharp said, “The people of Egypt did that — not
me.”
He has been watching events in Cairo unfold on CNN from his modest
house in East Boston, which he bought in 1968 for $150 plus back
taxes.
It doubles as the headquarters of the Albert Einstein Institution, an
organization Mr. Sharp founded in 1983 while running seminars at
Harvard and teaching political science at what is now the University of
Massachusetts at Dartmouth. It consists of him; his assistant, Jamila
Raqib, whose family fled Soviet oppression in Afghanistan when she
was 5; a part-time office manager and a Golden Retriever mix named
Sally. Their office wall sports a bumper sticker that reads “Gotov Je!” —
Serbian for “He is finished!”
In this era of Twitter revolutionaries, the Internet holds little allure for
Mr. Sharp. He is not on Facebook and does not venture onto the
Einstein Web site. (“I should,” he said apologetically.) If he must send
e-mail, he consults a handwritten note Ms. Raqib has taped to the
doorjamb near his state-of-the-art Macintosh computer in a study
overflowing with books and papers. “To open a blank e-mail,” it reads,
“click once on icon that says ‘new’ at top of window.”
Some people suspect Mr. Sharp of being a closet peacenik and a lefty
— in the 1950s, he wrote for a publication called “Peace News” and he
once worked as personal secretary to A. J. Muste, a noted labor union
activist and pacifist — but he insists that he outgrew his own early
pacifism and describes himself as “trans-partisan.”
Based on studies of revolutionaries like Gandhi, nonviolent uprisings,
civil rights struggles, economic boycotts and the like, he has concluded
that advancing freedom takes careful strategy and meticulous
planning, advice that Ms. Ziada said resonated among youth leaders in
Egypt. Peaceful protest is best, he says — not for any moral reason,
but because violence provokes autocrats to crack down. “If you fight
with violence,” Mr. Sharp said, “you are fighting with your enemy’s
best weapon, and you may be a brave but dead hero.”
Autocrats abhor Mr. Sharp. In 2007, President Hugo Chávez of
Venezuela denounced him, and officials in Myanmar, according to
diplomatic cables obtained by the anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks,
accused him of being part of a conspiracy to set off demonstrations
intended “to bring down the government.” (A year earlier, a cable from
the United States Embassy in Damascus noted that Syrian dissidents
had trained in nonviolence by reading Mr. Sharp’s writings.)
In 2008, Iran featured Mr. Sharp, along with Senator John McCain of
Arizona and the Democratic financier George Soros, in an animated
propaganda video that accused Mr. Sharp of being the C.I.A. agent “in
charge of America’s infiltration into other countries,” an assertion his
fellow scholars find ludicrous.
“He is generally considered the father of the whole field of the study of
strategic nonviolent action,” said Stephen Zunes, an expert in that field
at the University of San Francisco. “Some of these exaggerated stories
of him going around the world and starting revolutions and leading
mobs, what a joke. He’s much more into doing the research and the
theoretical work than he is in disseminating it.”
That is not to say Mr. Sharp has not seen any action. In 1989, he flew
to China to witness the uprising in Tiananmen Square. In the early
1990s, he sneaked into a rebel camp in Myanmar at the invitation of
Robert L. Helvey, a retired Army colonel who advised the opposition
there. They met when Colonel Helvey was on a fellowship at Harvard;
the military man thought the professor had ideas that could avoid war.
“Here we were in this jungle, reading Gene Sharp’s work by
candlelight,” Colonel Helvey recalled. “This guy has tremendous insight
into society and the dynamics of social power.”
Not everyone is so impressed. As’ad AbuKhalil, a Lebanese political
scientist and founder of the Angry Arab News Service blog, was
outraged by a passing mention of Mr. Sharp in The New York Times on
Monday. He complained that Western journalists were looking for a
“Lawrence of Arabia” to explain Egyptians’ success, in a colonialist
attempt to deny credit to Egyptians.
Still, just as Mr. Sharp’s profile seems to be expanding, his institute is
contracting.
Mr. Ackerman, who became wealthy as an investment banker after
studying under Mr. Sharp, contributed millions of dollars and kept it
afloat for years. But about a decade ago, Mr. Ackerman wanted to
disseminate Mr. Sharp’s ideas more aggressively, as well as his own.
He put his money into his own center, which also produces movies and
even a video game to train dissidents. An annuity he purchased still
helps pay Mr. Sharp’s salary.
In the twilight of his career, Mr. Sharp, who never married, is slowing
down. His voice trembles and his blue eyes grow watery when he is
tired; he gave up driving after a recent accident. He does his own
grocery shopping; his assistant, Ms. Raqib, tries to follow him when it is
icy. He does not like it.
He says his work is far from done. He has just submitted a manuscript
for a new book, “Sharp’s Dictionary of Power and Struggle:
Terminology of Civil Resistance in Conflicts,” to be published this fall by
Oxford University Press. He would like readers to know he did not pick
the title. “It’s a little immodest,” he said. He has another manuscript in
the works about Einstein, whose own concerns about totalitarianism
prompted Mr. Sharp to adopt the scientist’s name for his institution.
(Einstein wrote the foreword to Mr. Sharp’s first book, about Gandhi.)
In the meantime, he is keeping a close eye on the Middle East. He was
struck by the Egyptian protesters’ discipline in remaining peaceful, and
especially by their lack of fear. “That is straight out of Gandhi,” Mr.
Sharp said. “If people are not afraid of the dictatorship, that
dictatorship is in big trouble.”

