By Sam Bahour, Al-Bireh, The West Bank
Palestine Chronicle
".....Thus, if these current direct talks are aiming to produce an agreement that ignores or attempts to coexist with the unrelenting, slow-motion, ethnic cleansing of Palestinians that Israel continues to this day, then it will be worthy of merely a few photo-ops that will be forgotten before the negotiating teams return to their respective homes. Even the creative idea floating around of using a failure in the talks to get the UN to admit Palestine as a state--if it does not remove the underlying system of apartheid--would merely be rearranging the legal status to serve the continuation of Israel's crimes against humanity.
The most dignified failure these talks can hope for is that the international community finally come to its senses, preferably with the U.S., and passes a UN resolution with specific punitive actions that identifies the status in Israel-Palestine, all of historic Palestine, for what it is: the crime of apartheid.
Only when the definition of the problem is crystal clear can we formulate an appropriate solution and have renewed faith in the international community's ability to act on what it knows very well to be reality: that Israeli actions over the last six decades have nullified the two-state solution. A new model of co-existence must be envisioned, a model built not on racism, separation and exceptionalism, but on mutual and equal human and civil rights across all of Palestine and Israel.
If the current peace talks surprise the world and result in a true sovereign Palestine, free of Israeli control and domination, then I'd be happy to be mistaken; if not however, it's time for the world to at least call reality for what it is. Anything less is an insult to our collective intelligence."
Palestine Chronicle
".....Thus, if these current direct talks are aiming to produce an agreement that ignores or attempts to coexist with the unrelenting, slow-motion, ethnic cleansing of Palestinians that Israel continues to this day, then it will be worthy of merely a few photo-ops that will be forgotten before the negotiating teams return to their respective homes. Even the creative idea floating around of using a failure in the talks to get the UN to admit Palestine as a state--if it does not remove the underlying system of apartheid--would merely be rearranging the legal status to serve the continuation of Israel's crimes against humanity.
The most dignified failure these talks can hope for is that the international community finally come to its senses, preferably with the U.S., and passes a UN resolution with specific punitive actions that identifies the status in Israel-Palestine, all of historic Palestine, for what it is: the crime of apartheid.
Only when the definition of the problem is crystal clear can we formulate an appropriate solution and have renewed faith in the international community's ability to act on what it knows very well to be reality: that Israeli actions over the last six decades have nullified the two-state solution. A new model of co-existence must be envisioned, a model built not on racism, separation and exceptionalism, but on mutual and equal human and civil rights across all of Palestine and Israel.
If the current peace talks surprise the world and result in a true sovereign Palestine, free of Israeli control and domination, then I'd be happy to be mistaken; if not however, it's time for the world to at least call reality for what it is. Anything less is an insult to our collective intelligence."
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