Ramallah: The Palestinian National Initiative (PNI) today welcomed an unpublished report by the EU accusing Israel of violating international law and peace agreements, and jeopardizing the future of any peace process. According to details published in the Haaretz and Guardian newspapers, the report specifically addresses Israel’s long-term effort to transform the demographic and geographic realities of East Jerusalem in order to prevent it from becoming the capital of a Palestinian state. The most worrying elements of this process include:
- The ongoing construction of Israel’s Apartheid Wall, which severs both Palestinian areas of Jerusalem from each other, and East Jerusalem from the West Bank;
- The expropriation of Palestinian land, and the establishment, and continuing expansion of a ring of illegal settlements encircling East Jerusalem;
- The systematic denial of building permits for Palestinian residents of Jerusalem and the destruction of Palestinian property;
- The arbitrary revocation of the residency and social benefits of Palestinian residents of Jerusalem; and
- The deliberate underdevelopment of municipal services in East Jerusalem through discriminatory budget allocations between Jewish-Israeli and Palestinian parts of the city.
East Jerusalem was annexed by Israel during the 1967 war and has remained under Israeli occupation since. While Palestinians have accepted the possibility of predominantly Israeli West Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, and call for East Jerusalem as the capital of a Palestinian state, Israel continues to claim the entire city as its “eternal, undivided” capital.
This stands in direct opposition to Israel’s acceptance of the Oslo Accords and the Road Map, under which Jerusalem remains a final status issue, as well as the Geneva Accord which states that the Palestinians and the Israelis “shall have their mutually recognized capitals in the areas of Jerusalem under their respective sovereignty.” Israeli actions in East Jerusalem also represent a breach of UN Security Resolution 242 of 1967, which called for the immediate withdrawal of Israeli forces from territories occupied during the conflict.
The PNI noted with concern that publication of the report has been blocked by Italy however, fuelling fears that condemnation of the reality of Israel’s occupation would once more come to nothing. In the wake of this report, the PNI therefore calls on the EU to utilise all means at its disposal to resurrect efforts to resolve the conflict, by holding an international peace conference, and by adopting a policy of military non co-operation with Israel and tying the renewal of preferential economic agreement to Israel’s implementation of international law and international resolutions.