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To contact us Phone: 020 8455 5140 Fax: 020 8209 3496 Or emails as under officers (see home page, left hand side). Postal Address LDFI PO BOX 57769 London NW11 1GF |
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To contact us Phone: 020 8455 5140 Fax: 020 8209 3496 Or emails as under officers (see home page, left hand side). Postal Address LDFI PO BOX 57769 London NW11 1GF |
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Officers of LDFI toured Israel in March. We met Yossi Beilin MK (Leader of the Israel British Group in the Knesset), Daniel Taub (Senior Legal Adviser at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs), Rami Nasrallah (Head of the International Peace Co-operation Centre, a Palestinian think tank in East Jerusalem), spokespersons of the Israel Defence Forces and Israel Police and academic commentators. We saw Jews in Jerusalem celebrating Purim and 100 yards away Christians observing Easter Sunday in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, and heard the call to prayer for Muslims to worship at the city’s many mosques. The new museum at Yad Va’Shem, Israel’s Holocaust memorial, reminded us of the horrors of fascism which had preceded the establishment of the State of Israel and in Sderot we saw the attacks Israel is facing daily from Qassam missiles.
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LDFI ISRAEL FACT FINDING TOUR |
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The peace process No one we met was optimistic for progress in the peace process. There had been a transition from the gradual approach of the Oslo process to Ehud Barak’s attempt in 2000 to achieve a complete settlement. The second intifada was described as an attempt by the Palestinian Authority to achieve a better position militarily than was on offer in the negotiations. Ariel Sharon’s unilateral withdrawal from Gaza was perceived to have failed, with Israelis seeing themselves getting nothing in return and Hamas viewing it as a victory for its war.
Last autumn Israel had attended the Annapolis Conference, which was based on three themes: the implementation of all existing agreements, to bring moderate pragmatic Arab States into the process and to consider all issues rather than leave the most difficult to be dealt with at some indeterminate time in the future. The problem now was that Fatah and the Palestinian Authority was too weak a negotiating partner for any meaningful negotiations.
Iran Iran is seeking to become a dominant force in the Region. It has a longstanding alliance with Syria. It was supporting both Hezbollah and Hamas, and some of the missiles which had been fired into Israel from Gaza may well be the product of this support. It had been a major beneficiary of the Iraq war, extending its influence into Iraq. The problem of Iran was not just President Ahmadinejad, but the clerical leadership. And Iran’s nuclear aspirations dated back to the days of the Shah. Iran was a threat not only to Israel, but also to Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States.
Hamas Hamas won the elections in 2006 because the Palestinian electorate had become fed up with the corruption of the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority and the collapse of law and order. It won votes from large numbers of Christian as well as Muslim voters. And it has succeeded in establishing law and order of a sort in Gaza, although its authority there is extra-legal and major concerns remain about human rights under Hamas’ rule.
There are differing views amongst Israeli politicians as to whether Israel should talk to Hamas. The official view is that before Israel could talk to Hamas, Hamas must recognise Israel’s right to exist; renounce terrorism and accept all agreements between Israel and the Palestinian Authority negotiated to date (the international community has also set these three strict pre-conditions for talks with Hamas, which are not dissimilar from the conditions the PLO accepted back in the 1990s when it signed up to the peace process).
We were keen to better understand the current Palestinian situation and put to Mr Nasrallah (as well as his Israeli counterparts) various questions regarding the state of education, welfare and civilian moral. The answers were not encouraging as all parties agree that Hamas seems to have abandoned many socially beneficial projects in favour of increasing warfare, arming civilians and, as a generality, moving from a democratic and stable society to a religious and almost military one. The concern of many in Israel who have been working to improve Palestinian education is that the only role models are of suicide bombers and fighters against Israel. Without a core level of unbiased knowledge, it is difficult to see 'peace-process-promoters' coming from the new generation of Palestinian citizens.
The US and the EU The peace process was described by several of those with whom we spoke as a pax Americana. The US is the only external player all sides will listen to. All of those we spoke to were dismissive of the role of the EU, which one described as “a payer and not a player”. It has no influence because it has no hard power. Even the Palestinians no longer see the EU as a counter-veiling balance to the US, and Palestinian President Abbas had allegedly recently declined to meet a European Parliamentary delegation. The only area where the EU is perceived to have significance is in the pressure it can bring on Iran not to proceed with its nuclear ambitions.
The security situation and the security fence We saw the security fence – and it is not a pretty sight. But it has achieved the objective of very substantially reducing suicide bombings in Israel. The combination of the fence, intelligence and troops on the ground had prevented many suicide bombings and rocket attacks from the West Bank. The attack a fortnight before our visit, when eight people were killed at a Jerusalem college, shows that no security is impenetrable, but there was no sign of fear on the streets of Jerusalem or Tel Aviv.
Gaza and Sderot It was quiet when we visited Sderot on a Tuesday: no rockets had fallen since the previous Saturday. But the town of 20,000 still lives in fear of attack. There are bomb shelters next to bus stops throughout the town, and if the alarm is sounded people have just 15 seconds to get into a shelter. Since the beginning of this year (a period of less than three months) 920 rockets have been fired from Gaza into Israel. The rockets may be home made, but they contain 5kg of explosive, will kill anyone in a 30m radius and can send shrapnel for up to 200m. Matters escalated earlier this year when Hamas started firing Grad missiles which have a range of 17km, and bring over 200,000 people within rocket range. We saw a small collection of some of the rockets which had landed on Sderot. The Grad missiles had serial numbers on them from the factory where they had been made. We were told about the school in Sderot where most children, when they draw pictures of their houses, include missiles pointing at them. By contrast, we were shown film of a school in Gaza – with missiles being fired at Israel from the school courtyard. We visited the Erez check point and were given a surreal description of how supplies are transported into Gaza. There is no government to government contact, but there are contacts between Israeli suppliers and purchasers in Gaza. Goods are driven from Israel into the checkpoint, and through the border gate. They are then left and the gate is closed, after which they are collected by the Palestinians. The border has only been closed when under mortar fire. Contrary to some claims, Israel continues to supply electricity from Ashkelon power station into Gaza, even when the power station has itself been under rocket attack. The people of Sderot as well as those of Gaza are the people who have most to gain from the resumption of the peace process. There are many parties inside and outside the region desperately attempting to mediate a significant and long-lasting resolution. Whilst this is at times perhaps a case of 'too many cooks', their efforts are generating progress and LDFI remain convinced that a viable 2-state solution is a realistic mid-term goal.
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