Jeremy Corbyn
How does Israel Get Away with it?
For Socialist Campaign Group; June 2007
Jeremy Corbyn MP
The Quartet of Russia, USA, the EU and the United Nations decided to appoint Tony Blair as a Middle East Envoy. In view of his support for Israel in his ten years as Prime Minister, and his failure to condemn the bombing of Lebanon until 6 weeks into that campaign, his appointment will be treated with great scepticism throughout the region. Whilst one hopes for peace in the region, it is hard to see how it can be achieved, unless there is universal recognition of Palestine and the rights of Palestinian people, an end to the Occupation, the removal of the settlements in the West Bank, and removal of the Apartheid Wall.
The West’s refusal to provide sufficient funds directly to the Palestinian Authority has created huge unemployment, poverty and misery.
The elections of the President and the National Assembly in Palestine provided contrasting results. The West welcomed Mahmood Abbas but condemned Hamas. This has been followed by a policy of sanctions and the illegal withholding of Palestinian funds, and has been a major factor in provoking the appalling levels of violence in Gaza.
Any peace settlement has to involve discussions that include all Palestinian factions, as well as Israel. At some point, even Tony Blair must recognise that he will have to sit down with Hamas.
More immediately, Israel should not only release the funds, but also lift the roadblocks, and checkpoints, and allow the Palestinian economy to recover so that people living in Palestine can see that there is some hope rather than an endless life in the pressure cooker of the prison of Gaza.
The EU–Israel (trade) Association Agreement includes specific human rights clauses which Israel has repeatedly violated and yet there have been no sanctions of any kind against Israel.
Indeed Israel trade with the EU is booming, including the wholly illegal importing of rebranded goods from the Settlements that Israel has illegally constructed in Palestine. At the same time the Palestinian traders’ goods are left to rot at the end of checkpoints, thus destroying Palestinian agriculture.
So much of Palestinian energy is spent in trying to rise above these obstacles in every day life, and the institutions that have attempted to function, have had to spend a large part of their energy simply coping with the fallout from the Occupation and the international restrictions imposed upon them.
It was a great achievement by the Independent Minister Mustafa Barghouti that the government of National Unity was formed and that he successfully obtained agreement for a ceasefire by all parties in Palestine including Hamas and Fatah. The enormous supply of weapons into Gaza effectively ended the Government of National Unity and the planned ceasefire of Israel.
The release by Israel of some 250 prisoners is obviously welcome, but it doesn’t meet the essential point that Israel has illegally arrested parliamentarians and ministers, continues to hold many other people in prison on essentially political charges, and still refuses to release Marwan Bhargouti.
His release could be a catalyst of the reunification of the political demands of the Palestinian people.
A month ago there were demonstrations all over the world to mark 40 years since the Six Day War. The real victims of that war were the Palestinian people, and they continue to be so.
The size of demonstrations was significant, particularly those held in the United States.
Last month I attended the United Peace and Justice Conference in Chicago, the USA’s biggest anti war movement with speakers from Iraq as well as the very welcome presence of Dr Mona Al Farrah from Gaza.
The anti war sentiments in the US have succeeded in shifting Congressional opinion against the war, and one hopes it will begin to shift opinion in respect of the rights and justice in the Palestinian cause.
