The Middle East peace process, for which many an obituary has been written, remains alive and, if not exactly well, it at least maintains some people’s salaries.

Nickolay Mladenov, the UN’s Middle East peace envoy, tweeted a screenshot of a video conference between Palestinian and Israeli “peacebuilders” on Monday. He hailed what he called an “excellent discussion” on dialogue and “keeping the prospect of peace alive.”

That movement is based on a 2005 call endorsed by the vast majority of Palestinian civil society.

As the BDS steering committee’s website explains, the movement “opposes activities that create the false impression of symmetry between the colonizer and the colonized, that portray Israel as a ‘normal’ state like any other, or that hold Palestinians, the oppressed, and Israel, the oppressor, as both equally responsible for ‘the conflict.’”

It’s a principle diametrically opposed to the approach pushed by Mladenov and others who are paid to impose a paradigm that prioritizes a two-state solution over demanding respect for Palestinians’ human rights.

Call for justice

While Mladenov was discussing “the need for dialogue,” more than 80 Palestinian and international human rights groups made an urgent appeal to the UN over the extrajudicial killing of Ahmad Erakat at an Israeli military checkpoint last month.

The groups call for “international justice and accountability for Israel’s shoot-to-kill policy targeting Palestinians.”

Erakat was shot “in the absence of necessity and without posing a threat to life or serious injury,” the groups state.

“He was then left to bleed to death for an hour and a half, while the Israeli occupying forces denied him access to medical care.”

The Israeli military released footage purporting to show Erakat intentionally ramming the checkpoint with his car. Erakat, blurred in the footage, is shot as soon as he steps out of the vehicle.

Israel later released the footage without blurring after demands by Erakat’s family.

The unaltered video “clearly shows that [Erakat] was unarmed and that he was raising his hands in the air, posing no threat to fully armed Israeli soldiers or anyone else in the area,” the groups state in their intervention.

Meanwhile, the family of Iyad Hallaq, another Palestinian recently executed on a street by Israeli forces, rejects Israel’s claims that the security cameras in the area were not working at the time of the shooting.

The Tel Aviv newspaper Haaretz found that there are at least 10 security cameras in the vicinity of Jerusalem’s Old City where Hallaq, who had autistic traits, was chased by police and killed while on his way to a school for persons with disabilities.

“We have a very strong suspicion that [the police] are concealing evidence in this case,” the slain man’s attorney told the publication.

Hallaq’s parents said that their son often recorded his walks to and from school with his cell phone, which was returned to the family with its contents deleted, according to Haaretz.

Israel only releases the documentation of its violence when it thinks it serves its narrative, as in the case of the execution of Erakat. More typically, security cameras are confiscated and any footage recorded never sees the light of day.

Challenge impunity

Even in those cases, soldiers received lenient sentences. Ben Dery, a Border Police officer, was sentenced to nine months in prison for the intentional killing of 17-year-old Nadim Siam Nuwara in 2014.

Israeli army medic Elor Azarya was sentenced to 18 months imprisonment for shooting at the head of Abd al-Fattah Yusri al-Sharif as he lay injured and prone in a street in 2016.

More than 750 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces in the West Bank and Gaza Strip since October 2015, the human rights groups state in their intervention to the UN.

They note that Israel’s shoot-to-kill policy is used against Palestinians on both sides of the Green Line separating Israel from the territories it occupies.

Apartheid in South Africa ended when perpetuating injustice came at too great a cost for the ruling class in that country to bear.

It did not end as a result of interminable “dialogue” and “peace-building” efforts.

Only when systems of violence and oppression are dismantled will peace be possible.

By calling for peace without demanding accountability, Mladenov makes it clear that the pacification of the Palestinians is really what he seeks.

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• Nickolay Mladenov
• peace process
• BDS
• extrajudicial executions
• Ahmad Mustafa Erakat
• Iyad Hallaq
• Impunity

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Comments

Peace process

Permalink Frank Dallas replied on Wed, 07/15/2020 - 21:37

Never was there a greater misnomer than the "peace process". For decades this has concealed the wilful refusal of the US and Israel to accept a two-state solution. Whenever peace comes near, the Isrealis generate conflict. The 1982 invasion of Lebanon was simply an attempt to wipe out the PLO at a time when it was looking like a serious negotiator for peace. The Zionists don't want peace. They want Palestine. All of it. The US has used the "peace process" to ensure its will is done in the Middle East, in keeping with Manifest Destiny. Combine that with Zionist messianic doctrine and you have a poison more potent than polonium. It's in the interests of the US and the Zionists to establish a compliant Palestinian elite. Such is the common tactic of colonisers. In this version, "peace" means stability and control. In contradistinction, cessation of violence must be the first step in a process whose outcome must be equality for all citizens of Israel/ Palestine. The quelling of conflict by the defeat and oppression of the already oppressed is a bizarre notion of peace. In Northern Ireland, peace, ie a commitment by both sides to lay down arms was the prelude to serious negotiations and an agreement; but that could not have been reached without recognition of equality for all citizens. The settlement works because the oppressed minority has been granted equity. Conflict in Israel/Palestine could end tomorrow if the same was granted to the Palestinians. Yet we hear from Israelis that Palestinians don't exist. Who will tell the Israelis they do, if not the US? It is the US which stands in the way of peace. Violence is convenient and the fine words hollow. Black Lives Matter. Palestinian Lives Matter. The common folk of the US must inscribe that on their banners. Racism anywhere threatens all of us. It is a denial of basic human dignity. A phoney "peace process" is the trick of those who rely on violence. The common folk need real peace.