After the breakdown in the six-day “pause” to permit negotiations on a long-term Israeli-Palestinian ceasefire, and the resumption of Israel's onslaught against the caged people of Gaza, concerned people everywhere are wondering how the conflicting demands of the two sides can possibly be reconciled. Each side feels a compelling need to achieve some gain to justify its sacrifices. On the Palestinian side, there are more than 2,000 dead, over 10,000 wounded, and homes and infrastructure have been destroyed. On the Israeli side, 64 soldiers and two civilians have died. Each side will not want to agree to anything that its people view as accepting failure or defeat. Foreign governments that are genuinely interested in ending the infernal cycle of violence should consider the reasonableness of the respective demands. In order to make progress toward a durable peace with some measure of justice, they must decide which side they should be seeking to convince or compel to be more reasonable. Is it unreasonable to demand, as Palestine does, that residents of Gaza be permitted to leave their cage, build a proper port, rebuild their airport (destroyed by Israel in 2002), farm their fields (even within three kilometres of their border with Israel), fish more than three nautical miles offshore, export their produce and import basic necessities? Additionally, is it unreasonable to demand that the 61 Palestinians released in the Shalit prison swap, and effectively kidnapped by Israel soon after the kidnapping in the West Bank of three young settlers, be re-released? This is all that Palestine has been demanding. To what other people could such modest demands be denied, as they have been throughout seven years of siege and blockade? On the other hand, is it reasonable to demand, as Israel does, that, prior to any agreement ending the occupation, Gaza be completely “demilitarised”? This would strip its people of any means to resist the 47-year-long occupation (the right of resistance to foreign occupation being recognised by international law), or even of reminding a world that has preferred to ignore them of their miserable existence? Demilitarisation of the State of Palestine might well be agreed to in an agreement ending the occupation, since Palestinians would not want to give Israel any future excuse to re-invade and re-occupy Palestine. But what is needed now is not acquiescence in the occupation but the end of the occupation. For the Israeli government, the best result it can now hope for is to maintain the status quo ante (including the siege of Gaza), and to once again get away with murder. Israel should be able to achieve this by simply not agreeing to anything with the Palestinians. Western powers are exerting enormous pressure on Palestine not to join the International Criminal Court, or otherwise seek recourse to international law to protect the Palestinian people. Such a result would clearly be unjust for Palestine and ensure yet another round of death and destruction in the near future. Only serious and principled outside pressure on Israel offers any hope of preventing another replay of this latest onslaught. Israel should be pressured to accede to most of the reasonable Palestinian demands, and threatened with adverse consequences if they fail to do so. With the United States, major European states and Egypt all firmly on Israel's side, any such serious and principled pressure is difficult to imagine in the absence of some game-changing Palestinian initiative. The Palestinian leadership should request the deployment of UN, US or NATO troops to both Gaza and the West Bank. The troops would protect both Israelis and Palestinians from further violence, pending a full Israeli withdrawal from the occupied State of Palestine. Such a step would give Israeli a chance to save face, and also end the siege of Gaza. Neither Israelis nor Palestinians will have peace or security until the occupation ends and is replaced by either a decent two-state or a single democratic-state solution. The current round of Gaza massacres may have produced a moment when even western governments, notwithstanding their knee-jerk, pro-Israel public pronouncements, are conscious of this reality. Given a significant prod and incentives, they might act on this consciousness. The writer is an international lawyer who has advised the Palestinian negotiating team in negotiations with Israel.
