The true colors of Israel's Palestine policy
Ali Kazak, Canberra
In his article in The Jakarta Post early this month Silvan Shalom, the Israeli Foreign Minister, acrobatically switched facts upside down and conveniently avoided discussing the central conflict in the Middle East and the Muslim world, the Palestine question.
Israel is the longest military-occupying power in the world today. It occupies Palestine and parts of neighboring Syria and Lebanon, threatening their security and preventing the Palestinian people from exercising their right to freedom and self-determination. It grossly violates international law and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and refuses to comply with hundreds of UN resolutions, the agreements it signed with the Palestinians and President Bush's "Road Map".
Shalom attempt to present the conflict as if it was mainly part of the Cold War is typical of Israel's policy of deception.
He wrote "Israel does not see Islam as an enemy and has never seen it as such." This is at a time when Israel has destroyed a Muslim country, Palestine, occupying and endangering one of the most holy places in Islam, Al Haram Al Sharif and Al Aqsa Mosque, and oppressing the Palestinian people, 94 percent of whom are Muslims and denying them their most basic human rights. Furthermore, Israel's lobby in the United States, Australia and elsewhere, are leading the spread of hatred, resentment and incitement against Islam and stereotyping Muslims.
Has Shalom forgotten the tens of massacres Israel and the Jewish organizations the Stern Gang, the Haganah and the Irgun committed against Palestinians since 1947, the ethnic-cleansing of 70 percent of the Palestinian people from their houses, villages and towns and Israel's refusal to allow them to return to their homeland for no reason other than not being Jews, in defiance of UN General Assembly resolution 194 calling on Israel to do so? Yet Israel encourages any Jew from anywhere in the world to immigrate, granting them Israeli citizenship on arrival.
Has Shalom also forgotten the destruction of 450 Palestinians villages and towns, hundreds of Muslim graveyards and more than 1200 mosques and the turning of numerous mosques into restaurants and bars such as the historic Caesaria Mosque on the outskirts of Haifa which is now called "Charly's Restaurant". If Shalom has forgotten all this, Muslims and the international community have not.
Israel's policies in the occupied territories of arbitrary killings, arrest and torture, collective punishments, bombing of residential areas, strangulation of the Palestinian economy, the mass exploitation of workers, the demolition of homes and the confiscation of land for Jewish-only use are the actions of a colonialist and racist power and not the actions of a state that wants to live in peace with its neighbors.
Israel's unilateral withdrawal from the Gaza Strip which represents less than 1.5 percent of historic Palestine and which was always problematic for Israel and it wanted to get rid of, is not something Israel should be rewarded for. It is like prison guards withdrawing from inside the prison to outside it. Israel is till in control of the crossing points, the seashore and airspace and refuses to allow the Palestinian Authority to operate the airport, build a seaport and link the West Bank and Gaza Strip with the two free passageways already agreed on in the Oslo Accords, which are essential for Gaza's survival.
Dov Weisglass, senior adviser to Prime Minister Sharon revealed Israel's intention to the Israeli Haaretz newspaper which reported him on Oct. 6, 2004 as saying "The significance of the disengagement plan is the freezing of the peace process. And when you freeze that process you prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state and you prevent a discussion on the refugees, the borders and Jerusalem. Effectively, this whole package called the Palestinian state, with all that it entails, has been removed indefinitely from our agenda."
Shalom gave the Oslo Accords the Palestinians signed with Israel, and the peace treaties with Egypt and Jordan, as examples for other Arab and Muslim countries to establish relations with Israel. In fact these, as history has shown, are good examples for Indonesia and other Muslim countries not to do so.
Israeli actions prove that Israel did not sign the Oslo Accords in 1993 in good faith and it is using the peace process as a cover to legalize its occupation rather than ending it. Since then Israel escalated its oppression and crimes against the unarmed Palestinian people, the building of Jewish colonies has more than doubled and now Israel is building the Apartheid Wall deep inside the occupied territories in defiance of the International Court of Justice and the international community. Indeed any relations with Arab and Muslims countries will encourage Israel in its violations and crimes.
Israel's aim throughout the years has been to normalize its relations with the Arab and Muslim countries without solving the Palestine question. While Israel has everything to gain from normalizing relations, Muslim countries such as Indonesia have nothing to gain other than splitting their societies and turning their people against the governments. Israel's ethnic-cleansing, occupation and war crimes are the main cause of anger and frustration which are leading to extremism in the Arab and Muslim world.
The establishment of relations with Israel should only occur when Israel recognizes Palestinian rights, allows the refugees to return to their homeland in accordance with UN General Assembly resolution 194 and withdraws from all the 1967 occupied Palestinian and Arab territories, foremost Jerusalem and Al Haram Al Sharif, in accordance with UN Security Council resolutions 242 and 338, and the establishment of a Palestinian state with its historic capital East Jerusalem.
What fosters hatred against Israel is not "the others" as Shalom claims but Israel's actions itself. If Israel want to help the Palestinian people as he claims all it needs to do is leave their land and recognize their human and national rights.
Peace is not made by deception and political acrobatics, but by genuine steps to resolve the cause of the conflict, compliance with international law, relevant UN resolutions, the agreements signed since the Oslo Accords with the PLO and the Road Map.
The writer is Head of the General Palestinian Delegation to Australia & New Zealand & Ambassador of Palestine to Vanuatu & East Timor.