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Al-Ahram Weekly 29 June - 5 July 2000 Issue No. 488 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 29 June - 5 July 2000 Issue No. 488
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Features Travel Living Sports Profile People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters Moments of truth
US statements on commitment to the Middle East peace process are encouraging indeed. State Department officials have announced they will not "take a summer vacation," but will work tirelessly to reach an agreement between Israel and the Palestinians. Most observers, however, agree that a miracle would be necessary to meet the September deadline stipulated in the deal the two parties signed in Sharm Al-Sheikh nearly 10 months ago.Repeated Israeli refusals on Jerusalem, the legitimate return of millions of Palestinian refugees to their homeland and the removal of illegal Jewish settlements in occupied Palestinian territories cannot be a starting point for negotiations. Israeli governments, Likud and Labour alike, insist on ignoring the core of the Palestinian problem. No number of refusals will erase the fact that a people have been uprooted from their land, forced into exile and deprived of their basic right to self-determination. Israel, backed all the way by the United States, continues to offer "innovative solutions" -- suggestions that intentionally ignore these core issues and deny the Palestinians their legitimate rights.
Camp David-style negotiations -- at which Palestinian President Yasser Arafat will inevitably be put under tremendous Israeli and US pressure -- cannot produce a permanent solution if Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak goes to the negotiating table with nothing but the same refusals to offer. Arafat has often said that Jerusalem, the return of Palestinian refugees and removal of settlements are "red lines" which no Palestinian leader can afford to ignore. However flexible Arafat may be, he is fully aware of the frustration of millions of Palestinians, exiled for five decades, and the despair of those subject to Israel's racist occupation. The Palestinians, backed by many members of the world community -- not just Arab and Muslim states -- cannot accept an unjust solution that tramples their rights.
For this reason, the feeling in the region is that the September deadline, or even the January 2000 deadline, when US President Bill Clinton leaves the White House, are still more meaningless dates. Nothing has changed, it seems, since the peace process began in 1991.
The Palestinians and Israelis are supposed to be negotiating a final settlement, and most observers agree that a "moment of truth" is upon us. This means that the time has come for Israel to recognise the suffering it has inflicted on the Palestinian people, and to settle this historic injustice.