Andrew W. Lehren contributed reporting from New York, and David D.

Kirkpatrick from Cairo.

Back to Top

The Genie is out of the Bottle

By Uri Avnery, February 19, 2011
THIS IS a story right out of “1001 Nights”. The genie escaped from the
bottle, and no power on earth can put it back.
When it happened in Tunisia, it could have been said: OK, an Arab
country, but a minor one. It was always a bit more progressive than the
others. Just an isolated incident.
And then it happened in Egypt. A pivotal country. The heart of the Arab
world. The spiritual center of Sunni Islam. But it could have been said:
Egypt is a special case. The land of the Pharaohs. Thousands of years
of history before the Arabs even got there.
But now it has spread all over the Arab world. To Algeria, Bahrain,
Yemen. Jordan, Libya, even Morocco. And to non-Arab, non-Sunni Iran,
too.
The genie of revolution, of renewal, of rejuvenation, is now haunting all
the regimes in the Region. The inhabitants of the “Villa in the Jungle”
are liable to wake up one morning and discover that the jungle is gone,
that we are surrounded by a new landscape.
WHEN OUR Zionist fathers decided to set up a safe haven in
Palestine, they had the choice between two options:
They could appear in West Asia as European conquerors, who
see themselves as a bridgehead of the “white” man and as
masters of the “natives”, like the Spanish conquistadores and
the Anglo-Saxon colonialists in America. That is what the
crusaders did in their time.
 The second way was to see themselves as an Asian people
returning to their homeland, the heirs to the political and
cultural traditions of the Semitic world, ready to take part,
with the other peoples of the region, in the war of liberation
from European exploitation.
I wrote these words 64 years ago, in a brochure that appeared just two
months before the outbreak of the 1948 war.
I stand by these words today.
These days I have a growing feeling that we are once again standing at
a historic crossroads. The direction we choose in the coming days will
determine the destiny of the State of Israel for years to come, perhaps
irreversibly. If we choose the wrong road, we will have “weeping for
generations”, as the Hebrew saying goes.
And perhaps the greatest danger is that we make no choice at all, that
we are not even aware of the need to make a decision, that we just
continue on the road that has brought us to where we are today. That
we are occupied with trivialities – the battle between the Minister of
Defense and the departing Chief of Staff, the struggle between
Netanyahu and Lieberman about the appointment of an ambassador,
the non-events of “Big Brother” and similar TV inanities – that we do
not even notice that history is passing us by, leaving us behind.
WHEN OUR politicians and pundits found enough time – amid all the
daily distractions – to deal with the events around us, it was in the old
and (sadly) familiar way.
Even in the few halfway intelligent talk shows, there was much hilarity
about the idea that “Arabs” could establish democracies. Learned
professors and media commentators “proved” that such a thing just
could not happen – Islam was “by nature” anti-democratic and
backward, Arab societies lacked the Protestant Christian ethic
necessary for democracy, or the capitalist foundations for a sound
middle class, etc. At best, one kind of despotism would be replaced by
another.
The most common conclusion was that democratic elections would
inevitably lead to the victory of “Islamist” fanatics, who would set up
brutal Taliban-style theocracies, or worse.
Part of this, of course, is deliberate propaganda, designed to convince
the naïve Americans and Europeans that they must shore up the
Mubaraks of the region or alternative military strongmen. But most of it
was quite sincere: most Israelis really believe that the Arabs, left to
their own devices, will set up murderous “Islamist” regimes, whose
main aim would be to wipe Israel off the map.
Ordinary Israelis know next to nothing about Islam and the Arab world.
As a (left-wing) Israeli general answered 65 years ago, when asked
