Ref: 03/2020  

While the Oslo Accords sacrificed human rights and the international law for more than a quarter of a century, the U.S president Donald Trump’s Middle East plan constitutes a full destruction of international law, and legitimizes more than 50 years of Israeli violations of international humanitarian law (IHL) in the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt) since 1967, that amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity. Rather than referring to the principles of international law and the United Nations (UN) resolutions, including UN Security Council resolutions endorsed by the U.S., the current U. S Administration flouts these principles and promotes the logic of force over truth and rewards Israel for its crimes.

Under the  so-called peace process, Israel continued to take chunks of the oPt and create irreversible facts on the ground, including tripling its settlement expansion schemes; creating a Jewish majority in occupied East Jerusalem, isolating and forcing its local Palestinian population out of the city; constructing the annexation wall; imposing a closure on the Gaza Strip; severing the cities, villages and refugee camps of the West Bank apart by settlements, settler bypass roads and hundreds of military checkpoints.

In short, the Israeli military occupation managed to change the features of the oPt, seized its resources and deprived Palestinians from their inalienable rights in favor of Israeli settlers. Israel created a new version of apartheid in which settlers enjoy privileges at the expense of the indigenous population who are besieged and separated in Bantustans, stripped of their rights guaranteed by international law and oppressed by the means of law and brute force that are enforced by its occupation forces and military rule.

Trump’s plan legitimizes all the above in the name of peace, and upholds Israel’s control over the oPt, yet exempts it from its responsibility towards the population. Under Trump’s scheme, Palestinians would have a mirage of a state that has limited autonomy and lacks geographical integrity or sovereignty over its lands and resources.

We firmly reject Trump’s plan, which legitimizes Israeli crimes and deprives Palestinians of their legal and political rights, and sets foundation for a new type of apartheid. We believe that the only way to reach a just and lasting peace is through respecting international law, including IHL and the international human rights law, protecting the Palestinian people’s inalienable rights, including their right to self-determination, and ending the Israeli military occupation. Therefore, we call upon the international community to stand for and protect rule of law and support international accountability mechanisms, including the International Criminal Court. The international community should take firm action against Israel’s plans, supported by the U.S Administration as evident in Trump’s proposed peace plan, to annex the Northern Jordan Valleys and other parts of the West Bank