Opposing view: Deal asks too much of a people who already have given
too much.
By Edmund R. Hanauer
At Camp David, President Bill
Clinton and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak pressed Palestinian leader
Yassir Arafat to agree to a settlement reflecting Israel’s superior power,
not an agreement based on international law and human
rights.
On each issue in dispute the Palestinians are
supported by international law and human rights covenants. In each case,
“compromises” mean denial of the legal and human rights of Palestinians,
not of Israelis.
Palestinians already made the major
concession - recognition in 1993 of Israel (without Israeli
acceptance of a Palestinian State) on 78 percent of their former
territory, British Mandatory Palestine. A 1967 United Nations Security
Council Resolution requires Israel to withdraw from all Arab lands
occupied in 1967 in return for Arab acceptance of Israel. The
Palestinians have done their part.
Regarding Jewish
settlements, international law prohibits Israel from settling civilians
on land seized from Palestinians; 200,000 Jewish settlers are
illegally using land and water resources taken from
Palestinians.
On Jerusalem, Palestinians seek a shared
city. But Israel, in violation of international law, insists
on continued control of East Jerusalem where 200,000 Palestinians suffer
from what Israel's leading human rights group, B’Tselem, calls a
“history of dispossession and discrimination.”
During
the 1948 war, Israel drove out hundreds of thousands of Palestinians and
destroyed more than 400 Palestinian villages. Since 1948, Israel has
ignored U.N. resolutions supporting the right of Palestinian refugees to
repatriation to Israel. Last year, 1,100 US religious leaders called on
the United States to press Israel to recognize the right of return for
Palestinian refugees.
The Clinton administration has opposed U.N.
resolutions aimed at getting Israel to recognize the human rights of
Palestinians. The United States gives more than $3 billion each year which
enables Israel to flout international law, ignore world opinion, and
pursue policies that would give a fraction of the Palestinian people a
fraction of their rights on a fraction of their
land.
Americans should demand a
better deal for the Palestinian people. And President Clinton might heed
the wisdom of Pope Paul VI: “If you want peace, work for
justice.”
