Israel’s apartheid policy
Tel Aviv’s colony construction and occupation prove it is not interested in a two-state solution
ITel Aviv’s colony construction and continued occupation proves it is not interested in a two-state solution
n 2006, former US president Jimmy Carter published a book titled Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid. In the book, he accused Israel of creating and sustaining a system of apartheid in the Occupied Territories. Carter stated that “Palestinians are deprived of basic human rights…[and] Israel’s continued control and colonisation of Palestinian land have been the primary obstacles to a comprehensive peace”.
There was nothing incendiary here and strictly speaking there was nothing new; threre was nothing that countless reports from the United Nations, international human rights organisations, and even from Israeli human rights organisations have not said before. In fact, the Carter statement quoted above reflects long-standing official American foreign policy, which considered Israeli colonies in the Occupied Territories an obstacle to peace.
Further, on July 9, 2004, the International Court of Justice ruled that: “Israeli settlements [colonies] in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including [occupied] East Jerusalem, are illegal and an obstacle to peace [... and] have been established in breach of international law.”
Yet, the book provoked a firestorm of criticism from Israel’s supporters in the US accusing Carter of distorting facts and demonising Israel.
Carter was also criticised by Republicans and Democrats alike, and his book has generally been greeted with indifference in the mainstream media in the US, which initially completely ignored its publication. The most provocative feature of Carter’s book was not what it said, but who said it.
US President Barack Obama posed a similar challenge. His initial high-prof ile commitment to a peaceful settlement of the conflict, and his June 2009 Cairo speech in which he balanced the obligatory commitments to Israel with an appreciation of the plight of the Palestinians, alarmed his critics.
But the confrontation between Obama and the pro-israeli consensus of the American establishment came when he told the UN General Assembly that the American people did not support the legitimacy of the Israeli colonies in the Occupied Territories. He publicly demanded that Israel stop all colony construction. Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu defied the US president and refused to renew a 10-month colony freeze to allow for the resumption of stalled peace talks.
Another test came when Obama suggested earlier last year that Palestinian-israeli peace negotiations be based on 1967 lines. Netanyahu publicly and defiantly rejected the suggestion saying that the 1967 lines were indefensible as a stunned Obama looked on and tried to maintain his composure.
Carter’s choice
By the time the annual meeting of the UN General Assembly was held last September, Obama had already assessed the measure of the competing forces: On the one hand the pro-israeli American establishment consensus on the conflict dominated by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and its support for Netanyahu’s continued colony policy; paying lip service to the two-state solution while in fact consolidating the infrastructure of apartheid. On the other hand the Palestinians and the international community consensus based on principles of justice and international law.
Obama’s speech at the UN General Assembly, last September, came as no surprise. He admitted that his efforts had failed, and presented to a stunned General Assembly an expose in defence of Israel. The Palestinians were mentioned as an after-thought, the occupation absent and the colonies had disappeared. The two-state solution was in jeopardy.
This brings us to the choice that Carter’s book has dramatised: End the occupation and achieve the two-state solution, or annex the Occupied Territories and give the Palestinians full political rights. In rejecting both options, the Israeli government proves that it is com- mitted to colony construction and continued occupation — both of which are pillars of an apartheid system.
When the Israeli government announced, last November, its intention to accelerate colony construction in occupied East Jerusalem, Washington failed to strongly condemn the decision. But some European capitals stepped in to fill the void created by Washington’s timidity.
Britain, France, Germany and Portugal, delivered a joint message at the UN headquarters in New York. The message condemned the Israeli decision to accelerate construction in the West Bank and occupied East Jerusalem, saying the colonies were illegal, and threatened the two-state solution to the conflict.
Last week, the Israeli peace organisation Peace Now published a report showing that Israeli colony construction in the West Bank rose 20 per cent last year. The report states that during the 2008 ‘ colony freeze’ agreed upon at the Annapolis conference, tenders for new colony building increased by 550 per cent from 2007. According to the report, building in occupied East Jerusalem was at the highest level in a decade.
In a section tellingly titled Torpedoing the Two State Solution – The Strategy of the Netanyahu Government, the report states: “The Netanyahu government is promoting several plans precisely in disputed areas which could prevent the possibility of establishing a Palestinian state alongside Israel.”
If the two-state solution for the Palestine conflict is official American policy, why is Washington not defending it? In the face of extremist positions and Israeli policy that are demolishing the foundations of the two-state solution, the silence of the Obama administration may be giving comfort to the proponents of apartheid in Palestine.