While U.S special envoy Mitchell is meeting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a group of seventy Israeli settlers are demonstrating in the Arab village [singlepic id=177 w=320 h=240 float=right] Silwan in East Jerusalem.
The seventy settlers were given permission by the Israeli police to demonstrate in the Arab neighborhood with Israeli flags. The Palestinians considered this action an assault on the Palestinian presence in the city of Jerusalem and the result is a beginning of clashes which are taking place now and would expand to other parts of the city.

Prime Minister Netanyahu failed to reach any kind of understanding with senator Mitchell to renew the negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians. The main point which Netanyahu refuses to change his opinion about is the building of Israeli settlements in East Jerusalem. Some sources talked about the possibility of launching the negotiations process in the mid of May while others such as Yossi Sarid wrote a memo to Mitchell asking him to bring a peace plan or to stay home.

President Mahmud Abbas renewed his refusal of the idea of a temporary borders Palestinian state and renewed the agreement on the two states solution. President Abbas stated that although the Palestinian authority would agree on the two states solution, Israel must remember that the developments and Israeli actions would risk this solution and make it impossible. The Palestinian leadership sent a message to the American administration and President Obama asking from them to make serious efforts to move towards a Palestinian state if the last is really important in the eyes of American leadership and considered a strategic act.

The Israeli well prepared plan which was made to face Mitchell’s visits with fake repeated promises to reach an agreement regarding the American demands and the offers of removing a checkpoint here or there are not serving the Peace process at all. The American idea of being only a supervisor while both the Israelis and the Palestinians negotiate with each other has failed and would not help the peace process at all. The current Israeli leadership wants to reach the end of its ruling period with the least compromises that are asked for the sake of the Peace process and the more settlements and Israeli control in the Palestinian occupied territories.

If President Obama wants to act on the bases of his famous saying “Yes We Can” then he should start working with more determination and courage by suggesting a Peace Plan which can be made by the quartet on the bases of what both Israel and the Palestinians reached before, Clinton’s plan and the Arab initiative for peace with Israel. Such a suggestion would change the whole situation and push both sides to take the idea of a peace process seriously before reaching a situation where peace would sound like an illusion.

The circumstances today differ from the past and the idea of a two state solution will soon become impossible. The occupied territories are being targeted every day by Israeli settlers and the number of Israeli residents in the occupied territories is more than half a million today. The Israeli actions in East Jerusalem and the West Bank and the blockage on Gaza will soon put the Palestinians and the Israelis in one state which will be similar to the state of South Africa under apartheid. The Israeli leadership and Zionist thought wants to control the whole historical land of Palestine and to prevent the non – Jewish residents of the lands from enjoying any kind of independence or civil rights. Although the land was originally the property of these residents, today they turned to become under occupation and in the future they will be a majority ruled by a minority with no rights or anything at all.

They say that the majority in South Africa have finally seen freedom and justice after they went through the most injustice which can be made so will the Palestinians have to suffer more so the world would finally understand that it is the time to move and act after more than sixty two years of occupation and injustice?

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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