how he viewed the Arab world: “though the sights of my rifle.”
Everything is reduced to “security”, and insecurity prevents, of course,
any serious reflection.
THIS ATTITUDE goes back to the beginnings of the Zionist movement.
Its founder – Theodor Herzl – famously wrote in his historic treatise that
the future Jewish State would constitute “a part of the wall of
civilization” against Asiatic (meaning Arab) barbarism. Herzl admired
Cecil Rhodes, the standard-bearer of British imperialism, He and his
followers shared the cultural attitude then common in Europe, which
Eduard Said latter labeled “Orientalism”.
Viewed in retrospect, that was perhaps natural, considering that the
Zionist movement was born in Europe towards the end of the
imperialist era, and that it was planning to create a Jewish homeland in
a country in which another people – an Arab people – was living.
The tragedy is that this attitude has not changed in 120 years, and that
it is stronger today than ever. Those of us who propose a different
course – and there have always been some – remain voices in the
wilderness.
This is evident these days in the Israeli attitude to the events shaking
the Arab world and beyond. Among ordinary Israelis, there was quite a
lot of spontaneous sympathy for the Egyptians confronting their
tormentors in Tahrir Square - but everything was viewed from the
outside, from afar, as if it were happening on the moon.
The only practical question raised was: will the Israeli-Egyptian peace
treaty hold? Or do we need to raise new army divisions for a possible
war with Egypt? When almost all “security experts” assured us that the
treaty was safe, people lost interest in the whole matter.
BUT THE treaty – actually an armistice between regimes and armies –
should only be of secondary concern for us. The most important
question is: how will the new Arab world look? Will the transition to
democracy be relatively smooth and peaceful, or not? Will it happen at
all, and will it mean that a more radical Islamic region emerges - which
is a distinct possibility? Can we have any influence on the course of
events?
Of course, none of today’s Arab movements is eager for an Israeli
embrace. It would be a bear hug. Israel is viewed today by practically
all Arabs as a colonialist, anti-Arab state that oppresses the
Palestinians and is out to dispossess as many Arabs as possible –
though there is, I believe, also a lot of silent admiration for Israel’s
technological and other achievements.
But when entire peoples rise up and revolution upsets all entrenched
attitudes, there is the possibility of changing old ideas. If Israeli
political and intellectual leaders were to stand up today and openly
declare their solidarity with the Arab masses in their struggle for
freedom, justice and dignity, they could plant a seed that would bear
fruit in coming years.
Of course, such statements must really come from the heart. As a
superficial political ploy, they would be rightly despised. They must be
accompanied by a profound change in our attitude towards the
Palestinian people. That’s why peace with the Palestinians now, at
once, is a vital necessity for Israel.
Our future is not with Europe or America. Our future is in this region, to
which our state belongs, for better or for worse. It’s not just our
policies that must change, but our basic outlook, our geographical
orientation. We must understand that we are not a bridgehead from
somewhere distant, but a part of a region that is now – at long last –
joining the human march towards freedom.
The Arab Awakening is not a matter of months or a few years. It may
well be a prolonged struggle, with many failures and defeats, but the
genie will not return to the bottle. The images of the 18 days in Tahrir
Square will be kept alive in the hearts of an entire new generation from
Marakksh to Mosul, and any new dictatorship that emerges here or
there will not be able to erase them.
In my fondest dreams I could not imagine a wiser and more attractive
course for us Israelis, than to join this march in body and spirit.

