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Buch
Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid
Jimmy Carter
Erschienen bei Simon und Schuster
Auszug aus dem Buch:
17
SUMMARY
Since the Israeli-Egyptian peace treaty was signed in 1979, much blood
has been shed unnecessarily and repeated efforts for a negotiated peace
between Israel and her neighbors have failed. Despite its criticism
from some Arab sources, this treaty stands as proof that diplomacy can
bring lasting peace between ancient adversaries. Although disparities
among them are often emphasized, the 1974 Israeli-Syrian withdrawal
agreement, the 1978 Camp David Accords, the Reagan statement of 1982,
the 1993 Oslo Agreement, the treaty between Israel and Jordan in 1994,
the Arab peace proposal of 2002, the 2003 Geneva Initiative, and the
International Quartet's Roadmap all contain key common elements that
can be consolidated if pursued in good faith.
There are two interrelated obstacles to permanent peace in the Middle East:
- Some Israelis believe they have the right to confiscate and
colonize Palestinian land and try to justify the sustained subjugation
and persecution of increasingly hopeless and aggravated Palestinians;
and
- Some Palestinians react by honoring suicide bombers as martyrs to
be rewarded in heaven and consider the killing of Israelis as victories.
In turn, Israel responds with retribution and oppression, and militant
Palestinians refuse to recognize the legitimacy of Israel and vow to
destroy the nation. The cycle of distrust and violence is sustained,
and efforts for peace are frustrated. Casualties have been high as the
occupying forces impose ever tighter controls. From September 2000
until March 2006, 3,982 Palestinians and 1,084 Israelis were killed in
the second intifada, and these numbers include many children: 708
Palestinians and 123 Israelis. As indicated earlier, there was an
ever-rising toll of dead and wounded from the latest outbreak of
violence in Gaza and Lebanon.
The only rational response to this continuing tragedy is to revitalize
the peace process through negotiations between Israelis and
Palestinians, but the United States has, in effect, abandoned this
effort. It may be that one of the periodic escalations in violence will
lead to strong influence being exerted from the International Quartet
to implement its Roadmap for Peace. These are the key requirements:
a. The security of Israel must be guaranteed.
The Arabs must acknowledge openly and specifically that Israel is a
reality and has a right to exist in peace, behind secure and recognized
borders, and with a firm Arab pledge to terminate any further acts of
violence against the legally constituted nation of Israel.
b. The internal debate within Israel must be resolved in order to define Israel's permanent legal boundary.
The unwavering official policy of the United States since Israel became
a state has been that its borders must coincide with those prevailing
from 1949 until 1967 (unless modified by mutually agreeable land
swaps), specified in the unanimously adopted U.N. Resolution 242, which
mandates Israel's withdrawal from occupied territories. This obligation
was reconfirmed by Israel's leaders in agreements negotiated in 1978 at
Camp David and in 1993 at Oslo, for which they received the Nobel Peace
Prize, and both of these commitments were officially ratified by the
Israeli government. Also, as a member of the International Quartet that
includes Russia, the United Nations, and the European Union, America
supports the Roadmap for Peace, which espouses exactly the same
requirements. Palestinian leaders unequivocally accepted this proposal,
but Israel has officially rejected its key provisions with unacceptable
caveats and prerequisites.
Despite these recent developments, it is encouraging that Israel has
made previous commitments to peace as confirmed by the Camp David
Accords, the withdrawal of its forces from the Sinai, the more recent
movement of settlers from Gaza, and its official endorsement of
pertinent U.N. resolutions establishing its legal borders. After the
Six-Day War in 1967, Israeli military forces occupied all of the
territory indicated on Map 4, but joined the United States and other
nations in supporting United Nations Resolution 242, which is still the
binding law that condemns the acquisition of land by force and requires
Israeli withdrawal from occupied territories.
c. The sovereignty of all Middle East nations and sanctity of international borders must be honored.
There is little doubt that accommodation with Palestinians can bring
full Arab recognition of Israel and its right to live in peace, with an
Arab commitment to restrain further violence initiated by extremist
Palestinians.
The overriding problem is that, for more than a quarter century, the
actions of some Israeli leaders have been in direct conflict with the
official policies of the United States, the international community,
and their own negotiated agreements. Regardless of whether Palestinians
had no formalized government, one headed by Yasir Arafat or Mahmoud
Abbas, or one with Abbas as president and Hamas controlling the
parliament and cabinet, Israel's continued control and colonization of
Palestinian land have been the primary obstacles to a comprehensive
peace agreement in the Holy Land. In order to perpetuate the
occupation, Israeli forces have deprived their unwilling subjects of
basic human rights. No objective person could personally observe
existing conditions in the West Bank and dispute these statements.
