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NATO Regional Cooperation Course

Dra Mai Alkaila, Ambassador of Palestine in Italy

Ladies and Gentlemen,

It is a great honour for me to speak to the NATO Regional Cooperation Course and I thank the NATO Defense College for this invitation.

Let me tell you from the very onset that from a “Palestinian perspective” I shall talk about the “Arab-Israeli conflict” with a special focus on the “Israeli occupation of the Palestinian land”, which prevented and still prevents peace in the region.

But lets start with the

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

The Canaanites are known to be the earliest population that inhabited Palestine around 3rd millennium BC. The 2nd millennium saw the area taken over by Pharaonic Egypt and new invaders, who included the Hebrews from the Semitic tribes of Mesopotamia and a group of Aegean people from Indo-European group, the Philistines, from whom the country was given the name of “Philistine”. The Israelites were an alliance of Hebrew tribes who defeated the Canaanites but found it difficult to defeat the Philistines. The Philistine population took over the Southern coast of Palestine and established an independent State there, controlling the Canaanite the town of Jerusalem and defeating the Israelites in 1050 BC. From 1519 to the end of World War I Palestine was occupied by the Turkish Ottoman Empire (see Map).

COLONIZATION

Zionism as a movement is generally considered to have been founded by Theodor Herzl in 1897, when the first Congress of the Zionist Organization took place in Switzerland (see Map).  However, its history began earlier and is related to Judaism and Jewish history. The Hovevei Zion, or the Lovers of Zion, were responsible for the creation of 20 new Jewish settlements in Palestine between 1878 and 1897 (see Map). Zionists believed that if Jews were forced by external pressure to form a nation, they could lead a normal existence only through concentration in one territory. Their motto was:  “A land without a people for a people without a land”. Unfortunately, the land where they wanted to put their project into practice was not empty at all. The Palestinians were there. Colonization started.

THE SYKES-PICOT PLAN

During World War I, Great Britain, France and Russia decided to secretly agree on the eventual distribution among them of the enemy’s territory, should they win the war against the Ottomans. This was the Sykes-Picot 1916 Plan, according to which Palestine should remain under an Allies’ shared mandate (see Map). To this end, Great Britain, who aimed at controlling Palestine, persuaded  the local population to support its efforts against the Turkish Army and started imposing its authority de facto.

THE BALFOUR DECLARATION

At the same time, Great Britain promised Zionists to establish in Palestine “a national home for the Jewish people”. This was the 1917 Balfour Declaration which, together with the Sykes-Picot Plan, was to become part and parcel of the British Mandate established by the League of Nations in 1922. However, Zionist plans went beyond the creation of a “national home”.

THE BRITISH MANDATE

This became clear from the strategy that the Zionists followed, based on three main pillars: 1) the conquest of land (with the idea that no land acquired by the Jews would ever return to the Palestinians), 2) the conquest of labour (with the idea that only Jewish workers should be allowed in Jewish factories), and 3) the conquest of production (with the idea to boycott Palestinian products).

Surprisingly, no one really stopped them. In fact, even though the Mandate system was meant to administer those parts of the defunct Ottoman Empire “until such time as they are able to stand alone”, massive immigration by Zionist settlers was allowed by the Mandate. As a result, if at the beginning of the British Mandate they represented 5% of the population, occupying 6% of the land, by the end of the British Mandate in 1947 they occupied 7%   of the land and constituted 33% of the population, thus dramatically altering Palestine’s demographic balance (see Slide).

THE PARTITION OF PALESTINE

With this massive immigration and a number of measures which were taken, detrimental to the Palestinian population’s rights and aspirations, relations between our native Palestinians and the burgeoning Jewish immigrant population soured while protests increased, including a general strike in 1936, which somehow “threatened” the Mandate. Recognizing that the potential for violence and wider strife had grown very high in Palestine, and in order to regain control over the Palestinians, a military unit was created within the British Army, made of young Zionists who killed the majority of Palestinian leaders. This was not enough to suppress their will. That is why, in April 1947, Great Britain asked the United Nations to find a solution for Palestine. The UN proposal was a Partition Plan for Palestine, according to the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) Resolution 181 of 29 November 1947, which called for the division of Palestine into two States, with the majority of Palestine’s land (55%) allocated to the Jewish minority at the expense of the Palestinian majority (44%), and Jerusalem as International city (1%).

