One of the common arguments made by current Israeli governments as to various areas of conduct complained of by international folk is their consistent contention that the problem named cannot be solved until there is a comprehensive settlement between the Israeli government and the Palestinians.
At the same time, those who have followed the matter of progress toward that settlement have seen repeated statements from Israeli governmentals of various political stripes that Israel cannot go forward with such a deal unless the Palestinians accept Israel as a specifically Jewish state, with all the problems that provides for Israeli Arab and other non Jewish citizen, or that Israel cannot go forward until the matter of Hamas participation in the PA or PLO or something like that is resolved since they will not deal with Hamas as a terrorist organization, no matter how many Palestinians it may represent and govern, or that it will not deal with proposals that do not consider the twenty one questions it raised in Amman, none of which have thusfar been negotiated,or . . . . And as long as the peace deal does not move forward, nothing else will either, and they are declining to move forward on it.
For their part, the Palestinians have a finite list of their own conditions to talks, but insofar as I am aware, they have not deferred the matter of dealing with various humanitarian and infrastructure issues pending the completion of the peace deal, a material difference for this diary at least.
Now we have another question before us, concerning when, if ever, those negotiations get done, and what can or cannot be allowed to be resolved in the interim because in Israeli governmental understanding issue X or issue Y can only be resolved following the completion of the deal, not now when issue X or issue Y is causing problems.
Hither comes the United Nations Human Relations Council, a body in which the US has no convenient veto, and it has voted an investigation into human rights violations by Israeli government against the Palestinians and the creation of a mission to examine that issue on the ground. This is, not unsurprisingly, a matter which the PA and others approve of being investigated by an international agency rather than an NGO with the presumed hope of international consequences to follow. As a footnote, in the same time period UNHRC also ordered an investigation into both sides' conduct in the recently concluded Sri Lankan civil war, on the premise that both sides there may have committed war crimes in that decades long conflict.
The timing of this is tricky in Israeli governmental terms because of certain actions taken in the last week by the Israeli Supreme Court. The Israeli Supreme Court has finally ruled against that government both in the matter of the Migron settlement' whose movement date is now set for August and not in three years, and in so doing denied a settlment effect into which settlement effort the government put a lot of work and credibilityhere, and also ruled that settlers may not claim ownership of land by cultivation under Ottoman rules, as they have been doing for some time as reported here. These matters will, if sustained, have a material effect on substantial numbers of settlers and their settlements, part of which is also a subject of the UNHRC inquiry.
Now the response of the Israeli government to this is a multi headed matter. First, it says that the Palestinians may not seek any international legitimacy or matter looking toward recogniation of statehood, such as membership in its own name in the UN and various of its organizations, which they contend this is, unless and until said settlement deal is first done, that is to say, nothing may go forward unless Palestine relies solely on Israel first making a deal with them when Israel governments see fit, and must decline to look elsewhere for support or help. It refers now to the actions of PA in seeking international legitimacy as 'diplomatic terrorism,' and publicly announces that it is seeking ways to punish the Palestinians for the actions taken by UNHRC. It also announces that it is barring the UNHRC investigation unit from whatever territory is can possibly bar them from, so as to limit the possibility of facing a report which some have already called, before the first move, Goldstone II. Reported here in JP.
Timing being what it is, the Israeli government chooses and executes this course of conduct during the same fortnight when international organizations have issued a report about the mistreatment of Palestinian children by arrest and detention by IDF, in the thousands over the past few years already posted here by Heathlander, , when the want of oil has cut off electricity to Gaza and hospitals have lost at least one patient, here because of the fact that they have twenty percent only of the electricity they need when they have electricity at all, and the want of electricity is producing an ever more serious water shortage. When the Israelis announce they will let some oil in, it is nine trucks' worth, two days' worth for a population of a million and a half. in a context where part of the struggle was about attemts to use the smuggling tunnels to Sinai as an alternative to allowing Israel completely to control access to fuel to Gaza, itself a serious issue.reported here. Also in the same period, reports are appearing about settlers not only attacking Palestinian villages and destroying olive groves, but using both tear gas and gunfire to attack Palestinians., with photos in Ma'an here.. There was also a soccer riot after a game in which Israeli Jewish supporters of a team which does not allow Arab members invaded and attacked Arabs in a nearby mall with police action delayed and no arrests despite the attacks being on video, and there was no investigation until Ha'aretz published an article about it. reported here.As to the Attacks, the usual Israeli governmental response to this is that the victims should file complaints.
Last week's reporting included settler takeover of about ten percent of the springs in the West Bank, barring access to the springs to Palestinians in whole or in material part.Reported here.
I thought things could not get worse than they were last summer, or last winter. Nope. The damage done to individual and nongovernmental Palestinians by these recent events and Israeli governmental choices, will not abate and just sit in a holding pattern until some Israeli government decides to move on a final peace deal, if it ever does.
But the question this poses is whether at this point the Israeli government in fact intends to proceed with the peace deal at all, or just sit and use its want of progress as an excuse for not proceeding on other matters whose ill effect on Palestinians in the interim is both severe and obvious. Making the facts on the ground on which their position relies that much worse in the interim for Palestinians.
For one, I do not believe that it is apporpriate to explain all of this conduct away because of the periodic exchanges of missiles between Israel and Gaza, a matter about the origins and motives of which is a separate conversation. Too many of the responses of the Israeli government have been on Gazans when getting back at PA, or the converse. The only common factor is that Palestinian civilians in substantial numbers suffer for anything the Israeli government objects to any pol saying or any governmental unit doing.
Comment are invited under the usual rules for my diaries, no Godwin, etc, as to what you think about how and when, if ever, those peace talks will go on, under what conditions, and what should be the obligations on a humanitarian basis of the parties in the meantime.