Two other interrelated factors have contributed to the perpetuation of
violence and regional upheaval: the condoning of illegal Israeli
actions from a submissive White House and U.S. Congress during recent
years, and the deference with which other international leaders permit
this unofficial U.S. policy in the Middle East to prevail. There are
constant and vehement political and media debates in Israel concerning
its policies in the West Bank, but because of powerful political,
economic, and religious forces in the United States, Israeli government
decisions are rarely questioned or condemned, voices from Jerusalem
dominate in our media, and most American citizens are unaware of
circumstances in the occupied territories. At the same time, political
leaders and news media in Europe are highly critical of Israeli
policies, affecting public attitudes. Americans were surprised and
angered by an opinion poll, published by the International Herald
Tribune in October 2003, of 7,500 citizens in fifteen European nations,
indicating that Israel was considered to be the top threat to world
peace, ahead of North Korea, Iran, or Afghanistan.
The United States has used its U.N. Security Council veto more than
forty times to block resolutions critical of Israel. Some of these
vetoes have brought international discredit on the United States, and
there is little doubt that the lack of a persistent effort to resolve
the Palestinian issue is a major source of anti-American sentiment and
terrorist activity throughout the Middle East and the Islamic world.
A new factor in the region is that the Palestinian election of January
2006 gave Hamas members control of the parliament and a cabinet headed
by the prime minister. Israel and the United States reacted by
announcing a policy of isolating and destabilizing the new government.
Elected officials are denied travel permits to participate in
parliamentary affairs, Gaza is effectively isolated, and every effort
is made to block humanitarian funds to Palestinians, to prevent their
right to employment or commercial trade, and to deny them access to
Israel and the outside world.
In order to achieve its goals, Israel has decided to avoid any peace
negotiations and to escape even the mild restraints of the United
States by taking unilateral action, called "convergence" or
"realignment," to carve out for itself the choice portions of the West
Bank, leaving Palestinians destitute within a small and fragmented
remnant of their own land. The holding of almost 10,000 Arab prisoners
and the destructive military response to the capture of three Israeli
soldiers have aroused global concern about the hair-trigger possibility
of a regional war being launched.
Despite these immediate challenges, we must not assume that the future
is hopeless. Down through the years I have seen despair and frustration
evolve into optimism and progress and, even now, we must not abandon
efforts to achieve permanent peace for Israelis and freedom and justice
for Palestinians. There are some positive factors on which we may rely.
As I said in a 1979 speech to the Israeli Knesset, "The people support
a settlement. Political leaders are the obstacles to peace." Over the
years, public opinion surveys have consistently shown that a majority
of Israelis favor withdrawing from Palestinian territory in exchange
for peace ("swapping land for peace"), and recent polls show that 80
percent of Palestinians still want a two-state peace agreement with
Israel, with nearly 70 percent supporting the moderate Mahmoud Abbas as
their president and spokesman.
There have been some other encouraging developments over the years.
Along with the awareness among most Israelis that a solution to the
Palestinian question is critical if there is ever to be a comprehensive
settlement, there is a growing recognition in the Arab world that
Israel is an unchanging reality. Most Palestinians and other Arabs
maintain that the proposal made by Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah, a
proposal approved at the Arab summit in 2002 (Appendix 6), is a public
acknowledgment of Israel's right to exist within its legal borders and
shows willingness to work out disputes that have so far not been
addressed directly. The Delphic wording of this statement was
deliberate, in Arabic as well as in Hebrew and English, but the Arabs
defend it by saying it is there to be explored by the Israelis and
others and that, in any case, it is a more positive and clear
commitment to international law than anything now coming from Israel.
Furthermore, the remaining differences and their potential resolution
are clearly defined. Both Israel and the Arab countries have endorsed
the crucial and unavoidable U.N. Resolutions 242 and 338, under which
peace agreements have already been evolved.
Here are two voices, one Palestinian and the other Israeli, with remarkably similar assessments of what needs to be done.
Jonathan Kuttab, Palestinian human rights lawyer: "Everybody knows what
it will take to achieve a permanent and lasting peace that addresses
the basic interests of both sides: It's a two-state solution. It's
withdrawal to 1967 borders. It's dismantlement of the settlements. It's
some kind of shared status for a united Jerusalem, the capital of both
parties. The West Bank and Gaza would have to be demilitarized to
remove any security threats to Israel. Some kind of solution would have
to be reached for the refugee problem, some qualified right of return,
with compensation. Everyone knows the solution; the question is: Is
there political will to implement it?"
