“4 words for you brother: No Justice, No Peace.” That was the polite
part of the email. The rest chastised me for being a “degenerate Zionist hack”
who “regurgitated other people’s lies” and so on, following an article I wrote
wondering whatever happened to the principle of Land for Peace? For those too
young to remember, this was the rather quaint concept whereby Israel would hand
over disputed (or as my new email buddy would no doubt see it “brutally colonized”)
land in exchange for recognition of Israel’s right to exist peacefully
alongside her neighbours.
There was a time when Land for Peace was accepted by all sides as
the basis for solid negotiating on what would then become the two state
solution that would give the Palestinians their own country.
Clearly, the goal posts have now moved. If my anonymous email
correspondent does indeed speak on behalf of many Palestinian sympathisers, as
he or she clearly believes, it is illuminating. The deal is no longer Absence
of Land equates to Absence of Peace. It’s now Absence of Justice equals Absence
of Peace. Which is a problem for all sides.
Land and Peace are both definable, objective bargaining chips. A
border is a border. Peace is peace. (For those in the Middle East unfamiliar
with the term, it means not killing, hurting or abusing each other.) Justice,
on the other hand, is entirely subjective. It exists purely in the eye of the
beholder, or indeed, the person making the judgement. So the new deal, if I am
to understand those four words correctly, is “until you give us what we deem to
be our just deserts, we are prepared to attack you.”
This sentiment was echoed when Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas held aloft a
copy of the UN membership demand he had handed to Ban Ki-moon. Palestinian
crowds, watching on TV, did not appear to have a strong lust for peace.
"With our souls, with our blood, we will defend Palestine!" they
shouted.
Which I mention only by way of explaining why I believe Australia
should vote ‘no’ to the Palestinian bid for recognition of statehood in the United
Nations. The goal of the UN is to ensure that the nation states of the world
live in peace side by side. The UN was established to ensure this could occur. The UN’s emblem of the olive branch is a symbol for peace,
dating back to ancient Greece. The United Nations does not send in troops, it
sends in Peace Keepers.
According to Article 4 of the
Charter of the United Nations: "Membership in the United Nations is open
to all … peace-loving states which accept the obligations contained in the
present Charter and, in the judgment of the Organization, are able and willing
to carry out these obligations.”
And therein lies the fundamental question. Can a new
State of Palestine guarantee and accept the obligations of peaceful co-existence
with its closest neighbour? Is it “able and willing” to do so?
There is no question that the Palestinians must have
their own state. And also that both the Israelis and Palestinians should be
able to sleep at night without wondering whether a bomb will come crashing
through the roof. Abbas, with all the best will in the world, simply cannot
guarantee peace, when his partners, the Hamas rulers of Gaza, have as their
stated goal the obliteration of Israel and of every Jew.
The Anti-Defamation League director Abraham Foxman has urged
Abbas to return to peace talks and to halt what he sees as his efforts to
delegitimize Israel, including using phrases in his UN address such as “racist, colonialist,
annexationist, brutal, ethnic cleanser, and aggressive;" to describe
Israel. Words hardly designed to achieve "the goal of two states living
side-by-side in peace and security."
Hillary Clinton maintains UNESCO should "think again" about
voting on Palestinian membership, saying it’s "inexplicable" they would
consider pre-empting any vote by the Security Council, a vote that the US may
well veto. Why? For the simple reason that such a vote, far from encouraging
peace within the region, may well achieve precisely the opposite. A negotiated,
comprehensive, genuine peace must come before, not after, recognition of
statehood. Through direct talks between the two parties.
Julia Gillard has sensibly intimated that Australia will vote ‘no’ to Palestinian
statehood at this stage, arguing it is “not the path to peace.” Kevin Rudd,
ever keen to curry favour with his UN chums for his own self-interested goal of
landing a major gig there, wants Australia to abstain. I believe that is in
nobody’s interest other than possibly his own.
Using the threat of “No justice, no peace” may well be a
powerful rallying cry for those who – like my email mate – clearly feel aggrieved
or disenfranchised. But it is not the basis for statehood. The United Nations
already has to deal with too many states beholden to violence as a means of
settling old scores. It doesn’t need another one.
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