[ Ed. note – The Middle East Quartet has issued a rather toothless and wishy-washy report on the Israeli occupation of Palestine.
That may not strike many as surprising, although a month and a half ago there wasspeculation, at least on the part of Israelis, that Obama might try and use the report to bolster his sagging “legacy,” and it was reported at the time that Zionists were engaged in extensive lobbying efforts to try and “soften” the report.
It looks like they either succeeded–or else Obama had no such intentions to begin with.
The report–a total of eight pages–was released Friday, July 1, and can be accessed in full here. The best that can be said of it is that it does criticize Israeli settlements, affirming that they raise “legitimate questions about Israel’s long-term intentions (duh…ya think?), which are compounded by the statements of some Israeli ministers that there should never be a Palestinian state.”
That’s about as strong as it gets, though, and the same report hastily tosses in criticism of Palestinians as well–accusing them of “violence and incitement”–much as if the author were walking an allegorical tightrope in some overly-punctilious effort at being “fair and balanced.”
Palestinians who commit “terrorist acts” (i.e. resisting the occupation) are “often glorified publicly as ‘heroic martyrs,’” the report informs us. (You’ll note that the Quartet places the words “heroic martyrs” in quotes–it seems resistance isn’t heroic and sacrificing your life in a heroic cause doesn’t make you a martyr when the occupation you’re fighting against is being maintained by the US or Israel.) The report continues:
Many widely circulated images depict individuals committing terrorist acts with slogans encouraging violence. The spreading of incitement to violence on social media has gained momentum soince October 2015, and is particularly affecting the youth.
The report blames “Hamas and other radical factions” for this as well as “some members of Fatah,” but it also cites “extremist ideologies” on the Jewish side as well, calling attention to “price tag” attacks and also the phrase “Death to Arabs,” the phrase which seems to get spray-painted in a lot of these attacks.
And thus the tightrope balancing act is detectable throughout the report.
We will not forget the child who was burned, we will not forgive ..#MohammedAbuKhdair
If you do a search, you’ll find that the word “tragic” is used once in the report–in reference to the deaths of Israelis. By contrast, settler attacks on Palestinians are described as “a serious concern,” although the report does cite the arson deaths–of three members of the Dawabsha family in 2015, and of Mohammad Abu Khdeir on July 2, 2014 (two years ago today)–killings which it refers to as “horrific.”
The delicate balance manifests in the report’s recommendations as well: “Both sides should work to de-escalate tensions by exercising restraint and refraining from provocative actions and rhetoric…” etc., etc. How the members of the Quartet expect a people who have been living under occupation for 68 years to “refrain from provocative actions and rhetoric” is not, however, explained.
By far, the report’s greatest failure is its omission of any mention of the settlements being illegal under international law. This, as I noted in a post back in May, had been one of the central issues in terms of anticipating what the final report might look like, and it was said to have been one of the main reasons Israel was working so hard to get the tone “softened.” US officials have described the settlements as “illegitimate” or as “an obstacle to peace,” but they have never used the word “illegal.”
They still have not done so.
In the article below, the most salient comment is that given by by PLO Secretary General Saeb Erekat, who remarks that the report “attempts to equalize the responsibilities between a people under occupation and a foreign military occupier.” It’s a worthy observation.
One final thing I’ll mention: while the report does use the word “occupation” (there are actually four instances of it), nowhere is the word “genocide” to be found anywhere in its pages. As I have said before, Israel’s crimes probably meet the legal definition of genocide. Failure to call genocide genocide may be an even more egregious shortcoming than the failure to call illegal settlements illegal, but then there are so many failures and shortcomings about this report, one is hard-pressed to list them all.
The Quartet is made up of the US, the EU, the UN and Russia. The signing onto the report by the first three should come as no surprise–but what are we to make of Russia’s apparent endorsement of this report? Should that surprise us?
The following article comes from Ma’an News. The headline above the story recalls to mind the old adage about trying to please everyone–and ending up pleasing no one. This seems to be what the Quartet has managed to accomplish. ]
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Middle East Quartet report met with condemnation from both Palestine and Israel
BETHLEHEM (Ma’an) — Both Palestinian and Israeli leadership reacted with disappointment to a report released Friday by the Middle East Quartet — the United States, Russia, the European Union, and the United Nations — that attempted to underscore the major impediments to a two-state solution.
Israel’s continued expansion of illegal settlements on Palestinian territory was cited in the report as one of the major obstacles to implementing a viable two-state solution, stating that their continued expansion has raised “legitimate questions” about Israel’s “long-term intentions,” as Israeli leaders have openly rejected the idea of an independent Palestinian state.
