Let
me start by again mentioning that when the United Kingdom remitted
its mandate it had received from the League of Nations to the
United Nations, two options had been envisaged in the United Nations.
There was the option of partition, or the option of a single unified
state. Why do I mention this? Because I think we have to accept
that the one state versus two states approach to Palestine is
haunting us again today, under circumstances which are very different
from the ones of 1947, but obviously we are to face, and this
is a point on which I would be happy to return at the end of my
presentation..
The
history is well known, in 1947 in its wisdom the majority of the
General Assembly decided that the fairest approach to the solution
of the problem of the Zionist claim was partition. Partition was
decided and it was accepted immediately by the Jewish side, and
was vehemently rejected at the time by the Arab side - two parties
which were in very, very different positions and this is a point
on which one has again and again to return because the argument
stil today is being sometimes used today that tehre was in 1947
wisdom on one side and foolishness on the other, and that therefore
the people who had wisdom on their side should really get the
benefit of their attitude at the time. This is of course this
is putting on the same footing two parties which had really nothing
in common, it is putting in the same bag the one to which you
give and the one from which you take away. The idea that you could
expect the same rationality on the part of those people who come
from completely different situation is a distortion which is being
used, and sometimes abused for propaganda motives today, still,
and this is why I wanted to mention it in passing.
What
happened after that is very well known. Partition having been
refused by the Arab side, and military operations engaged against
the Jewish side, we have in 1948 a succession of military confrontations,
interspersed by truces leading finally to the negotiation of the
armistice agreements of 1949 which were carried under Dr. Bunche's
leadership in the island of Rhodes. Those armistice agreements
endorsed by the Security Council, they had the virtue of putting
a line of demarcation between two parties at war. Having that
character, they were materially in the nature of an international
boundary between two states, it really was the completion, the
giving substance to partition which took place in the negotiation
of the armistice agreements.
With
on one side, one state created right away, and Israel was received
by the United Nations as early as May 1949, and the other state
left in a limbo because essentially the Arab rejection of the
formula of partition and also probably to some extent because
of the ambiguity which surrounded the status of the Arab part
of Palestine, because of the Jordan claim that would annex that
as part of the Kingdom Jordan. As far as the Security Council
and the United Nations are concerned, this was implementing partition,
on terms which were much more favourable to Israel, than had been
the 1947 partition plan. The 1948 wars had allowed for the Jewish
side to seriously increase the amount of territory it controlled.
This acquisition of land was clearly reflected in the armistince
agreements. For almost twenty years the United Nations worked
towards enforcing and protecting this line of protected and ennforced
this line of demarcation between the two states, the one which
existed, and the one which was still in its limbo, but which represented
the other element of the partition of Palestine. And so the United
Nations Truce Supervision Organisation was at war during all
that time and the four mixed armistice commissions, which had
been negotiated with each one of the four neigbours of Israel
functioned with all the ups and downs during that time.
The
June 1967 war created a completely new situation, that situation
about which we are all familiar, gave rise to very hot debates
in the United Nations leading to the celebrated resolution
242 of the Security Council, a resolution which was accepting
the principle of the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory
by war. The material character of an international border which
had been represented by the armistice lines of 1949, the UN then
considered that that line should be respected as a boundary between
two states and that to change it by modifying the control of territory
represented an acquisition of territory by war. In the subsequent
debates the United Nations developed what has been ever since
its basic position on the necessary elements for a settlement
of the question of Palestine based on three elements : return
to the 4 June 1967 border, which in effect are the 1949 armistice
agreement lines; guarantee for all states in the region of the
respect of their sovereignty, territorial integrity and the right
to live in peace within secure and recognised borders, the guarantee
which Israel was at the time seeking; and the right of the Palestinian
people expression of national identity, in other words the aspiration
to finally give substance to the other state which would complete
partition. The Arabs at the time rejected that plan which didn't
entail in any way its validity. In 1978 the Arab side proclaimed
its acceptance of the existence of Israel and the conditions were
by then at hand towards a settlement of the matter. The last ambiguity
which might have remained on the road to finding that settlement
was really removed in 1988 when Jordan formally disengaged itself
from administration of Palestinian territory, giving room for
a Palestinian state to be in its full fledged dimension, created
at the time. It is indeed not an accident that it is soon after
1988 that the so-called Peace Process started in Madrid in 1991.
Soon
after 1967 however, a new situation started to develop with the
beginning of the settlement policy of Israel in the occupied territories.
