Benjamin Counsell* examines the spaces left empty by the US-sponsored roadmap for Israeli-Palestinian peace With the publication of the much anticipated roadmap, it is apparent that the issue of refugee rights has been completely sidelined. Any mention of refugees is left until the final phase of negotiations and there appears to be no commitment on Israel to adhere to the relevant international laws. We are once again looking at a possible deal that addresses virtually none of the fundamental grievances of the Palestinians. Any settlement that relies on the dissolution of human rights and international law would be catastrophic for the millions of refugees whose rights, few doubt, would have been bargained away at a lop-sided negotiating table. The legitimacy of their claim would remain unaltered since it is enshrined in humanitarian law and therefore cannot be simply signed away. However, the political reality may be somewhat different. It is the fundamental demographic questions and their ramifications on human rights that the plan fails to address. Why is Israel's 20 per cent "Arab" population excluded from purchasing 92 per cent of Israeli territory? In any other country it would be called "apartheid" and rightly decried -- why not in Israel? What will happen to this growing population in the years to come given its "demographic threat" to the "Jewish state"? Make no mistake, if Israel is to maintain its Jewish majority, it has just two options -- mass expulsion or mass murder. It is this ugly truth that the roadmap is incapable or unwilling to tackle. The right of return is not some cunning negotiating tactic dreamt up by the Palestinians. It is a right in every sense. Enshrined in the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights and endorsed in United Nations Resolution 194, these five million-plus refugees will not simply disappear in order to facilitate a political agenda. At some point in time their grievances simply must be dealt with. But wouldn't the return of Palestinian refugees mean the "destruction of the state of Israel"? Well that depends on how one defines Israel. One could argue that it would facilitate the expansion of Israel -- by all means, annex the West Bank and Gaza strip, but only if you grant the vote to its inhabitants. What a wonderful opportunity for the US to bring democracy to the Arab Middle East. What better example to those cynics who doubt their intentions in Iraq? But there of course is the rub, Israel is a "Jewish state" before it is a democratic one. It wants the land but not its people -- an aim it has largely achieved in 78 per cent of mandated Palestine and is currently working towards in the occupied territories. It is Israel's ethno/religious demographic agenda that is scuppering the human rights of millions and simultaneously belittling international humanitarian law. Modern Zionism has been flying in the face of these laws for over 50 years. One is necessarily in contradiction to the other, and it is not merely rhetoric to say that those who oppose the right of return are in fact endorsing ethnic-cleansing. But, putting aside the mere issue of five million people's human rights, how long would a forced settlement realistically last given that any future Palestinian state based on the 1967 borders would have to be split into at least two parts? Even if this "state" were to have open borders with Jordan and Egypt (a huge 'if'), Israel would still control all movements between the West Bank and Gaza. If the Palestinian leadership were to accept such a deal it would only be a matter of time until its political and economic unviability became apparent. Hostilities would surely shortly follow -- only this time it would be a far harder battle to gain international sympathy and backing. Any viable state must be contiguous, have free borders and sovereignty over its natural resources and airspace -- this is anathema to the Israeli leadership whose current coalition includes parties that openly espouse ethnic cleansing. Sharon's idea of a "roadmap to peace" is a one-way street to a Palestinian diaspora and an expansion of the network of Jewish-only roads connecting the illegal settlements. The Oslo process did nothing to change, or even slow, these basic "facts on the ground" which have made peace not just elusive, but impossible. There appears to be no evidence to suggest that the US would change tack now -- unless of course, one believes that they really, really mean it this time. It is time that those who favour justice in the Middle East concentrate their efforts on Israel's ethnic cleansing and apartheid nature rather than focussing solely on the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza strip. Much of the "pro-Palestinian" (a term I take issue with -- the anti-apartheid movement was not called 'pro-Black') argument has become entrenched in following what appears at first glance to be a liberal agenda -- the "two-state solution". This has become manifest in the rhetoric of "end the occupation" -- a righteous aim in itself but does not tackle the core grievances. This is also the line of the Palestinian Authority which further complicates matters for those who take a more fundamental view of human rights. Only a single democratic state for all its citizens will provide security for all and at the same time preserve the integrity of international humanitarian law. Obviously, this issue is nowhere to be found in the plan or the media's analysis of it. Instead the political momentum, set by the US, will inevitably carry the agenda towards the question, "how little will the Palestinians accept?" The Palestinian leadership, wholly ill-equipped to set any agenda, seems powerless to resist this momentum. As one young Palestinian said to me recently, "This [roadmap] is a trap. Most Palestinians know it is a trap, but we have been given no option but to walk towards it." * The writer is communications officer for Al- Awda, the Palestinian Right for Return Coalition (UK) and a member of the Executive Committee of Arab Media Watch.
