Voice of Revolution

Canisius College, Buffalo, New York

Successful Meeting Defends Resistance in Palestine and New Orleans

A successful meeting was organized November 29 at Canisius College to discuss the determined resistance of the people in Palestine and New Orleans and the significance of these struggles. Organized by young women at Canisius, part of the Organization of Arab Students in Solidarity (OASIS) and the Lackawanna Discussion Group Commission on Rights (LDGCOR), the meeting provided a space to learn about and together discuss the struggles in Palestine and New Orleans and efforts by the government to crush them. Emphasis was given to the fact that both struggles represent critical battlegrounds in the struggle of the peoples for their rights. The rulers are attempting to impose their arrangements of impunity and dictate, brutally attacking the rights of the people and attempting to show by example that resistance is futile. The peoples in both Palestine and New Orleans, supported by those nationwide and worldwide, are rising to make clear that stepping up the organized resistance is the way forward.

People were welcomed by LDGCOR and greeted with a banner in English and Arabic as they entered the room. It read, “Salute Resistance in Palestine and New Orleans! Defend the Right of Return." Pictures of demonstrations in support of these struggles were in the background. This stand to applaud resistance, and to respect and foster the language and cultures of the peoples, set the tone for the meeting. To facilitate discussion, the latest Voice of Revolution, with its focus on these two struggles, was distributed. Introductory remarks brought out that in both New Orleans and Palestine, the U.S. government is organizing to declare resistance illegal. Conferences like those in Annapolis are being used to try and make the right of the Palestinians to self-defense and self-determination illegal. Similarly, in New Orleans, the government agencies, like those for housing, are acting to criminalize the homeless and those demanding their right to housing. It is resistance that is being made a crime, while the government crimes of genocide and refusing to recognize the rights of all, here and abroad, are to be accepted.

Participants heard a presentation about the Right of Return for Palestinian refugees, including its legal basis in United Nations resolutions and international law. Information was provided on the conditions facing refugees, whose land has been stolen, homes bulldozed and their ability to return home physically blocked by the U.S.-backed Israeli military. Numerous examples of the determined resistance for more the sixty years were also provided. A second presentation spoke to the current situation and the advances the resistance is making in Palestine. The right of the Palestinians to decide their own government and elect their own leaders was addressed, including the victory of Hamas in the elections in 2006 and in Gaza this year. The presentation and discussion brought out that U.S. institutions for elections are blocking progress and standing against democracy at home and the effort to impose these same rotten institutions on Palestine is also blocking progress. The demands of the people here and abroad to be decision-makers and win power to implement their solutions is what is contributing to progress. Resistance is a right the peoples will not relinquish.

Malcolm Suber, guest speaker from New Orleans, addressed resistance by katrina survivors. He too brought out that U.S.-style democracy is standing in the way of progress. It is a democracy that does not serve the working class and people, and the government crimes committed before, during and after Katrina make this clear. He spoke to the immediate struggle now unfolding to prevent the government from destroying public housing in New Orleans. The public housing was not significantly damaged and it represents some of the sturdiest housing in the city. More than 50 percent of the people of New Orleans were renters and they are a large percentage of those who cannot return because the government refuses to provide housing. Efforts are underway to block the bulldozing, with a demonstration called for Human Rights Day, December 10, with the demand that housing is a right.

Interspersed between the presentations were poems on Palestine, given in both English and Arabic. As well, a poem by New Orleans poet Sunni Patterson, titled “We Made It,” was shown. The poem is a salute to those who made it back to New Orleans and all those carrying forward the struggle for their rights. The appreciation for the poetry, and for poems and banners in Arabic was brought out by participants, who also wanted to further discuss the importance of defending the languages and culture of all.

The meeting concluded with participants enjoying refreshments and socializing together, continuing the discussion and making plans for more such meetings. Everyone concluded that stepping up organized resistance, in Buffalo, across the country and together with those fighting worldwide, is the way forward. Becoming informed and organizing public discussion is an important part of building this resistance. And all joined in saluting the fact that efforts by Zionists did not stop this important discussion. On the contrary, the aim to hold the discussion was achieved and many expressed their enthusiasm for more such meetings.

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Zionist Efforts Fail to Disrupt Meeting

Buffalonians Defend Free Speech

Buffalo Forum

As organizing efforts were going forward for the meeting November 29 to “Salute Resistance in Palestine and New Orleans,” Zionists attempted to disrupt the meeting. The targeted the Canisius administration, saying the meeting should be canceled solely on the basis of their claim that it was anti-Israel. The organized response in support of the meeting and defending the right to free speech blocked their efforts.

Organized by the Lackawanna Discussion Group Commission on Rights (LDGCOR) and the Organization of Arab Students in Solidarity (OASIS) of Canisius College, the meeting was an opportunity for all concerned to discuss the resistance in Palestine and New Orleans and their significance. The meeting was particularly timely given the government’s Annapolis meeting and the fact that November 29 is the International Day of Solidarity with Palestine. The Zionists wanted no such discussion and organized to block it. First they presented themselves as interested in the meeting, writing to ask for information about it. Then they targeted the administration at Canisius College, where the meeting was being held, claiming Canisius should cancel the meeting, saying it was “anti-Israel.” A number of similar emails were sent to the administration.