This policy was immediately and ever since very clearly a flagrant
violation of the 4th Geneva convention on the protection
of civilian population in time of war. In that convention, article
49 paragraph 3 which very clearly indicates in so many words,
the occupying power shall now transfer any part of its civilian
population to the territory it occupies. The injunction in legal
terms is clear and firm and the question right form the beginning
that there was a general recognition that the development of settlements
represented an illegal activity from the point of view of international
law. Protests and injunctions to cease forthwith this settlement
policy abounded in the United Nations which is resisted by the
stubborn pursuit on the part of the government of Israel, in defiance
of the whole world community of the injunction to cease with settlement
policies. The famous words "create facts on the ground", or tying
the hands of reality have been quoted and quoted again as being
the indication of the will of some Israeli groups to develop a
reality which would force an acceptance of the violation of the
Geneva Convention.
Up
to 1980, the USA was formally associated with this condemnation
of settlements construction, afterwards you find a more cautions
position in Washington, rhetorically still articulate, as you
know one of the points of the Mitchell Report which has caught
much attention has been what it had to say about settlement. I
cannot resist quoting from the Mitchell Report a quote from Secretary
of State James Baker, made before a Committee of the House of
Representatives as late as 1991. James Baker said "every time
we have gone to Israel in connection with the Peace Process, on
each of my four trips I have been met with the announcement of
new settlement activity. This does violate United States policy,
it is the first thing that Arabs, Arab governments and Palestinians
in the territories, whose situation is really quite desperate,
raise when we talk to them. I don't think there is any bigger
obstacle to peace that the settlement policy that not only continues
unabated but at an enhanced pace. " As if this were not enough,
the Mitchell Report adds a footnote to this declaration where
it quotes four instances of US declarations which take exactly
the same line in relation to settlement policy. The quotes are
from Cyrus Vance in 1980, Ronald Reagon in 1982, Bill Clinton
in 1996 and the States Departments spokesman in 2001.
The
Mitchell report has very clearly projected in its report the problem
of settlements and rightly so because settlements are at the heart
of the problem which we are now facing in the occupied territories,
not only because they are a violation of international law which
is strongly enough an indication, but because the settlement policy
is a visible tangible physical challenge to the possibility of
sovereignty, it is a denial of the basic attribute of a sovereign
state which is to exercise control over its population. Its particularly
interesting, because the question of the specificity of population
is in the ME because of the position of Israel is a particularly
sensitive issue. The problem of refugees could be discussed and
adjusted between two sovereign states, the problem of economic
cooperation could be discussed and adjusted between two sovereign
states, the distribution of water could be. But the problem of
settlements cannot be part of a discussion between two sovereign
states because it envisiates, at the origin the very possibility
for a state to exist if it has this problem of settlements built
into its texture and its body politic. This is why really the
settlements are at the heart of the very concept of sovereignty,
and they are the dimension that jeapordises the whole concept
of partition, it's nature is quite different to other items on
the agenda and it is one which is really the main obstacle, has
been sensed by so many people moving towards a settlement. Now
why and how such a situation was allowed to deteriorate, we shall
revert to that briefly in a moment. There is obviously a primary
responsibility from the Israeli authorities, and here I think
the observer from a distance has had the feeling that both Labour
and Likud governments alike have really developed a line, an approach
to the problem that has been insensitive to the fatal element
which was really built in the past to a positive regulment by
developing that policy of settlements. The US government, because
of its closeness to the government of Israel should share responsibility,
because it was the only government in a position to act decisively
in order to prevent this situation to develop and it did not act.
Up to 1980 it voted in favour of all Security Council resolutions
which were demanding the suspension of the policy of settlements,
from then on it abstained on this issue and softened its position
on the matter.
The
original contention of Israel was that settlements were necessary
for the security of the territory of Israel. In other words, settlements,
originally in the very first phase, were conceived by Israel on
strategic grounds . Very soon the approach of having settlements
expanded on ideological and religious ground, and led finally
to a charade. Settlements were necessary to secure the security
of the territory, but then the acquisition of control of territory
was necessary to ensure the control of settlements. This closed
the circle by which security had become the tool of the state
of Israel in the occupied territories. Security erected as a key
element of Israeli policy on its road to peace, which tends towards
an understanding now for many years to blur the picture and displace
the debate away from fundamentals. There has been much more attention
given in Israel to its need for security than to the steps that
might be envisagable in order to ensure a dialogue and finally
a coexistence with the Palestinian community. Of late of course,
this problem of security has taken a dramatic turn in the pamphlet
to which you have kindly referred, I have tried in the introduction
to gather some thoughts about recent developments and I have devote
a section to the image that Israel gives of a vulnerable and threatened
country fighting for its survival. This is an image which has
been taking very, very great aquity in the recent developments,
since the Al Aqsa Intifada had started. Whereas I think, that
since 1967 the idea that Israel is a country threatened by destruction
is devoid of any credibility for reasons of geopolitics and military
strength which makes that assertion rather difficult to accept
in an objective analysis of the situation. Total security is unattainable
under any circumstances, but the best possible security can be
retained through, and as a result of peace. It is security which
has to bring peace, you cannot build peace on security because
your basis for that cannot be attained. After 34 years of occupation,
under conditions with which we are familiar, and with the multiplication
of settlements it is just a fact now that many Palestinians consider
that the occupation is the original violence and that if you want
to go up the cycle of violence in order to stop it, it is at occupation
where you will end up as the first original element expression
of violence.
