Palestina: Amid Indifference and Inefectiveness

ELSON CONCEPCION PEREZ



Former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon told the Israeli parliament on April 22, 2004, "The support of President George W. Bush for Israel’s plan for the Palestinian territories is an unprecedented success." Those words summarize why there has been no solution to a conflict that worsens by the day.

Since May 11, 1949, when the United Nations admitted Israel as a member state, 60 years have passed characterized by three aspects: the constant Israeli violation and occupation of territories belonging to Palestine, Syria and Lebanon; total military support and incentive from the United States; and international indifference led by the ineffective institutions of the UN itself, whose resolutions are boycotted by the United States or have not helped to lessen the conflict.
International indifference, the unworkability of the UN Security Council, and the internal division within the Palestinian movement have all taken their toll.
The Arab States, the Non-Aligned Movement and other European, Asian and Latin American nations have proposed obligatory actions to require Israel to cease the occupation and the attacks. But time and time again, that hand is raised by Washington with its veto to take away any possible validity of those initiatives.

RESOLUTIONS AND NO SOLUTIONS

In 1947, Resolution 181 of the UN General Assembly established the existence of a Palestinian State and a Jewish State, as well as a zone under international control in sacred places such as Jerusalem and Belen. The resolution was never applied and six months later, on May 15, 1948, Israel began its aggression in what was called the first Arab-Israeli war.
After the forced expulsion of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from their lands, the UN adopted Resolution 194 of December 11, 1948, demanding the return of the refugees to their homes. But that was just another of the international demands that was never obeyed by the Israeli government.
If there is any UN Security Council agreement that shows how fragile the UN is and how little respect it receives from Israel and the United States, it is Resolution 242 of November 22, 1967, which demands a just and lasting peace in the Middle East that includes the withdrawal of the Israeli Army from the occupied territories.
Subsequently, in 1979 the Security Council approved resolution 446 that declared illegal the Jewish settlements that Israel began to build and has continued to erect in the occupied territories.
The adoption of Resolution 478, which sharply rejects the approval by the Israeli parliament declaring Jerusalem as its capital; Resolution 497 that invalidates the Israeli annexation of the Syrian Golan Heights; Resolution 3236 that establishes the right of the displaced or expelled Palestinians to return to their homes, and many more, have become documents shelved as part of the international indifference to the conflict. This, thanks to the Israeli non-compliance and the backing of the United States in its double standard policy.

THE RIGHT TO RESIST

It is the Palestinian population that has withstood the worst of the situation. Thousands have been killed, wounded or mutilated, massacred by the Israeli bombs, missiles and tanks. Tens of thousands have lived during decades in refugee camps within their country and in neighboring lands.
Meanwhile, the Israeli settlements grow, as is the wall being raised along kilometers of Palestinian land.
Another measure is the closing of the borders with Egypt and Israel, as part of the genocidal policy that deprives the Arab population of medicines, food, electricity, water and other basic resources.
Under these circumstances, Palestinian resistance is the only possible weapon to defend the existence of the nation itself, its independence and the right to exist as a state of its own.
However, an internal element, the division among Palestinians, makes their cause more vulnerable.
External pressures and concessions in search of a final solution appear to feed a path of clear desperation in the application of unfavorable methods of waging war.
Today, Palestine is divided. Gaza, with 1.5 million inhabitants, is a besieged, attacked, massacred city, with 80 percent of the population facing hunger. It is governed by the Hamas group, which won in elections, and which the US brands as terrorist.
Since the death of historic Palestinian leader of President Yasser Arafat, Israel and the United States have put all their efforts towards fomenting division.
On the one hand are the political and diplomatic policies of Palestinian National Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, who still trusts in The Road Map plan, and others equally unrealistic and unviable plans as long as the US is both judge and jury. On the other is the Islamic resistance led by the Hamas movement, in Gaza.
Bush and the aggressive US governments; Israel with its thirst for territories and blood; the UN with resolutions that don’t resolve; and the divided Palestinian movement, make peace in the Middle East increasingly less viable and especially for the suffering Arab population that Israel wants to fence into true ghettos.


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