On last Wednesday, Congressman Robert Wexler, who is a supporter of Israel and a close political ally of President Obama, stated that he believes that Israel will say yes to settlement freeze. According to Wexler Israel will lose nothing by such a step which is needed to figure out whether the Arab countries are ready to start normalization with Israel.

“I want to call their bluff,” Wexler said. “I want to see, if Israel makes substantial movement toward a credible peace process, whether they are willing to do it. And if they are not, better that we should find out five or six months into the process, before Israel is actually asked to compromise any significant position.”

Wexler words would explain the current situation, suggested American plan, and promises which are given to Israel. The Arabs will be considered lacking will for peace if they refuse to start normalization after a possible Israeli freeze of settlements. However, it will be hard for the Arabs to make such a decision only because of an Israeli freeze of settlements.

The situation demands more than just a freeze of settlements since the Arab and Islamic countries who signed the Arab Peace Initiative state clearly that normalization would only start after a complete Israeli agreement on the Arab demands. The Arab Peace Initiative which sounds the best solution asks for an Israeli withdrawal from the 1967 occupied lands, East Jerusalem as a capital of the Palestinian state, and a fair solution for the Palestinian refugee’s case.

These three issues are considered complicated and impossible to be accepted by Israeli politicians in general and the current Israeli government. The Israelis believe that it is impossible to make a complete Israeli withdrawal from the whole occupied lands of 1967 since many settlements were already built on them and also because right party Israelis and religious people will never accept the idea of leaving the land of Judea and Samaria. Beside this, an Israeli withdrawal through peace negotiations from the Golan highest seems also impossible especially that the Israeli residents are filling it and consider it a part of their national country.

The issue of Jerusalem is the most complicated since Israel believes that it must be kept united under an Israeli control. Many Israelis would prefer to die rather than taking a decision which divides the city again. The current Israeli actions in Jerusalem proves the future intentions; settlements are built, Palestinian residents are chased through taxes, checkpoints, a judaize of the city, a neglecting of the non Jewish holy sites, and a pressure which is pushing Palestinians to either think of extreme reactions or simply to leave the city. The only goal which the Israeli governments and institutes set for themselves regarding Jerusalem is to keep the land and try to get rid of as much of the Palestinian residents as possible.

The third issue is the Palestinian refugees demand of a fair solution for their misery and disaster since most of them are still living with no nationality in several countries, suffer from bad economical situations, and search for a reason for why they lost their homelands. The Arabs did not state clearly in their Arab Peace Initiative any kind of demand to return all the refugees into Israel, but still this is not considered by Israel as a “good intention” since they always escape from at least admitting the existence of the refugees misery “Nakbah” by saying that any solution for them will mean an end for Israel. The current Israeli government preferred to suggest new laws that punish any Israeli Arab or Palestinian who resides inside Israel only if he or she states publicly that the Nakbah took place. This sounds worse than any dictator system and shows the truth of a “democratic” state policy once it is related to those who are not Jews and live on this land.

All these issues are nothing once we look at the daily life of Palestinians. Israel claims that its siege and strict policy towards Gaza is only because of Hamas’s actions and threats. Therefore, I would prefer to look at the situation in the West Bank; the new Palestinian forces, which were trained and started under the supervision of General Dayton, work day and night to arrest Hamas activists, and sometimes attacked them leaving results which includes dead and injured people from both sides. The Palestinian Authority stated that this is made only to assure security and law inside the Palestinian authorities. The improvement in the work of the Palestinian authorities is needed to create stability and security in the West Bank. However, this was not enough for Israel to remove at least a part of its checkpoints, stop the existence of the racism separation wall, or give a chance for the people to live normally like any other place in the world.

Instead, Israel continues to raid the Palestinian territories, arrest anyone they want, and continue to insult the Palestinian Authority by showing that they have no control of their lands or people. So will the Arabs forget about all of these results of the Israeli policy and run to start normalization with it only because it decided to take a break from the settlements projects? I do not think so, but what would be the American opinion and to where these plans will take us? Soon we will know.

Ziad Khalil Abu Zayyad

A Palestinian-Arab living in East Jerusalem, Ziad graduated from College Des Freres in Jerusalem in 2003. Ziad finished his major in International Relations and English Literature from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Ziad is a former President of the Watan student movement at the university. He is interested in Middle Eastern political issues and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Founder of the Middle East Post and MEL (Middle East Future Leadership Network), he represents Palestinian youth at several international conferences.

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