If we all agree to blame Israel and only Israel for the absence of peace on the Holy Land, this should trigger another question, what can we all do?
It is the right time to put pressure on the governments of Western countries to stop protecting Israel against any kind of accountability with the Iron Dome, and providing it with categorical and unconditional support. It's time to end the hypocrisy, lip service, and double standards. It is time to stop accepting Israel as the only country above international law, and with the impunity to severely violate it.
The ongoing international discourse on the latest developments in the Palestinian tragedy has been intense for almost two months now. There have been numerous heated discussions between supporters of both sides, leading to an intense polarisation. These dialogues have been widely broadcasted.
It turns out that the absence of a well-known historical background is the main factor in all this, as evidenced by the main question: Why did this happen? The short and concise answer: It happened because of the absence of a real peace process. This answer is akin to someone who is thirsty and then drinks saltwater, only to become thirstier. The masses need to know more. The foregoing raises another question: Who is to be blamed? From the point of view of any rational and impartial political commentator, Israel should be blamed for several reasons, some of which are as follows.
With the signing of the Oslo Accords, the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO), led by the late Chairman Yasser Arafat, began a real peace process aimed at embodying the Palestinian State on the occupied Palestinian territories based on the 1967 borders, which constitute only 22 per cent of the historical land of Palestine, with East Jerusalem as its capital, and a fair solution to the problems of Palestinian refugees, based on the UNGA resolution 194, adapted on 11 December 1948.
We did not invent the wheel; the two-state solution is enshrined in the UN General Assembly Resolution 181, which is the official birth certificate for the Siamese twins' states. One of them has already been embodied, which is the State of Israel, and the other has been waiting for 75 years and has not yet been born, which is the State of Palestine. Resolution 181 or the two-state birth certificate is not a new invention at all, but rather the absence of international will made it an incomplete birth process.
From the first day of its life, the new born Israeli State has not stopped creating obstacles for the attainment of the two-state solution by refusing the implementation of the UNGA Resolutions 181 and 194. To add insult to the injury, in June 1967 Israel occupied the remaining part of the historical land of Palestine, and among many other challenges, the expansion of existing settlements and construction of newer ones are top and significant obstacle of the peace process. The notion of settlement or occupation and a state of Palestine cannot mix at all. A two-state solution means, by default, dismantling and evacuating the Israeli settlements that have come into being as a grave violation of international law. Even the blindly unshakable and unequivocally Western countries who are supporting Israeli align themselves with international law on the settlements issue.
You all as the international community, social media influencers, clerical leaders, political leaders, media correspondents, intergovernmental and other prominent bodies, and even as individuals, have a collective responsibility; everyone can be a game changer. Let us remember the solidarity that we all show and the many tools we used to dismantle and put an end to White supremacy and the South African apartheid regime. We all were united and succeeded in making a real change on that level.
According to the UN, the settlement project began in the first week of occupation of East Jerusalem in 1967, when Israel demolished 160 homes in the Al-Maghariba neighbourhood located opposite the western wall of the Al-Aqsa Mosque courtyards, confiscating 600 other buildings and displacing approximately 5,500 indigenous residents in the process.
According to the Israel NGO, Peace Now, at the time of signing the Oslo Accord in 1993, there were approximately 250,000 settlers in the Occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, with the location of about 140 settlements. Today, nearly 700,000 settlers are located in 300 settlements. This means that there have been increases of 280 per cent and 210 per cent simultaneously.
By taking a deep look at the above figures alone, we can clearly state that no Israeli government, since that time, has intended to put an end to the occupation of Palestinian land. The only thing that we are sure of is that they have succeeded in creating an irreversible one apartheid state reality that has left the Palestinians with a zero sum game at the negotiation table.
Settlements are not the last obstacle to a two-state solution. Since the first day of taking office, the current Israeli prime minister has placed another precondition on the negotiating table: recognition of Israel as the Jewish State and Jerusalem as the eternal capital of the Jewish people. The suspicious and strange part of the story is that when Yitzhak Rabin, the assassinated Israeli prime minister, signed the Oslo Accords, he signed it on behalf of Israel not the Jewish State, and the peace agreements with Egypt and Jordan were also signed by Israeli governments, not on behalf of the Jewish State. The official name of the state in the United Nations is also Israel. When it recently signed normalisation agreements with several Arab countries, it signed it in the name of Israel, not the Jewish State.
Israel is now insisting and demanding that Palestinians should change their old recognition of Israel to that of a Jewish state. It knows that this cannot happen for many logical reasons that we may discuss in another article. This is another thick stick in the wheel.
In these tragic days, we should utilise the unfortunate slaughtering going on to stop the Israeli occupation of Palestine and force them to back to the negotiation table. It is very clear that Israel will not back down voluntary for the negotiation table.
If we all agree to blame Israel and only Israel for the absence of peace on the Holy Land, this should trigger another question, what can we all do?
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You all as the international community, social media influencers, clerical leaders, political leaders, media correspondents, intergovernmental and other prominent bodies, and even as individuals, have a collective responsibility; everyone can be a game changer. Let us remember the solidarity that we all show and the many tools we used to dismantle and put an end to White supremacy and the South African apartheid regime. We all were united and succeeded in making a real change on that level.
In these tragic days, we should utilise the unfortunate slaughtering going on to stop the Israeli occupation of Palestine and force them to back to the negotiation table. It is very clear that Israel will not back down voluntary for the negotiation table.
It is the right time to put pressure on the governments of Western countries to stop protecting Israel against any kind of accountability with the Iron Dome, and providing it with categorical and unconditional support. It's time to end the hypocrisy, lip service, and double standards. It is time to stop accepting Israel as the only country above international law, and with the impunity to severely violate it.
It is time to pave the way for a level political horizon, and this can be achieved by stopping the treatment of Israel as a grumpy and spoiled teenage.
Abdullah M. Abu Shawesh is the Ambassador of the Embassy of the State of Palestine in Nigeria. X (Twitter): @AM_Shawesh.
