click to enlarge | Peace Talk on Wheels by Khalil Bendib
Still Occupied
Oliver Miles, The Guardian, 7 April 2008
The question of Israeli settlements in the Occupied Territories (not again, yawn! – but wait, I’ll explain) illustrates one of the differences between journalism and diplomacy. Journalists are taught on day one not to be boring. Diplomats often have to be boring, going on for years and years saying the same thing.
For the last 30 years all governments except that of Israel have agreed that the settlements are illegal, in the same way that British towns in occupied Iraq or Argentinian villages in the occupied Falklands would be illegal.
More recently, and perhaps more practically, all governments including that of Israel have recognised that the settlements are a problem if the two-state solution (separate states of Israel and Palestine) is to be implemented. That is because they make it difficult to create a Palestine state which would be economically and humanly viable. The situation on the ground is very clear in a recent UN presentation (ppt). The whole territory of the hypothetical Palestinian state is crisscrossed by areas which are, pending major surgery, no-go for Palestinians.
This has not come about by accident; it is deliberate. Many of the settlers themselves, and their supporters in the United States, do not support the two-state solution. Their creed is that the territory is Israel’s and Israel’s alone.
Abbas – Olmert meeting: Palestinians want change on the ground
Barghouthi: Settlement expansion surged about twenty-fold since Annapolis
Middle East Online: Israel okays illegal settlement expansion
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