by Javier Sethness
11th December 2007
In a recent talk here at the LSE, distinguished Israeli historian Ilan Pappé described the Annapolis negotiations as a “charade of peace.” Unfortunately, it seems that his conclusions are not unjustified.
The conference’s joint declaration, signed by Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian National Authority President Mahmoud Abbas on November 27, committed the Israeli government and the PNA to engage in “good-faith” bilateral negotiations toward the conclusion of a peace treaty that would resolve “all outstanding issues, including all core issues, without exception.” Considering the role that power politics play in these deliberations, though, it seems clear that whatever resolution of the “core issues” of borders, the status of Jerusalem, and the question of Palestinian refugees, they will be quite biased against Palestinian interests and fall far short of what justice would demand. Both the production and understanding of the very term “outstanding issues” similarly have been greatly influenced by considerations of power and thus exclude a number of rather serious realities germane to the viability of the favoured two-state solution and to considerations of justice more generally.
In conformity with the “Road Map for Peace” introduced by US President George W. Bush in 2002, the Annapolis declaration calls for a freeze on further expansion of Israeli settlements in the West Bank. It does not, however, take issue with ‘facts on the ground’: that of Israeli settlers, numbering 270,000 and 184,000 in the West Bank and East Jerusalem respectively. It hardly seems necessary to reiterate the illegality of these settlements, which amount to an Israeli land-grab. Incidentally, these settlements consume a rather disproportionate (and certainly inequitable) share of the West Bank’s resources and also represent the dispossession and alienation of the Palestinians from these lands. Such settlements present a serious obstacle to the terms upon which a Palestinian state may emerge in the West Bank. Would the settlements be territorially included in such a state, and would their residents accept its legitimacy? The existence of these settlements may well result in the constriction of Palestinian state rule, if it comes about, to those areas of the West Bank not settled by Israelis.
Nor does the joint agreement stipulate anything about the place of the Israeli ‘security fence’ vis-à-vis the Palestinian society or the viability of a Palestinian state. Constructed following the second Intifada, the wall’s purpose is ostensibly to prevent the ‘infiltration’ of Palestinians, presumably for violent ends, into Israel proper. However, security does not seem to be the sole consideration for the wall. The wall often deviates east of the Green Line and hence separates, or according to Orientalist and Zionist discourse, protects Israeli settlements from Palestinians. This results in the physical strangling of Palestinian society, often cutting farmers off from their land or separating Palestinians both from each other and from their workplaces, schools, or hospitals.
Perhaps the most egregious issue excluded at Annapolis is the very question of Israel’s military occupation of the West Bank and the substantial control it retains over Gaza, despite the 2005 withdrawal. As much as Israel’s colonialist occupation of the West Bank contributes to the breakdown of Palestinian society, its legitimacy was not called into question, neither at Annapolis nor before. Nor was the fact that Israel has control over movement of people and goods (including medical supplies) into and out of Gaza looked into. The question of Israeli reparations for past crimes against Palestinians, such as the 1948 ethnic cleansing, years of military occupation, countless murders and house demolitions, had little place at Annapolis too. Instead, the Palestinians are encouraged to accept the decidedly unjust terms of negotiation as given: in essence, to submit.
On the table for discussion, surprisingly enough, is the question of those Palestinian refugees who fled or were expelled from historical Palestine following the creation of Israel in 1948. These refugees, including original refugees and their descendants, number anywhere from four to seven million individuals. The issue of Palestinian refugees is intimately connected to their right to return to historical Palestine, an ‘inalienable right’ that has long been supported by the UN General Assembly. It is in turn tied to the much-maligned bi-national, or one-state, solution. However, it seems unlikely that the US and Israel would suddenly realign their priorities and behaviour in accordance with the demands of international law and accept the right of return as legitimate. In fact, it is clear that Israel finds the bi-national solution unacceptable, while Bush has often expressed his commitment to maintaining Israel as a “Jewish state.” The most that one could hope for from Annapolis in this regard seems is the US and Israel not insist that the PNA should explicitly renounce its support for the right of return in return for realising whatever half-measures that may come out of Annapolis, which they demanded that Yasser Arafat do at the 2000 Camp David talks.
It is rather sad that a conference deemed to be about peace could so systematically overlook profound questions of justice. This state of affairs is hardly surprising, given the existing power relations: nearly unconditional support from the world’s most powerful country for a self-styled democracy that seems to have little interest in reassessing or reversing the apartheid policies it imposes upon its colonial subjects. Such relations clearly influence the terms of negotiation as they systematically constrain the realm of the ‘possible.’ The most tragic aspect of such talks is the highly offensive assumption which they presume: that rights and justice are akin to commodities to be haggled over and largely determined by extant power structures. This situation is hardly unprecedented, but it is no less condemnable for that. Indeed, it seems entirely possible that the compromises to which Israel assented to will merely represent something of a blessing for the general reality that is left unquestioned at Annapolis: that is, the further unmaking of Palestine.