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Understanding Annapolis
December Report #1: Recent news reports about Israel and Palestine told of protests in Gaza and the West Bank against the Annapolis conference. The reports we have seen left the impression that West Bank demonstrations were minor. Here, on the ground, they appeared significant. The demonstrations, nonviolent in nature, resulted in many casualties at the hands of Fatah-affiliated security forces, tragically including the death of 37-year-old Hisham Barad'I in Hebron. Ghassan Bannoura, our close friend here, a news reporter with the International Middle East Media Center (IMEMC), was kidnapped by these security forces, held for four hours, and beaten. The kidnappers threatened to kill Ghassan if he took any pictures of the demonstration. While detained, he received injuries to his arm, leg, and back. Hundreds more journalists and nonviolent demonstrators were attacked and detained by these forces at similar demonstrations across the West Bank.[1]
A joint open letter to negotiating parties at the Annapolis conference by a number of Palestinian civil society organizations addresses the practical impact that international law should have on the outcome of the peace talks.[2] The letter outlines some of the major issues that Palestinians feel are not, and can never be, up for negotiation: “The fundamental rights of the Palestinian people are matters of binding international law, not political bargaining chips. Their implementation must not be left to Israel’s beneficence, but rather established as the foundation of any just and durable solution to the conflict.”[3]
If the negotiating parties do not treat these issues as the fundamental human rights guaranteed under international law that they are, the leaders at Annapolis will fail to promote the peace of which they speak.
In 1988, the Palestine National Congress voted to annul sections of the Palestine National Covenant that deny Israel’s right to exist. Israel objected that the written constitution of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) still called for the destruction of Israel. Palestinians pointed out that the PNC vote involved a major concession on their side—they relinquished any claim to sovereignty over 78% of Palestinian land, including areas conquered by Israel in 1948 that the UN had allotted to the Palestinian state. In return, they asked Israel to recognize that Palestinians had an equal right to a state and a normal life with self-determination and justice. More recently, Hamas has rejected the PNC vote, leading some Israelis to question whether a Hamas government would make peace with Israel. Others point out that, since winning Palestinian elections, Hamas has become more pragmatic.[4]
According to a recent survey of Palestinians conducted by Dr. Khalil Shikaki, Director of the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research, two-thirds to three-fourths of Palestinians will support a two-state solution, but only if the three core components, all supported by international law, are met:
Unfortunately, because of the reality of life in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT), there is little hope that Israel will be willing to comply with international law on any of the above three components. Some of this reality we will attempt to summarize below:
First, on Borders, Settlements, and the Wall: Since 1967, Israel has occupied the Palestinian Territories. Throughout the forty years of the occupation, Israel has established 207 settlements, all of them illegal according to Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which prohibits an occupying power from transferring parts of its civilian population into occupied territory. These settlements are currently home to over 470,000 settlers, and control over 57% of the West Bank, including essential agricultural and water resources.[8]
In 2002, Israel began construction of what it has referred to as a “separation” or “security” barrier – a 25-foot high concrete wall that annexes 12.8% of the West Bank, including East Jerusalem. The wall incorporates 69 settlements, effectively joining them to Israel. The wall, together with Israeli-occupied military zones along the Jordan River and the Dead Sea, will eventually encircle all of the West Bank.[9]
More than 1/3 of the settlements in the OPT are built on privately-owned Palestinian land, and thus in flagrant violation even of Israeli law;[10] all are in violation of Geneva conventions. In a July 2004 decision, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled that the annexation wall which Israel was building, because of its route inside the 1949 Armistice Line (the Green Line), was illegal, and should be dismantled immediately.[11] Today, its construction still continues.
Because of the above evidence, and because George Bush sent a letter to then Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in April 2004 accepting the major settlement blocs Israel has established around Jerusalem, Palestinians are doubtful that the negotiators at Annapolis will comply with international law regarding the wall and the settlements. In the letter, Bush states, “in light of new realities on the ground ... it is unrealistic to expect that the outcome of final status negotiations will be a full and complete return to the armistice lines of 1949.”[12] Congress voted 407-9 to support the president’s letter.[13]
Second, on the right of return for refugees: Another fundamental issue for the Palestinians, also a basic human right, is the right for refugees of war to return to their original home. According to U.N. resolution 194, passed in December 1948, all refugees must be allowed to return and have their homes, lands, and other property restored to them.[14] In 1948, 750,000 Palestinians were forced out of or fled their homes during the Arab-Israeli war after the creation of the Israeli state. Still sixty years later, none of them have been allowed to return home.
Israel’s official position surrounding the Annapolis conference has been that Palestinians will have a right to “return” to their newly created state of Palestine – not to their original homes in what is now the State of Israel.[15] It is aware that if it allowed Palestinians to return to their original homes and villages, which some families had lived in for hundreds of years, Israel would no longer be an ethnically or religiously Jewish-majority state.