Now
if you look at all those considerations you have to come to the
conclusion that there is really not any alternative in moving
towards an acceptable peace. Israel up to 1967 had formally accepted
partition while the Arabs had rejected it. Since 1978 the Arabs
had accepted partition and Israel has been cagey about it, it
has not clearly expressed it's position. I am personally very
convinced that the only solution, if we speak of a real solution
of the problem as an ultimate aim of a peace process will reside
in the respect of international law. After all the extension of
the rule of law to the international sphere has been considered
very often as the big conquest of the 20th century
with the League of Nations and then the United Nations one has
at last moved into a situation where respect of law can be considered
as an element which enters international relations and can serve
as a basis to rule those relations. And respect of International
law means really that Israel has to accept partition. That is
it has to accept the recognition that next to it, on that territory
of mandated Palestine, there will be a state of Palestine that
will be endowed with the full attributes of sovereignty. Now let
me hasten to say that it may be part of the exercise of that sovereignty
to negotiate adjustments that may be necessary to satisfy the
security of Israel , to satisfy its needs in terms of borders,
and even in terms of military restrictions, but this is the luxury
of a sovereign state, to accept limits to its sovereignty in agreements
that is builds with another state For that it needs to start from
the basis of a sovereign state. This is a process that should
take place between two fully sovereign states which can then enter
into the negotiation of the adjustments necessary, and acceptable
to both of them in order to facilitate their co-existence.
This
first proposition of accepting partition on the part of Israel
entails the termination of occupation and the evacuation of settlements
or an acceptance by the settlers of the rule of law of whatever
country they are living in, and again with whatever adjustments
that may be negotiated This proposition is very different from
the so-called generous offer from Camp David II, there has been
a very strong distortion and propagandistic use of what has happened
at Camp David II. Things are now starting to come out, shedding
a much more nuanced light than the one which indicated that the
Palestinians had lost their historical opportunity by refusing
the proposals of Camp David . You had for those of you who follow
the international press, an interesting contribution by Robert
Malloy, the personal advisor of Clinton on Israeli/Palestinian
affairs, who was really debunking a number of myths about it,
and as recently as yesterday an article in the International Herald
Tribune, is again starting to shed quite a different light on
what has happened at Camp David II and at Taba.
This
proposal which I have, was very close, if not identical to the
conclusions of your Israeli Section. Now if it is completely unrealistic
to think today that Israel will recognise partition and accept
its consequences, and its consequences for the settlements I think
we just have to accept that it is unrealistic to contemplate peace
today, or to hope for peace today. Because the situation is really
in a deadlock and we don't have the signs of the movement which
will be necessary to move in that direction. Therefore I move
to my next point which is that the only option we have in this
situation is to move towards a reassertion by the international
community of a leadership which might influence the events in
the direction of an acceptance of partition and the creation of
the second element of that dual structure which envisaged and
consolidated by the United Nations in 1949. In other words, we
have to accept that its one thing to just mention what our objectives
are, and it's important that we do, because one always needs to
know the direction in which one is going, but it is also important
to try to identify what might be done to move in the direction
in which we are trying to move. And here it is certainly my strong
conviction that a reassertion of leadership in the peace process
by the international community is really a step which is absolutely
indispensable if we want to move in that direction. The way of
power politics has really created in the Israel/ Palestine situation
a situation which is objectively and objectively really absurd.
The mediation with a view to a fair settlement of this conflict
has been entrusted to one of the strategic allies of one of the
parties, which has been depriving the process of an objective
or neutral monitor. It has been the definite strategy of Israel
to avoid really having this neutral conductor of the dialogue
remaining at the helm of the peace process. This is of course,
if I may make this remark, is an absolutism which has really been
characteristic of the Zionist movement, and part of the strength
of the Zionist movement, shall I use that famous quote attributed
to Golda Mier, which said once, "if you are 99% for me,
you are against me, I can only work with friends who are 100%
for me." I think we have found in the Israeli position this
very strong feeling that they couldn't trust anybody to be neutral,
in a situation that involves the interests of various parties,
and this is really what the background paper of your Israeli section
describes as an insensitivity of Israel to the Palestinian narrative.
