PRESS RELEASE
Released @ 15 December 1997
PALESTINIAN CENTRE FOR HUMAN RIGHTS
INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON
“HUMAN RIGHTS AND FINAL STATUS ISSUES”
The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights held the third day of its International Conference on “Human Rights and Final Status Issues” on Sunday, December 14 at Rashad Shawa Cultural Center in Gaza City.
The first session dealt with “The Question of Jerusalem.” Paul J.I.M. de Warrt, Professor Emeritus of International Law at Vrije University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands, delivered a speech on “The Final Status of Jerusalem: A Freely Negotiable Issue under International Law.” Professor de Warrt stated that the Netherlands Council of Churches (NCC) had difficulty reaching a position on the status of Jerusalem. The NCC concluded that religious claims should not be used exclusively for solving the problem, but rather international law should be the point of reference. The artificial demographic construction of East Jerusalem should not be a determining factor in defining the future of the city. Furthermore, the holy places of Jerusalem should be freely accessible to Jews, Christians, and Muslims not only from abroad but also from both Israel and Palestine.
Eugene Cotran, Judge, Visiting Professor of Law at S.O.A.S. – University of London, and Board Member of the Palestinian Independent Commission for Citizens’ Rights, spoke on “The Jerusalem Question in International Law: The Way to a Solution.” Cotran asserted that the Jerusalem question is international rather than a question of competing claims by two sides. Any solution must be based on three basic principles. 1) The international character of Jerusalem must be recognized. 2) There must be an admission by Israel that might does not make right. 3) Israel cannot have exclusive sovereignty over Jerusalem, but must agree to a shared arrangement with the Palestinians. Cotran insisted that the Palestinian people must be practical despite the factual position that the whole of Palestine was hijacked or usurped. Furthermore, the international treaty signed by the Palestinians and Israelis in 1993 is not a joke, but an agreement to be carried out by the two sides. The problem resides in the fact that while the last Israeli government carried out the agreement with some procrastination, the current Likud government does not abide by it. Consequently, the Likud party should be criticized and not the agreement. Cotran maintained that when he said this in Amman he was almost thrown out of the Hall in which he was speaking.
The PLO “maximalist” position according to Cotran seeks not the whole of Jerusalem, but contents itself with a two-state solution in which East Jerusalem serves as the Palestinian capital. There are two main problems with Oslo. First, the so-called honest broker must go and be replaced by European nations. Second, the international community must not simply call for talks, but must express the need for scrupulous implementation of agreements already reached.
Ibrahim Sha’ban, lecturer at the College of Law at Al Quds University and ex-President of The Palestinian Housing Council, delivered a speech on “Solutions for the Question of Jerusalem.” Sha’aban outlined a number of the proposed solutions to the issue of Jerusalem. He spoke of the plan to internationalize Jerusalem, but insisted that this idea is illegal as the international community does not in fact hold this power. Another possibility is annexation, which Israel did in 1967 and confirmed in 1980. A third possibility is having Jerusalem serve as the capital for two states. Figuring out how to do this is a complicated issue that must be addressed. Sha’aban maintained that Jerusalem is an inseparable part of the Palestinian people that must be restored in future talks. The protection of human rights and the upholding of international law include the seeds for resolving this issue.
Michael Warshawski, director of the Alternative Information Center in Jerusalem, gave a talk entitled, “Settlements: The Main Obstacle.” He urged recognition of East Jerusalem as occupied by 180,000 settlers. The situation in East Jerusalem is an indicator of the systematic way in which the West Bank and Gaza Strip are being occupied. “The fatal mistake,” he said, of the Palestinian negotiators was to leave the issue of settlements for the final negotiations. “They are not military bases,” Warshawski said, “which can be easily dismantled. They are living entities…” He said that each settler in the Territories represents Israeli sovereignty. “They need an army to protect them,” he said, “and bypass roads to use…they are indeed the rationale of the continuing military occupation.” Settlements are fixing the map of Gaza and the West Bank, and as an issue, they cannot be postponed because their daily expansion changes the reality with which the negotiations will have to deal. The policy of ethnic cleansing is continuing, he said. The Israelis have mastered the strategy of colonizing land with a Jewish minority.
