NEW YORK: With hopes for a successful outcome to the peace negotiations initiated by the Obama administration rapidly evaporating, where do the Palestinians go from here? The leading Israeli peace organization, Gush Shalom, has proposed that the Palestinian people declare statehood. It would welcome the declaration of the Free State of Palestine, says Gush Shalom. And the Arab League is prepared to request recognition from the UN General Assembly of a Palestinian State.
The Netanyahu government in lifting the floodgates of Israeli construction in East Jerusalem has in fact condemned the negotiations to failure: more Israeli settlements will be built on Palestinian land, more expulsions of Palestinians. In 2008 alone, 4,600 Palestinians were shorn of their residence papers and banished from their homes.
The Palestinians have made considerable concessions over the years in accepting a territory limited to the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem, an area significantly smaller than that awarded them under UN resolution 181. At the time of that resolution, which recommended the division of the British Mandate of Palestine into two provisional states — one Jewish and one Arab — the General Assembly also recommended that the City of Jerusalem be administered by the United Nations, an option that certainly remains valid today.
There is little doubt that the Israeli government would condemn and reject a unilateral declaration of statehood, as it did back in 1978 at Camp David when Anwar Sadat, the Egyptian president, called for the creation of a Palestinian State in Gaza and the West Bank. The status of Jerusalem, however, is another matter: a precedent exists with the proposal made in 2007 by then Prime Minister Ehud Olmert that East Jerusalem become the capital of the future Palestinian state.
Prime Minister Netanyahu has stated that he favors a two-state solution to the Palestinian problem although the decisions of his government belie that position. A unilateral declaration of statehood is fraught with complications and Mr. Netanyahu has warned the Palestinians that such a declaration would prompt Israeli counter-measures including annexation of more of the occupied West Bank. From the standpoint of international law and UN Security Council Resolution 465, any further annexation of Palestinian land would be illegal. Moreover, installing Israeli citizens on occupied land would constitute a violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention and a crime of war.
A declaration of statehood would provide the Palestinian people with a much needed sense of belonging to each other and to the community of nations, at the same time redressing one of the greatest injustices of recent times. Palestinians cannot forget that they once occupied the land from which they are now forcibly ejected. As the poet said, “There is no more cruel prison than memory.”
Dr. César Chelala is a co-winner of an Overseas Press Club of America award.
