29 june 2019
Calls for the annexation of the Occupied West Bank are gaining momentum in both Tel Aviv and Washington. But Israel and its American allies should be careful what they wish for. Annexing the Occupied Palestinian Territories will only reinforce the current rethink of the Palestinian strategy, as opposed to solving Israel’s self-induced problems.
Encouraged by the Donald Trump administration’s decision to move the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, Israeli government officials feel that the time for annexing the entirety of the West Bank is now.
In fact, “there is no better time than now” was the exact phrase used by former Israeli Justice Minister, Ayelet Shaked, as she promoted annexation at a recent New York conference.
Certainly, it is election season in Israel again, as Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu failed to form a government following the last elections in April. So much saber-rattling happens during such political campaigns, as candidates talk tough in the name of ‘security’, fighting terrorism, and so on.
But Shaked’s comments cannot be dismissed as fleeting election kerfuffle. They represent so much more if understood within the larger political context.
Indeed, since Trump’s advent to the White House, Israel has never – and I mean, never – had it so easy. It is as if the right-wing government’s most radical agenda became a wish list for Israel’s allies in Washington. This list includes the US recognition of Israel’s illegal annexation of Occupied Palestinian East Jerusalem, of the Occupied Syrian Golan Heights, and the dismissal of the Palestinian refugees’ right of return altogether.
But that is not all. Statements made by influential US officials indicate initial interest in the outright annexation of the Occupied West Bank or, at least, large parts of it. The latest of such calls was made by US ambassador to Israel, David Friedman.
“Israel has the right to retain some… of the West Bank,” Friedman said in an interview, cited in the New York Times on 8 June.
Friedman is deeply involved in the so-called deal of the century, a political gambit championed mostly by Trump’s top adviser and son-in-law, Jared Kushner. The apparent idea behind this ‘deal’ is to dismiss the core demands of the Palestinians while reassuring Israel regarding its quest for demographic majority and ‘security’ concerns.
Other US officials behind Washington’s efforts on behalf of Israel include US Special Envoy to the Middle East, Jason Greenblatt, and former US Ambassador to the UN, Nicki Haley. In a recent interview with the Israeli right-wing newspaper, Israel Hayom, Haley said that the Israeli government “should not be worried” regarding the yet-to-be fully revealed details of the deal of the century.
Knowing Haley’s love affair with – and brazen defense of – Israel at the United Nations, it should not be too difficult to fathom the subtle and obvious meaning of her words.
This is why Shaked’s call for the annexation of the West Bank cannot be dismissed as typical election season talk.
But can Israel annex the West Bank?
Practically speaking, yes, it can. True, it would be a flagrant violation of international law, but such a notion has never irked Israel, nor stopped it from annexing Palestinian or Arab territories. For example, it occupied East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights in 1980 and 1981 respectively.
Moreover, the political mood in Israel is increasingly receptive to such a step. A poll conducted by the Israeli newspaper, Haaretz, last March revealed that 42 percent of Israelis back West Bank annexation. This number is expected to rise in the following months as Israel continues to move to the right.
It is also important to note that several steps have already been taken in that direction, including the Israeli Knesset’s decision to apply the same civil laws to illegal Jewish settlers in the West Bank as to those living in Israel.
But that is where Israel faces its greatest dilemma.
According to a joint poll conducted by Tel Aviv University and the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research in August 2018, over 50 percent of Palestinians realize that a so-called two-state solution is no longer tenable. Moreover, a growing number of Palestinians also believe that co-existence in a single state, where Israeli Jews and Palestinian Arabs (Muslims and Christians alike) live side by side, is the only possible formula for a better future.
The dichotomy for Israeli officials, who are keen on maintaining Jewish demographic majority and the marginalization of Palestinian rights, is that they no longer have good options.
First, they understand that the indefinite occupation of Palestinian territories cannot be sustained. Ongoing Palestinian resistance at home, and the rise of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) Movement abroad, is challenging Israel’s very political legitimacy across the world.
Second, they must also be aware of the fact that, from an Israeli Jewish leaders’ point of view, annexing the West Bank, along with millions of Palestinians, will multiply the very ‘demographic threat’ that they have been dreading for many years.
Third, the ethnic cleansing of whole Palestinian communities – the so-called ‘transfer’ option – as Israel has done upon its founding in 1948, and again, in 1967, is no longer possible. Neither will Arab countries open their borders for Israel’s convenient genocides, nor will Palestinians leave however high the price. The fact that Gazans remained put, despite years of siege and brutal wars, is a case in point.
Political grandstanding aside, Israeli leaders understand that they are no longer in the driver’s seat and, despite their military and political advantage over Palestinians, it is becoming clear that firepower and Washington’s blind support are no longer enough to determine the future of the Palestinian people.
It is also clear that the Palestinian people are not, and never were, passive actors in their own fate. If Israel maintains its 52-year occupation, Palestinians will continue to resist. That resistance will not be weakened, or quelled, by any decision to annex the West Bank, in part or in full, the same way that Palestinian resistance in Jerusalem has not ceased since its illegal annexation by Tel Aviv four decades ago.
Finally, the illegal annexation of the West Bank can only contribute to the irreversible awareness among Palestinians that their fight for freedom, human rights, justice, and equality can be better served through a civil rights struggle within the borders of one single democratic state.
In her blind arrogance, Shaked and her right-wing ilk are only accelerating the demise of Israel as an ethnic, racist state, while opening up the stage for better possibilities than perpetual violence and apartheid.
– Ramzy Baroud is a journalist, author and editor of Palestine Chronicle. His last book is ‘The Last Earth: A Palestinian Story’. Baroud has a Ph.D. in Palestine Studies from the University of Exeter and was a Non-Resident Scholar at Orfalea Center for Global and International Studies, University of California Santa Barbara.
Encouraged by the Donald Trump administration’s decision to move the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, Israeli government officials feel that the time for annexing the entirety of the West Bank is now.
In fact, “there is no better time than now” was the exact phrase used by former Israeli Justice Minister, Ayelet Shaked, as she promoted annexation at a recent New York conference.
Certainly, it is election season in Israel again, as Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu failed to form a government following the last elections in April. So much saber-rattling happens during such political campaigns, as candidates talk tough in the name of ‘security’, fighting terrorism, and so on.
But Shaked’s comments cannot be dismissed as fleeting election kerfuffle. They represent so much more if understood within the larger political context.