Lastly, on Jerusalem: In 1967, Israel began occupying East Jerusalem, an act that is illegal according to Article 47 of the Fourth Geneva Convention. Today, East Jerusalem is home to almost 200,000 Israeli settlers, in fourteen Israeli settlements.[16] On November 30, just two days after the Annapolis conference, Ehud Olmert affirmed his position that Israeli sovereignty on the occupied city of Jerusalem would not be compromised.[17]
Any negotiations should establish a timeline for implementing rights under international law – not negotiate away the rights themselves. If a final negotiated solution is not based on the articles of international law detailed above, it will make the agreement void according to Article 53 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, which states that “a treaty is void if, at the time of its conclusion, it conflicts with a peremptory norm of general international law.”[18]
We conclude with a quote by Jeff Halper, the coordinator of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions:
For resources about Palestinian and Israeli opinions about Annapolis, polls, articles, speeches, go to the Jewish peace group Brit Tzedek v’Shalom, http://btvshalom.org/resources/annapolis_conference.shtml. See also the website of the International Middle East Media Centre, www.imemc.org , for news and analysis about the Palestinian situation. [2] http://www.palsolidarity.org/main/2007/11/28/al-haq-a-foundation-not-an-afterthought-upholding-international-law-at-annapolis/ [3]AL-HAQ: JOINT OPEN LETTER: “A Foundation not an Afterthought: Upholding International Law at Annapolis,” posted in November 26th, 2007 by media in Current News Articles http://www.apartheidmasked.org/?p=297 .[4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_National_Covenant ; http://www.fmep.org/analysis/articles/quotes_from_hamas_leaders_on_hamas_israel_and_palestinian_politics.html .
[6] According to a careful reading of the actual questions asked. See http://www.pcpsr.org/survey/polls/2007/p25e2.html for full documentation. Note that settlements are not explicitly mentioned, but their removal is implied by the response to question 40 below. Here are the relevant questions: “32) There is a proposal that after the establishment of an independent Palestinian state and the settlement [sic] of all issues in dispute, including the refugees and Jerusalem issues, there will be a mutual recognition of Israel as the state of the Jewish people and Palestine as the state of the Palestinians people. Do you agree or disagree to this proposal?” 57.1% agree or definitely agree, and 41.4% disagree or definitely disagree. 1.5% don’t know or didn’t answer. Respondents in Gaza were slightly more favorable to this proposal than were those in the West Bank. “40) There is also talk about a permanent settlement to the border issue whereby the Palestinian state would be established in all areas occupied by Israel in 1967 with the exception of some settlements in about 5% of the West Bank which would be exchanged with an area equal in size and quality that belongs now to Israel. Do you agree or disagree with such a permanent settlement to the border issue?” Overall, 46.3% agree or strongly agree, and 48.4% disagree or strongly disagree. In other words, a modest plurality of 48.4% (against 46.3%) opposes a settlement that would leave any Jewish settlements in the West Bank. This appears to be a careful scientific survey, although the questions asked limit the options that could be expressed. For example, no one is asked whether they favor a single, secular state embracing both current Israelis and Palestinians, with equal rights for all.
[8] http://www.arij.org/atlas40/chapter4.2.html There is more valuable information about Israel’s annexation of the West Bank lands at this site. [9] See map for the route of the wall at http://www.arij.org/atlas40/media/26.jpg [18] U.N. Doc. A/CONF.39/27 (1969), reprinted in 63 Am. J. Int'l L. 875 (1969) as quoted in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peremptory_norm .
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Why
would Fatah, supposedly the representatives of the Palestinian people, forbid
nonviolent demonstrations, and then beat up its own people for holding them?
Perhaps they do not want the world to see that the majority of Palestinians want
fundamental human rights granted by international law, and do not agree that
Fatah, led by Mahmoud Abbas, has the authority to negotiate them away.
Unfortunately, those negotiating at Annapolis do not appear to feel it is
necessary to use international law, or even the basic human rights such law
protects, as a starting point from which to reach the final agreement.
“In
the end, the Palestinians may get 80-90% of the West Bank, but they do not get a
viable state. They will have sterile swatches of territory whereas Israel
retains control of the borders, movement of people and goods both within the
Palestinian state and between it and the countries around, much of the country's
arable land, almost all its water, the Palestinians' airspace and even control
of their communications.… There will be a Palestinian state. Israel has an
urgent demographic need to get the almost four million Palestinians of the
occupied territories off its hands. It might even attempt to "swap" a couple
hundred thousand Israeli Arab citizens of the Galilee Triangle under the
pretense of giving the Palestinians more land. The crucial question is: will it
be a viable state? If it's true that Olmert intends that Israel permanently
retain the settlement blocs, an Israeli "greater" Jerusalem and effective
control of the entire country to the Jordan River, then we will merely be
substituting a sophisticated form of apartheid for occupation. The devil is in
the details.”