Yes. But the details matter: no conditions, no ‘swaps,’ no settlements.
May 31, 2011
By Mustafa Barghouthi
President Barack Obama was right to call for a Palestinian state on the 1967 borders. But he should have stopped there. Instead, he added a damaging proviso about “mutually agreed swaps” of land.
Conditions and stipulations trouble Palestinians greatly. Israel used the Oslo Accords not to finalize a peace deal with the Palestinians but to expand settlements in East Jerusalem and the West Bank — talking peace while seizing our land. Prime Minister Ariel Sharon was notorious for accepting what American Presidents asked of him. Yet in the next breath he would note his caveats.
Prime Minister Netanyahu imitated Sharon’s approach two years ago — and again last Tuesday in the U.S. Congress — while reluctantly voicing support for a two-state solution. He said yes to a Palestinian state while simultaneously stripping it of meaningful sovereignty. Israel would maintain major settlement blocs, retain East Jerusalem and a military presence in the Jordan Valley, refuse the return of any Palestinian refugees to stolen homes and land, and ensure that a Palestinian “state” is a nonentity without real sovereignty.
Obama’s political opponents and even some of his ostensible allies heavily criticized him by suggesting he was calling for the 1967 borders. In fact, he was merely restating long-standing U.S. policy that an agreement should be based on the 1967 borders, with land “swaps” (itself a euphemism for forcing a bad deal on Palestinian negotiators). Unfortunately he retreated even from this within a few days because of criticism from Israel and its defenders. In his address to AIPAC he went back to President Bush’s position that borders will have to take into consideration new realities on the ground, which means acceptance of illegal Israeli settlement expansion.
Our best West Bank land and aquifers would go to Israeli settlements in exchange for sub-standard land elsewhere. Already, Israel uses 80 percent of West Bank water resources and on a per capita basis Israeli settlers use approximately 48 times more water than Palestinians. The current unjust water distribution is likely to be made permanent if Israel keeps settlements, all of which are illegal under international law.
Israel’s retention of settlement blocs and a military presence in the Jordan Valley will make our state noncontiguous and nonviable. Our state would be little more than disconnected Bantustans. When the white South African government tried to foist such a plan on the world it was seen as repugnant. Palestinians are surely the holders of the same rights as black South Africans and can no more be expected to accept apartheid conditions than South Africans who rejected inferior rights.
Human Rights Watch recently lent credence to our apartheid concerns with a report detailing Israel’s “two-tier” legal system in the occupied West Bank. Such discrimination in favor of settlers and against Palestinians ought to be regarded as reprehensible just as it eventually was viewed in the Jim Crow South. Tragically, it is visible every day in the West Bank.
Israeli threats to annex — by dint of brute force — West Bank land as a response to our nonviolent legal efforts this September at the United Nations are troubling. This would, however, highlight the apartheid nature of their policies as our “bantustanized” existence would become more visible. Denied statehood, our cause will eventually be transformed from pursuit of two states to a struggle within one state for one person, one vote.
It would be far wiser for Israel to recognize our state on the 1967 borders — and the rights provided us under international law — come September.
Mustafa Barghouthi, a doctor and a member of the Palestinian parliament, was a candidate for president in 2005. He is secretary-general of the Palestinian National Initiative, a political party.