THE CREATION OF ISRAEL

Things went much worse than this Plan had envisaged for us. Jewish militias destroyed over 531 Palestinian villages, expelling around 800,000 Palestinians (more than 50% of the population) from their homeland. This was our Nakba, the “Catastrophe” that we commemorate every year on May 15. And this is how the Question of Refugees started. The new, unilaterally declared, State of Israel denied us the right to return to our native land and instead seized our property. Thus, Israel condemned two-thirds of our people to life in exile and occupied 78% of Palestine (see Map), a percentage that far exceeded the already unfair 55% that had been recommended for allocation to a Jewish State under the 1947 UN Partition Plan.

THE OCCUPATION OF THE WEST BANK, GAZA AND JERUSALEM

Two decades later, on 4 June 1967, Israeli forces militarily occupied the remainder of Palestine along with Syrian Golan Heights and Egyptian Sinai (see Map). Over 200,000 of our residents of the West Bank and Gaza Strip were displaced and the population that remained in the Occupied Territories of Palestine was subjected to the same repressive regime as the one applied to Arab-Israeli within Israel but without being given any citizenship or civil right. It is at this stage that the Palestinians get better organized, creating new parties and strengthening the existing ones, but also reforming the Organization for the Liberation of Palestine (PLO) which had been established in 1964.

As far as the international reaction is concerned, the UN Security Council Resolution 242 of 22 November 1967 emphasized “the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war” and required the “Withdrawal of Israel armed forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict”, that is to say within the pre-1967 borders (Green Line).

Soon thereafter, Israel began colonizing the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt), in gross violation of international law. Systematic Israeli violations of human rights and international law governing military occupation were, and continue to be, defining characteristics of Israel’s occupation, employed to maintain control over our population, territory and resources. For almost five decades, Israel has continuously confiscated the land occupied in 1967 to build illegal settlements and extensive supporting infrastructure, in an effort to permanently control large parts of the West Bank. In addition, Israel has illegally exploited our natural resources, especially water, and has deliberately hindered our economic development.

Despite these brazen Israeli policies and practices, we have maintained an unshakable national identity and connection to our homeland. Against our daily hardships, we work to realize our right to self-determination with indefatigable passion, while simultaneously exerting every conceivable effort to achieve a sustainable peace with Israel.

In 1988, we made a historic compromise by relinquishing our claim to 78% of the territory encompassed by historic Palestine. We accepted to establish an independent Palestinian State, with East Jerusalem as its capital, on the remaining 22% of our territory occupied by Israel in 1967. We simultaneously recognized UN Security Council resolutions 242 and 338, which reaffirmed the illegality of Israel’s acquisition of our territory by force (see Map).

THE ANNEXATION OF JERUSALEM

In 1980, Israel unilaterally declared all of Jerusalem (see Picture), both its Eastern and Western sectors, to be its undivided capital. United Nations Security Council resolution 476, adopted on 30 June 1980 even before the “Jerusalem Law” was passed in the Israeli parliament, is the first of seven United Nations Security Council resolutions condemning Israel’s attempted annexation of East Jerusalem. It declared that “all legislative and administrative measures and actions taken by Israel, the occupying Power, which purport to alter the character and status of the Holy City of Jerusalem have no legal validity and constitute a flagrant violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention”. United Nations Security Council Resolution 478, adopted on 20 August 1980 after the law was passed on 30 July, condemned Jerusalem Law as a violation of international law; stated that the Council would not recognize this law; and called on Member States to accept the decision of the Council, including the withdrawal of their diplomatic missions from the city.

OSLO ACCORDS

In 1993, we took one further step to engage in peace negotiations with Israel to realize our national rights to self-determination and statehood. Through such negotiations, we accepted to make further historic compromises in various temporary agreements, known as the “Oslo Accords,” (named after the city where PLO and Israeli negotiators conducted their negotiations). The temporary agreements – according to which the West Bank was divided into three administrative divisions: the Areas A, B and C, with Area A exclusively administered by the Palestinian Authority, Area B administered by both the Palestinian Authority and Israel, and Area C, which contains the Israeli settlements, administered by Israel  – were supposed to end five years from signing, in 1999, and lead to a permanent agreement. The permanent agreement included the end of Israel’s military occupation and the opportunity, for us the Palestinians, to build our State and our economy without Israeli interference. It also entailed a just resolution to our refugees issue based on UN General Assembly Resolution 194. Unfortunately, the permanent agreement was never reached and we are still divided in those Areas (see Map), in spite of multiple rounds of negotiations that followed and significant progress made toward reaching a consensus on the parameters of a permanent agreement. Meanwhile, as Palestinians, we engaged in State-building, establishing ministries and public institutions, providing social services, building our infrastructure, and assuming responsibilities over a wide range of civil and security responsibilities in our cities and towns in the oPt.