Canisius administrators, rather than simply ignoring these emails and allowing the meeting to proceed as a public discussion about an important issue, instead threatened to cancel the meeting. They informed OASIS late in the day on November 27, just two days before the meeting, that there were “problems” and they may cancel the meeting. When the students objected and brought out that leaflets about the meeting had been approved by Students Affairs and that organizing efforts had been on-going for weeks, Canisius then said they would restrict attendance to Canisius students only. They attempted to blame students for not informing them that it was a “public meeting.” When students and LDGCOR pointed out that the leaflets said, “Everyone Welcome,” a clear and common statement of its public character, Canisius then said they could not allow the meeting to “spiral out of control” and would insist on restricting it to Canisius students and faculty only. Guards would be posted at the door, checking ID. The room was “too small” for a public event, though it easily accommodated 50 people, the expected size of the event. They then asked students for a list of people who had participated in work for the event and said they would be allowed to come in. Students and LDGCOR refused, saying everyone welcome means everyone welcome and they would not participate in providing a “list.” At the same time, efforts were made to elaborate for the administration why such a meeting should take place and that given students and community members were attending, it was likely to proceed without any problems.

LDGCOR and OASIS stuck with their aim of having discussion and called on all concerned to let Canisius know that the holding of the meeting was a matter of free speech. It was a public meeting and Canisius should welcome discussion on such an important issue. If the Zionists wished to come and ask questions, they could do so. In addition, blocking the public participation would mainly mean blocking the Arab and African American community from participation, a clearly racist and discriminatory act. Numerous professors, anti-war and political activists, teachers and students joined in calling on the Canisius administration to keep the meeting open. Everyone together also made clear that having discussion is not “a problem” or source of “trouble.” On the contrary, lack of informed public discussion, especially on urgent matters like the struggle in Palestine and New Orleans, is a very real problem for the public.

While Canisius insisted on a “list” and restricting attendance, organizers went forward with holding the meeting. The reality made clear that it was the administration’s conciliation with the Zionists and their threats that caused problems, and the persistence and stand of OASIS, LDGCOR and their supporters that served to solve them. The Zionists did not even have the courage to come to the meeting. The administration, with several top officials and police present, were forced to concede that there were no “problems.” Everyone who came entered, without any list, and joined in the discussion. The room was full but large enough and the meeting took place as planned. All concerned, and even Canisius administrators had to concede, that it was an important and successful event. In fact, the administrators responded to the calm and professional handling of the situation and invited organizers to hold future meetings on campus.

Buffalo Forum salutes LDGCOR and OASIS for their organized and principled stand and we salute all those who joined in taking a stand for the right to free speech. We also salute those who participated in making the meeting a success.

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Demonstrations Against Annapolis Summit

Demonstrations against the Annapolis summit and demanding that there be no compromise on the right of return and right to self-determination were held in Palestinian, Egypt and elsewhere. Similar demands also marked actions worldwide November 29, International Day of Solidarity with Palestine.

In Egypt, students demonstrated November 26 at Cairo University, chanting slogans and carrying banners, denouncing the conference. “We are demonstrating at Cairo University to present our rejection of the holding of the Annapolis Conference because it is putting a gloss on the American image. It is not held for Arab rights,” said Ahmed Mustafa. “The hidden significance behind this conference is selling Palestine, Gaza and the refugees.” At this action and many others, the stand taken was Palestine is Not for Sale!

In Iran, the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was quoted as saying, “Today you can see that the Americans and their allies are sponsoring the “Autumn” conference to gain their objectives. As I said in the past and as its name, the “Autumn conference” shows, it is a failed conference. The U.S. hopes they will be able to help the fake and occupying Zionist regime with this conference and is trying to make up for their past failures and to make officials of the Black-House credible,” said Khamenei. “Today all the politicians around the world know that this conference is doomed to failure in advance.”

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Conference Opens in Gaza Against Annapolis Meeting

News agencies report that a conference in Gaza City started Monday, November 26, in opposition to the U.S. so-called peace conference held in Annapolis, Maryland on November 27.

Hamas, the Islamic Jihad (Holy War), the Popular Resistance Committees (PRC) and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command are holding the conference in addition to academics.

Addressing the opening session of the conference, Mohammed al-Hendi, a senior Islamic Jihad leader, said holding the conference is to show that “the Palestinian people are still alive and have not turned into a dead body.”

“The conference is to announce the rise of the Palestinian people who will not beg for their rights,” (from U.S. President George W. Bush, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice as well as Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and his Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, or anyone else).

Al-Hendi said that the Annapolis conference will “promote a false illusion of a Palestinian statehood on 10 percent of the true Palestinian land.” Such a state will be divided and Israel will surround it from every corner, he said. “The task of such a state would be to strike the resistance and protect Israel,” he added. Al-Hendi said the Annapolis conference “will fail and will soon be buried like all other conferences and agreements with Israel.” In a prior news conference, Al-Hendi stated that the Annapolis meeting “was not devoted to resolving the Palestinian question, it was organized to serve Zionist and American interests.” The Islamic Jihad leader stressed, “Resistance and unity are the only things which will determine the future of the conflict.” Annapolis cannot secure freedom and independence for the Palestinians, he stressed.

Hussam Adwan, a representative of university lecturers, said that Annapolis “was the biggest operation of political trickery that will introduce tying ‘normalization with Israel’ with more aggression.”

For its part, Hamas, the Islamic Resistance Movement, said the Palestinian delegation to Annapolis, headed by Mahmoud Abbas, “does not represent the Palestinian people and has no authorization.”

