Palestinian Rights

Opinion, July 2003, www.aljazeerah.info

Palestinian Rights

Astrid Essed, 7/28/03

Dear Editor,

I don't agree with the commonly accepted American and European political views that the so-called ''Roadmap for Peace" can lead to a real peace-solution in the Middle East with as a fundamental basis an economically and politically independent Palestinian State.

In the first place total disarmament is demanded of militant Palestinian organizations [whose resistance to the Israeli occupation army is legally justified according to article 1 of the Additional Protocol to the 4th Geneva Convention that states that every nation has the right of resistance against the army of the occupation-authorities, in contrarily to the suicide-attacks on Israeli civilians, which are strictly forbidden according to the 4th Geneva Convention, being attacks on civilians] in exchange for the Israeli dismantling of the so-called illegal settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories.

This distinction between ''legal'' and ''illegal'' settlements, made by the Israeli government is a violation of the International Law [4th Geneva Convention] which prohibits the transfer of civilians of the occupying power to the occupied areas and also prohibits disowning of properties and land of so-called ''protected persons'' [people who live under an occupation] Therefore all settlements [also condemned in UN-Resolutions 446 and 452] in the occupied Palestinian territories are illegal according to International Law.

But apart of the justice, done against the former Palestinian owners, the maintenance of the so-called ''legal''' settlements, which are being heavily protected by the Israeli government, de facto means the continuation of the control of Palestinian areas by the Israeli army, which excludes the development of a politically independent Palestinian State.

Only the dismantling of all settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories, the total and unconditional withdrawal of the Israeli army [according to the in 1967 accepted UN-resolution 242] from the occupied territories and the acknowledgment of the right on return of the Palestinian refugees [according to the in 1948 accepted resolution 194] can lay the fundaments for real peace in the Middle-East.

Astrid Essed

astridessed@hotmail.com, Amsterdam [Z-O] The Netherlands

Earth, a planet hungry for peace

The Israeli apartheid (security) wall around Palestinian population centers (Ran Cohen, pmc, 5/24/03).

The Israeli apartheid (security) wall around Palestinian population centers in the West Bank (Ran Cohen, pmc, 5/24/03).