Under the leadership of President Mahmoud Abbas, we have solidified our call for the two-State solution, but Israel has refused to engage in a credible negotiations process and has taken unilateral actions to maintain its permanent presence in the oPt.

THE ARAB PEACE INITIATIVE

In order to overcome this deadlock, an Arab Peace Initiative (API) was proposed by Saudi Arabia and endorsed in 2002 and 2007 by the Arab League and a total of 57 Muslim States. It offered Israel normalized relations with the Arab and Muslim world once Israel completely ends its military occupation of the West Bank (including East Jerusalem) and the Gaza Strip, providing a just resolution to the issue of our refugees. It represented and still represents an important challenge to Israeli persistent policy of occupation.

THE “DISENGAGEMENT” FROM GAZA

A case in point of Israeli continued control over the oPt is the 2005 “disengagement” plan from the Gaza Strip, which led, by the way, to more engagement in the West Bank (see Map). Contrary to Israel’s claims that its “disengagement” ended its occupation of the Gaza Strip, Israel has in fact perpetuated its occupation and stranglehold by its continued control over the Gaza Strip’s borders, including land, air and sea space. Further, Israel has imposed a long-standing siege on the movement of people and goods in or out of the Gaza Strip. Such unilateral actions do not produce peace agreements. Rather, unilateral Israeli actions in the form of human rights abuses have only distanced the possibility of achieving a durable and just peace.

In late 2007, the negotiations process resumed when President Mahmoud Abbas and then Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert attended the US-sponsored Annapolis Conference in Maryland. The conference was concluded with a “Joint Understanding” in which both parties agreed to launch direct negotiations and conclude a peace treaty by the end of 2008. This marked the first time in seven years that the PLO and Israel engaged in negotiations. However, the Annapolis talks did not lead to an agreement by the end of 2008 owing to Israel’s unrelenting, illegal colonization of the oPt. Further, on December 2008, Israel launched a large-scale military aggression to the Gaza Strip, during which Israel killed more than 1,400 Palestinians. This attack abruptly stopped, and eventually eliminated, the possibility of continued negotiations.

MAJOR UNSOLVED QUESTIONS WHICH MAKE AN ONGOING NAKBA

Refugees

No issue is more emblematic of the 20th century Palestinian experience than the plight of the approximately seven million Palestinian refugees. An estimated 70% of all Palestinians worldwide are refugees. For decades, Israel has denied Palestinian them the right to return, violating UN Resolution 194, which was passed by the General Assembly in 1948 as an immediate response to the mass displacement of our people (see Picture). According to paragraph 11:

“the [Palestinian] refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbors should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date, and that compensation should be paid  for the property of those choosing not to return and for loss of or damage to property which, under principles of international law or in equity, should be made good by the Governments or authorities responsible”.

In spite of the fact that this has been reaffirmed by the General Assembly every year since its adoption, Palestinian refugees still lack the most basic human rights, suffer from inadequate international protection and assistance, and bear the brunt of the ongoing “conflict” with Israel. The majority of them live within 100 kilometers of Israel’s border (see Map). More than 1.5 million refugees who are registered with the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) currently live in 58 official UNRWA refugee camps in the oPt, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon (“host countries”). However, there are also many of our refugees who are not registered with UNRWA and live outside these camps.

Our largest refugee camp population resides in the Gaza Strip. The highest proportion of refugees residing in camps among any single host country lives in Lebanon.

The treatment of Palestinian refugees varies among host countries. Jordan granted citizenship to most refugees who fled in 1948, along with the civil and social rights attending Jordanian citizenship. In Syria and Lebanon they are only granted a travel document and do not enjoy the same rights as the local population.

