Lord Chris Patten, chancellor of Oxford University, president of Medical Aid for Palestinians, has an important piece in the Financial Times describing the cruel reality built by the peace process. Patten is consummate British establishment: Britain’s former EU commissioner, the last governor-general of Hong Kong. And a Tory. A real indication of the deep shift underway in global opinion. There’s a firewall/registration at the FT. I’ve excerpted a lot of the piece below.
In the West Bank you see more construction of large urban developments than I have seen anywhere in Europe (apart from perhaps the southern Andalusia coast before the credit crunch)….There are 149 of these colonies according to the UN’s Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs and there are a further 100 outposts – the smaller “facts on the ground” that are destined to grow.
As the Obama administration has told us there is an “unprecedented freeze” in settlement activity. Who is fooling whom?… What is happening is that Jerusalem is being ringed by huge Israeli suburbs and further building is planned to the south.
Moreover, under the Oslo Agreement – and this is one of the few parts that Israel abides by – the development of 60 per cent of Palestine is determined by Israel in the “Category C zone”. Here, Palestinian construction is tightly controlled. Meanwhile, new highways carve up the West Bank, joining up the Israeli colonies. They are forbidden to Palestinian travellers unless they have a permit…
The aim [in Gaza] is to choke the economy and push the Gazans into the unwilling embrace of Egypt.
These are not the obvious harbingers of a two-state solution. Meantime, the Palestinian population is likely to double within just over 15 years and the water resources are rapidly being depleted. If the “facts on the ground” continue to be the determinant of an eventual outcome, we should all hold on to our hats. The only alternative to two states is what? Presumably, the other outcome would be one state in some shape or form. But could that possibly be both Jewish and democratic?
The colonies grow. The planners plot. The evictions continue. The politicians argue, scheme and prevaricate. The Gazans serve their interminable prison sentence. Is it not time for the US, Europe, the Arab League and other concerned parties to rescue Israel and Palestine from a drift to further disaster. We should try to end the fragmentation of Palestine and promote a reconciliation between Hamas and Fatah. We should also set out in a Security Council resolution what we think an agreement in Palestine and Israel should comprise, and then work to achieve it. If others will not sign up to this the European Union should go it alone. Unless we act soon, the “facts on the ground” will win the day. That is a grim prospect for the region and the rest of us.
