(In response to Ben Negley's Nov. 23 column "Building freeze sets foundation for peace.")
Benjamin Negley offers an optimistic view of the Israel-Palestine peace process, believing that the settlement freeze is a basis for progress.
Unfortunately, this optimism stems from an utter lack of? consideration of international legal standards. According to a basic tenet of international law, which is also reflected in U.N. Resolution?242, acquisition of land by force is inadmissible.
Israel occupied Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem, in the course of the 1967 war. Despite the 62-year Israeli occupation of these lands, they are still considered occupied Palestinian territories. The Fourth Geneva Convention specifically forbids an occupying power from transferring its citizens into occupied territories. Thus, the Israeli settlements in the above territories are illegal.
Quite naturally, barring external pressure, Israel will delay resolving the status quo, which leaves the current settlements intact and enables Israel to continuously annex more Palestinian land via new settlement constructions. Israel's requirements for huge concessions ($3 billion of F-35 stealth fighter jets) in exchange for a mere three-month freeze on the expansion of these illegal settlements demonstrate that Israel is not serious about a two-state solution.
Unfortunately, the United States continues to give one-sided and unconditional support for Israel at the cost of a longstanding peace agreement. Offering enormous concessions in exchange for a temporary adherence by Israel to its most basic obligations is just the latest instance of this longstanding pattern. The alarming fact that the concessions come in the form of billions of dollars in deadly weaponry coupled with guarantees to block Security Council resolutions against Israel clearly spell out more tragedies to come for the people of the region.
Foruhar Shiva
Grad Student