Palestinians today are a Diaspora community that is scattered all over the world, including in most Arab States, Europe, and in North and South America. Yet, while the Israeli “Law of Return” allows any Jew residing anywhere in the world to live in Israel and the oPt, irrespective of direct lineage in the territory, those of us that are native born and possess the keys to our homes and titles to property in historic Palestine are denied the right even to visit our families, property and ancestral homeland.

Wall and Settlements

Since 1967, Israel has colonized the oPt by systematically transferring parts of its Jewish civilian population into the West Bank and Gaza Strip, in violation of international law. Today, more than half a million Israeli settlers, including over 190,000 in and around East Jerusalem, live in 237 settlements established on land illegally seized from us in the oPt. These settlements range in size from nascent settlements or “outposts,” consisting of a few trailers, to entire towns of tens of thousands of settlers. Together with their infrastructures and the Wall of Apartheid, they now cover almost 50% of the West Bank land (see Map).

The aim and effect of Israel’s settlement enterprise has been to alter the oPt’s status, both physically and demographically, so as to prevent its return to Palestinians. The construction of Israeli settlements is designed to illegally confiscate our land and natural resources while confining our population to unsustainable, ever-shrinking enclaves and severing East Jerusalem from the rest of the oPt. By limiting the territorial contiguity and economic viability of the oPt, Israeli settlements pose the single greatest threat to the establishment of an independent Palestinian State, and hence, to a just and lasting peace between Israelis and Palestinians based on the two-State solution.

The Israeli government has adopted a number of discriminatory measures aimed at bolstering its settlement enterprise. Israelis are lured to settlements through a variety of  Israeli-government incentives, including housing subsidies, income tax reductions, disproportionate budget allocations and business grants. Contrary to Israel’s claim of “natural growth,” these incentives have led to the rapid growth rate in the settler population – in some cases, reaching three to four times that of the rate of growth in Israel. According to a poll conducted by the Israeli organization Peace Now, 77 % of surveyed settlers live in the oPt for “quality of life” reasons and not for religious or national security reasons. Accordingly, we can assume that with similar incentives, these settlers could be persuaded to evacuate the oPt.

Israel’s settlements also benefit from massive Israeli investment in roads and other infrastructure. Settler roads, including so-called ‘bypass’ roads, connect settlements to each other and to Israel. For our population, who is generally restricted and in some cases prohibited from using them, these roads create a grid of physical barriers that crisscross the entire West Bank.

Israel enforces movement restrictions on us – or a ‘closure regime’ – through the erection of hundreds of military checkpoints and roadblocks. Parallel to securing virtually unchecked freedom of movement and access for Israeli settlers, this physical restriction scheme severely restricts our movement and access, isolates our communities preventing their expansion, restricts our access to farmlands and natural resources. That’s how Israeli settlers use 7 times the amount of water that Palestinians use, per capita.

And that’s why the presence of Israeli settlements and settlers is a primary source of instability, resentment and a historically proven trigger to clashes between our indigenous population and the armed settlers. In addition to the socio-economic and humanitarian damage caused by the settlements, Israeli settlers, and the soldiers in charge of protecting them, routinely subject our population to attacks, humiliation and harassment. Two recent outrageous examples are represented by the case of  16-year-old Mohammed Abu Khdeir, who was kidnapped and burned alive by settlers in July 2014; and by the story of the Dawabsha family, whose house was firebombed in the middle of the night one year later by settlers who thereby killed 18-month-old Ali and his parents, leaving 4-year-old Ahmad seriously injured and alone.

The Wall of Apartheid: Another Land Grab

In the summer of 2002, Israel began constructing its Wall in the oPt (see Picture). Though Israel claims that the Wall was erected for security purposes, it forms an integral component of Israel’s settlement infrastructure and actually serves to make defense of its territory more difficult: its total length (as approved on 30 April 2006) is 750 km. This is more than twice the 320 km length of the 1967 border.

The Wall encircles and snakes through the West Bank incorporating a majority of Israeli settlements and settlers on the “Israeli” side of the Wall while seizing large tracts of our territory for the expansion of future settlements. In so doing, the Wall separates us from our lands, the source of our livelihood; prevents access to education and social services; and deprives us from our natural resources, especially water. The Wall is nearly complete but for small stretches halted due to legal action in the courts. It does not separate the state of Israel from our territory but rather separates Palestinians from Palestinians.