Indeed, since Trump’s advent to the White House, Israel has never – and I mean, never – had it so easy. It is as if the right-wing government’s most radical agenda became a wish list for Israel’s allies in Washington. This list includes the US recognition of Israel’s illegal annexation of Occupied Palestinian East Jerusalem, of the Occupied Syrian Golan Heights, and the dismissal of the Palestinian refugees’ right of return altogether.
But that is not all. Statements made by influential US officials indicate initial interest in the outright annexation of the Occupied West Bank or, at least, large parts of it. The latest of such calls was made by US ambassador to Israel, David Friedman.
“Israel has the right to retain some… of the West Bank,” Friedman said in an interview, cited in the New York Times on 8 June.
Friedman is deeply involved in the so-called deal of the century, a political gambit championed mostly by Trump’s top adviser and son-in-law, Jared Kushner. The apparent idea behind this ‘deal’ is to dismiss the core demands of the Palestinians while reassuring Israel regarding its quest for demographic majority and ‘security’ concerns.
Other US officials behind Washington’s efforts on behalf of Israel include US Special Envoy to the Middle East, Jason Greenblatt, and former US Ambassador to the UN, Nicki Haley. In a recent interview with the Israeli right-wing newspaper, Israel Hayom, Haley said that the Israeli government “should not be worried” regarding the yet-to-be fully revealed details of the deal of the century.
Knowing Haley’s love affair with – and brazen defense of – Israel at the United Nations, it should not be too difficult to fathom the subtle and obvious meaning of her words.
This is why Shaked’s call for the annexation of the West Bank cannot be dismissed as typical election season talk.
But can Israel annex the West Bank?
Practically speaking, yes, it can. True, it would be a flagrant violation of international law, but such a notion has never irked Israel, nor stopped it from annexing Palestinian or Arab territories. For example, it occupied East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights in 1980 and 1981 respectively.
Moreover, the political mood in Israel is increasingly receptive to such a step. A poll conducted by the Israeli newspaper, Haaretz, last March revealed that 42 percent of Israelis back West Bank annexation. This number is expected to rise in the following months as Israel continues to move to the right.
It is also important to note that several steps have already been taken in that direction, including the Israeli Knesset’s decision to apply the same civil laws to illegal Jewish settlers in the West Bank as to those living in Israel.
But that is where Israel faces its greatest dilemma.
According to a joint poll conducted by Tel Aviv University and the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research in August 2018, over 50 percent of Palestinians realize that a so-called two-state solution is no longer tenable. Moreover, a growing number of Palestinians also believe that co-existence in a single state, where Israeli Jews and Palestinian Arabs (Muslims and Christians alike) live side by side, is the only possible formula for a better future.
The dichotomy for Israeli officials, who are keen on maintaining Jewish demographic majority and the marginalization of Palestinian rights, is that they no longer have good options.
First, they understand that the indefinite occupation of Palestinian territories cannot be sustained. Ongoing Palestinian resistance at home, and the rise of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) Movement abroad, is challenging Israel’s very political legitimacy across the world.
Second, they must also be aware of the fact that, from an Israeli Jewish leaders’ point of view, annexing the West Bank, along with millions of Palestinians, will multiply the very ‘demographic threat’ that they have been dreading for many years.
Third, the ethnic cleansing of whole Palestinian communities – the so-called ‘transfer’ option – as Israel has done upon its founding in 1948, and again, in 1967, is no longer possible. Neither will Arab countries open their borders for Israel’s convenient genocides, nor will Palestinians leave however high the price. The fact that Gazans remained put, despite years of siege and brutal wars, is a case in point.
Political grandstanding aside, Israeli leaders understand that they are no longer in the driver’s seat and, despite their military and political advantage over Palestinians, it is becoming clear that firepower and Washington’s blind support are no longer enough to determine the future of the Palestinian people.
It is also clear that the Palestinian people are not, and never were, passive actors in their own fate. If Israel maintains its 52-year occupation, Palestinians will continue to resist. That resistance will not be weakened, or quelled, by any decision to annex the West Bank, in part or in full, the same way that Palestinian resistance in Jerusalem has not ceased since its illegal annexation by Tel Aviv four decades ago.
Finally, the illegal annexation of the West Bank can only contribute to the irreversible awareness among Palestinians that their fight for freedom, human rights, justice, and equality can be better served through a civil rights struggle within the borders of one single democratic state.
In her blind arrogance, Shaked and her right-wing ilk are only accelerating the demise of Israel as an ethnic, racist state, while opening up the stage for better possibilities than perpetual violence and apartheid.
– Ramzy Baroud is a journalist, author and editor of Palestine Chronicle. His last book is ‘The Last Earth: A Palestinian Story’. Baroud has a Ph.D. in Palestine Studies from the University of Exeter and was a Non-Resident Scholar at Orfalea Center for Global and International Studies, University of California Santa Barbara.
The Hamas Movement has strongly denounced irresponsible remarks made recently by Bahraini foreign minister Khaled Al Khalifa in support of having ties with the Israeli occupation state.
“Such remarks and ideas are strange to the values, principles and nobility of the Bahraini people who love Palestine and support the resistance,” Hamas said in a press release on Friday.
The Movement also described the Bahraini minister’s remarks as “departure from the norms of the Arab and Muslim nations.”
It called on the Bahraini people and political parties to condemn such position and to support the steadfastness of the Palestinian people in the face of the conspiracies targeting their national cause.
Al Khalifa recently spoke to Israeli journalists on the sidelines of the US administration’s economic conference in Manama.
He strongly backed he Israel’s existence in occupied Palestine Wednesday, describing it as part of the region’s heritage.
“Israel is a country in the region … and it’s there to stay, of course,” he told journalists.
“Who did we offer the Arab peace initiative to? We offered it to a state named the state of Israel in the region. We did not offer it to some faraway island or some faraway country,” Khalifa said.
“We offered it to Israel. So we do believe that Israel is a country to stay, and we want better relations with it, and we want peace with it.”
The minister added that he would like to visit Israel in the future.
“Such remarks and ideas are strange to the values, principles and nobility of the Bahraini people who love Palestine and support the resistance,” Hamas said in a press release on Friday.
The Movement also described the Bahraini minister’s remarks as “departure from the norms of the Arab and Muslim nations.”