Dr. Naomi Chazan, professor at Hebrew University and former deputy
speaker of the Israeli Knesset: "I don't think any difference now
remains between the majority of Israelis and Palestinians in
understanding that there has to be some kind of accommodation between
both people. There are two possibilities on how to do it. To
acknowledge and then to implement the Palestine right to
self-determination, and to make sure that the two-state solution is a
just and fair solution, allowing for the creation of a viable state
alongside Israel on the 1967 boundaries, and if there are any changes,
they are by agreement on a swap basis. And on the Israeli side, there
is the need to maintain a democratic state with a Jewish majority,
which can only be achieved through the creation of a Palestinian state
alongside Israel."
An important fact to remember is that President Mahmoud Abbas retains
all presidential authority that was exercised by Yasir Arafat when he
negotiated the Oslo Agreement, and the Hamas prime minister has stated
that his government supports peace talks between Israel and Abbas. He
added that Hamas would modify its rejection of Israel if there is a
negotiated agreement that Palestinians can approve (as specified in the
Camp David Accords). It is imperative that the general Arab community
and all significant Palestinian groups make it clear that they will end
the suicide bombings and other acts of terrorism when international
laws and the ultimate goals of the Roadmap for Peace are accepted by
Israel.
One promising development came in May 2006 when Marwan Barghouti, the
most popular and influential leader of Fatah, joined forces in an
Israeli prison with Abed al-Halak Natashe, a trusted spokesman for
Hamas, in endorsing a two-state proposal that could unite the two
Palestinian factions. Their influence is enormous. The prisoners'
proposal called for a unity government with Hamas joining the PLO, the
release of all political prisoners, acceptance of Israel as a neighbor
within its legal borders, and an end to violent acts within Israel (but
not in Palestinian territory). It endorsed the key U.N. resolutions
regarding legal borders and the right of return.
With public opinion polls indicating a 77 percent rate of approval,
President Abbas first proposed a referendum among Palestinians on the
prisoners' proposal, and then both Hamas and Fatah accepted its
provisions.
Although a clear majority of Israelis are persistently willing to
accept terms that are tolerable to most of their Arab neighbors, it is
clear that none of the options is attractive for all Israelis:
A forcible annexation of Palestine and
its legal absorption into Israel, which could give large numbers of
non-Jewish citizens the right to vote and live as equals under the law.
This would directly violate international standards and the Camp David
Accords, which are the basis for peace with Egypt. At the same time,
non-Jewish citizens would make up a powerful swing vote if other
Israelis were divided and would ultimately constitute an outright
majority in the new Greater Israel. Israel would be further isolated
and condemned by the international community, with no remaining chance
to end hostilities with any appreciable part of the Arab world.
A system of apartheid, with two peoples occupying the same land but
completely separated from each other, with Israelis totally dominant
and suppressing violence by depriving Palestinians of their basic human
rights. This is the policy now being followed, although many citizens
of Israel deride the racist connotation of prescribing permanent
second-class status for the Palestinians. As one prominent Israeli
stated, "I am afraid that we are moving toward a government like that
of South Africa, with a dual society of Jewish rulers and Arab subjects
with few rights of citizenship. The West Bank is not worth it." An
unacceptable modification of this choice, now being proposed, is the
taking of substantial portions of the occupied territory, with the
remaining Palestinians completely surrounded by walls, fences, and
Israeli checkpoints, living as prisoners within the small portion of
land left to them.
Withdrawal to the 1967 border as specified in U.N. Resolution 242 and
as promised in the Camp David Accords and the Oslo Agreement and
prescribed in the Roadmap of the International Quartet. This is the
most attractive option and the only one that can ultimately be
acceptable as a basis for peace. Good-faith negotiations can lead to
mutually agreeable exchanges of land, perhaps permitting a significant
number of Israeli settlers to remain in their present homes near
Jerusalem. One version of this choice was spelled out in the Geneva
Initiative.
The bottom line is this: Peace will come to Israel and the Middle East
only when the Israeli government is willing to comply with
international law, with the Roadmap for Peace, with official American
policy, with the wishes of a majority of its own citizens -- and honor
its own previous commitments -- by accepting its legal borders. All
Arab neighbors must pledge to honor Israel's right to live in peace
under these conditions. The United States is squandering international
prestige and goodwill and intensifying global anti-American terrorism
by unofficially condoning or abetting the Israeli confiscation and
colonization of Palestinian territories.
It will be a tragedy -- for the Israelis, the Palestinians, and the
world -- if peace is rejected and a system of oppression, apartheid,
and sustained violence is permitted to prevail.
Copyright © 2006 by Jimmy Carter