International Law

• Article 49 (paragraph 6) of the Fourth Geneva Convention, ratified by Israel in 1951, states: “The Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies.”
• In its 9 July 2004, Advisory Opinion on the Wall, the International Court of Justice held that the Wall, along with settlements, violates international law. It called upon Israel to halt its construction, to dismantle portions already built, and to provide reparations to Palestinians for damages it has caused.
• The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court of 1998 (Article 8(b)(viii)) defines “the transfer directly or indirectly by the Occupying Power of parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies” as a War Crime indictable by the International Criminal Court.
• And United Nations (UN) Security Council Resolution 465 (1980) says: “Israel’s policy and practices of settling parts of its population and new immigrants in [the Palestinian and other Arab territories occupied since 1967, including Jerusalem] constitute a flagrant violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention… and a serious obstruction to achieving a comprehensive, just and lasting peace in the Middle East.” The resolution calls on Israel to “dismantle the existing settlements” (see Slide).

Demolitions

In early February 2016 Palestinians launched a campaign to raise funds for the reconstruction of demolished family houses of Palestinians killed by Israeli police in Jerusalem since October, 2015.

Such campaigns have become common since Israel resorted to punitively demolish as “means of deterrence” – it was admitted by the army – the family homes of any Palestinians accused of being involved in attacks against Israeli settlers or military: a policy that Israel does not use against Israeli settlers who were involved in fatal attacks against Palestinians. This policy was widely condemned by human rights organizations as “collective punishment”, a “war crime” and a “crime against humanity” (see Picture).

Along with demolitions dictated by these “deterrence policies”, the most frequent demolitions are justified by Israel with the argument that constructions are illegal.  The Israeli occupation authorities demolished around 97 homes and 86 facilities in the occupied West Bank in February 2016 alone under the pretext of “illegal construction”. The occupation has used the demolition policy as a way to put pressure on the Palestinians so to empty the region classified as Area C in the West Bank. Particularly targeted is East Jerusalem and it is no coincidence that the Israeli government is advancing construction plans to build about 1,000 housing units in four illegal settlements in occupied Jerusalem despite the stiff international criticism. The 1,000 housing units are scheduled to be built in Har Homa, Pisgat Ze’ev, Maale Adumim, and Modi’in illegal settlements.

According to Israeli rights group B’Tselem, almost 600 homes have been destroyed in the city over the last twelve years, leaving more than 2,000 Palestinians homeless in occupied East Jerusalem. This confirms that the policy of demolitions helps the double purpose to make the life of Palestinians impossible and make space for Israeli settlers.

Extra-judicial killings and Prisoners

Since October 2015 and notwithstanding Swedish Foreign Minister Margot Wallstrom’s call for an investigation on Israeli extra-judicial executions of Palestinian supposed “attackers” who, as a matter of fact, did not pose any threat when they were killed, the number of Palestinian youth killed for what Israel claims as “security reasons” reached up to 250 people and is still increasing unfortunately. This phenomenon shows an illegal violent behavior of the occupation forces, which goes hand in hand with their policy of imprisonment and detention. From Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territory in 1967, an estimated 850,000 Palestinians have been detained under Israeli military orders in the oPt. This constitutes approximately 20% of our total population and 40% of the male Palestinian population in the oPt. Currently, the number of detainees amounts to 7,000 people, including 750 who went to prison without a process, under the illegal practice of administrative detention, 430 minors and 40 women. (see Slide).

Israel’s ill-treatment and torture of Palestinians under interrogation is notable for the enormous number of persons who have experienced it. The methods used in nearly all interrogations – including children – are prolonged sleep deprivation; prolonged sight deprivation using blindfolds or tight-fitting hoods; forced, prolonged maintenance of body positions that grow increasingly painful; and verbal threats and insults.

Israel has used its power to arrest and detain as a means to control the Palestinian population and punish any political activity aimed at challenging Israel’s occupation, thus violating basic human rights values and norms. Even Palestinians peacefully protesting the confiscation of their lands are subject to arrest and detention.