It called on the Bahraini people and political parties to condemn such position and to support the steadfastness of the Palestinian people in the face of the conspiracies targeting their national cause.
Al Khalifa recently spoke to Israeli journalists on the sidelines of the US administration’s economic conference in Manama.
He strongly backed he Israel’s existence in occupied Palestine Wednesday, describing it as part of the region’s heritage.
“Israel is a country in the region … and it’s there to stay, of course,” he told journalists.
“Who did we offer the Arab peace initiative to? We offered it to a state named the state of Israel in the region. We did not offer it to some faraway island or some faraway country,” Khalifa said.
“We offered it to Israel. So we do believe that Israel is a country to stay, and we want better relations with it, and we want peace with it.”
The minister added that he would like to visit Israel in the future.
Kuwaiti deputy foreign minister Khaled al-Jarallah said that Kuwait’s decision not to attend the Bahrain economic workshop that was held recently was in line with its principled position towards the Palestinian cause.
“Kuwait has a firm position on the Palestinian question and it will continue to support the Palestinian people until they have achieved their legitimate rights,” Jarallah said in press remarks to Kuwait News Agency (KUNA).
He added that his country’s support for the Palestinian cause is an unwavering stand, affirming that Kuwait will continue to abstain from normalizing relations with Israel unless the demands of the Palestinian people have been met.
“Kuwait aspires to see the concerned superpowers take into consideration the resolutions of the international legitimacy and the Arab Peace Initiative that focus on the principle of the two-state solution that guarantees the interests of the brotherly Palestinian people,” the Kuwait official said.
His comments follow the US-led economic workshop in Bahrain this week, in which the US administration unveiled the economic portion of its peace plan (the deal of the century), which aimed to raise billions for the Palestinians in exchange for major concessions in favor of Israel, especially with regard to Jerusalem and the Aqsa Mosque.
“Kuwait has a firm position on the Palestinian question and it will continue to support the Palestinian people until they have achieved their legitimate rights,” Jarallah said in press remarks to Kuwait News Agency (KUNA).
He added that his country’s support for the Palestinian cause is an unwavering stand, affirming that Kuwait will continue to abstain from normalizing relations with Israel unless the demands of the Palestinian people have been met.
“Kuwait aspires to see the concerned superpowers take into consideration the resolutions of the international legitimacy and the Arab Peace Initiative that focus on the principle of the two-state solution that guarantees the interests of the brotherly Palestinian people,” the Kuwait official said.
His comments follow the US-led economic workshop in Bahrain this week, in which the US administration unveiled the economic portion of its peace plan (the deal of the century), which aimed to raise billions for the Palestinians in exchange for major concessions in favor of Israel, especially with regard to Jerusalem and the Aqsa Mosque.
28 june 2019
Donald Trump’s administration has recently shown great interest in Palestinians and their welfare. Even Jared Kushner, the US President’s son-in-law, has tried to spread optimism at the Manama workshop, presenting many ‘opportunities’ for the Palestinian people. Kushner has spoken to the participants as Wall Street speculators, reducing the Palestinian cause to promised returns and expected profit calculations, speaking of Palestinians in their absence.
In the workshop it held in the capital of Bahrain, Trump’s administration wanted to stir Palestinian feeling by talking about $50 billion. However, what it presented at the Manama workshop was very misleading slogans and inflated promises.
Away from the raised slogans, the Palestinian people will not enjoy this promised cake. A large piece of it will go to the countries in the region, which are supposed to accept this bribe in return for their consent to bury the Palestinian refugees’ right of return and to obey Israeli aspirations to settle them forever abroad.
Another piece of the cake will be devoured by private sector investments, though they will employ some Palestinians as workers on their projects, on their own land and give them a low wage. These projects will have direct or indirect gains on the Israeli economy itself.
Some of the money allocated to Palestinians will be in the form of loans with accumulating interest, which will complicate the Palestinian people’s dependence and affect the opportunities of future generations. The economic and financial grants to Palestinians will only be paid within 10 years, if they ever are truly fulfilled.
With some scrutiny, it is clear that what will be granted to Palestinians is at best less than a quarter of the amount that the Manama workshop boasts about, and that their annual share of its premiums is not far from what is basically allocated to them by international donors at the current time.
The Palestinian experience of international commitments is not good and even worse given that these promises were made by Trump’s administration. The international community had previously pledged generous funds, including $4.5 billion to rebuild what the Israeli army destroyed in the Gaza Strip in early 2009. The international community pledged the same after the Israeli campaign of destruction in the summer of 2014. However, Palestinians have continued to endure the suffocating siege and the effects of destruction and economic paralysis in the following five years. Only crumbs have reached them, and their living conditions have deteriorated further.
One does not have to be a genius to realize that Donald Trump’s administration is determined to undermine the Palestinian cause and sustain the occupation while maintaining the settlements it has spread over their land. The Palestinians have thus boycotted the Manama workshop and declared their discontent. They have also protested in the streets of Palestine to reject the workshop.
Palestinians did not exaggerate when they saw in this meeting an opportunity to market the Trump-Netanyahu project to undermine the Palestinian cause. The Manama workshop has tried to present false temptations to Palestinians under economic headlines, while surpassing the essence of the cause as if it were a mere issue of poverty and hunger.
Since early 2018 the Trump administration has exerted pressure on Palestinians to impoverish and starve them. This can be observed through the US administration’s campaign to harass the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, UNRWA, established by the international community to secure the minimum requirements of education, health care and food support for Palestine refugees. Washington decided to renege on its financial obligations to the agency, which caused the Agency’s services to decline sharply and undermined its operational capabilities. The Trump administration also exerted direct financial pressure on the Palestinian Authority, stipulating not to provide scheduled subsistence allowances for thousands of martyrs’ and prisoners’ families who had no breadwinners to provide for them.
At the same time, Netanyahu’s government started to deduct money from the revenues of tax and customs due to the Palestinian Authority, which contradicts the arrangements established under the Oslo agreement. On the ground, the occupation’s chronic policies of restricting Palestinian resources, confiscating their land, obstructing their movement in the West Bank, and imposing a prolonged siege on the Gaza Strip are creating heavy burdens and loss. Illegal settlers, however, enjoy privileges and economic and financial supply lines, offered by active organisations in the United States and Europe.