Warshawski also warned about the clause in Oslo allowing for the settlements’ “natural growth.” The Ma’ale Adumin settlement in the West Bank, for example, is merely a string of settlements which manages to occupy as much land as possible. The criterion for what constitutes a settlement has become not where they are built but how they are defined in the zoning plans. The West Bank is now being cut into two separate parts, and the map for a future state is indeed being drawn, but from an Israeli point of view. There must be a
total freeze of settlement building, he said. This should be a precondition of negotiation. The Palestinians must be single-minded in their aim to dismantle the existing settlements. “It is my duty as an Israeli,” Warshawski said, “to shout ‘this is not justice, this is robbery!’” Warshawski concluded by warning that conference participants should not be trapped into “the so-called ‘realistic’ discourse” of Oslo, that the settlements are
irreversible facts. They are not irreversible, and the best way to preserve personal and national integrity is to stick to principles.
The second session, “Mutual Security,” was marked, revealingly enough, by the absence of its chairperson, Khalil Shikaki, due to security reasons. The first speaker, Stephen P. Marks addressed the question, “What mechanisms need to be in place to protect both Palestine and Israel?” He talked about the ramifications of external security, and how, in many ways, external security for Israel was inversely related to public order for Palestinians. As for human rights, only in a Palestine with secure borders, without the presence of a military occupier, and with the freedom to develop, could a human rights agenda be adopted. Marks then proposed the adoption of legislation which adopts and invokes international human rights standards. There is a need, Marks said, to give content to the internationally accepted human rights standards. Such legislation would provide a solid base to work for the rights of the Palestinian people. He urged the audience to brainstorm ways in which the Palestinians could, in the words of Hanan Ashrawi, “fill the human rights gap.”
Fakhri Shaqqura, the Chairman of the Committee on the Interior and Security, then gave a talk entitled, “Palestinian Security Requirements in the Context of the Final Status.” He stated that peace was impossible without enough territory for a Palestinian state and without Jerusalem as the capital of such a state. “Security is a supreme goal for any country in the area,” Shaqqura said, “and complete security for anyone may contradict the integrity of mutual security for all.” The current negotiations are not sufficient, he said. Security hinges on the stabilization of a Palestinian identity, one which without the necessary freedoms, will continue to be elusive. A comprehensive view must be taken. The interrelation between security and the economy must be recognized. Israel has diminished the region’s opportunity for any real security by stalling the peace process, by not discussing Jerus, by not ceasing settlement construction, by not withdrawing from the Golan Heights, and by being stingy in regard to ceding land for a Palestinian state. What the Israelis are now constructing, Shaqqura said, is a vacuum state.
Geralyn McNally, Independent Commissioner for Police Complaints in Northern Ireland, delivered a speech entitled, “Securing Security for the 21st Century: The Way Forward for Both Palestinian and Israeli Peoples.” McNally observed that the be-all and end-all of Oslo appears to be “Israeli security” — a vague phrase, according to McNally, which seems to sanction a militaristic option. She instead counselled a longer term view of security. Oslo, she said, appears only to be positioned to feed more years of violence and counter-violence.
In regard to the Palestinian Authority, McNally condemned the practices of torture and arbitrary detention. She raised the case of a Palestinian who said it was one thing to be beaten at the hands of the enemy, but a far different thing to be beaten by one’s “liberators.” She maintained that the Palestinian police ought to be provided with a more appropriate level of resources and training in regard to human rights. The para-military background of many recruits simply had not prepared them for peace-time. To safeguard against wrongdoing by security forces there should be civilian oversight and consultation. Systems of accountability must also be implemented. She stated that “piecemeal and tokenistic” measures could be counterproductive. Continual monitoring is required, and international standards, while useful as guides, are not necessarily applicable.
Lisa Hajjar, Assistant Professor of Sociology at Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania, spoke on “National Insecurity: The Hopes and Limits of Human Rights.” Hajjar declared that the exclusion of the human rights community from the negotiating process is one of the fundamental problems of the process itself. The start of negotiations dealt a serious blow to the Palestinian human rights community as Palestinian constituents of the PA were pressured to cease their criticism. The struggle over the land has been reduced to a zero-sum game in which a gain for one means a loss for the other. This leads to the insecurity of both. Palestinians and Israelis, according to Hajjar, are linked together in an intricate web of hierarchy. The Palestinian people have been sidelined by a political process which places their fate in the hands of national leaders. The appeal to violence is the trump card in the zero-sum game, but violence has no power to transform the situation.