“The delegation is separated from the people’s will,” said Osama al-Muzini, a senior Hamas leader, adding that “no one has the right to give up any national principles.” He underlined that resistance was the only way to get rights back. “What was taken by force can never be restored without force,” he said. Meanwhile, Hamas said it was determined to hold a forum in the Syrian capital against the U.S.-hosted peace conference in Annapolis. “We will hold a conference in Damascus though it is not held parallel to the Annapolis one and we will hold other conferences in Asia and Europe,” Ayman Taha, a spokesman for Hamas, told reporters.

For his part, Ismail Haneya, leader of Hamas in Gaza, said that negotiation between Israel and the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) at this time were useless. “Negotiations nowadays are useless and holding the Annapolis conference is a waste of time,” Haneya told reporters in Gaza during a ceremony to sign a document against the U.S.-hosted conference. “Our people will not commit themselves to any resolutions harming the Palestinian national principles,” he said. “Such decisions would be binding for those who signed it,” he said as he signed a document emphasizing Palestinian rights and rejecting any concessions on principles in the Annapolis conference.

Referring to the Arab countries that are attending the conference, he expressed regret. “The Arab brethren should have united in supporting the Palestinian people and lifting the siege on them instead of going to this conference which is purely in the American-Israeli interests,” he said.

These comments come in addition to those made at a November 22 news conference in Gaza, where Haneya stated, “There is broad opposition to Annapolis in the Palestinian territories and abroad. Our people oppose it politically and are doing so publicly at all levels.” He added, “Our message to Arab leaders who are moving to join Annapolis is to reconsider your participation because it only serves as a complement to the United States.” Haneya said that such a meeting “is held at the expense of the legitimate rights of Palestinians, and aims to offer the Israeli occupation legitimacy, an opportunity to normalize it.”

Hamas’ leader Khaled Mashal said the Annapolis Conference also has the aim to distract attention from the broadening of the U.S. imperialist war in the Middle East. “Strategically, the U.S. is setting the stage and covering up for the upcoming American war in the region,” Mashaal said on November 5. He made the remarks at a press conference at a forum of Palestinian intellectuals in Damascus. He also noted that there are preparations for aggression against Iran. The targets of such aggression could also include others, like Syria, Lebanon and Hizbollah, he said. “Therefore, America is distracting us with a false game and is preparing itself for the real one,” he noted. The Hamas’ leader also warned Arab states to stay away from the conference and advised Abbas against making any concessions.

In related news, it is reported that “The Popular Conference to Confront the Risks of Annapolis” issued a statement which confirmed the adherence of the Palestinian people to the inalienable Palestinian national rights represented in establishing a fully sovereign Palestinian state over all the occupied Palestinian lands with Jerusalem as its capital as a binding condition for reaching any settlement with Israel.

The statement added that the Israeli occupation must also dismantle its settlements, demolish the apartheid wall, recognize the right of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes they were displaced from in 1948 in accordance with UN resolution 194, and release all Palestinian prisoners in its jails. The statement denounced all forms of repressive practices against Palestinian citizens, the latest of which was to prevent Hamas from holding its press conference in Ramallah.

The statement said that the negotiations taking place under conditions of the division in the Palestinian leadership involves enormous risks because the real objective of Israel and the U.S. is to entrench the state of division and to blackmail all parties and squeeze concessions out of everyone in the region. The statement underlined the importance of achieving national consensus to protect the Palestinian resistance’s weapons as a legitimate right not subject to any compromise and called for the formation of a unified resistance front under one political authority.

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Israeli’s Olmert: “Jewish State” Only Solution

Saed Bannoura - IMEMC News, November, 29

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert asserted that a two-state solution between the two peoples is the only possible solution. Olmert added that without such a solution, the Jewish state of Israel would collapse. He made the statements in an interview Thursday morning with the Israeli daily Ha’aretz. The reasoning behind Olmert’s statement is that other solutions that have been offered and presented by different international, Palestinian and Israeli groups would result in Israel losing its Jewish majority.

The return of the Palestinian refugees who were displaced from what is now Israel when the Jewish state was created in 1948 would result in a Palestinian majority in Israel, something that the Israeli government refuses to accept. Currently Palestinians inside Israel represent 20 percent of the population. This does not include the 4 million Palestinians in the Israeli-occupied territories of the West Bank and Gaza.

“If the day comes when the two-state solution collapses, and we face a South African-style struggle for equal voting rights (also for the Palestinians in the territories), then, as soon as that happens, the State of Israel is finished,” said Olmert in the interview, revealing the rarely-stated policy that the Israeli government is not interested in maintaining a democracy for all its citizens, but in maintaining a Jewish state. [It also makes clear that Israel, with U.S. backing, continues to oppose the right of return for Palestinians, giving emphasis openly now to this justification of a “Jewish,” state.]

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Iran Calls Annapolis A “Failure”

China Daily, November 28, 2007

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on November 28 dismissed the U.S.-sponsored Annapolis conference on the Middle East as “a failure,” the official Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) reported. “Even the most unintelligent people, from the political point of view, will soon understand that the Annapolis conference is already a failure,” Ahmadinejad told IRNA at the end of a cabinet session. “When the real representatives of the Palestinian nation and the resistance groups are not attending the conference, and the rights, votes and demands of the Palestinian nation are not recognized, hundreds of such meetings would be futile,” he said.