The living conditions of Palestinian and Arab political prisoners detained by Israel fall far below accepted standards, including those under international humanitarian law, human rights law and the UN Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners. Since 2002-03 in particular, living conditions for prisoners have deteriorated considerably. Examples include abuse, denial and limitation of family visitation rights, prohibitions on physical contact during family visits, reduction of hours allowed for outdoor access and walks, prohibition of visits between prisoners, an increase in the use of solitary confinement and extreme limitations on access of communications and goods from outside.

Missing People and the Remains of Fallen Persons

Since the beginning of the “conflict”, in many cases Israel has kept the remains of fallen Palestinians in its custody, refusing to return their remains to families for a dignified burial. Many of these fallen Palestinians are held by Israel in sites known as “cemeteries of numbers.” While the precise number is not publicly available, Palestinian organizations estimate it in the hundreds and thus far have documented 302 cases based on first-hand information gained directly from families in the oPt.

Jerusalem

For centuries, Jerusalem has been the political, administrative and spiritual heart of Palestine. Metropolitan East Jerusalem – an area extending from Ramallah to Bethlehem – has for long been the driving force of our economy. In fact, nearly one-third of our economic activity is centered around East Jerusalem. Given East Jerusalem’s economic, cultural, social and religious importance, without East Jerusalem, there can be no viable Palestinian State and no two-State solution.

Though central to three faiths, Israel has since 1967 systematically pursued policies aimed at ensuring exclusive control over the city with disregard to the rights of the indigenous Christian and Muslim Palestinian populations. These measures equal to ethnic and cultural cleansing and include:

• Establishing Settlements: These settlements now form a ring around the entire occupied part of the city, sealing it off from the rest of the West Bank, with over 190,000 of the over 500,000 settlers in the oPt .
• Revoking Residency Rights and Denying Family Reunification in order to preserve a Jewish demographic majority in Jerusalem.
• Issuing demolitions orders instead of permits: Palestinians are only allowed to build and live on 13% of East Jerusalem. But permits are expensive and nearly impossible to obtain, which gives the Israeli government an excuse to demolish homes built without those permits.
• Unjustified killings, especially at checkpoints(see Picture).

Gaza: Occupation by Siege

The Gaza Strip extends on a territory of 365 km² (square kilometre) and has a population of over 1,8 million people, resulting in the highest density in the world, equal to 4,060/ km² (see Map).

The Blockade

Beginning in 2000, Israel intensified its control over Gaza’s air and sea space, and all points of access in and out of the Gaza Strip, severely restricting the movement of goods, people and much needed supplies like food, fuel and medicines into the Gaza Strip. In addition, Israel virtually eliminated all exports from the Gaza Strip and cut most imports. By June 2007, complete closure had become the norm rather than the exception.

Access into and out of the Gaza Strip is restricted to just three crossing points that are under full Israeli military control. Our people living in the Gaza Strip today require permits from Israel to leave or enter Gaza. Requests for these permits are regularly denied. Any goods leaving or entering Gaza must be approved by the Israeli authorities, and most goods are banned due to alleged “security” concerns. Israel’s permit system also covers the entry of food and medicine into the Gaza Strip, as well as fuel needed to generate electricity and ensure water supplies. In addition to this, Israel maintains a naval blockade along Gaza’s entire coastline.

Even before the election of Hamas in 2006, the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) could not, without Israel’s permission, perform basic functions such as providing social and health services or security, setting civil registration, developing our economy or allocating resources.

For these reasons, international law continues to regard Israel as an occupying power in the Gaza Strip, bound by its obligations under international humanitarian law, including the Hague Regulations and the Fourth Geneva Convention.

However, Israel’s hermetic blockade of the Gaza Strip violates the 1994 San Remo Manual on International Law Applicable to Armed Conflicts at Sea, which prohibits naval blockades if they intend to starve the civilian population, or if the expected damage to the civilian population is larger than the concrete military advantage.

The humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip has deteriorated rapidly as a result of Israel’s siege, which destroyed Gaza’s economy and with it the livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of our people.

Approximately 70% of our population in the Gaza Strip currently lives below the poverty line. The same percentage relies on foreign food aid to survive, but according to the World Health Organization chronic malnutrition has risen to affect more than 10% of the population, while approximately 90 to 95% of drinking water in the Gaza Strip is contaminated and unfit for consumption.