All in all, the Trump administration’s move in Manama seems to be an attempt to lure Palestinians through political bribery to give up the cause they have been defending for a century, forcing Gulf capitals to pay the benefits voluntarily or unwillingly. A false and unrealistic price was pushed forward in exchange for the Palestinians’ surrender, an expression used by the Israeli representative to the UN, Danny Danon, in his article published in the New York Times on 24 June, 2019, ahead of the beginning of Manama workshop entitled ” What’s Wrong With Palestinian Surrender?”
Palestinians have been offered to surrender to the reality of the occupation and settlements, which has left no chance for the establishment of a Palestinian state even by the Quartet’s standards. Trump’s administration has taken successive steps to further strengthen the presence of the occupation in Jerusalem, the West Bank and even in the Syrian Golan, putting an end to the two-state solution, which in essence was not a just solution to the Palestinian issue. It is also clear that the Trump-Netanyahu coalition is capable of imposing unprecedented dictates, amid the Arab world’s state of weakness and fragmentation and its rulers establishing their tyrannical regimes at any cost, even if they would sacrifice the Palestine cause.
“The Middle East problem can be solved economically” is an extraordinary discovery Kushner made, which previous US administrations failed to discover. This clearly reflects the tendency towards moving beyond the Palestinian cause in favor of further strengthening the occupation’s presence and the surrender of the Palestinian people.
It is a difficult moment for the Palestinian people, and it is clear that Trump’s administration is persistent with the threat and use of force against them if they don’t bow along with their Arab regional neighbors to these crude dictates. The mere insistence on holding a conference on the Palestinian people, despite all the Palestinian parties’ boycott, should ring alarm bells against the administration of Trump and its willingness to force the implementation of its project. If Palestinians are not willing to accept the poisoned candy offered, it would be said that it had rejected an unprecedented and generous offer and therefore has to bear the consequences.
- Hossam Shaker is a journalist and an author who has extensively covered the topic of migration in Europe. His article appeared in MEMO.
In the workshop it held in the capital of Bahrain, Trump’s administration wanted to stir Palestinian feeling by talking about $50 billion. However, what it presented at the Manama workshop was very misleading slogans and inflated promises.
Away from the raised slogans, the Palestinian people will not enjoy this promised cake. A large piece of it will go to the countries in the region, which are supposed to accept this bribe in return for their consent to bury the Palestinian refugees’ right of return and to obey Israeli aspirations to settle them forever abroad.
Another piece of the cake will be devoured by private sector investments, though they will employ some Palestinians as workers on their projects, on their own land and give them a low wage. These projects will have direct or indirect gains on the Israeli economy itself.
Some of the money allocated to Palestinians will be in the form of loans with accumulating interest, which will complicate the Palestinian people’s dependence and affect the opportunities of future generations. The economic and financial grants to Palestinians will only be paid within 10 years, if they ever are truly fulfilled.
With some scrutiny, it is clear that what will be granted to Palestinians is at best less than a quarter of the amount that the Manama workshop boasts about, and that their annual share of its premiums is not far from what is basically allocated to them by international donors at the current time.
The Palestinian experience of international commitments is not good and even worse given that these promises were made by Trump’s administration. The international community had previously pledged generous funds, including $4.5 billion to rebuild what the Israeli army destroyed in the Gaza Strip in early 2009. The international community pledged the same after the Israeli campaign of destruction in the summer of 2014. However, Palestinians have continued to endure the suffocating siege and the effects of destruction and economic paralysis in the following five years. Only crumbs have reached them, and their living conditions have deteriorated further.
One does not have to be a genius to realize that Donald Trump’s administration is determined to undermine the Palestinian cause and sustain the occupation while maintaining the settlements it has spread over their land. The Palestinians have thus boycotted the Manama workshop and declared their discontent. They have also protested in the streets of Palestine to reject the workshop.
Palestinians did not exaggerate when they saw in this meeting an opportunity to market the Trump-Netanyahu project to undermine the Palestinian cause. The Manama workshop has tried to present false temptations to Palestinians under economic headlines, while surpassing the essence of the cause as if it were a mere issue of poverty and hunger.
Since early 2018 the Trump administration has exerted pressure on Palestinians to impoverish and starve them. This can be observed through the US administration’s campaign to harass the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, UNRWA, established by the international community to secure the minimum requirements of education, health care and food support for Palestine refugees. Washington decided to renege on its financial obligations to the agency, which caused the Agency’s services to decline sharply and undermined its operational capabilities. The Trump administration also exerted direct financial pressure on the Palestinian Authority, stipulating not to provide scheduled subsistence allowances for thousands of martyrs’ and prisoners’ families who had no breadwinners to provide for them.
At the same time, Netanyahu’s government started to deduct money from the revenues of tax and customs due to the Palestinian Authority, which contradicts the arrangements established under the Oslo agreement. On the ground, the occupation’s chronic policies of restricting Palestinian resources, confiscating their land, obstructing their movement in the West Bank, and imposing a prolonged siege on the Gaza Strip are creating heavy burdens and loss. Illegal settlers, however, enjoy privileges and economic and financial supply lines, offered by active organisations in the United States and Europe.
All in all, the Trump administration’s move in Manama seems to be an attempt to lure Palestinians through political bribery to give up the cause they have been defending for a century, forcing Gulf capitals to pay the benefits voluntarily or unwillingly. A false and unrealistic price was pushed forward in exchange for the Palestinians’ surrender, an expression used by the Israeli representative to the UN, Danny Danon, in his article published in the New York Times on 24 June, 2019, ahead of the beginning of Manama workshop entitled ” What’s Wrong With Palestinian Surrender?”
Palestinians have been offered to surrender to the reality of the occupation and settlements, which has left no chance for the establishment of a Palestinian state even by the Quartet’s standards. Trump’s administration has taken successive steps to further strengthen the presence of the occupation in Jerusalem, the West Bank and even in the Syrian Golan, putting an end to the two-state solution, which in essence was not a just solution to the Palestinian issue. It is also clear that the Trump-Netanyahu coalition is capable of imposing unprecedented dictates, amid the Arab world’s state of weakness and fragmentation and its rulers establishing their tyrannical regimes at any cost, even if they would sacrifice the Palestine cause.
“The Middle East problem can be solved economically” is an extraordinary discovery Kushner made, which previous US administrations failed to discover. This clearly reflects the tendency towards moving beyond the Palestinian cause in favor of further strengthening the occupation’s presence and the surrender of the Palestinian people.