The Iranian president also criticized the [U.S] sponsors of the Annapolis conference, saying they were only following a “political propaganda.” “They are following a political propaganda that says that the Arab states have sat around a table with the Zionist regime,” Ahmadinejad said. He urged the Arab states to hold a referendum in their own countries to see whether their nations agreed with their participation in the conference.

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Views and Analysis on Annapolis Conference

Annapolis Conference: Desperate Attempt to Declare Palestinian Right of Return, Right to Self-Defense and Nationhood Illegal

Sandra L. Smith

With the Annapolis Conference, all indications are that the U.S. is engaged in yet another desperate attempt to establish the framework to declare the Palestinian resistance unlawful and by virtue of that, declare the Zionist occupation and all the violations of Palestinian rights “lawful.” This is the aim of the Anglo-American imperialist-Zionist discussions on a two-nation state. For the champions of Palestinian rights it is clear that so long as a Zionist state of Israel pursues its illegal aims to take over all of Palestine, neither a single two-nation state nor a two-state solution are possible. Both a modern two-nation state and two lawful modern states are possible if constituted for purposes of recognizing the rights of all on a modern basis. But this is not the raison d’être of the Zionist state of Israel nor the intention of its Anglo-American imperialist backers. The Zionist project is not premised on the recognition of Palestinian rights. Even though the creation of the state of Israel was conditional on their recognition, it has since then lived an illegal existence due to its refusal to do so. No amount of processes or negotiations organized by the perpetrators of unlawful and criminal activities or those who conciliate with them will make the Zionists or the imperialists seek anything except to further their unlawful and criminal cause.

In this vein, the Annapolis conference is taking place after a string of repeated failures to crush the Palestinian resistance and insistence on their right of return and to determine their own institutions and representatives. It has nothing to do with kicking off a new peace process if the word peace is to have any meaning premised on recognizing all nations big or small as equal. Anything short of recognizing the Palestinian right to be will only further exacerbate the crisis in which the Israeli Zionists and U.S. imperialists are mired and prolong the suffering of the Palestinian people as well as that of the Israelis and other Arab peoples.

The Annapolis Conference has no intention of establishing a peace of the brave but a “peace” established in the worst Anglo-American imperialist tradition. In the name of upholding Anglo-American values called “peace, order and good government,” the demand to establish democratic institutions based on them is anachronistic and the major ideological and social block to development in the region. These institutions were defined in the 19th century when the British empire-builders crushed through fire and sword the rebellions in their colonies, and this they called peace. They then “reasonably accommodated” those who agreed to be integrated into their institutions of “good government” and called it “self-rule.” This included establishing police forces and a judiciary capable of suppressing any internal forces that rebelled against them, and this they called order.

The Annapolis Conference is the latest desperate attempt to extinguish the Palestinian nation on the basis of these imperialist values and institutions. No path to progress can be opened today on the basis of these imperialist values and the institutions based on them. Whatever is cooked up by this conference will only cause more suffering and further exacerbate the danger posed to world peace as a result of the U.S. imperialist striving to control the Middle East.

Sandra L. Smith is National Leader of the Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist).

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Al-Awda Statement On Annapolis Conference

November 26, 2007

With the upcoming U.S.-sponsored international conference in Annapolis Maryland, Al-Awda, the Palestine Right to Return Coalition, reiterates once again that a just and lasting peace can only be achieved with the return of all Palestinians to their original homes, towns, and villages, with full restitution of all of their confiscated and destroyed property, and compensation. The Palestinian Arab people, regardless of their religious affiliation, are indigenous to Palestine. Therefore, they are entitled to live anywhere in their Palestine homeland, which encompasses present-day “Israel,” the West Bank and Gaza Strip. No agreement, negotiations or parties which purport to trade away these rights or any other inalienable rights can have any legal basis and cannot bind or compel the Palestinian people to end the struggle for the fulfillment of all of their rights.

The definition of Israel as a “Jewish state,” granting exclusive rights to citizenship and land to any Jew from anywhere in the world, while denying the indigenous inhabitants of Palestine their fundamental rights, is part and parcel of the racism inherent in the colonialist Zionist ideology which underlies the policies and laws of the settler state of “Israel.” Any sacrifice of any part of our land and culture will represent a blow to the entire Arab peoples and the lands of West Asia and Africa.

The U.S. government subsidizes Israel’s injustices with billions of dollars annually. Any Palestinian and other Arab participating in accommodation with the Zionist and U.S. regimes in order to promote normalization and put an end to the Palestinian liberation struggle, stand exposed naked before the world as traitors to our people.

Until all Palestinians exercise their right to return and self-determination, Al-Awda calls on all its members and supporters to redouble their efforts, working for and demanding:

1. An end to all U.S. political, military and economic aid to “Israel”

2. The divestment of all public and private entities from all Zionist corporations, and American corporations with subsidiaries operating within “Israel”

3. An end to the investment of Labor Union members’ pension funds in “Israel”

4. The boycott of all “Israeli” products

The 60-year commemoration of the Palestinian Nakba [Catastrophe] will take place in May 2008. Al-Awda’s 6th Annual International Convention will take place in Anaheim, California, May 16-18, 2008. The convention will be dedicated to renewing our struggle to return and to reclaim our land no matter what deals are made in Annapolis.

