Author: KPSC

UN efforts to protect Palestinian land from economic exploitation are failing, and exposing the hypocrisy of western states.

By Jonathan Cook  | Information Clearing House | Feb 18, 2020

The UN has even taken an extremely narrow view of what constitutes involvement with the settlements.

After lengthy delays, the United Nations finally published a database last week of businesses that have been profiting from Israel’s illegal annexation and settlement activity in the West Bank.

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet, announced that 112 major companies had been identified as operating in Israeli settlements in ways that violate human rights.

Aside from major Israeli banks, transport services, cafes, supermarkets, and energy, building and telecoms firms, prominent international businesses include Airbnb, booking.com, Motorola, Trip Advisor, JCB, Expedia and General Mills.

Human Rights Watch, a global watchdog, noted in response to the list’s publication that the settlements violate the Fourth Geneva Convention. It argued that the firms’ activities mean they have aided “in the commission of war crimes”.

Continue reading “Profiting from loss: how business in illegal Israeli settlements continues unchecked”

The Trump administration’s peace plan for Israel and Palestine embodies none of the ingredients of successful conflict resolution, including talking and listening, accommodation of core interests, and a compromise solution that the majority can support. It reads, not surprisingly, more like a real-estate transaction.

By Prince El Hassan Bin Talal  | Holy Land Christian Ecumenical Foundation | Feb 12, 2020

‘It’s very clear that the overarching goal is to eliminate the Palestinian refugees as an issue by defining them out of existence.’
— Lara Friedman, President of the Foundation for Middle East Peace

AMMAN – It should come as no surprise that the proposed US peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians bears all the hallmarks of a real-estate transaction. This supposed “Deal of the Century” certainly embodies none of the ingredients of successful conflict resolution, including talking and listening, accommodation of core interests, and a compromise solution that the majority can support. And how could it when the most important partners in the conversation – the Palestinians – were notable only by their absence, having been forced from the room by impossible demands.

Shortly after Jared Kushner’s laudable comment in May 2018 that the pursuit of peace is “the noblest pursuit of humankind,” the journalist Robert Fisk asked the right question about Kushner’s plan: “After three Arab-Israeli wars, tens of thousands of Palestinian deaths, and millions of refugees, does Kushner really believe that the Palestinians will settle for cash?”

Continue reading “Where is the world for the Palestinians?”

This situation has a name, regardless of whom one blames for it: apartheid.

By Ezzedine Fishere | The Washington Post | Feb 6, 2020

Condemning Trump’s plan and calling for resuscitating the two-state solution is no longer useful; that ‘solution’ has been dead for more than a decade. . . . Trump’s plan opened a gate for a powerful stream that will carry us toward the dreadful challenges of an apartheid state. The question before us now is what we all — Palestinians, Arabs, Israelis and the world — will do about that.

One didn’t need to read 25 books to predict that the Palestinians would reject President Trump’s Middle East “peace plan.” Palestinians have a reputation for rejecting offers, knowing quite well the next could be worse. They rejected the 1947 United Nations partition plan that gave them less than 45 percent of Mandatory Palestine, Ehud Barak’s “generous offer” at Camp David in 2000, and Ehud Olmert’s even “more generous” offer in 2008 after the Annapolis process. The world has grown weary of this perceived lack of pragmatism; many feel that, given their weak position, Palestinians should accept what they can get or “shut up,” as Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman so eloquently put it in 2018.

Yet, without truly understanding the behavior and motivations of Palestinians, it is impossible to find a solution or even begin to manage the Arab-Israeli conflict.

The Palestinians have accepted other offers, such as the Security Council resolution 242 in 1967 and the Oslo Accords, which promised them a meager 22 percent of Palestine — at best. All the proposed solutions involved a loss, so why do they accept some plans and reject others? The answer lies in three things Palestinians care about most: a sense of fairness, the hope of living freely in a sovereign state of their own, and the facts on the ground.
Continue reading “Why did Palestinians reject Trump’s peace plan? Here are three reasons”