Will There Be a Lasting Peace Between Israel and Palestine By Sayid Marcos Tenorio PIC, January 17, 2022

Israeli occupation soldiers desecrating Al-Aqsa Mosque Haram in Jerusalem

 

Will there be 'lasting peace' between Israel and Palestine?

By Sayid Marcos Tenório

Clashes between Israelis and Palestinians are nothing new. These episodes have been happening since the Zionist militias started the Nakba in 1948 with the violent expulsion of more than 750,000 Palestinians and the destruction of more than 140 towns and villages. This ethnic cleansing campaign made way for the Ashkenazi, Khazar and Sephardi Jews, displaced from Europe, to settle in historical Palestine.

The episodes of direct confrontations in May 2021 between Palestinian resistance forces and Israel reignited the debate on the legitimacy of each and the effectiveness of a lasting peace agreement between the two parties. As usual, the mainstream media lavishly trumpeted the chant about "Israel's right to defend itself", while continuing to treat resistance forces, especially the Islamic Resistance Movement Hamas, as responsible for aggression and "terrorism".

In January 2020, former US President Donald Trump, without the participation of Palestinians, announced an arrangement termed the "deal of the century". Trump's proposition was a unilateral initiative arising from pressure from the US Jewish lobby aimed at continuing the annexations of Palestinian territories and recognizing and legalizing the crimes that the Jewish state has been committing since 1948. What appeared to be an alternative to "lasting peace" was, in fact, a macabre plan to end Palestine as a nation.

The colonialist plan did not end after the self-proclamation of the Jewish state nor with the massacre perpetrated during the so-called Six-Day War, or with the occupation of the Gaza Strip, Sinai (Egypt) and the Golan Heights (Syria). Israel continues to carry out the process of complete Judaization of Palestine in all fields, adopting legislation such as the Basic Law of the Nation-State passed by the Knesset on 19 July, 2018, through which it legally became an exclusive state for Jews.

As can be seen, the goal of the Israeli occupation is the complete destruction of Palestine so that there is finally the establishment of a state of Jewish supremacy in the occupied territories, without defined borders and in permanent expansion. The intention is to transform what is left of Palestine into small islands of land as if it were a mini-state – pulverized, surrounded and suffocated by the occupier on all sides.

A new Hamas program was approved in 2017 and called the General Document of Principles and Policies. It asserts that the establishment of the so-called "State of Israel" based on unilateral decisions is completely "illegal, infringes the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people, and goes against their will and the will of the Nation," as it is a violation of human rights and the right to self-determination.

Hamas has declared that it will not recognize Israel or anything that happened in Palestine in terms of occupation. This includes the construction of colonial settlements, the Judaization of historical and sacred places and the change in characteristics or falsification of historical and cultural facts. It understands that Palestinian rights over their land and places will never lapse.

The Hamas program rejects a lasting solution other than the liberation of Palestine "from the river to the sea", without compromising its rejection of Israel and without abandoning any rights of the Palestinians. It agrees with the establishment of a Palestinian state along the borders of 4 June, 1967, with Jerusalem as its capital and the return of refugees and displaced people from their homes, from which they have been expelled since 1948.

The leadership of Hamas has declared that it is committed to the re-establishment of relations and joint actions by Palestinian organizations based on pluralism, democracy, national partnership, acceptance of the other and the adoption of dialogue. The aim is to strengthen the unity to meet the aspirational needs of the Palestinian people, as occurred in the historic meeting of 5 September, 2020, when the main Palestinian forces came together for a joint initiative to contest the Israeli occupation.

Some insist on the thesis of the alleged attempt by Hamas to delegitimize the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). However, the movement shows the recognition of the organization in its program, stating that it is a reference for the Palestinian people that needs to be preserved, developed and rebuilt on a democratic basis, inside and outside Palestine, to ensure the participation of all forces fighting to protect the rights of Palestinians.

While Palestinians seek solutions to end the colonial apartheid of the "Jewish state", Zionist leaders deny, by all means, the most elementary rights of Palestinians. This can be seen in the statements of the current premier, Naftali Bennett, who said in 2018 that he "wouldn't give an inch of land to the Arabs" and told US magazine The New Yorker in 2013: "I will do everything in my power so that they never have their own state."

For these and other reasons, Palestinians do not trust the Zionists. They do not comply with agreements, such as the Oslo Accords, which have become a dead letter without recognizing the right of existence of the Palestinian state. After Oslo, Israel accelerated the expansion of the occupation, the creation of Jewish colonial settlements, the confiscation of land, the creation of quotas for exports to the Israeli market and control on the import of agricultural machinery and tools, which ended up ruining Palestinian agriculture.

Despite this, there are still those who advocate the recognition of Israel by the Palestinian resistance as a pre-condition for the existence of "lasting peace agreements". There are also those who support normalization to take effect when it is known that this arrangement is ineffective for the simple realization that Israel will not stop the occupation at a negotiating table. Such rhetoric serves the interests of the Israeli occupation, which is aware of its inability to win new battles against the Palestinian resistance.

To accept the occupier's reality is to annihilate the dream of freedom and liberation, betraying the martyrs and those who fought long and hard for freedom, self-determination and dignity. This would betray the principles of legitimate resistance to achieve what is enshrined in international law and the Charter of the United Nations.

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Sayid Marcos Tenório is a historian and specialist in international relations. He is vice president of the Brazil-Palestine Institute (Ibraspal) and author of the book Palestina: do mito da terra prometida à terra da resistência (Palestine: the myth of the promised land to the land of resistance). His article appeared in MEMO.

Will there be 'lasting peace' between Israel and Palestine? (palinfo.com)

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