Until Return

Al-Awda, The Palestine Right to Return Coalition
PO Box 131352 Carlsbad, CA 92013, USA
Tel: 760-685-3243
Fax: 360-933-3568
E-mail: info@al-awda.org
Web: http://al-awda.org

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Rights Organizations' Open Letter

Uphold International Law at Annapolis

November 26, 2007

The following letter was sent on November 26, 2007 to key negotiating parties including the President of the Palestinian National Authority, the Israeli Prime Minister and Foreign Minister, and European Union and United Nations Officials:

As Palestinian human rights and civil society organizations, we the undersigned, are deeply concerned by the lack of a clearly articulated legal framework for the upcoming diplomatic negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) to be held at Annapolis on November 27. While the process of negotiation is inherently political, the legitimate demands of the Palestinian people to dignity, territorial sovereignty and self-determination as enshrined in binding international law may not be made the subjects of negotiation.

Following 40 years of occupation of the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip, and numerous rounds of failed diplomatic initiatives, international law must at last be understood to be the essential over-arching framework for negotiations. International law not only provides a means of dispassionately assessing Israel’s existing policies and practices in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT), but also limits the discretion of the negotiating parties, and their sponsors, in deciding certain fundamental issues. Under the terms of Article 4 of the Fourth Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War of 1949 (the Fourth Geneva Convention), the Palestinian civilian population of the OPT are “protected persons.” By virtue of this status, they are entitled to certain protections that may not be undermined or disregarded in political agreements. This is clearly set forth in Article 47 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which establishes:

“Protected persons who are in occupied territory shall not be deprived, in any case or in any manner whatsoever, of the benefits of the present Convention by any change introduced, as the result of the occupation of a territory, into the institutions or government of the said territory, nor by any agreement concluded between the authorities of the occupied territories and the Occupying Power, nor by any annexation by the latter of the whole or part of the occupied territory.”

This provision seeks to address the obvious imbalance of power between the occupied and the occupier in any negotiation process. It recognizes that an Occupying Power can, by virtue of its occupation, seek to legally validate through “negotiation” the unilateral imposition of facts on the ground that violate international humanitarian law and harm the civilian population. As noted by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in its authoritative commentary to the Fourth Geneva Convention, there is in the case of occupation, “a particularly great danger of the Occupying Power forcing the Power whose territory is occupied to conclude agreements prejudicial to protected persons.” This danger is clearly present in the context of the current negotiations, and is most obvious in relation to Israel’s settlement policy.

Throughout the 40 years of the occupation, Israel has used its effective control over the OPT to implant some 149 settlements, currently home to more than 470,000 settlers, which control more than 40 percent of the West Bank, including essential agricultural and water resources. The current planned route of the [Israeli Apartheid] Wall will incorporate some 69 settlements, home to 83 percent of the settler population, on 12.8 percent of the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, which will remain on the western side of the Wall. Under Article 49(6) of the Fourth Geneva Convention, an Occupying Power is prohibited from transferring parts of its civilian population into occupied territory. Israeli settlements in the OPT are in flagrant violation of this prohibition. Further, the construction and expansion of settlements, and their associated infrastructure, requires the extensive appropriation and destruction of property, and severe movement restrictions that are further violations of international humanitarian law and human rights law.

In March 2006 Israel’s Prime Minister Ehud Olmert stated his intention to make the Wall the new border of the state of Israel, incorporating settlements in the OPT and annexing Palestinian land. To accept Israel’s retention of the settlement blocs as part of a negotiated solution clearly deprives the Palestinian civilian population of the benefits of the Fourth Geneva Convention, as it would validate Israel’s violations thereof. As such any agreement recognizing the settlements is in flagrant violation of Article 47.

In the event that negotiations were to lead to recognition of Israeli settlements in the OPT as part of the state of Israel, this would amount to the endorsement of the acquisition of territory by force. The illegality of the acquisition of territory by force is a norm accepted and recognized by the international community as a peremptory norm of international law — a norm from which no derogation is permitted.

The right of all peoples to self-determination is also considered a peremptory norm of international law. The retention of settlements and their associated infrastructure by Israel would not only amount to the illegal annexation of territory, but would also fragment the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, into isolated geographical units. This would severely undermine the meaningful exercise by the Palestinian people of their inalienable right to self-determination by limiting the possibility of a contiguous territory and the ability to freely dispose of natural resources, both of which are required for the meaningful exercise of this right.

Under Article 53 of the Vienna Convention on the Laws of Treaties, “a treaty is void if, at the time of its conclusion, it conflicts with a peremptory norm of general international law.” This therefore casts severe doubt on whether a negotiated solution that accepts Israel’s retention of settlements and de facto annexation of territory would be valid under international law.

Other state parties accessory to the negotiations are also obliged to duly consider their international law obligations in relation to these negotiations. Under common Article 1 of the Geneva Conventions, the High Contracting Parties [which include the U.S.] “undertake to respect and to ensure respect for the present Convention in all circumstances.” As specified by both the ICRC and the International Court of Justice (ICJ), this provision entails an obligation on all state parties, whether or not they are a party to the specific conflict, to take all possible steps to ensure that the provisions of the convention are respected. In respect of the current negotiations, it is important to note that the ICJ, in its Advisory Opinion on the Wall, found all states to be under “an obligation, while respecting the United Nations Charter and international law, to ensure compliance by Israel with international humanitarian law as embodied in [the Fourth Geneva] convention.” Similarly, and as also noted by the ICJ, under customary international law all states have the duty not to recognize or to assist in the creation or maintenance of illegal situations. Such illegal situations would clearly include the acquisition of territory by force, the denial of the right to self-determination and the construction of settlements in occupied territory.

