ELUSIVE PEACE

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ELUSIVE PEACE
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Peace between Israel and the Palestinians

• The peace process between the Palestinians and
  Israel in the 1990s
• The Intifada and Israel's response
• Israeli settlements in the West Bank
• The shortest road to peace

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Oslo Peace Process 1993-2000

• Palestinian autonomy in the Gaza Strip, and
  Palestinian towns in the West Bank
• Palestinians to end all terrorist attacks in
  Israel

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Why did the Peace Process fail?

• Israel handed control of all Palestinian towns in
  the West Bank to the Palestinian Authority by
  1996.
• Attacks on Israel by Palestinian terror groups
  increased.
• Known terrorists in Palestine were rarely if ever
  arrested.
• Speeches by Arafat incited violence.
• Attacks on Israeli civilians were praised,
  children were encouraged to hail martyrs.

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How did the peace process end?

• Peace talks abandoned in July 2000 after Arafat
  insisted on the "right of return".
• In addition to a Palestinian state in the Gaza
  Strip and West Bank, the PLO wanted 4 million
  Palestinian refugees throughout the middle east
  to be resettled in Israel.
• President Clinton insisted that this demand by
  Arafat, that Israel commit national suicide is
  what ended the peace talks.

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The Palestinian Uprising 2000-
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The Palestinian Uprising 2000-
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How should Israel respond???

• Israel does not have police control over
  Palestinian towns... so if the Palestinian
  Authority does not arrest terrorists and put them
  on trial, how should Israel respond to terrorist
  attacks?

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1. Checkpoints

• Palestinians who work in Israel must pass through
  checkpoints.
• Pros Many terrorists are stopped on the border.
• Cons Long queues make it difficult for ordinary
  Palestinians to enter Israel.

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2. Seal the Borders

• Pros No attacks happen in Israel when the
  borders are sealed.
• Cons Harsh on ordinary Palestinians who need to
  get to work in Israel
• For this reason, sealing the borders has only
  been done for a few days after major terrorist
  attacks in Israel, or on a Jewish holy day if
  there is a heightened level of alert for an
  attack.

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3. Kill terrorists directly

• Pros This causes the least harm to ordinary
  Palestinians, in most cases.
• Cons Israel is usually condemned by the media
  for doing this.

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4. Arresting Terrorists

• Pros The Israelis arrest terrorists and bring
  them to trial
• Cons Israel has to invade Palestinian towns.
  Very disruptive to Palestinian life. Causes more
  casualties on both sides.

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Arresting terrorists April 2002

• 30 Israelis killed, 140 injured at a Passover
  celebration, by a Hamas suicide bomber.
• The Israeli army enters Palestinian towns to
  arrest Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists.
• All the known organizers of the Passover massacre
  were arrested.
• The price was a heavy battle in the Jenin refugee
  camp where 52 Palestinians and 23 Israelis were
  killed.
• Palestinian accusations of a massacre in Jenin
  caused widespread media condemnation of Israel.
  The rumors were found to be false by Human Rights
  Watch, and the United Nations.

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5. The Separation Fence

• A wall to separate Palestinian towns from Israeli
  towns.
• Pros prevents terrorists from entering Israel
  without preventing Palestinians coming to work in
  Israel
• Cons Condemned by the media and the UN
• The route of the wall is constantly being refined
  by the Israeli justice system to minimize the
  burden on local farms and villages.

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Settlements

• Settlements keep Israel secure from an invasion
  from the West Bank.
• Under Arab control, Jews were banned from
  religious holy sites in the West Bank and
  Jerusalem.

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Settlements in the Holy Land

• The Jews of Hebron were massacred and expelled in
  1929 by Palestinian Arabs.
• All synagogues in the West Bank were demolished
  by Jordan (1948-1967). Jewish gravestones in East
  Jerusalem were used to make public toilets.
• Secular Israelis and religious Israelis are split
  on the issue of abandoning all settlements.
• Many religious Jews do not trust the Arab
  governments to treat Jewish holy sites with
  respect, want Israel to protect holy sites for
  all religions, and want to live in the biblical
  towns of Judea and Samaria.
• Secular Israelis support the present Israeli
  government's policy to remove as many settlements
  as possible in the hope that the Palestinians
  will reciprocate with peace.

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Should Israel remove all the settlements?

• Israel is certainly willing to remove settlements
  for peace.
• Peace with Egypt 1979. All settlements in the
  Sinai removed
• All settlements removed from the Gaza Strip 2005
• Is a West Bank free of all Jews a genuine peace??

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What has Israel done for peace?

• Returned land to Egypt in return for peace (1979)
• Peace treaty with Jordan (1994)
• Given the Palestinians control of the Gaza Strip
  and all towns in the West Bank (1996)
• Removed all settlements from the Gaza Strip
  without any gestures in return from the
  Palestinians (2005)
• Has offered peace since its independence in 1948,
  has offered to help develop agriculture and water
  management in the middle east.

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What the Palestinians should do for peace and
statehood

• Arrest known terrorists
• Confiscate weapons
• End the incitement to violence and end the child
  abuse

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The Hamas Administration

• Excerpts from the Hamas Covenant
• "Israel will exist and will continue to exist
  until Islam will obliterate it, just as it
  obliterated others before it" (preamble)
• "The Day of Judgment will not come about until
  Moslems kill the Jews, when the Jew will hide
  behind stones and trees. The stones and trees
  will say O Moslems, O Abdulla, there is a Jew
  behind me, come and kill him. Only the Gharkad
  tree, would not do that because it is one of the
  trees of the Jews." (article 7)
• The law governing the land of Palestine in the
  Islamic Sharia (law) and the same goes for any
  land the Moslems have conquered by force, because
  during the times of (Islamic) conquests, the
  Moslems consecrated these lands to Moslem
  generations till the Day of Judgment. (Article
  11)
• Initiatives, and so-called peaceful solutions and
  international conferences, are in contradiction
  to the principles of the Islamic Resistance
  Movement. Abusing any part of Palestine is abuse
  directed against part of religion. Nationalism of
  the Islamic Resistance Movement is part of its
  religion.... There is no solution for the
  Palestinian question except through Jihad.
  Initiatives, proposals and international
  conferences are all a waste of time and vain
  endeavors. The Palestinian people know better
  than to consent to having their future, rights
  and fate toyed with (article 13)

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3 questions for the Palestinians

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1. What do you want peace with Israel to look
like?

• All Palestinian maps show no Israel. There are no
  Palestinian proposals for peaceful borders with
  Israel.

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2. Why do the Palestinians never criticize Arab
governments for keeping them in refugee camps?

• In the West Bank and Gaza Strip, in Lebanon,
  Syria, and Jordan, Palestinians have been kept in
  refugee camps since 1948. Palestinians in Israel
  in 1948 became citizens of Israel and today 20
  of Israel is Israeli-Arab.

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3. Why do the Palestinians allow the incitement
of children to hatred?

• There is no future for any peace process with
  Israel if an entire generation of youths have
  been raised on hatred and encouraged to commit
  acts of violence

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