It is a difficult moment for the Palestinian people, and it is clear that Trump’s administration is persistent with the threat and use of force against them if they don’t bow along with their Arab regional neighbors to these crude dictates. The mere insistence on holding a conference on the Palestinian people, despite all the Palestinian parties’ boycott, should ring alarm bells against the administration of Trump and its willingness to force the implementation of its project. If Palestinians are not willing to accept the poisoned candy offered, it would be said that it had rejected an unprecedented and generous offer and therefore has to bear the consequences.
- Hossam Shaker is a journalist and an author who has extensively covered the topic of migration in Europe. His article appeared in MEMO.
27 june 2019
The 'Peace to Prosperity' plan is simply the latest version of a US plan revised repeatedly since the 1970s asking the Palestinians to trade basic rights in return for fanciful financial promises.
The White House’s Peace to Prosperity plan claims to offer Palestinians an opportunity for a better life, while the Trump Administration signals its intention to abandon the Oslo Peace Process that has defined how Western states have developed their Palestine policy – under US leadership – since 1993.
That Oslo framework is centred on the establishment of a Palestinian state in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza, and this has been rendered unrealisable by decades of Israeli colonisation, moving over 600,000 of their citizens as settlers in the occupied Palestinian territory (OPT).
This has changed the nature of the population in the OPT and has paved the way for eventual annexation. Indeed, leading Israeli politicians have for some time been very clear in expressing their unwillingness to cede control over the OPT to autonomous Palestinian rule.
For the first time, a US administration is signalling that it will support those aims, notably breaking a long-standing taboo of moving the US Embassy to Jerusalem and recognising Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights seized from Syria in 1967.
What this does, however, is leave the US’ international and regional Middle East allies, including the Palestinian Authority, in a tenuous situation by abandoning at least the hope offered to Palestinians in a peace plan, no matter how unlikely, acting as a kind of ‘release valve’ on political unrest.
So, while explicitly sidestepping the politics of Palestinian basic rights [pdf] or aspirations for an independent state, Peace to Prosperity claims to at least offer Palestinians the possibility for a good life under Israeli rule…devoid of a political resolution.
While offering little in the way of qualitative details of how that might happen, the plan does offer the promise of renewed spending – following recent and devastating US cuts – of upwards of $50 billion, addressing three priority areas: the economy, people and government.
Far from a new proposal, however, this is just the latest version of the same US plan that has been rehashed, reshaped and modernised over-and-over again since the 1970s, seeking to keep Palestinians quiet and to accept their lot under Israeli rule, regardless of what that rule looks like.
‘Happy Palestinians’ and ‘Quality of Life’ initiatives
In the 1970s, the US began using financial incentives as a way to try to buy peace in the Middle East, while providing Israel with assurances for its security. So when in 1978 the Carter administration left Palestinian rights out of peace negotiations between Israel and Egypt, it instead attempted to offer a ‘depoliticised’ solution to the Palestinian ‘question’ by adopting policy based on the idea that 'happy' Palestinians who had a job, steady employment and a functioning administrative structure would be willing to accept living under Israeli occupation, even if temporarily.
This approach was updated by the Reagan Administration in the 1980s when it attempted to find a peaceful solution by promoting economic issues in lieu of a political settlement.
Proposed as a ‘Quality of Life’ initiative in 1983-4, the US attempted to promote political reconciliation between Israel and the Palestinians through economic inducements that were in theory separate from politics, while making the occupation palatable enough for Palestinians to accept living under the status quo.
The 1970s and 1980s were though a different era and this put limits on US influence.
First, Israel was at that time wary that economic development would embolden a Palestinian bid for independence. Second, Palestinians feared that any agreement without a political resolution would reinforce the status quo of Israel’s occupation and colonisation of the OPT: a political ploy meant to substitute economics for peace.
At that time Arab donors provided substantial support for Palestinians to not only survive under Israeli military rule, but to challenge it. Further, in the 1980s wealthy Palestinians increased their funding for Palestinian resistance (sumud) to Israeli rule.
Perhaps above all else, in that period the USSR acted as a powerful counter-balance for the Palestinians. That included military support for Palestinian liberation groups, labelled terrorist organisations in the West.
Yet, while the US plan was checked, the basic idea of trying to separate politics from Palestinian economic development survived in US policy circles, like this quote from 1989: ‘Economics may be politics in the West Bank and Gaza, but the American government can and should attempt to separate the two for policy purposes’.
Oslo Peace Process and An Investment in Peace
The decline and fall of the Soviet Union, and the First Gulf War, radically realigned Middle East regional dynamics. Further, the success of the First Intifada by Palestinians at extracting costs from Israel for occupation suddenly opened Israel up to the earlier US-led approaches towards ‘buying’ peace.
So, with the US left as the lone superpower, it had an opportunity to assert its prior peace model of economics before (or even without) politics.
This led directly into the Oslo Peace Process, which would be dominated politically by Israel and the US, supported by a ‘depoliticised’ economic development model underwritten financially by Europe and managed conceptually by the World Bank. There the US and its Western allies reinserted the logic of the ‘Quality of Life’ and ‘happy Palestinian’ plans.
This notion informed the 1993 World Bank development plan, An Investment in Peace, that became the blueprint for donor aid from October 1993 onwards. As the World Bank stated in An Investment in Peace: ‘Political settlement and peace is a necessary, but not a sufficient, condition for economic development in the OT [OPT]’. International donors argued that development could foster conditions conducive to peace, and a political resolution afterwards.
The dimensions of Palestinian self-rule radically realigned in this period, too. Before Oslo, international consensus favoured a complete Israeli withdrawal from all the OPT and supported Palestinian aspirations to create their independent state.
Now international sponsors of the peace process largely exclude East Jerusalem from the calculus of peace-building, and Palestinian refugees were mostly isolated and began to be left out of peacebuilding by the donors. Further, Israeli settlement building and annexations of Palestinian land in the OPT were never seriously challenged. Sometimes those settlements were implicitly accepted as ‘facts on the ground.’
Israeli settlements, the status of East Jerusalem and the re-settlement/return of Palestinian refugees were left undetermined and open to further negotiation by Western donors who had little appetite for Palestinian demands that might upset Israel.