To date, all diplomatic initiatives have ignored international law as the essential foundation of any solution to Israel’s occupation of the OPT, thereby allowing for the proliferation of violations. To cite but a few examples, in spite of former negotiations, Palestinians saw, inter alia [among other things] the imposition of draconian movement restrictions and unrestrained settlement construction and expansion, during the Oslo process. Similarly, since the “Road Map” was initiated in 2002, Palestinians have seen the further entrenchment and expansion of settlements and the unilateral creation of a de facto border [existing in fact but without legal sanction] between Israel and the would-be Palestinian state through the building of the Wall.

Most recently, on September 19, 2007, Israel declared the Gaza Strip an “enemy entity,” and began the imposition of further sanctions on the already beleaguered Palestinian civilian population therein. Having no basis in international law, the designation of the Gaza Strip as an “enemy entity” represents a clear effort by Israel, the Occupying Power, to negate its responsibility for the welfare of the civilian population of the Gaza Strip under the terms of Fourth Geneva Convention. The sanctions, which further exacerbate an already dire humanitarian situation, further amount to unlawful reprisals and the collective punishment of the civilian population of the Gaza Strip.

In this context, we urge the parties to approach the upcoming negotiations with a renewed sense of purpose, giving due recognition of the international legal obligations incumbent upon them, including UN Security Council and General Assembly resolutions addressing Palestinian refugees. The task that they face is a heavy one, as any final agreement must reflect a commitment to the principles of international law, justice in addressing wrongful acts, and respect for human rights. The fundamental rights of the Palestinian people are matters of binding international law, not political bargaining chips. Their implementation must not be left to Israel’s beneficence, but rather established as the foundation of any just and durable solution to the conflict.

Undersigned organizations:
Al-Haq
Al-Dameer Association for Human Rights in Gaza
Addameer Prisoner’s Support and Human Rights Association
Al Mezan Center for Human Rights
Defense for Children International - Palestine Section
Jerusalem Legal Aid and Human Rights Center
Palestinian Center for Human Rights
Palestinian Counseling Center
Palestinian NGO Network (PNGO)
Ramallah Center for Human Rights Studies
Women’s Studies Center

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Annapolis, As Seen From Gaza

Laila El-Haddad, The Electronic Intifada, November 23, 2007

“The siege will last in order to convince us we must choose an enslavement that does no harm, in fullest liberty!” Palestinian national poet Mahmoud Darwish

Even in the worst of times, there is one thing we are never short of in our troubled part of the world: another conference, meeting, declaration, summit, agreement. Something to save the day, to “steer” us back to whatever predetermined path it is we are or were meant to be on, and to help us navigate that path. Never mind the arguable shortcomings of this path, or the discontent it may have generated, for we all know what happens to people who question that; the important thing is to move forward, full steam ahead.

Enter Annapolis. I have been there a couple of times. A beautiful port city, great crabs, quaint antique shops. And of course, the U.S. Navy. So what exactly is different this time around? Well, if you believe some of the newspaper headlines, lots. Like the fact that Ehud Olmert has promised not to build new settlements or expropriate land.

And yet, as recently as September, Israel expropriated 1,100 dunams (272 acres) of Palestinian land in the West Bank to facilitate the development of E-1 —a five-square-mile area in the West Bank, east of Jerusalem where Israel plans to build 3,500 houses, a hotel and an industrial park, completing the encirclement of Jerusalem with Jewish colonies, and cutting it off from the rest of the West Bank.

The conference simply generates new and ever-more superfluous and intricate promises that Israeli leaders can commit to and yet somehow evade. An exercise in legal obfuscation at its best: we will not build new settlements, we will just expropriate more land and expand to account for their “natural growth,” until they resemble towns, not colonies, and have them legitimized by a U.S. administration looking for some way to save face. And then we will promise to raze outposts.

Each step in the evolution of Israel’s occupation — together with the efforts to sustain it and the language to describe it — has become ever more sophisticated, strategic and euphemistic.

Israel has also promised the release of 450 Palestinian prisoners (who have, by Israel’s own admission, nearly completed their sentences) on Sunday, November 25, ahead of the conference, while dozens of others are detained and thousands of others remain in custody without charges or trial — making theirs the highest rate of incarceration in the world.

Still, Annapolis is being hailed as the most serious attempt in seven years at getting “back on track.” According to the U.S. State Department’s spokesperson, the conference “will signal broad international support for the Israeli and Palestinian leaders’ courageous efforts, and will be a launching point for negotiations leading to the establishment of a Palestinian state and the realization of Israeli-Palestinian peace.”

Support, I gather, that will also entail arms and money to help [Palestinian President Mahmoud] Abbas rid Gaza of Hamas once and for all.

So then what are people’s expectations in Gaza from all of this?

In short, not much. But then, if history has taught them anything, it is that they never have much of a say in anything that involves their destiny, be it Madrid or Oslo or the Road Map. And the moment they do attempt to take control, the repercussions are to “teach” them never to attempt to do so again. To quote Palestinian national poet Mahmoud Darwish, “The siege will last in order to convince us we must choose an enslavement that does no harm, in fullest liberty!”

The stage has been set, the roles are the same, but the actors have been switched. That is the feeling of many in Gaza. “The Annapolis meeting will not bring anything new for the Palestinians; it is a repetition of many other conferences which sought to reinforce the principle of making concessions on the Palestinian national rights,” says Yousef Diab, a 35-year-old government employee.