Today, more than 10 years after Israel’s ‘Disengagement Plan’ and 7 years after the 2009 UN Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict (“Goldstone Report”), which concluded that Israel’s blockade over the Gaza Strip, executed for political reasons, “constitutes collective punishment of the civilian population of the Gaza Strip”, Israel continues to occupy the Gaza Strip.

Israeli aggressions

2008-2009: So-called (by Israel) Operation Cast Lead (see Slide).

On December 2008, Israel launched a 22-day military aggression against the Gaza Strip and its inhabitants. Our civilians bore the full brunt of Israel’s brutality, with Israel indiscriminately targeting residential neighborhoods and public facilities such as schools, hospitals, mosques and even buildings belonging to the UN.

• According to figures cited by the United Nations Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), 1,440 Palestinians were killed during the assault, including 431 children and 114 women. A further 5,380 Palestinians, including 1,872 children and 800 women, were injured.
• An estimated 4,247 homes were demolished in the Gaza Strip during the assault.
• 211 industrial premises were damaged (102 completely destroyed, 109 partially destroyed); the damage led to massive job loss and layoffs of over 75% of employees.
• 1,549.776 acres of agricultural land were destroyed.
• Approximately 48% of the Gaza Strip’s health facilities were damaged or completely destroyed, including 15 hospitals and 41primary health centers.

November 2012: So-called (by Israel) Operation Pillar of Defense (see Slide).

This was Israel’s next major air strike offensive on Gaza.

It began with an air strike that killed the commander of Hamas’s military wing, Ahmed Jabari, whom was accused to be responsible for “all activities against Israel from Gaza” over the past decade. As a result of the “operation”, according to B’Tselem 167 Palestinians were killed, including 87 civilians.

July-August 2014: So-called (by Israel) Operation Protective Edge (see Slide).

In July and August 2014, another devastating aggression hit the population of Gaza, leading to massive destruction and killings. The UN says that at least 2,104 Palestinian died, including 1,462 civilians, of whom 495 were children and 253 women.

Forbidding the Palestinian Sea

Palestine is a land with a long maritime tradition. Seventy years ago the Palestinian fishing fleet worked all over the eastern Mediterranean.

Israeli Military occupation usurped Gaza’s natural resources, including the sea. This meant the end of self-sufficiency and ability to trade. In the Interim Agreement, signed by Israel and the PLO as part of the Oslo Accords in 1993, Israel allowed fishing boats from Gaza to go some 20 nautical miles (about 37 kilometers) from the coastline. In practice, the distance allowed since has range from 6 to at best 12 nautical miles, which included a much smaller quantity of fish.

According to B’Tselem, the Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, on an almost daily basis, fishermen are subject to being kidnapped or shot at, which results in deaths and injuries among crew. Their vessels are often attacked with powerful water cannon, arrested, unnecessarily inspected, humiliated, and their boats and fishing equipment are often confiscated (see Picture).

THREATS TO THE TWO-STATE SOLUTION                                  

OUR POSITION

On Wall and Settlements

In addition to being illegal, Israeli settlements in the oPt pose the single greatest threat to a two-State solution, and hence, to a just and lasting peace. Settlements, their infrastructure and associated areas of Israeli control grossly reduce the amount and quality of land remaining for our future State and severely undermine its territorial integrity. Under the “land for peace” formula contained in UN Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338 and upon which the peace process is based, Israel is to withdraw from the territories it occupied in 1967 in exchange for full peace and recognition from its neighbors.

Thus, Israel must undo its settlement enterprise and repair any damage caused by its illegal colonization of our territory. Israel’s unilateral 2005 Gaza ‘disengagement’ demonstrated that Israeli ‘facts on the ground’ are not permanent and, with sufficient political will, can be removed far more rapidly than they were established. One method to evacuate settlements peacefully would be for Israel to eliminate all economic and other incentives, both for the settlements and the settlers, and to start providing comparable or better incentives that would act to encourage existing settlers to move back to Israel.

Until a final agreement is reached, however, a genuine and comprehensive settlement freeze is the only way to minimize further prejudice to future negotiations. The international community has repeatedly called on Israel to freeze all settlement activity. The basic elements of such a freeze are: 1) ending all settlement-related construction; 2) eliminating all subsidies and economic incentives for settlements and settlers; 3) ending all planning for settlements; 4) ceasing all land confiscations, home demolitions and other property destruction; and 5) ending the migration of settlers to the oPt (see Slide).