The Quartet called on both Israelis and Palestinians to “independently demonstrate, through policies and actions, a genuine commitment to the two-state solution and refrain from unilateral steps that prejudge the outcome of final status negotiations.”
In addition to Israel’s settlement expansion, the report highlighted two other main trends that undermined peace: violence and incitement on both sides, as well as and the Palestinian Authority’s lack of control over the Hamas-run Gaza Strip.
PLO Secretary General Saeb Erekat criticized the report in a statement, saying that the report “does not meet our expectations as a nation living under a foreign colonial military occupation; wherein it attempts to equalize the responsibilities between a people under occupation and a foreign military occupier.”
“Evidently, certain parties of the international community insist on trying to avoid their own legal and moral responsibilities to implement international law and conventions; to protect the Palestinian people and to ensure the fulfillment of our right to self-determination,” Erekat said.
He also insisted that negotiations must hold an independent Palestinian state at its core, with East Jerusalem as its capital and the restoration of internationally recognized rights afforded to Palestinians, as he reiterated his support for the Arab Peace Initiative and the multilateral French-led peace initiative, for which the report was expected to form a basis.
Meanwhile, Israeli human rights watchdog Peace Now said in a statement that the report showcased the contradictions of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s policies of settlement expansion on occupied Palestinian territory with his public support for a two-state solution during peace negotiations.
“If the Israeli government is interested in peace it must halt settlement expansion immediately. Otherwise, it must reveal its true intentions and face the consequences,” the statement read.
The office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu released a statement following the publication of the report, slamming the Middle East Quartet for “perpetuating the myth that Israeli construction in the West Bank is an obstacle to peace.”
Netanyahu said Israel rejected “any attempt to draw moral equivalence between (illegal Israeli settlement) construction, and terrorism,” and rejected parallels suggested in the report between Palestinian attacks and “marginal” elements in Israeli society, likely referring to an increasingly hostile and violent Israeli settler population.
The statement said that the report was “troubling” for its adoption of a position that the presence of Jews living in the West Bank was somehow an obstacle to the two-state solution.
“The presence of nearly 1.8 million Arabs in Israel isn’t a barrier to peace; it is a testament to our pluralism and commitment to equality,” Netanyahu argued, a statement many reacted to with outrage for ironically making a dubious parallel between Palestinians with Israeli citizenship, and Israelis residing in settlements deemed illegal under international law.
The statement also condemned the Quartet’s report for failing to mention “payments made by the Palestinian Authority to terrorists and their families,” referring to stipends paid by the PLO to Palestinian political prisoners, former prisoners, and their families. Israel deems most Palestinian political groups to be terrorist organizations.
While the Palestinian Authority has said they have stopped paying the stipends, Israel ordered yesterday they will reduce tax transfers sent to the PA each month by $130 million, a figure said to be equal to salaries.
The move was made in a punitive reaction to a series of attacks and attempted attacks by Palestinians against Israeli targets in the occupied West Bank district of Hebron and Israel on Thursday and Friday that left two Israelis killed, including a 13-year old settler with American citizenship, and three Palestinians shot dead on the scene.
Netanyahu’s statement also slammed the PA for failing to condemn the Israeli deaths.
In recent months, Israel has accused Palestinian leadership of “inciting terror” and detained scores civilians for Facebook posts that Israeli authorities alleged were responsible for an increase in alleged attacks and attempted attacks against Israeli military targets and settlers.
Palestinians have instead pointed chiefly to the frustration and despair brought on by Israel’s nearly 50-year military occupation of the Palestinian territory and the absence of a political horizon.
All past efforts towards peace negotiations have failed to end the decades-long Israeli military occupation or bring Palestinians closer to an independent contiguous state.
The most recent spate of negotiations led by the US collapsed in April 2014.
Israel claimed the process failed because the Palestinians refused to accept a US framework document outlining the way forward, while Palestinians pointed to Israel’s ongoing settlement building and the government’s refusal to release veteran prisoners.
While members of the international community rested the solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict on the discontinuation of illegal Israeli settlements, Israeli leaders have instead shifted farther to the right as many Knesset members have called for an escalation of settlement building in the occupied West Bank, and with some having advocated for its complete annexation.
A number of Palestinian activists have criticized the two-state solution as unsustainable and unlikely to bring durable peace, proposing instead a binational state with equal rights for Israelis and Palestinians.
The binational state — termed the “one-state solution” — has increasingly gained support among Palestinians, activist groups, and intellectuals purporting it as the most reasonable way of upholding Palestinian human rights and their internationally recognized right to return to lands they were expelled from during and after the establishment of Israel in 1948.
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