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The Necessary Price of Peace: Freeze The Settlement

By Dr Islam Qasem

03 October, 2010
Countercurrents.org

Netanyahu continues to defy the international community on settlement freeze. Calls from the United States and the European Union to curb settlement construction in the West Bank in order to rescue the peace talk with the Palestinians has fallen on a deaf ear. Not even an offer by the Obama administration of broad security guarantees and diplomatic support in exchange for a sixty-day freeze has changed the mind of the Israeli Prime Minister. Peace talks are on the verge of collapsing.

Last September in Washington Netanyahu declared: “Together we can lead our people to a historic future that can put an end to claims and to conflict. This will not be easy. A true peace, a lasting peace, will be achieved only with mutual and painful concessions from both sides.” But as President Obama stated in his speech at the United Nations: “These words must now be followed by action and I believe that both leaders have the courage to do so.” Courage is exactly what Netanyahu has been unable to muster. Netanyahu wants his cake and to eat it too. In other words, he talks about peace with Palestinians, but also allows the settlements to expand in land that would be part of the future Palestinian state. In effect he is undermining the formula of peace: the two-state solution. Without a freeze on settlement construction in the West Bank, there is no ground for negotiation to continue. Abbas therefore should have no second thought about walking out.

Netanyahu is committing both nations to a grim future, ignoring the lessons of the past and present. Six decades of occupation made Israel less safe at home, less liked abroad, and less hopeful about the future. The Palestinians of the occupied West Bank and Gaza are going nowhere; they have nowhere to go. Their dire health, employment, and education condition is a humanitarian crisis ready to explode. According to UN Office for the Coordination of Human Affairs, 79% of Palestinians living in area C of the West Bank suffer from food insecurity, water scarcity, and settler violence. The three-year-old Israeli blockade has turned Gaza into nothing but a giant prison, with 1.6 million people living with limited access to humanitarian supplies. Unless the wheel of peace turns, occupation will only foster despair and further resentment of Israel.

Making peace is a thorny business, but the dividend is enormous. After more than six decades of bloodshed, it is time to strike an agreement which provides both parties with security, freedom, and sovereignty. Netanyahu should not be allowed to turn this opportunity into another wasted chance. Too many opportunities have come and gone: from the Madrid Conference (1991), Oslo Agreement (1993), Camp David (2000), Taba (2001), Saudi Peace Plan (2002), Roadmap (2003), Geneva Accord (2003), to Annapolis (2007). This time it has to be different; this time the international community under the leadership of Obama should fight for peace until the end. This means Obama should resort to the stick approach, if Netanyahu's intransigence continues.

 

Dr Islam Qasem lectures at the Political Science Institute at Leiden University and is an analyst for the Hague Center for Strategic Studies in the Netherlands.
http://www.islamqasem.com
http://hcss.nl/en/home