On Refugees

A just resolution of the refugee issue – one that recognizes the right of return and provides a range of meaningful choices to refugees – is essential to a successful negotiated solution to the Israeli-Palestinian “conflict”. Our vision requires a just solution to the Palestinian refugee issue in accordance with international law, and specifically UN General Assembly Resolution 194. A just solution must be based on the right of return and reparations.

• Right of Return

Key to the resolution of the refugees issue is Israel’s recognition of the applicable principles and rights of the refugees. Israel’s recognition of the right of return will pave the way to negotiating how that right will be implemented. Choice is a critical part of the process. Our refugees must be allowed to choose how to implement their rights and normalize their status.

• Reparations

Reparations consist of three elements:

1) The first is Israel’s recognition of its role in the creation and perpetuation of the Palestinian refugees upheaval. To this day, Israel continues to deny their right to return.

2) Restitution is the second element of reparations. Under international law, restitution is the primary remedy for property that has been confiscated arbitrarily. If it is materially impossible, or a refugee prefers, it can be replaced by compensation.

3) Compensation is the third element of reparations and can be made for properties, for material damages and for non-material damages (pain and suffering resulting from longstanding displacement) (see Slide).

On Prisoners and Fallen Persons

Few issues command the consensus and support of our society like the issue of our political prisoners. Any genuine and meaningful peace process must see the immediate and coordinated release of our political prisoners who have been detained or arrested by Israel as a result of the Israeli-Palestinian “conflict”. A permanent status agreement must provide for the release of Palestinian and Arab political prisoners, according to previous agreements between us. Until such time, there must be a substantial and meaningful improvement of political prisoners’ living conditions in Israeli prisons and detention centers.

At the same time, extra-judicial killings must stop and the bodies of martyrs should be returned to their families.

There is no justification for Israel’s refusal to address this humanitarian issue which prevents families from obtaining closure and a dignified burial for their loved ones. Any genuine peace agreement must see the return of the remains of all fallen Palestinians and their personal effects that are located in Israel. In addition, families should be provided with any available information concerning the remains of fallen or missing Palestinians abroad.

WHAT ARE FUTURE PERSPECTIVES?

Despite past failures to reach a negotiated final status agreement with Israel, we remain committed to negotiations to achieve a permanent and durable resolution of the Palestinian-Israeli “conflict”. We also advocate for all regional States to maintain the call for a wider Middle East peace that ends the conflict between all the Arab neighbors of Israel. For this reason, we support the Arab Peace Initiative and we continue to believe that a two-State solution is achievable but we must stress that the window for realizing this outcome may be quickly closing, mainly due to the occupation, the expansion of settlements, the policy of current Israeli government. For the same reason, we have participated in American-brokered “proximity talks,” during which we presented our positions on all the final status issues in an effort to restart direct negotiations and finally bring an end to our protracted “conflict”. With this belief, we agreed to once again engage in direct negotiations in August 2010, and then again in 2013 and 2014, following the initiative of  the United States Secretary of State John Kerry to restart the peace process.  On all of these occasions we requested that Israeli colonization policies in the oPt must stop.

Now we believe that the international community should more than ever take charge of the situation, accepting the French invitation for an International Peace Conference on the Middle East.

CONCLUSIONS

Against this background, let me quote what President Abu Mazen said to the UN General Assembly on 22 September: “We reaffirm that we can never accept the continuation of the prevailing situation.   We will never accept the humiliation of the dignity of our people.  We will never accept temporary or interim solutions.  And our people will never accept to forgo their national institutions and achievements, which they attained through great sacrifice, suffering and pain”.

Not only has the General Assembly of the United Nations voted in favour of the recognition of the State of Palestine as Non Member Observer State, on 29 November 2012; the Palestinian flag is now waving at New York UN Headquarters and at the UN Office in Geneva. Moreover, the great majority of worldwide countries recognized, in different ways, the Palestinian State. Most recently, the Vatican signed a treaty recognizing the State of Palestine and almost all European parliaments voted in favour of such recognition.

Palestinians and Israelis are at a critical juncture. The choices made now will impact the region for generations to come. Israel’s continued military occupation is a recipe for violence, insecurity and loss of life, whereas the realization of our rights is a recipe for peace. The choice remains Israel’s—will it choose peace or occupation?

THANK YOU