Back to Top

Humans Are The Routers

By Shervin Pishevar, February 27, 2011

Editor’s note: Guest author Shervin Pishevar is the founder of the

OpenMesh Project, SGN and an active angel investor.
On January 7, 2010 I was ushered into a small private dinner with
Secretary Hillary Clinton at the State Department along with the
inventor of Twitter, Jack Dorsey, Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google and a few
others. We were there to talk about technology and 21st Century
Diplomacy. As we mingled I noticed next to me the small table that
Thomas Jefferson wrote the first drafts of the Declaration of
Independence. I was inspired by the history around us as we discussed
the unfolding history before us. I was sitting in front of Secretary
Clinton and when she asked me a question I said, “Secretary Clinton,
the last bastion of dictatorship is the router.” That night seeded some
of the ideas that were core to Secretary Clinton’s important Internet
Freedoms Speech on January 21, 2010.
Fast forward almost exactly one year later to January 25, 2011—a day
that shall live in history in the company of dates like July 4, 1776.
Egypt’s decision to block the entire Internet and mobile
telecommunications network was one of the first salvos in a war of
electronic munitions. In this new frontier humans are the routers and
armed with new technologies they can never be blocked or silenced
again.
I was staying up for days sharing and tweeting information as they
happened. I had two close personal friends of mine in Egypt who were
passing me information when they could. The day Egypt blocked the
internet and mobile networks my mind went back to what I had said to
Secretary Clinton. The only line of defense against government filtering
and blocking their citizens from freely communicating and coordinating
via communication networks was to create a new line of
communications technologies that governments would find hard to
block: Ad hoc wireless mesh networks. I called the idea OpenMesh and
tweeted it.
Within hours through crowdsourced volunteer efforts the OpenMesh
Project was alive complete with domain name, website and forum. One
volunteer, Gary Jay Brooks, a tech entrepreneur from Michigan,
stepped up to lead the effort as a volunteer Executive Director.
Another company from Canada volunteered to donate their specs for a
tiny mobile router, that could be hidden in a pocket, and would cost
only $90 per unit for us to make. Another well known communications
pioneer stepped up to donate some important patents in this space.
OpenMesh’s basic idea is that we could use some new techniques to
create a secondary wireless Internet in countries like Libya, Syria, Iran,
North Korea and other repressive regimes to allow citizens to
communicate freely. By creating mobile routers that connect together
we could create a wireless network that mobile phones and personal
computers can connect to. The first priority would be to have the
people connect together and the second priority is for them to connect
to the world. On the second front, we could use intermittent satellite
internet connections so people in those nations could upload and
download information with the rest of the world. Openmesh aims to be
a clearinghouse for the best ideas out there to connect and get
products out into the hands of people.
Open Mesh networking is a type of networking wherein each connected
node in the network may act as an independent router or “smart”
device, regardless of whether it has an Internet connection or not.
Mesh networks are incredibly robust, with continuous connections that
can reconfigure around broken or blocked paths by “hopping” from
node to node until the destination is reached, such as another device
on the network or connecting to an Internet back haul. When there is
local Internet available, they can amplify the number of people who
can connect to it. When there isn’t, mesh networks can allow people to
communicate with each other in the event that other forms of
electronic communication are broken down. Devices consist of most
wifi enabled computers and run on existing Microsoft Windows, Apple
OS X, and Linux systems along with iPhone and Android mobile
devices. An open source mesh network further offers a scalable
solution that retains low costs while avoiding path dependencies and
vendor lock-in. Combined with open hardware, these networks
facilitate long-term maintenance flexibility and improvements.
We will be establishing, building, maintaining, and distributing a
common Open Source Mesh software/firmware that will allow citizens
of the world to commonly communicate without telephone or cable
companies. The raw product OpenMeshProject.org will free to
download and free of charge. The technology will be released and
maintained as Open Source GPL V2 project. This means that anyone
can use or change the software. Our job as a community will be to
maintain this project. We will help to build standards. We will help
communities build mesh networks. We will lobby equipment
manufactures to join the Open Mesh Project initiative. The idea all
revolves around wireless technology that will allow us to connect and
communicate with each other without telephone lines, cable, or fiber.
We will build private networks that can span countries. We will
empower the citizens of tomorrow. At the end of the day a
grandmother might find this disk on the street, walk into the house,
install a CD on her laptop and join the mesh cloud with 2 clicks. After
joining the mesh she starts to see others in her network, clicks to call
others in the mesh, joins group calls, or searches for friends online to
dial. We as the OpenMeshProject.org community will facilitate the
building, offering, and support for this project. We will all build 1
common mesh. We invite people to participate and to offer new
innovations. Working together we can secure tomorrows
communications needs.
Free communications is an essential human right. The 21st Century will
be defined by the idea that no Government, no power shall ever block
or filter the right of all men and women to communicate together
again. It is my dream that within my lifetime that dictatorship shall be
banished from this planet and unfiltered and true democracy shall
flourish everywhere. It is time that our Faustian bargains with brutal
dictators for short-term concerns end and a new covenant directly
made with citizens everywhere seeking freedom will take its place.
OpenMesh is a first step to help create a world where such a covenant
can take hold in a world where brave people armed with new electronic
tools can never be blocked or silenced ever again.
Photo credit: Joel Carillet/Getty Images.

Back to Top