 
Hope for peace in the Middle East?
Update
April 2006
Under the Road Map to Peace, 2005 was to be the year when the Palestinians
and Israelis reached and signed a “final and comprehensive
permanent status agreement.” We are well into 2006 and such
an agreement is nowhere in sight. Both Israel and the Palestinian
Authority (PA) have failed to comply with the essential requirements
of the Road Map and are both engaged in efforts to transform the
very nature of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict resolution. Rather
than accepting the formula of peaceful negotiations, both sides
are upping their rhetoric, using violence as a means of obtaining
political goals, and retreating from their obligations to observe
existing Israeli-Palestinian agreements.
Meanwhile, average Palestinian and Israeli civilians continue to
suffer. Palestinians are subjected to serious violations of their
human rights. Israelis live in fear and lack security. Both are
losing hope that a just and lasting peaceful resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict can be reached.
The new Hamas-led Palestinian Authority is refusing to renounce
violence, to recognize Israel and to accept previous agreements
and obligations, including the Road Map to Peace. Israel’s
newly-elected Prime Minister Olmert has just announced that his
government intends to draw Israel’s final borders along the
current route of the controversial Separation Wall, a 67 kilometre
route which will annex to Israel’s side over 300,000 West
Bank and East Jerusalem illegal settlers and a minimum of 135,000
acres of West Bank occupied land. This declaration is a violation
of international law, including UN Security Council Resolution 242,
the views of the International Court of Justice, and the much-trumpeted
Road Map to Peace, which is the framework recognized by Canada for
resolution of final status issues.
Despite its claim that the Wall is a “temporary” security
measure, Israel has thus far failed to explain why a wall constructed
entirely on the Israeli side of the Green Line would not have been
as effective in providing for security inside Israel. To this extent,
Prime Minister Olmert’s recent declaration that the wall will
serve as the final border lays bare the extent to which the Wall’s
real purpose is to bring into Israel the large Jewish settlement
blocs that have been built illegally in the Occupied Territories.
In April 7, 2006, KAIROS sent a letter
to Minister MacKay expressing concern over Canada’s reaction
to such recent developments in the Middle East.
With a Hamas-led government in the Occupied Palestinian Territories
(OPT) and Kadima-led government in Israel, it seems that no meaningful
progress towards peace can be expected in the foreseeable future.
It has become obvious that the Road Map is out of date and out of
touch with present political realities. In January of 2006, KAIROS
submitted a brief
to Foreign Affairs Canada outlining the structural flaws in the
Road Map to peace process.
On March 29, Canada announced that it is suspending all direct
contact with Hamas members of the Palestinian Authority and is suspending
all projects providing direct assistance to the PA and restructuring
projects which may be of indirect benefit to the PA. Four projects
with a total value of $7.34 million over four years have already
been suspended. Other donor countries are also withholding aid from
the Palestinian Authority. Israel is withholding from the Palestinian
Authority $50 million per month in taxes and duties that it collects
from Palestinians on behalf of the Palestinian Authority.
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A poster in Ramallah protesting the
wall depicts the bird of peace surrounded by barbed wire.
(photo by David Harris)
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The withholding of international aid is making the existing humanitarian
crisis far worse. The Occupied Palestinian Territories have a population
of 3.8 million (2.4 million in the West Bank and 1.4 million in
the Gaza Strip). Approximately 42% of the population (1.6 million)
are registered refugees. In 2005, unemployment reached 28% (35%
in Gaza and 25% in the West Bank). Approximately half of the population,
or 1.8 million, lives below the official poverty line of US $2.10
per day. Subsistence poverty, or the inability to afford basic survival,
is estimated at 16%. Israel’s construction of the Wall, worsened
by its policies of curfews, closures and restrictions on movement,
are violating the most basic human rights of Palestinians to education,
health care, safe water, adequate sanitation and a clean environment.
If donor countries continue to withhold funds, the Palestinian
territories will be thrown into a deep depression. Personal income
is expected to drop 30% this year alone. The Palestinian economy
is expected to shrink by 27% in 2006 - a one-year contraction that
compares to the Depression in the United States. By 2007 the GDP
would shrink by more than 30 per cent from 2005 levels, unemployment
would increase to 44% and the poverty rate to 72%.
In April KAIROS sent a letter to Minister MacKay expressing concern
over Canada’s reaction to recent developments in the Middle
East: http://www.kairoscanada.org/e/media/letters/ltrMacKay060410.asp
We continue to support our partners during this time of crisis.
For more information on the situation in Palestine –Israel,
or to learn more about KAIROS partners there, please contact Hanadi
Loubani, Global Partnerships: Middle East program coordinator, at
1 877 403 8933 x239 or
hloubani
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