For Fares Akram, a young Gaza-based journalist, the conference will result in little more than token concessions aimed at further isolating Hamas-run Gaza, and bolstering support for Abbas: “The Israeli government is weak at this time. President Abbas may get some support in the conference but the support will be for his struggle against Hamas. Gaza will remain forgotten and the improvements that may come out from the meeting will only apply to the West Bank while nothing will be done here in Gaza.”

Fida Qishta, a videographer and community activist in Gaza’s troubled town of Rafah, cannot even be bothered with thinking of things as abstract and distant and — ultimately — irrelevant as Annapolis when life in Gaza as she sees it has all but come to a standstill. “I wish you were here to see how life is, it is really like a body that has died. I still cannot imagine we are living through this and I try not to think about it a lot.” Aliya Moor, a mother of eight, adds: “We are already dead, the only thing we need is to be buried, to be pushed into the grave and buried. It has already been dug up for us.”

We are prisoners, others have told me, constantly waiting and helplessly hoping for decisions to be made that determine whether they live or die — both figuratively and literally. Except prisoners are guaranteed certain things, like food and water and access to medical care. Gazans are guaranteed none of these things. Instead, they are setting the bar as the first occupied people in history to be embargoed and declared hostile. “People just want out,” explained another friend. It does not matter whether it is Fatah or Hamas anymore. It just does not matter.”

We have become a people, to quote Darwish, constantly preparing for dawn, in the darkness of cellars lit by our enemies.

Laila El-Haddad is a Palestinian freelance journalist and mother, and frequent contributor to the Guardian’s News Blog, where this article was originally published. She is based between the Gaza Strip and the United States, where her husband, a Palestinian refugee, is a physician in training.

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The Right to Our Land Must Be Restored

Fareed Taamallah, IMEU, November 27, 2007

This week in Annapolis, Maryland the United States government will host a conference between Palestinian and Israeli leaders to launch peace talks on a permanent agreement. A vital component of the peace proposals to be discussed involves exchanges of territory that would allow Israel to keep its West Bank “settlement blocs” while compensating Palestinians with land inside Israel.

But my community of Qira, like many others, cannot survive in a Palestinian state divided by Israel’s settlement blocs. The settlement blocs are built on Palestinian agricultural land and water resources, and carve the West Bank into disconnected Palestinian bantustans.

Every morning I see through my window the settlement of Ariel, lying atop the hill adjacent to my village. I’ve never visited Ariel’s beautiful homes and green gardens, so different from our poor, parched community, because as a Palestinian I am forbidden to enter Ariel, even though it sits on Palestinian land in the West Bank. In 1978, when construction of Ariel began, I was a child. Yet I recall my frustration and sorrow for the many Palestinian farmers who lost their lands to the Israeli colony. According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, Ariel is one of the four fastest growing Israeli settlements. It expanded from 179 acres and 5,300 residents in 1985 to 1732 acres and 16,414 inhabitants in 2005. 1 In contrast, my village, which is hundreds of years old, has not grown because the Israeli government restricts the area and growth of Palestinian communities.

Ariel is located in the center of the Salfit District in the northern West Bank, 13 miles east from the Green Line, Israel’s pre-1967 border. Ariel is part of the larger “Ariel settlement bloc” which consists of 26 other West Bank settlements with nearly 40,000 settlers. 2

Cutting deep into the heart of the West Bank, the Ariel settlement bloc separates the northern West Bank from the rest of the West Bank. U.S. State Department spokesman Richard Boucher warned against the construction of Israel’s wall around Ariel in June 2004, saying that it would make Palestinian life more difficult and confiscate Palestinian property. 3 Nonetheless, hundreds of acres of Palestinian land were confiscated for that wall.

If the Ariel settlement bloc becomes part of Israel through the territorial exchanges proposed by Israel and supported by the U.S., it would be disastrous for the Salfit district’s 70,000 residents. Ariel forms a physical barrier. We must travel around the entire settlement and through Israeli checkpoints to reach the town of Salfit, our district’s “urban center.” It typically took me 90 minutes to drive from my village to Salfit when I worked there, even though it is only four miles away.

Ariel’s settlers prevent Palestinians from harvesting their olive groves near the colony. They attack Palestinians, sometimes under the Israeli army’s protection. They have even entered mosques and desecrated the Quran inside.

Although the Salfit district is located in the West Bank’s most water-rich region, our water supplies have been redirected to Israel and Ariel. According to the Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem, Israeli settlers consume five times more water than local Palestinians. 4 The nearby villages of Kifr al-Dik and Bruqin are constantly without enough water for these reasons.

Sewage from the hilltop settlements and wastewater from Ariel’s industrial zone pollute our region. According to the Applied Research Institute of Jerusalem, 80 factories from Ariel’s Barkan industrial zone discharge 0.81 million cubic meters of wastewater per year into nearby valleys. 5 All this wastewater and the sewage have formed a river through the agricultural lands of the villages of Kifr al-Dik and Bruqin. These poisonous streams have led to the death and ruin of trees and crops located in their immediate vicinity. Restrictions on our movement, settler attacks, the diversion of our water and the pollution of our land, all caused by the Ariel settlement bloc, are destroying Salfit’s economy, and dramatically restricting our rights. Ariel is like a bone in our throat that is choking us.

