Erwin van Veen. All rights reserved.Last Sunday’s summit
in Paris threw a welcome light on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that has faded
into the background of the carnage in Syria, Iraq and Yemen.
Yet, the
politically inconvenient truth is that the peace process as traditionally
conceived – between the Israeli and Palestinian authorities, supported by
US-mediation – has been dead for the past two decades.
This is
largely because the Israeli government has had little true need for peace for
most of the time.[i]
It has generally operated from a position of strength – hegemonic today – that
it leverages to its fullest extent.
Compelling evidence
for this is the relentless Israeli settlement policy of the past decades that has
turned the West Bank into a patchwork
of Israeli settlements and Palestinian territories. Whereas the former are well
protected and connected, the latter are non-contiguous, face severe movement
restrictions and are subject to Israeli intervention at will.
This has made life
for Palestinians frustrating and effective governance very difficult. Apart
from the fact that these settlements are illegal, their construction has
also required massive land appropriations, population expulsion and appreciable
economic destruction that are neither adequately acknowledged, accounted for,
or compensated.[ii]
In addition, Israel
continues to exercise significant control over access to/from Gaza of people,
food, supplies and construction materials since its withdrawal in 2005.
The
result for its 1.8 million inhabitants was recently described
by the former UN Secretary-General who said that ‘the closure of Gaza suffocates its
people, stifles its economy and impedes reconstruction efforts. It is a
collective punishment for which there must be accountability.’
Such
developments point to the fact that Israel has created a situation in which the
structural threat of Palestinian violence can be – and is – used to maintain their
marginalization and isolation.
For example,
security buffers around Israeli settlements tend to be justified with reference
to terrorist threats. Common sense suggests that this reverses cause and effect
as the settlements have no business being there in the first place – except if
one believes that the moral supremacy of biblical Jewish claims to the land of
Palestine justifies the suffering they cause.
Another factor
that makes the traditional peace process unviable is the authoritarian
character of the Palestinian Authority that ensures it cannot be a credible partner
in peace. Neither does Hamas’ longtime denial of the right of Israel to exist offer
a basis for serious negotiations.
Yet, the split
in Palestinian governance is not really the main issue. It is that neither
organization can actually claim to represent the Palestinian people. The last
elections took place in 2006. In the meantime, political pluralism in both Gaza
and the West Bank has all but disappeared.
For instance,
Fatah consolidated its hold over the Palestinian Authority shortly after the
Oslo agreements and continues to use it as a mechanism
for patronage and self-enrichment.
More bewildering
is that the international community knowingly abets this situation by taking
humanitarian responsibility for the situation in Gaza and yet refuses to
engage with Hamas – while sustaining a dismally performing and unpopular Palestinian
Authority.
A final factor
is that lasting American political backing and security assistance for Israel
has tended to make it a wholly unsuitable mediator.
The
deficiencies of Palestinian governance and violence notwithstanding, the short
of the matter is that Israel has been the stronger party since the war of 1948.[iii] US support worsens this imbalance.
Hence, before negotiations
between these governments can lead to sustainable peace, the ‘playing field’
needs to be levelled. This compels interest-influencing strategies that are
politically unattractive because they require putting paid to the pretense that
either a ‘peace process’ or a ‘two state solution’ is viable at this moment.
For one, more
international pressure must be brought to bear on the Israeli government to
incentivize it to engage meaningfully in peace negotiations. This can happen
through opprobrium, negative press, boycotts and other measures that raise the
cost of maintaining the status quo.
Generating
such pressure requires a sustained international awareness and advocacy
campaign that is grounded in powerful evidence of the effects of the current
situation on normal people. It is ideally conducted by peace-minded Palestinians
and Israelis who jointly bring existing injustices more forcefully and
repeatedly to the world’s attention on the basis of acknowledgement of the past
and equal rights for the future.[iv]
Similar pressure
should be put on the Palestinian Authority and Hamas with the aim of re-establishing
their legitimacy and, on the back of this, increasing their capacity to make a
positive contribution to the wellbeing of both the Palestinian and the Israeli
people. This demands dropping the nonsensical international ‘no-contact’ policy
with Hamas. Starting a conversation offers no guarantees, but not starting it is
certain to perpetuate violence.
These are
issues that the international community should consider in the wake of Paris if
it is serious about its responsibilities under the United Nations Charter. It
cannot bring peace about, of course, but it can help re-establish the
conditions for the resumption of meaningful talks at some point in the future.
[i] A review of
the offers that various Israeli governments have made in the many episodes of
the peace process are illustrative: A. Monem Said Aly, S. Feldman and K.
Shikaki, Arabs and Israelis: Conflict and
Peacemaking in the Middle East, London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013.
[ii] This has
been well documented by the Israeli non-governmental organization B’tselem and
its Palestinian counterpart Al-Haq. For instance: B’tselem, Expel and Exploit: The Israeli Practice of
Taking over Rural Palestinian Land, Jerusalem: B’tselem, 2016.
[iii] For
instance, even after the groundbreaking Oslo agreements (1994/5) Israel
retained control over entry/exit, water management and security matters of those
West Bank areas it handed over to the Palestinian Authority. It also kept more
than 50% of the area under its own direct control.
[iv] Said, E., The end of the peace
process: Oslo and after, New York: Vintage books, 2003, has advanced an eloquent
argument to this effect.