Ten years ago, Israel reoccupied the Palestinian Authority areas that had been designated in peace agreements as "Area A", i.e., areas under the civilian and security authority of the Palestinian Authority. That Israeli aggression, dubbed Operation Defensive Shield, dramatically changed the status quo that was created by the Oslo agreements, which was intended to be a transition to a permanent solution agreed on through final status negotiations.
Palestinians and the rest of the international community were hoping that a two-state solution would result from these negotiations. But, like many other major developments in this conflict, the two sides had two completely different interpretations of the 2002 incursions. Israelis justified the unprecedented attack and reoccupation of the Palestinian territories as a response to increased violence directed at Israelis by Palestinians, which included suicide bombings. Palestinians, the majority of whom did not approve of suicide bombings, had a different understanding of that Israeli offensive. Palestinians believed that violence had erupted between the two sides only after years of Israeli stalling in implementing the Oslo interim agreements and the parallel Israeli policies of expanding illegal Israeli settlements and stealing Palestinian land. The violence also followed an increase in Israeli army violence and settler terrorism against Palestinians, including the Ibrahimi mosque massacre in which Israeli settler Baruch Goldstein opened fire and killed more than 20 Palestinians offering the dawn prayer in Hebron. Violence and counter-violence escalated and developed into a vicious cycle.
That wave of violence ended gradually, accompanied by a proactive policy from the Palestinian Authority and security cooperation between the two sides. Despite four or five years of complete success by the Palestinian Authority in preventing all kinds of Palestinian violence against Israel and Israelis, and in spite of Palestinians' comprehensive fulfillment of all obligations of the roadmap (which was the international community's contribution to ending the wave of violence and bringing parties back to reasonable negotiations), Israel today continues under the new reality that it created during its offensive and reoccupation. Daily incursions persist into Area A, in violation of the Oslo arrangements and in line with the assumptions of Operation Defensive Shield. At the same time, Israel continues to freeze any implementation of the interim agreement that was intended to ensure a gradual Israeli redeployment from the rest of the occupied Palestinian territories, except Jerusalem and the settlements whose status is to be negotiated in permanent status talks. Moreover, Israel has actually accelerated its illegal expansion of Jewish settlements, especially in the last open areas available for the future Palestinian state.
Palestinians see that Israeli public opinion has gradually radicalized and shifted rightward in the years since the assassination of peace agreement-signatory Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, as reflected in successive Israeli governments and parliaments. They view this as a deep change that means a shift from public support for a solution based on territorial compromise (thus allowing for a Palestinian state) towards a general strategy that allows Israel to maintain various levels of control on parts of occupied Palestinian territory. Part of the problem is the absence of any accountability from the International community. Israel, which has not fulfilled any of its obligations under the roadmap, is unquestionably responsible for the current status quo that it generated for political and ideological reasons, using in part the tool of Operation Defensive Shield. Why, therefore, is it not held to task for its actions?-
Published 16/4/2012 © bitterlemons.org