Palestinians hope to reach a peace agreement with Israel, and we are cautiously optimistic about the upcoming Annapolis, Maryland conference. But Palestinians are most concerned with getting back their stolen lands. Incorporating settlement blocs like Ariel into Israel is not a viable solution. Ordinary Palestinians will not be able to cope unless their rights are restored.

[1] http://www.ochaopt.org/documents/TheHumanitarianImpactOfIsraeliInfrast ructureTheWestBank_ch1.pdf
[2] http://www.poica.org/editor/case_studies/view.php?recordID=664
[3] http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/news/2004/06/mil-0 40615-31 9dee83.htm
[4] http://www.btselem.org/english/Water/Consumption_Gap.asp
[5] http://www.arij.org/pdf/chapter9.pdf

Fareed Taamallah is a peace activist and journalist who lives in the West Bank village of Qira in the Salfit district.

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Separate but Unequal in Palestine

The Road to Apartheid

Mohammed Khatib, Institute for Middle East Understanding, Nov 27, 2007

On the eve of the meeting intended to restart negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians at Annapolis, Maryland, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert announced that Israel will build no new West Bank settlements, but will not “strangle” existing Israel settlements. This means that construction in the 149 existing Israeli settlements throughout the West Bank that are strangling Palestinians, including the settlements on our village’s land, will continue unchecked. Olmert’s cynical announcement underlines our fear that Israel, with U.S. support, will insist on retaining most West Bank settlements in the upcoming negotiations, locking Palestinians into a “separate but unequal” position.

When United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s visited the Middle East a few weeks ago, people from our small village of Bil’in [in the West Bank] joined neighboring villages to send her a message. We protested peacefully against a West Bank highway near us that is reserved for Jewish Israeli settlers, and off-limits to Palestinians, though it was built on Palestinian land. Our banner read: “Condi, What would Rosa Parks do?”

We know that Dr. Rice experienced the bitter taste of discrimination growing up in the South during the U.S. civil rights struggle. In Bil’in, we’ve drawn inspiration from the U.S. civil rights movement as we’ve carried out a three year nonviolent resistance campaign against the discriminatory policies of Israel’s military occupation.

We share Dr. Rice’s admiration for the courage of Rosa Parks who was arrested in Alabama, Rice’s home state, for refusing to give her bus seat to a white man. As Palestinians we are not even allowed in buses on many roads in our own country, because 200 miles of the best West Bank roads are reserved for Israeli Jewish settlers. 1 The color of Palestinian license plates is different from the license plates of Israelis. Palestinian plates are not allowed on most of the highways crisscrossing the West Bank, many of which were built with U.S. government funding. Palestinians have been banned for five years now from Highway 443 where we protested.

According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), there are 561 physical obstacles and checkpoints inside the West Bank restricting Palestinian movement within the West Bank 2, in comparison with only eight checkpoints which separate the West Bank from Israel proper. Nearly all the obstacles and checkpoints are located along the West Bank roads reserved for Israelis. This makes getting to the hospital, school and work or visiting relatives painstakingly difficult or impossible for us. This fragmentation of the West Bank has devastated our economy.

For Palestinians, accepting a state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip on just 22 percent of our historic homeland was already a dramatic compromise. But President [George W.] Bush promised Israel in 2004 that in any negotiated agreement with the Palestinians, Israel would retain its “already existing major population centers” in the West Bank.

However, all Israeli settlements are illegal under international law. By annexing to Israel strategically located clusters of settlements, or “settlement blocs,” and their highways which carve Palestinian areas into isolated enclaves, Israel will gain permanent control of our movement, borders, water, and cut us off from Jerusalem.

The Israeli organization Peace Now reported a few weeks ago that the population growth rate in the settlements is three times the growth rate within Israel. 3 We are experiencing such rapid settlement construction around Bil’in and throughout the West Bank that I cannot even find an accurate map of the West Bank for my son.

In 2001, Israeli developers began building settlement homes on land seized from Bil’in, calling them a neighborhood of the Modi’in Illit settlement bloc. Four years later, Israel’s segregation wall separated Bil’in from 50 percent of our agricultural land under the pretext of protecting this new settlement. In response, we held more than 200 nonviolent protests together with Israeli and international supporters. Hundreds of us were injured and arrested. After our protests, Israel’s Supreme Court ruled that the wall’s route in Bil’in must be changed to return around half of our seized land. Though we celebrated this success, Israel continues to build on our land that was not returned and plans to annex it as part of the Modi’in Illit settlement bloc. 4

Israel has already de facto [in practice, without legal sanction] annexed the 10.2 percent of the West Bank that lies between the Green Line and the segregation wall, including the major settlement blocs and 80 percent of Israel’s 450,000 settlers. The segregation wall, settlements and settlement roads carve Palestinian areas into isolated enclaves….We are concerned that if Israel is allowed to keep most of its settlements and the roads that connect them, then the existing system of “separate but unequal” will be cemented in place in a Palestinian state.

[1] Forbidden roads: The discriminatory West Bank road regime, B’Tselem.
[2] OCHA Closure Update: October 2007, The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
[3] West Bank settlements ‘expanding’ BBC, 7 November 2007.
[4] One Palestinian Village Struggles Against Israel’s Ever-Expanding “Settlements”, Alternet, 26 September 2007.

Mohammed Khatib is a leading member of Bilin’s Popular Committee Against the Wall and the secretary of its village council.

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