Palestine and Israel: phony peace negotiations or rule of law: which is it to be? Tell your Member of Parliament: “Justice for Palestinians first. Negotiations later – maybe”
By Stuart Littlewood
11 October 2011
Stuart Littlewood challenges his Member of Parliament, Henry Bellingham, to provide a rational and truthful explanation of Britain’s continuing support for the non-existent “peace process” between Israel and the Palestinians in preference to the rule of law – or justice and liberty.
Law, justice, liberty and human rights, we were taught, are non-negotiable. Perhaps Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, David Cameron and William Hague missed that important part of their education.
Restore the Palestinians’ lands, homes and resources, as required by law, by convention and by numerous United Nations resolutions, then see what's left to negotiate. That is the route to peace.
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The Palestinians may not wish to swap bits of land. If they do, they should not have to bargain with a gun to their head or a military jackboot on their throat. Any Israeli squatters still hanging around on the wrong side of the border would, I imagine, automatically become Palestinian citizens. Unless, of course, they pose a security threat to the state of Palestine, in which case they might find themselves behind bars under Palestine’s version of Israel’s notorious “administrative detention”.
"Steel and humanity" on Libya but not Palestine
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| "Steel and humanity" at work |
He praised Cameron for showing the "steel and humanity" needed to support the people of Libya. "When the hour of crisis came, our prime minister had the steel and the humanity to call for a no-fly zone when others doubted," he said.
Sadly, steel and humanity are conspicuously lacking in Cameron's response to pleas to protect Palestinians with a no-fly zone and allow them their freedom and statehood.
In his first speech as shadow foreign secretary, in Washington in February 2006, Hague argued that "in standing up for the rule of law we must be careful not to employ methods that undermine it". He added that he would also "seek to buttress American efforts to give new impetus to the Middle East peace process", which is code for pushing through the West's determination to, well, undermine the very rule of law he claimed to be standing up for.
For peace process read more lopsided negotiations, continuing injustice, continuing occupation, more time for Israel to grab more land and more time to exert pressure on Palestinians to surrender their rights.
For rule of law read justice and liberty.
So which is it going to be?
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Challenging an MP’s parroting of America’s pro-Israel policy
My MP, Henry Bellingham, is a minister in the Foreign Office. At the Conservative Party conference last week it sounded as if he too was buttressing America’s pro-Israel policy, so I dropped him a line:I've just been reading a report by MAP [Medical Aid for Palestinians], who organized a well-attended fringe meeting. You receive the following mention:
At another fringe event organized by Amnesty, Foreign Office Minister Henry Bellingham MP, responded to a MAP question concerning the Palestinian bid for statehood by explaining that “Britain was pushing the ‘Vatican option’ for an upgrade to Palestinian status through the UN General Assembly and it’s a pity that option didn’t garner more support. What is important now is that negotiations start as soon as possible”.
Often said but never rationally explained. I think it is time to challenge the orchestrated mantra that calls for a return to negotiations when this route has failed so dismally to end the misery and it is now clear to anyone who takes an interest in Middle East affairs that Israel has no wish for peace until it has grabbed all the land it craves and established as many irreversible facts on the ground as are necessary to achieve its criminal objective. By their actions the Israelis have not the slightest desire to honour commitments from previous accords.The “Vatican option” Bellingham mentioned is a half-measure that would make Palestine a second-class state with limited powers and capabilities. Is it a stepping-stone to full membership later, or a siding into which Palestinian dreams can be shunted permanently?
Moreover Israel, as you know, stands in defiant breach of countless UN resolutions and is contemptuous of human rights, international law and ICJ [International Court of Justice] rulings. It has been slaugh]]tering the Palestinians at the rate of 10 to 1 and is especially proficient in annihilating children with a kill-rate of 12 to 1 (B'Tselem's figures).
The Palestinians have the same right to a state, and the same right to security (not just "viability"), as any other nation on the planet. Negotiations, if they take place, should be between parties of equal status with equal access to the protection of international law and UN safeguards. These are not children of a lesser God. But as long as they are treated as such there will never be peace. Surely, even the most foolish diplomat can see that.
So-called “negotiations” where one party is under military occupation with a gun to their head are plainly immoral. And when the “peace brokers” display such flagrant bias and create an outrageously tilted playing field the situation is nothing short of disgraceful. As before, the sort of negotiations you speak of are aimed simply at pressuring the Palestinians to forego their rights under international law and settle for far less than they are entitled to.
We've heard a great deal of enthusiastic chatter from Western governments, including this one, about how more and more people demanding "their universal right to live in freedom and dignity", so why do you now require the Palestinians to go cap-in-hand to their tormentor, Israel, and once again haggle for their freedom and dignity and the return of their stolen property?
Obama, in his preposterous speech to the UN, tried to shrug off the international community’s responsibilities and put the onus for sorting out the criminal mess on the Palestinians’ shoulders, saying: "Ultimately, it is Israelis and Palestinians – not us – who must reach agreement on the issues that divide them: on borders and security; on refugees and Jerusalem."
It is sad to hear Cameron and Hague subscribing to the same cowardly nonsense. So let us, please, hear a rational and truthful explanation of the Foreign Office's insistence that, after the longest and most brutal military occupation in modern times these helpless people must sit down – yet again – with their oppressor before international law is enforced, before UN resolutions are implemented, before the occupation is ended and before their lands and rights are fully restored.
The whole world now knows the grubby reasons for resurrecting discredited talks instead of getting on with the real job of establishing parity. What is so shocking is that Britain, by failing to stand for justice, appears so deeply implicated in this cruel charade.
Vague promises of better things to come are not enough.
If I get a sensible reply, I’ll let you all know.
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Comment:
What Palestinians should have, and must have, is full liberation, A free Palestine: Free from the River to the Sea. This is the first step
River to Sea
Uprooted Palestinian
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