EDITORIAL: In a significant development some 400 European politicians serving in national legislatures, senates and the European Parliament have signed a letter seeking action against de facto annexation of occupied West Bank by Israel. Noting “a reality of rapidly progressing de facto annexation, especially through accelerated settlement expansion and demolition of Palestinian structures” the letter addressed to European foreign ministers and EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrel says, “Biden administration presents a chance to correct course” in the Middle East diplomacy. And making an indirect reference to former president Donald Trump who had given the go-ahead to Israel to annex the occupied West Bank as well as the Golan Heights - as if these lands were a piece of real estate owned by him that he could gift to his son-in-law, Jerald Kushner, a zealous supporter of and contributor to the illegal settlement activity - the letter goes on to add that the previous US administration left the conflict farther away from peace than ever.
It is a vain hope that President Joe Biden would want, or could, change the ‘facts’ on ground that Israel has been trying to create in the occupied Palestinian territories. Although he has indicated his administration would oppose West Bank settlements’ expansion, Biden has said the US embassy would not be moved from occupied Jerusalem – where the Palestinians wish to establish the capital of their elusive future state - back to Tel Aviv. Try as he may to stop the settlement activity, he cannot succeed, just like president Barack Obama discovered before him. It may be recalled that Obama had wanted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to accept an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal based on the 1967 borders, only to hear a lecture from Netanyahu on the history of Israel and face at least two snubs from him, first when he got himself invited to address a joint session of Congress without notifying the White House, and the next year by spurning an invitation for a meeting with the then US president. That says a lot about the influence the Zionist lobby wields over US Congress and other important institutions. For all practical purposes, the US is a partisan player in this conflict; it cannot be expected to act as a fair peace broker or make the Zionist state abide by its obligations towards ‘intransgressible principles’ of international law. Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention clearly states: “the Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies.” Yet Israel has systematically been demolishing Palestinian homes, destroying olive trees, forcibly expelling people from their ancestral lands to make way for Jewish settlements.
Under international humanitarian law, the occupying power is also duty-bound to ensure protection, security and welfare of the people living under occupation. In gross violation of this law Israel has not only blockaded the Gaza Strip for years, depriving its inhabitants of food and medicine supplies but has repeatedly been resorting to air, ground and sea attacks. No wonder the EU parliamentarian said Gaza “remains at risk of violent escalation at any moment.” It also gives a cause to radicalized groups/individuals to fight for, increasing the risk of violence in countries seen as supportive of Israel’s policy of unabated aggression and expansion. Instead of looking towards Biden administration to correct course, the EU lawmakers need to press their own leaders to help resolve the issue of conflict: illegal occupation.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2021
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