Middle East Peace: the Principles Behind the Process
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Middle East Council MIDDLE EAST PEACE: THE PRINCIPLES BEHIND THE PROCESS Sir Alan Duncan MP A CMEC Palestine Program publication May 2016 FOREWORD The turbulence that has swept through the Middle East over the last five years continues – and in many cases the winds of change have brought only violence and humanitarian tragedy. Huge challenges remain. The region remains wracked by the competing dynamics of political Islam, tyranny and sectarian violence. But despite all this, the plight of the Palestinians remains unresolved as the central injustice of the region. Illegal settlements are, as each day passes, destroying the viability of a Palestine state, and with it all hope of a just and lasting peace for both Palestinians and Israelis. This is a risk that we, the US, Israel, and the Middle East region as a whole simply cannot afford to take. We in Great Britain must reenergise our efforts in pursuit of Palestine statehood and Middle East Peace . This excellent speech makes that point, and more. Sir Alan Duncan MP has a commendable track record of interest in the Palestine issue and I am delighted to see his powerful words published here. The Rt Hon Sir Nicholas Soames MP President Conservative Middle East Council Conservative Middle East Council MIDDLE EAST PEACE: THE PRINCIPLES BEHIND THE PROCESS INTRODUCTION This is a transcript of the speech delivered by The Rt Hon Sir Alan Duncan MP to RUSI on Tuesday 14th October 2014. May I start by expressing my gratitude to RUSI for providing me with a platform from which I can express my considered thoughts on an issue that has concerned – not to say, troubled – me for over thirty years. No one who has travelled to Israel and Palestine, as I have done so often, can fail to become emotionally engaged in the rights and wrongs of the arguments between the two. The Israeli-Palestinian dispute is one of the most polarising and vexed issues in the world. What’s more, it creates fury and indignation way beyond the immediate vicinity of the region. Far more than just an Arab issue, it angers millions in the wider Muslim world. I want today to examine one fundamental component of this issue, try to put its importance into context, and then explain the stand I believe we, as engaged citizens, should take about it. Year after year, in cycles of hope and despair, we dwell incessantly on what we all call the Peace Process. And we go on talking about it even when it is in intensive care, and deemed by some to have died altogether. There is no need to rehearse today all of the ins and outs and ups and downs of the failed negotiations and near successes of the past. I expressed my thoughts while I was a Minister, in a letter to the Foreign Secretary and Prime Minister, in June last year. I will today release that letter as it succinctly encapsulates my point of view, and I want to explain in greater depth the serious argument in it. At its heart is this. I think we have been looking at the entire issue of Israel and Palestine from the wrong end of the telescope. Our policy, and that of many other countries, has been that on no account should we ever rock the boat by talking in tough language to Israel for fear of jeopardising the so-called Peace Process. I certainly shared that view – albeit temporarily – while John Kerry, as Secretary of State, worked so valiantly to secure a lasting agreement. His objectives were genuine and attainable, and it was not his fault that talks collapsed when last April the Israeli cabinet declined to respond constructively. While Secretary Kerry was trying his best we were all duty bound fully to support him. His efforts could have succeeded. Everything for a sensible agreement was offered by the Palestinians - borders, land swaps, the retention of some major settlements, a shared Jerusalem, a demilitarised Palestine. They even started by offering all these main components of a sustainable agreement, yet the Israeli Government finished by having offered absolutely nothing substantial. In my view, as I said in that letter, I don’t think they ever had any intention of doing so. But we all stuck by the process. But the price we have paid for focussing only on the process is that we have increasingly lost sight of the principle. The principle that has been sacrificed and subordinated to the false dawn of process is the stand we ought to make on Israel’s illegal settlements. 1 Conservative Middle East Council MIDDLE EAST PEACE: THE PRINCIPLES BEHIND THE PROCESS PART ONE It has been the position of every British government since 1967 that the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza have not been lawfully part of the State of Israel, whether at its creation or at any point thereafter. Indeed, that is the view of every foreign government, including the United States. And since 1967, a clear line has been drawn in international law which defines which territory is occupied and which is not. Yet relentlessly, every week, every month, and every year for decades, Israelis have built illegal constructions on Palestinian land. The construction of settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territories is contrary to Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention which prohibits the occupying power from transferring parts of its own population into the territories it occupies. This is a position held by the international community and confirmed by the International Court of Justice. Indeed, the Supreme Court of Israel itself has repeatedly found that the West Bank is held in belligerent occupation. But since 1967 Israel has continuously and systematically built outside its legitimate borders and has claimed its neighbours’ land as its own. Israeli settlements are the worst, most destructive, aspect of the military occupation, an occupation which has become the longest in modern international relations. The continued expansion of settlements demonstrates that the occupier has little or no intention of ending that occupation or of permitting a viable Palestinian state to come into existence. Back in 1993 when the Oslo Peace Process started there were, in the West Bank- not including Jerusalem- 110,000 settlers. Today there are 382,000- around 10% of the entire population of the West Bank. Israel’s Housing Minister Uri Ariel, himself a settler, wants to see the number grow by 50% over the next five years. Crucially, not only would the number of settlers increase, but so too would the proportion of settlers, so therefore further entrenching the occupation. This illicit expansion did not even diminish while the Kerry initiative was at its height. Just last year, new housing starts in West Bank settlements rose by over 120%. During the nine months of the Kerry initiative, according to the Israeli group PeaceNow, ‘the Netanyahu Government promoted plans and tenders for at least 13,851 housing units within the existing settlements and in East Jerusalem – an average of 50 units a day.’ There are now over half a million settlers living in around 120 settlements and 100 unauthorised outposts in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. And to compound the intrusion, the population growth of settler communities during the past decade has been almost three times that of the Israeli population as a whole. This illegal construction and habitation is theft, it is annexation, it is a land grab – it is any expression that accurately describes the encroachment which takes from someone else something that is not rightfully owned by the taker. As such, it should be called what it is, and not by some euphemistic soft alternative. Settlements are illegal colonies built in someone else’s country. They are an act of theft, and what is more something which is both initiated and supported by the state of Israel. We need to be clear about what settlements actually are. To many they are thought to be nothing more than a little tent, set up as a harmless protest, and thus no more than a temporary camp. If that’s what anyone really thinks, then it could not be further from the truth. 2 Conservative Middle East Council MIDDLE EAST PEACE: THE PRINCIPLES BEHIND THE PROCESS Settlements might start as an outpost, something which might indeed be little more than a portable cabin on a hill with the Israeli flag on top. However, they are no less illegal, just because they might be small. But they then become guarded encampments, and then housing estates, and then entire towns. They are often linked by settler-only motorways, and in the name of security are out of bounds to Palestinians. Many are now massive Israeli colonies located well into the West Bank some distance from Israel proper. Maale Adummim has 37,000 inhabitants, Modi’in Illit 55,000, Beitar Illit 43,000, and Ariel 18,000. Over the years, the wood and canvass has turned into concrete, the tents have turned into towns, the towns have turned into fortified cities. Nowhere in the modern age has the wider world so tolerated such brazen and repeated illegality. As if enormous towns in the middle of the West Bank were not offensive enough, other settlements are even worse. If Israel were to build on area E1 east of Jerusalem, it would cut off the capital city from any future Palestinian state. The recently proposed development of 1000 acres to the west of Bethlehem is doubly illegal because not only is it for settlements, but it has also unilaterally been designated by Israel as state land, an action by an occupying power which is forbidden in international law.