Palestine

Following letter was sent to the Economist
Time and time again the media are repeating the explicit conditions the Palestinians are supposed to fulfill before the US, Russia, the EU and the UN are willing to negotiate with them. Worse, they have suspended financial help for the hungry Palestinians since the Palestinians voted Hamas to power (and in order not to stay behind, Israel refuses to transfer money belonging to the Palestinians). The requirements are: recognition of the State of Israel, renouncing violence and honouring existing agreements with Israel.
This sounds self-evident, but is it? Nobody seems to wonder about the one-sidedness of these demands and the uniqueness of same. Would it not be reasonable to require the same from the Israelis? Israel is not required to stop its violence, although on various occasions the UN and the EU have protested against the excessive Israeli retaliations.
What we need is a declaration from the new Israeli government (including its far right party) that it accepts two independent states with borders about the same as those of 1967 and the partition of Jerusalem.
I mentioned the uniqueness, since one or more of the members of the above mentioned International Quartet are negotiating with parties who are transgressing requirements similar to those now put to the Palestinians: since decennia the UK negotiates with the IRA, the UN and the EU want negotiations with Iran, to name just a few. Even with North-Korea, they negotiate. Can anybody explain why this charade of extra severe requirements and sanctions in withholding financial help toward the Palestinians is continuing?
The only country benefiting from these requirements and sanctions against the poor Palestinian people, illegally occupied during more than forty years, illegally mistreated, humiliated and pestered year after year by the occupying country, is Israel. That country fears the two state solutions. It knows it is protected indiscriminately by the US and the rest of the world by faint-hearted fear of being accused of anti-semitism.

February 28, 2007