All the while, Oslo was lauded as an example for what peace-making could achieve, and Israel was able to re-establish its international legitimacy after much damage done had been done to its reputation in the First Intifada.
What is old is new again
Though Oslo had been greeted with great optimism, prominent detractors were warning of its flaws. Much has been written about what happened next.
In brief, not long after Oslo was signed in 1993 serious setbacks hobbled the Peace Process, such as closure preventing Palestinians and their goods from moving freely, a rapid decline in Palestinian business vitality, increasing extremes of violence, the assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in 1995 and the first election of Benjamin Netanyahu in 1996.
The battered process eventually collapsed into the incredibly violent Second Intifada (2000-2006), and was only kept alive – in name – by international donors. Meanwhile, in that time, Israel has come to be dominated by right-wing political parties that are opposed to Palestinian statehood, while on the Palestinian side parties who are opposed to Oslo have also had success given Oslo’s obvious failure.
So, after 26 years of Oslo and An Investment in Peace, with various modifications like the Roadmap to Peace and the Palestinian Reform and Development Plan, and new political boundaries being set by the Trump administration, there has come the need for a rebranding of the long-running US approach of attempting to buy Palestinians into silence with economic incentives.
Palestinian aspirations to self-determination
History is not predetermined, and even if we can look back at Oslo with the benefit of hindsight, we should not forget that there was an incredible degree of optimism (and perhaps unparalleled political will) to build some sort of agreement for peaceful cohabitation between Israelis and Palestinians, even if it were asymmetrical by nature.
It is equally hard to ignore the logical framework of the US approach, how it keeps reappearing, and the violent dispossession that this economics-before-politics (and economics-without-rights) model keeps leading Palestinians into.
That same process also guarantees that any Trump Administration offer for ‘dignity and opportunity’ is as unachievable as the credibility of the actors presenting it. Yet, the fact that the model needs to be reinvented time-and-time again is also indicative of something else: its inability to completely subdue and quell Palestinian aspirations for freedom and a better future.
Ultimately, Palestinians have been unwilling to surrender to perpetual subservience to Israel, in spite of the odds against them. No matter how many times the US presents the same plan, there is a spark in Palestinians – like every conquered people throughout history – that sees them resist domination and strive ultimately for freedom.
Palestinians keep pressing for self-determination, which Edward Said once described as freedom, sovereignly and equality. So, building a peace and development plan that starts with politics and is based on such principles may work and lead to real peace, and true prosperity. The long-running US alternative has shown it will not, no matter how it is rebranded.
The White House’s Peace to Prosperity plan claims to offer Palestinians an opportunity for a better life, while the Trump Administration signals its intention to abandon the Oslo Peace Process that has defined how Western states have developed their Palestine policy – under US leadership – since 1993.
That Oslo framework is centred on the establishment of a Palestinian state in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza, and this has been rendered unrealisable by decades of Israeli colonisation, moving over 600,000 of their citizens as settlers in the occupied Palestinian territory (OPT).
This has changed the nature of the population in the OPT and has paved the way for eventual annexation. Indeed, leading Israeli politicians have for some time been very clear in expressing their unwillingness to cede control over the OPT to autonomous Palestinian rule.
For the first time, a US administration is signalling that it will support those aims, notably breaking a long-standing taboo of moving the US Embassy to Jerusalem and recognising Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights seized from Syria in 1967.
What this does, however, is leave the US’ international and regional Middle East allies, including the Palestinian Authority, in a tenuous situation by abandoning at least the hope offered to Palestinians in a peace plan, no matter how unlikely, acting as a kind of ‘release valve’ on political unrest.
So, while explicitly sidestepping the politics of Palestinian basic rights [pdf] or aspirations for an independent state, Peace to Prosperity claims to at least offer Palestinians the possibility for a good life under Israeli rule…devoid of a political resolution.
While offering little in the way of qualitative details of how that might happen, the plan does offer the promise of renewed spending – following recent and devastating US cuts – of upwards of $50 billion, addressing three priority areas: the economy, people and government.
Far from a new proposal, however, this is just the latest version of the same US plan that has been rehashed, reshaped and modernised over-and-over again since the 1970s, seeking to keep Palestinians quiet and to accept their lot under Israeli rule, regardless of what that rule looks like.
‘Happy Palestinians’ and ‘Quality of Life’ initiatives
In the 1970s, the US began using financial incentives as a way to try to buy peace in the Middle East, while providing Israel with assurances for its security. So when in 1978 the Carter administration left Palestinian rights out of peace negotiations between Israel and Egypt, it instead attempted to offer a ‘depoliticised’ solution to the Palestinian ‘question’ by adopting policy based on the idea that 'happy' Palestinians who had a job, steady employment and a functioning administrative structure would be willing to accept living under Israeli occupation, even if temporarily.
This approach was updated by the Reagan Administration in the 1980s when it attempted to find a peaceful solution by promoting economic issues in lieu of a political settlement.
Proposed as a ‘Quality of Life’ initiative in 1983-4, the US attempted to promote political reconciliation between Israel and the Palestinians through economic inducements that were in theory separate from politics, while making the occupation palatable enough for Palestinians to accept living under the status quo.
The 1970s and 1980s were though a different era and this put limits on US influence.
First, Israel was at that time wary that economic development would embolden a Palestinian bid for independence. Second, Palestinians feared that any agreement without a political resolution would reinforce the status quo of Israel’s occupation and colonisation of the OPT: a political ploy meant to substitute economics for peace.
At that time Arab donors provided substantial support for Palestinians to not only survive under Israeli military rule, but to challenge it. Further, in the 1980s wealthy Palestinians increased their funding for Palestinian resistance (sumud) to Israeli rule.
Perhaps above all else, in that period the USSR acted as a powerful counter-balance for the Palestinians. That included military support for Palestinian liberation groups, labelled terrorist organisations in the West.
Yet, while the US plan was checked, the basic idea of trying to separate politics from Palestinian economic development survived in US policy circles, like this quote from 1989: ‘Economics may be politics in the West Bank and Gaza, but the American government can and should attempt to separate the two for policy purposes’.
Oslo Peace Process and An Investment in Peace
The decline and fall of the Soviet Union, and the First Gulf War, radically realigned Middle East regional dynamics. Further, the success of the First Intifada by Palestinians at extracting costs from Israel for occupation suddenly opened Israel up to the earlier US-led approaches towards ‘buying’ peace.
