SPEAKING
FREELY Israel provokes a Doomsday
test By Nicola Nasser
Speaking Freely is an Asia Times
Online feature that allows guest writers to have
their say. Please
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Israeli Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu crossed an
international red line, vindicating a swift and
firm rejection from Israel's closest allies, when
he announced plans to build a new settlement on a
corridor of occupied Palestinian land in East
Jerusalem, which will render any prospective
Palestinian contiguous state territorially
impossible. Daniel Seidemann, the Israeli founder
of Terrestrial Jerusalem, has condemned it as "the
Doomsday settlement" and
"not a routine" one.
Netanyahu risks a
diplomatic confrontation that will not develop
into a diplomatic isolation of Israel because its
allies have decided to pressure him to backtrack
by "incentives and disincentives" instead of
"sanctions", in the words of the British Foreign
Secretary William Hague.
Summoning Israeli
ambassadors to protest Netanyahu's plans by
Australia, Brazil, France, UK, Sweden, Denmark and
Spain was nonetheless an unusual international
outcry because "if implemented", his "plans would
alter the situation, with Jerusalem as a shared
capital increasingly difficult to achieve",
according to Hague. French foreign ministry
spokesman Philippe Lalliot said the plan is
"seriously undermining the two-state solution",
without which, according to the Australian Foreign
Minister Bob Carr, " ... there will never be
security in Israel".
The international
outcry is not against the Israeli policy of
settlements on Palestinian occupied land per se,
but against this one particular settlement, known
as East One (E-1), and Netanyahu's answer to the
overwhelming recent recognition of Palestine as a
non-member state by the UN General Assembly.
On the ground, the site of some 4.6 square
miles (12 square kilometers) on the easternmost
edge of eastern Jerusalem will close the only link
between the north and south of the West Bank.
Therefore it would sever the territory from East
Jerusalem, the prospective capital of the State of
Palestine, thus undermining any viable and
contiguous Palestinian state on the territories
occupied by Israel in 1967 and turning the
recognition of the UN General Assembly on November
29, 2012, as merely a Palestinian achievement on
paper.
The US and the EU have opposed the
E-1 plan since it was taken out of Israeli drawers
in 2005 because they were alert to its potential
undermining effect on the "peace process". Now,
the five permanent members of the UN Security
Council and the United Nations have all warned
against the E-1 plan.
The White House and
US State Department described the plan as
"unilateral", "counterproductive", a "set back" to
peace efforts, "especially damaging to efforts to
achieve a two-state solution", and said that it
would "complicate efforts to resume direct,
bilateral negotiations" and "risk prejudging the
outcome" of such negotiations, and therefore be
"contrary to US policy".
The EU High
Representative Catherine Ashton on December 2 said
she was "extremely concerned", described the plan
as "an obstacle to peace", condemning "all
settlement construction" as "illegal under
international law", a judgment shared by UK's
William Hague who added that the plan "would
undermine Israel's international reputation and
create doubts about its stated commitment to
achieving peace". Italian Premier Mario Monti and
French President Francois Hollande in a joint
statement said they were "deeply worried" by the
plan. German government spokesman Steffen Seibert
said his country was "deeply concerned". Sweden's
Foreign Minister Carl Bildt said the plan was
"extremely worrying".
China's Foreign
Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said his country "has
always firmly opposed Israel's construction of
settlements in the occupied Palestinian territory
of East Jerusalem and the West Bank". Russia
"views" the plan "with the most serious concern"
because it "would have a very negative effect". UN
Secretary General Ban Ki-moon warned the plan
"would represent an almost fatal blow to remaining
chances of securing a two-state solution".
All the five permanent members of the UN
Security Council and the United Nations called on
Israel to "rescind", "reconsider", "reverse" its
plans, "go back on them", "exercise restraint" and
"eliminate obstacles to the peace talks with
Palestine".
However, when it comes to
translating their words into action they stand
helpless, to render all their statements "an audio
phenomenon" as described by Abdul Bari Atwan,
editor- in-chief of the London-based Arabic daily
Al-Quds Al-Arabi, and a hollow outcry short of an
overdue action by the world community.
It
is no surprise therefore that Netanyahu is
encouraged enough to insist on pursuing his plans.
The international community's inaction
could not but vindicate the expected Palestinian
reaction. President Mahmoud Abbas late on December
4 chaired a Palestinian leadership meeting in
Ramallah, attended for the first time by the
representatives of the rival Hamas and Islamic
Jihad movements. They decided to ask the UN
Security Council to adopt a binding resolution
obliging Israel to stop all settlement activities
in the occupied State of Palestine, concluding
that Israel "is forcing us to go to the
International Criminal Court".
Netanyahu's
defiance and the Palestinian leadership's decision
will both put the credibility of all the five
permanent members of the UN Security Council to an
historic test: They either decide to act on their
own words or their inaction will inevitably leave
the Palestinians with the only option of defending
their very existence by all the means available to
them.
For Palestinians, to be or not to be
has become an existential issue that can no longer
be entrusted to the international community.
Nicola Nasser is a veteran Arab
journalist based in Bir Zeit, West Bank of the
Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories, and may
be reached at nassernicola@ymail.com
Speaking Freely is an Asia Times Online
feature that allows guest writers to have their
say.Please
click hereif you are interested in
contributing.
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