Recently, US President George W. Bush announced plans to provide direct aid to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' government and to convene an international conference aimed at securing Israeli-Palestinian peace and a two state solution. His initiative followed closely on the heels of the Quartet's appointment of former British Prime Minister Tony Blair as its Middle East envoy whose mandate is to oversee Palestinian reform.
While these recent initiatives suggest seriousness on the Quartet's part, its efforts will once again amount to naught unless it immediately tackles Israel's construction of settlements and the separation wall in the occupied West Bank, and revises its approach to isolating Hamas. To date, the Quartet has been reluctant to do either.
Since the election of Hamas in January 2006, the US-led Quartet has pursued a policy of isolating Hamas and bolstering Fatah, with failed and sometimes deadly results. First, the Quartet ceased financial assistance to and political contacts with the Hamas-led Palestinian Authority (PA). It hoped to pressure Hamas into renouncing violence, recognizing Israel and accepting previous agreements. This cessation of assistance undermined Palestinian institution-building, deepened the humanitarian crisis and exacerbated political instability.
Hamas arguably met the Quartet's conditions, albeit indirectly, by ceasing suicide attacks, participating in PA elections, agreeing to review existing agreements, and signaling its willingness to negotiate with Israel to end its occupation. However, the Quartet failed to adjust its policy in return. It continued to boycott Hamas even after the Hamas-Fatah national-unity government was formed earlier this year, and the US covertly sought to strengthen Fatah financially and militarily. This approach culminated last month in violent clashes and Hamas' takeover of Gaza.
In launching his initiative, Bush characterized Hamas as bad and Fatah as good, described the conflict in Gaza and the West Bank as a struggle between extremists and moderates, and called on the Palestinian people to make a choice. This begs the question: In asking Palestinians to make a choice, what are Bush and the Quartet really offering?
Three years ago the International Court of Justice ruled that Israel's establishment of settlements and the construction of a wall within the occupied West Bank were illegal. It called on Israel to cease construction and compensate Palestinians. Since then, Israel has completed another 200 kilometers of construction deep within the West Bank. Palestinians - the very same ones Bush has asked to make a choice - are denied access to their farm land, deprived of their economic livelihood, and face often insurmountable obstacles in accessing health care and getting their children to school, because of Israel's wall, settlements and closure regime. The international community has been unwilling to compel Israel to relocate the wall into its own territory and to cease settlement expansion. This failure is more egregious given the Israeli government's admission that planned settlement expansion played a part in determining the wall's route and in light of its declarations that the wall is intended to form its future political border.
Moreover, those Palestinians that Bush has asked to make a choice do not need to refer to the May 2007 World Bank report to know that they are denied access to 50 percent of the West Bank because of Israeli unilateral measures; nor do they need to read that they are barred or restricted from the main West Bank roads in order that Israeli settlers can travel more easily between their settlements and the territory of the state of Israel; nor that Israeli agricultural settlements in the Jordan Valley flourish while the Palestinian economy withers. These were the issues that discredited Fatah, which had invested in the negotiation process, and that helped propel Hamas to its 2006 election victory. These factors were largely ignored in the Western media which, instead, focused on Fatah's corruption.
Bush commended Abbas' efforts at institutional reform and called on the international community to support him as a step toward laying the foundation for a Palestinian state and moving toward serious negotiations with Israel. This is not, however, the type of support needed by Abbas or any Palestinian national-unity government. What Abbas needs is a cessation of Israeli settlement and wall construction inside the West Bank, and a reversal of those facts on the ground.
To allow continued construction in the lead-up to negotiations while maintaining that Israel and the Palestinians are to negotiate final borders taking into account "current realities" is a formula doomed to failure. The "current reality" of existing Israeli settlements renders a Palestinian state unviable. Moreover, turning a blind eye to settlement expansion allows the creation of more facts on the ground and unlawfully strengthens Israel's position at the negotiating table while simultaneously damaging the Palestinians' ability to form a viable state. Why should "current realities" not address instead the plight of Palestinians displaced from their homes and lands in the West Bank as a result of illegal and unilateral Israeli actions?
If Bush and the Quartet are truly committed to a viable two-state solution, they must compel Israel to remove its settlements and wall from the occupied West Bank. They must also end their isolation of Hamas and encourage national reconciliation. Factionalized Palestinian society, like a fragmented and under-resourced Palestinian state, serves neither Palestinian nor Israeli interests. Bush is correct in saying it is a moment of choice, but the choice rests with the United States and the other Quartet members.
Stephanie Koury, A former legal adviser to the Palestine Liberation Organization and member of the Palestinian delegation to the International Court of Justice case on Israel's separation wall, is a Sir Joseph Hotung Research Fellow at the University of London focusing on the role of third parties in conflicts. She wrote this commentary for THE DAILY STAR.
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If Israel removes the "wall" (actually, for the most part, it's really a "fence"), then it can expect the Palestinian Arabs to begin anew with their campaign of suicide bombing and other violent activities. It's time that the Palestinians take the step to becoming a "normal" people instead of a "death cult" society.
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