So, with the US left as the lone superpower, it had an opportunity to assert its prior peace model of economics before (or even without) politics.
This led directly into the Oslo Peace Process, which would be dominated politically by Israel and the US, supported by a ‘depoliticised’ economic development model underwritten financially by Europe and managed conceptually by the World Bank. There the US and its Western allies reinserted the logic of the ‘Quality of Life’ and ‘happy Palestinian’ plans.
This notion informed the 1993 World Bank development plan, An Investment in Peace, that became the blueprint for donor aid from October 1993 onwards. As the World Bank stated in An Investment in Peace: ‘Political settlement and peace is a necessary, but not a sufficient, condition for economic development in the OT [OPT]’. International donors argued that development could foster conditions conducive to peace, and a political resolution afterwards.
The dimensions of Palestinian self-rule radically realigned in this period, too. Before Oslo, international consensus favoured a complete Israeli withdrawal from all the OPT and supported Palestinian aspirations to create their independent state.
Now international sponsors of the peace process largely exclude East Jerusalem from the calculus of peace-building, and Palestinian refugees were mostly isolated and began to be left out of peacebuilding by the donors. Further, Israeli settlement building and annexations of Palestinian land in the OPT were never seriously challenged. Sometimes those settlements were implicitly accepted as ‘facts on the ground.’
Israeli settlements, the status of East Jerusalem and the re-settlement/return of Palestinian refugees were left undetermined and open to further negotiation by Western donors who had little appetite for Palestinian demands that might upset Israel.
All the while, Oslo was lauded as an example for what peace-making could achieve, and Israel was able to re-establish its international legitimacy after much damage done had been done to its reputation in the First Intifada.
What is old is new again
Though Oslo had been greeted with great optimism, prominent detractors were warning of its flaws. Much has been written about what happened next.
In brief, not long after Oslo was signed in 1993 serious setbacks hobbled the Peace Process, such as closure preventing Palestinians and their goods from moving freely, a rapid decline in Palestinian business vitality, increasing extremes of violence, the assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in 1995 and the first election of Benjamin Netanyahu in 1996.
The battered process eventually collapsed into the incredibly violent Second Intifada (2000-2006), and was only kept alive – in name – by international donors. Meanwhile, in that time, Israel has come to be dominated by right-wing political parties that are opposed to Palestinian statehood, while on the Palestinian side parties who are opposed to Oslo have also had success given Oslo’s obvious failure.
So, after 26 years of Oslo and An Investment in Peace, with various modifications like the Roadmap to Peace and the Palestinian Reform and Development Plan, and new political boundaries being set by the Trump administration, there has come the need for a rebranding of the long-running US approach of attempting to buy Palestinians into silence with economic incentives.
Palestinian aspirations to self-determination
History is not predetermined, and even if we can look back at Oslo with the benefit of hindsight, we should not forget that there was an incredible degree of optimism (and perhaps unparalleled political will) to build some sort of agreement for peaceful cohabitation between Israelis and Palestinians, even if it were asymmetrical by nature.
It is equally hard to ignore the logical framework of the US approach, how it keeps reappearing, and the violent dispossession that this economics-before-politics (and economics-without-rights) model keeps leading Palestinians into.
That same process also guarantees that any Trump Administration offer for ‘dignity and opportunity’ is as unachievable as the credibility of the actors presenting it. Yet, the fact that the model needs to be reinvented time-and-time again is also indicative of something else: its inability to completely subdue and quell Palestinian aspirations for freedom and a better future.
Ultimately, Palestinians have been unwilling to surrender to perpetual subservience to Israel, in spite of the odds against them. No matter how many times the US presents the same plan, there is a spark in Palestinians – like every conquered people throughout history – that sees them resist domination and strive ultimately for freedom.
Palestinians keep pressing for self-determination, which Edward Said once described as freedom, sovereignly and equality. So, building a peace and development plan that starts with politics and is based on such principles may work and lead to real peace, and true prosperity. The long-running US alternative has shown it will not, no matter how it is rebranded.
Bahraini Foreign Minister Khalid bin Ahmed Al Khalifah speaks with The Times of Israel on the sidelines of a US-led workshop in Manama on June 26, 2019
Bahrain takes the lid off its longtime secret dealings with Israel, with its foreign minister openly saying that the Manama regime wants “peace” and “better” relations with the occupying entity.
Foreign Minister Khalid bin Ahmed Al Khalifah of Bahrain made the remarks on Wednesday in an unprecedented interview with The Times of Israel on the sidelines of the Washington-sponsored Manama workshop on US President Donald Trump's highly-controversial Middle East deal.
The top Bahraini diplomat recognized Israel’s “right to exietnce,” saying the regime is “there to stay, of course.”
“Who did we offer peace to [with] the [Arab] Peace Initiative?...We offered it to Israel,” he said. “We want better relations with it, and we want peace with it.”
The Arab initiative, which has been adopted by the Arab League, calls for the normalization of ties between Tel Aviv and Arab states in exchange for Israel’s withdrawal from lands it occupied in the 1967 war, including the West Bank, East Jerusalem al-Quds and Syria’s Golan Heights.
Khalifah also claimed that while Bahrain might be the only Arab country — besides Egypt and Jordan — to acknowledge Israel’s existence, “we know our brothers in the region do believe in it” as well.
Israel has full diplomatic ties with only two Arab states, Egypt and Jordan, but latest reports suggest Tel Aviv has been working behind the scenes to establish formal contacts with other Arab countries such as Bahrain.
The Bahraini foreign minister further encouraged Israel to approach Arab leaders about the issues of concern regarding the “peace” proposal.
“Come and talk to us. Talk to us about it. Say, guys, you have a good initiative, but we have one thing that worries us,” he said.
Khalifah also noted that Bahrain views the US-led workshop, which focused on the economic section of Trump’s proposal on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, as a possible “gamechanger” like the 1978 Israel-Egypt Camp David Accords.
“As much as Camp David 1 was a major gamechanger, after the visit of [fromer Egyptian] President Anwar Sadat [to Jerusalem al-Quds]— if this succeeds, and we build on it, and it attracts attention and momentum, this would be the second gamechanger,” he said.
Khalifa stressed that although he has not yet seen the political part of Trump’s plan, called the “deal of the century,” but he was optimistic about it.