It has really been a characteristic of Israel. This has pushed
the United Nations out of a significant role in the situation.
The Oslo agreements definitely abandoned the multilateral approach
to the search for a settlement and left really the whole process
to a face to face confrontation between the two parties, which
meant a search for peace remitted to the disparity of power between
the victor and the vanquished, with assistance biased in favour
to the victor. Apart from the compassion which we have for the
weak, which are bullied by the strong, there are at least two
grounds that would justify the international community not abandoning
or retaking up its role in the process of searching for peace
in the Middle East. From an historical point of view, lets not
forget that the British mandate has been the responsibility entrusted
by the League of Nations but one of it's member states, and when
the British relinquished that process and remitted it to the United
Nations, they did not remit it to who was fighting on the spot.
The world organisation had received the collective responsibility
of monitoring what would happen to the devolution of that mandate,
and therefore there is a historical and even a legal reason why
it is the international community which has to handle this question,
and it cannot be left to the whims of the power that the parties
are projecting into the negotiation. Apart from the historical
point of view, there is also another element which calls in favour
of the international community keeping its role in the process
and this is the materiality of the problem which has been created
by the succession to the mandate. The Zionist claim is really
of a truly unique nature, it cannot be identified with any classical
conflict or tension which might have developed between tow states,
it had a unique dimension. Someone once said that the problem
of Palestine is that it is not a conflict between a right and
a wrong, it is a conflict between two rights. This in itself dramatises
the complexity of what we are facing in this question and this
complexity justifies entirely the attention of the United Nations
has given to the matter, its majority had decided that partition
was the best solution that could be developed under the circumstances,
and this should have motivated the continued interest and engagement
of the United Nations in the search for an equaliberated position
between the parties. Instead of that it has been left to the power
relationships between the parties and has really not led to any
solution could be acceptable from the world community. This raises
searching question, which many of you I'm sure have in mind -
would the UN be trustworthy and reliable to take over or retake
its role in the monitoring and direction to be given to the peace
process. The UN has never ever questioned the legitimacy of Israel
within its 1949 border, which are the 4 June 1967 border, there
is not a single resolution that has questioned the validity of
Israel which has been received as a member state of the United
Nations, and I say 49 borders, in other words, the world community
has accepted that the shift of territory between 1947 partition
plan and the armistice lines after the war of 1948 represented
acquisition which was recognised as belonging to Israel as a result
of the confrontation which had taken place. This has never been
questioned.
The
pronouncements which have been irritating Israel before 1967 have
often been pronouncements which were related to alleged allegations
by Israel for rights under the armistice agreement which the armistice
agreements did not give to Israel. At the time most decisions
of the United Nations were cast against Arab incursions and violations
of the armistice agreement by their side. After 1967 the United
Nations put together the three pronged approach to a solution:
return to the4 June 67 line, right of all states to live in secure
borders, and right of Palestinians to express their national identity,
and it is really the illegal expansionist policy of Israel through
the settlements, it is its behaviour in general as an occupying
power and its unwillingness to move on the basis of those principles
set out by the United Nations which have given rise to a number
of condemnation of Israel by the United Nations. But the United
Nations activity has always aimed at getting a equitable settlement
by acting as a neutral force on top of the conflict. This had
created great irritation on the part of Israel in its desire to
avoid the sharing of the process to which we have been the witnesses.
The question of extending the role, the mediating role in the
peace process is a very immediate one. It's last Sunday that the
Genoa meeting made a pronouncement on sending third party observers.
Israel's reaction to the Genoa pronouncements is very interesting.
I was struck by seeing that one used the word of being opposed
to an internationalisation of the process by sending neutral observers
to the process. Internationalisation is an interesting terminology.
It hinges on the question on whether we have one or two states
there. We have the reaction that third party monitors could possibly
be agents of the CIA, but certainly not from any other than US
source.
The
partiality of the US in the process has been very frequently illustrated
its role being essentially to persuade the Palestinians to accept
the line presented by Israel. I was very interested and amused
by the background paper of the Israeli Section speaks of the Barak
demands which were presented at the summit as Clinton's. You wrote
that and you wrote that knowing exactly what is the nature of
the process that takes place. In the brochure, I quote red handed
Denis Ross who was giving an interview on the TV, in the Dossier
d'Histoire, in a moment of candor, talking about discussions between
Baker and Shamir, added that there remained one problem, how to
satisfy the Israeli demands without the Palestinians feeling that
Shamir was laying down the law. I supposed Ross regretted having
that remark broadcast and recorded, but it was there just as an
illustration of the situation in which one finds oneself in this
so called mediating role of the United States. The machine that
is set up for that purpose is of course a frightfully efficient
machine.
