10 - 16 May 2001
Issue No.533
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Al-Ahram Weekly On-line 10 - 16 May 2001 Issue No.533 |
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Generous to whom?
Palestinian rejection of Barak's Camp David offer appeared to crystallise international opinion. Yet, writes Mustafa Barghouti *, there was nothing the Palestinians could possibly accept
The Palestinians stand accused by the Israeli government of bringing the conflict of the past six months upon themselves by refusing to accept the "generous offers" made by Barak at Camp David. And certainly, for some people, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak's offer at Camp David of 94 per cent of the West Bank may have sounded more than generous. For these same people, the Palestinians' refusal looked "inflexible" and "unreasonable." Yet the fact that Barak offered more than any previous Israeli leader is unimportant. We need only examine four issues concerning what was offered, and the reality of those offers on the ground, for a clear picture to emerge, a picture, furthermore, that demonstrates that a viable Palestinian state could never have resulted from accepting Barak's offer.
First is the territorial component of the offer. It was said that Palestinians were offered eventual control of 95--96 per cent of the West Bank and Gaza Strip (WBGS). This, though, was not quite true: close analysis shows that under the offer the Palestinians would have control of much less than the claimed percentages, given that Israel's "total" conveniently excluded Jerusalem, the Dead Sea, the Jordan Valley or settlements.
The discussion about this per cent versus that per cent does not, in any case, address what are the main issues for the Palestinians. It ignores international law and the rights conferred upon the Palestinians, and effectively serves to push these legal frameworks aside. And without a commitment to these frameworks any settlement will be an Israeli dictated agreement.
Another issue overlooked in the discussion of why Palestinians rejected the Camp David proposals could be conveniently referred to as "compromising the compromise."
The 1947 United Nations General Assembly Resolution 181, from which Israel derives its legitimacy, allocated 45 per cent of historical Palestine for the Palestinian state. The demands of UN Resolution 242 for Israel to withdraw to the 1967 borders means a Palestinian state would be founded on 22 per cent of the area of historic Palestine. In their acceptance of Oslo, Palestinians accepted a two state solution. This is a compromise of over half of the area that was originally assigned to them.
Recently, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan asked if it was acceptable by international standards to appropriate land by force. UN Resolution 242 stipulates that Israel has to withdraw from the lands it occupied, clearly indicating that no land can be illegally occupied. UN Resolution 338 reaffirms this.
For the sake of peace and in the hopes of building a state Palestinians are accepting of this initial compromise. Any further compromise, though, would undermine the "continuing and unqualified Palestinian right to self-determination" that the EU Berlin declaration of March 1999 affirmed, and would restrict the potential for the establishment of a sovereign, viable, prosperous, contiguous and democratic state.
Rejection by the Palestinian negotiators of the less than "generous" offer from Barak also stems from the continued illegal occupation, confiscation and expropriation of Palestinian land.
Israel has already confiscated a large portion of the West Bank for its ever-growing illegal settlements. This violation of international law restricts the viability of any Palestinian state. The settlements, the system of highways and by-pass roads linking them to Israel proper, the industrial parks, the web of closed military areas, army bases and internal checkpoints all occupy large tracts of land. Passages from one area to the other are also controlled by Israel. The West Bank and Gaza Strip have been transformed into 64 clusters of townships that imprison over three million Palestinians, a people held hostage for the sake of 450,000 illegal settlers.
The confiscation of Palestinian land has been systematised under Barak, Sharon and their predecessors, in order to increase the number of Jewish citizens in the occupied territories. With this aim in mind Israel, in its efforts to separate the Palestinian people from their land, has restricted Palestinians to tiny enclaves through a series of measures designed to restrict Arab growth and deny full access to natural resources. Israel continues to exploit Palestinian land, water, and natural resources and continues to retain sovereignty over them, thereby denying Palestinians any future viable state.
The illegal annexing of East Jerusalem is a perfect example of Israeli policy towards Palestinians. Instead of permitting Palestinians sovereignty over the 1967 areas, with Israel maintaining control over West Jerusalem, Israel has used various administrative measures, including the denial and removal of residency rights, and the wholesale demolition of houses, to force people from the area. As experts point out, "63.5 square kilometres -- 90 per cent of the land annexed by Israel as East Jerusalem -- in fact belonged to 28 Palestinian West bank villages, which suddenly found themselves part of an 'indivisible,' 'historic' and 'sacred' Jewish city". Israeli settlements cut East Jerusalem into clusters, huge areas of land have been annexed to serve the needs of settlers and settlements, and only limited civic functions are under the control of the Palestinian Authority.
Accepting any Israeli control of the occupied territories negatively impacts on the quality of the Palestinian state and would transform areas of Palestinian Authority rule into a series of Bantustans. It will also legitimise and reward Israel for illegally occupying and annexing land and changing facts on the ground in violation of international law. It would, in short, reward Israel for what are, technically, war crimes.
The rejection of the Camp David offer can equally be attributed to the lack of any settlement of the refugee issue. Most Palestinians are realistic about the possibility of a compromise. Nonetheless, the fate of over 3.7 million Palestinian refugees registered by the UN, and of about two million others unregistered, is a matter of great concern to Palestinians.
The issue at stake here is the acknowledgement of the right of return, as well as Israel's culpability in the creation of the refugee problem. UN Resolution 194, Paragraph 11 states clearly that "the refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbours should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date... compensation should be paid for the property of those choosing not to return."
The rights of those dispossessed of land and forced to flee was not even mentioned in Camp David. Israel refused to accept to discuss the return of refugees at the level of an interim agreement, choosing instead to force a full and complete acceptance of a final solution without any right of future discussion, thus obliterating the rights of millions of Palestinians.
The Israeli government tried to bargain the rights of refugees as well as sovereignty over Jerusalem and the holy site of Al-Aqsa mosque in return for an entity that is not even a feasible state. Israel wanted to terminate the conflict without making any tangible compromise, or resolving any basic issues. Their intransigence at the negotiating table led to the rejection of the Camp David settlement. Only now they accuse the Palestinians of not wanting peace.
Israel must be ready to accept and acknowledge that for 34 years it has been illegally occupying the West Bank and Gaza Strip and that the settlements, illegal in international law and viewed as such by the world, must be removed. Israel must accept international legitimacy and the application of international standards.
What we have witnessed in the past six months is the culmination of violations of international law and human rights. When one looks at the West Bank and Gaza Strip, even without indulging in conspiracy theories, one gets the impression that Labour and Likud were colluding in the implementation of a process of Judaisation, systematically transferring an Israeli civilian population into the occupied territories.
Through illegal settlement, the continuing expropriation and confiscation of Palestinian land, and Bantustanisation of a people's homeland, Israel is destroying the potential for peace. Peace must, after all, be based on international law, and that is a compromise that Israel is unwilling to make.
*The writer is a physician, president of the Union of Palestinian Medical Relief Committees and director of the Health, Development, Information and Policy Institute (HDIP) in Ramallah.
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