Hajjar suggested that Palestinians monitor, report, advocate, and litigate for the rights accorded them under international law. She asserted that for all intents and purposes most activism in regard to Israeli policies has been reactive. The reason for this is that Palestinians have rejected strategies to exploit the Israeli legal system out of fear that doing so would lend credit to the Israeli state. Despite the negligible chance of legal victory an aggressive policy of legal activism should be pursued. Diaspora Palestinians must not remain bystanders who are dependent on the political leadership, but must press ahead with legal action against Israeli human rights violations.
In the afternoon, “The Question of Palestinian Refugees” was addressed. John Quigley, Professor of Law at Ohio State University spoke on the “Return of Displaced Persons to their Home State: An Individual or a Collective Right?” Quigley asserted that in its early years the UN General Assembly viewed the right of return as an individual right, but then in the 1970s with the activities of the PLO began to see it as a collective right and part of the concept of self-determination. Quigley maintained that refugees are now pawns swept up in the larger framework of an over-all settlement. The 1993 agreement, by referring to UN Resolution 242, does indicate that there should be a return as a matter of right. Quigley rejected the Israeli contention that the Palestinian people gave up the right to return in 1948 when they left, according to the Israelis for tactical reasons, and strenuously argued that in fact the evidence suggests coercion was involved in the Palestinian departure — the Deir Yassin massacre and bombings of Palestinians residing in West Jerusalem should b classified as “ethnic cleansing” — which provides an additional legal basis for return.
Najeh Jarar, Director of the Academic Program for the Study of Involuntary Migration at An-Najah National University in Nablus, spoke on “The Palestinian Refugees’ Attitudes toward the Peace Process.” He posed the question of whether the delay of the refugee issue to the last stage of negotiations was due to its importance or due to an effort to forget it. He suggested the Israelis are trying to deny the Palestinian refugees their fundamental right of return.
Jarar recounted in-depth interviews with Palestinian refugees to illustrate how highly-charged emotions are in regard to the decision over whether to insist on return or to accept compensation. Those willing to accept compensation are the ones in the worst economic situation. The failure of the peace process to achieve anything for refugees may well unite them despite their differences. At present, refugees regard Israel, the United States, and the Palestinian leadership with suspicion. They believe the peace process must begin to put more emphasis on them.
Joseph Schechla, Director of Democratic Development at AMIDEAST – New York, delivered a presentation entitled, “Conspicuous by their Absence: The Norms that Apply to Population Transfer and Palestine.” Schechla established a broader historical context for the plight of Palestinian refugees and displaced persons through a brief historical analysis in which he asserted that population transfer — with its accompanying human rights violations — is a common means by which imperial powers seek to control populations. Experts in population transfer have concluded that population transfer, properly understood, must be collective in nature and involve large numbers of people. It is systematic, discriminatory, and carried out without due process of law by the deliberate actions of government or some other party.
Schechla detailed the references in the Dayton Accords to the rights of refugees and displaced persons. He then moved on to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and expressed considerable alarm over the weak and passing reference in the peace accords to human rights as well as concern in regard to the fact that the principal arbiter in the conflict has consistently taken a position inconsistent with human rights standards.
Hamdi Shaqqura, Co-ordinator of the Democratic Development Unit of the Palestinian Center for Human Rights, delivered a speech on “Palestinian Refugees and the Palestinian National Authority.” He examined the relationship between the Palestinian Authority and the Palestinian refugees in the Gaza Strip and West Bank. Refugees, according to Shaqqura, should only be hosted by the PA — which does not represent them — and should not be dealt with in the manner of citizens who lived in the West Bank and Gaza Strip prior to 1948. The legal and political bonds should be different between the two groups. Citizenship and political participation should be restricted to the pre-1948 residents of Gaza and the West Bank. These refugees should be assisted in their efforts to return to their homes and land in Israel.
To safeguard the maximum political participation of refugees, however, structural changes should be made within the PLO, which represents all Palestinian refugees and non-refugees. Popular refugee committees should be formed through elections. These committees would be part of the PLO structure and would influence the decision-making in the organization, especially in regard to the negotiations on refugees.