“We have to wait. I cannot talk about something that I don’t know. But we hope that this political plan will also be attractive to everybody,” he said.
All the Palestinian people have already rejected the deal and boycotted the related Bahrain event. The participants in the two-day meeting had ignored a Palestinian call to likewise boycott the workshop.
Speaking at the opening of the Bahrain workshop on Tuesday, Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser, argued that agreeing to an economic pathway forward was “a necessary precondition” for resolving the conflict.
Under Trump's economic plan, $50 billion would be injected into struggling economies in the Middle East over the next ten years. Critics say Washington is offering financial rewards for Palestinians to accept the Israeli occupation.
Oman to open Palestine embassy
On Wednesday, Oman announced plans to open an embassy in Palestine, adding a delegation would travel to the West Bank city of Ramallah for that purpose.
“In line with the Sultanate’s support for the brotherly Palestinian people, it has decided to open a new diplomatic mission for Palestine at the level of embassy,” Oman's Foreign Ministry tweeted.
Hanan Ashrawi, a senior official in the Palestine Liberation Organization, welcomed Muscat’s decision.
“I hope the embassy will help in educating the Omani government on the real nature of the Israeli occupation,” she said.
Ashrawai, however, warned Oman against using its mission to establish formal ties with Tel Aviv, saying, "If this has a political price attached then certainly there will be ramifications." Mohammed al-Busaidi, an spokesman at Oman's embassy in London, told the Middle East Eye news portal that Oman’s ambassador to Jordan is currently handling relations with the Palestinian Authority (PA).
Bahrain takes the lid off its longtime secret dealings with Israel, with its foreign minister openly saying that the Manama regime wants “peace” and “better” relations with the occupying entity.
Foreign Minister Khalid bin Ahmed Al Khalifah of Bahrain made the remarks on Wednesday in an unprecedented interview with The Times of Israel on the sidelines of the Washington-sponsored Manama workshop on US President Donald Trump's highly-controversial Middle East deal.
The top Bahraini diplomat recognized Israel’s “right to exietnce,” saying the regime is “there to stay, of course.”
“Who did we offer peace to [with] the [Arab] Peace Initiative?...We offered it to Israel,” he said. “We want better relations with it, and we want peace with it.”
The Arab initiative, which has been adopted by the Arab League, calls for the normalization of ties between Tel Aviv and Arab states in exchange for Israel’s withdrawal from lands it occupied in the 1967 war, including the West Bank, East Jerusalem al-Quds and Syria’s Golan Heights.
Khalifah also claimed that while Bahrain might be the only Arab country — besides Egypt and Jordan — to acknowledge Israel’s existence, “we know our brothers in the region do believe in it” as well.
Israel has full diplomatic ties with only two Arab states, Egypt and Jordan, but latest reports suggest Tel Aviv has been working behind the scenes to establish formal contacts with other Arab countries such as Bahrain.
The Bahraini foreign minister further encouraged Israel to approach Arab leaders about the issues of concern regarding the “peace” proposal.
“Come and talk to us. Talk to us about it. Say, guys, you have a good initiative, but we have one thing that worries us,” he said.
Khalifah also noted that Bahrain views the US-led workshop, which focused on the economic section of Trump’s proposal on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, as a possible “gamechanger” like the 1978 Israel-Egypt Camp David Accords.
“As much as Camp David 1 was a major gamechanger, after the visit of [fromer Egyptian] President Anwar Sadat [to Jerusalem al-Quds]— if this succeeds, and we build on it, and it attracts attention and momentum, this would be the second gamechanger,” he said.
Khalifa stressed that although he has not yet seen the political part of Trump’s plan, called the “deal of the century,” but he was optimistic about it.
“We have to wait. I cannot talk about something that I don’t know. But we hope that this political plan will also be attractive to everybody,” he said.
All the Palestinian people have already rejected the deal and boycotted the related Bahrain event. The participants in the two-day meeting had ignored a Palestinian call to likewise boycott the workshop.
Speaking at the opening of the Bahrain workshop on Tuesday, Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser, argued that agreeing to an economic pathway forward was “a necessary precondition” for resolving the conflict.
Under Trump's economic plan, $50 billion would be injected into struggling economies in the Middle East over the next ten years. Critics say Washington is offering financial rewards for Palestinians to accept the Israeli occupation.
Oman to open Palestine embassy
On Wednesday, Oman announced plans to open an embassy in Palestine, adding a delegation would travel to the West Bank city of Ramallah for that purpose.
“In line with the Sultanate’s support for the brotherly Palestinian people, it has decided to open a new diplomatic mission for Palestine at the level of embassy,” Oman's Foreign Ministry tweeted.
Hanan Ashrawi, a senior official in the Palestine Liberation Organization, welcomed Muscat’s decision.
“I hope the embassy will help in educating the Omani government on the real nature of the Israeli occupation,” she said.
Ashrawai, however, warned Oman against using its mission to establish formal ties with Tel Aviv, saying, "If this has a political price attached then certainly there will be ramifications." Mohammed al-Busaidi, an spokesman at Oman's embassy in London, told the Middle East Eye news portal that Oman’s ambassador to Jordan is currently handling relations with the Palestinian Authority (PA).
25 june 2019
The UN has reiterated that economic measures alone cannot be a solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
Commenting on the Bahrain economic workshop, UN spokesman Farhan Haq told journalists that the UN had already expressed its position on the conference when Nickolay , the UN special coordinator for the Middle East peace process, addressed the Security Council members last week.
“Humanitarian and economic support for the population is crucial to creating an environment conducive to viable negotiations. However, I must emphasize that the conflict cannot be resolved through economic measures alone,” Nickolay said last Thursday.
“Such steps can only be complementary to a legitimate political process that ends the occupation and addresses all final status issues in accordance with relevant UN resolutions,” he added.
Commenting on the Bahrain economic workshop, UN spokesman Farhan Haq told journalists that the UN had already expressed its position on the conference when Nickolay , the UN special coordinator for the Middle East peace process, addressed the Security Council members last week.
“Humanitarian and economic support for the population is crucial to creating an environment conducive to viable negotiations. However, I must emphasize that the conflict cannot be resolved through economic measures alone,” Nickolay said last Thursday.
“Such steps can only be complementary to a legitimate political process that ends the occupation and addresses all final status issues in accordance with relevant UN resolutions,” he added.
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