Palestinians battle a harsh daily reality that has yet to change despite President Obama’s undisputed oratory skills and enticing rhetoric about peace.
Palestinian youth clash with Israeli soldiers at the Qalandia checkpoint, one of several hundred roadblocks that have come to symbolize the humiliation and restrictions of Palestinian daily life under Israeli occupation. This checkpoint is one of the gateways to occupied East Jerusalem. Palestinians bearing West Bank ID cards are barred from passing through it unless they have a special permit.
The young men are protesting Israel’s siege of the Al-Aqsa mosque compound, where up to 200 worshipers have been holed up for a week. These protestors believe rightwing Israelis plan to storm it. Their fears are fueled by statements from Israeli officials and parliamentarians, who have advocated changing the sensitive status quo and allowing Israeli worshipers into the Al-Aqsa compound, Islam’s third holiest site.
Jerusalem is a sensitive cord for Palestinians. They consider it the capital of their future state and the center of their struggle for independence. That's why any Israeli step perceived to threaten Jerusalem evokes anger here; anger only furthered by Palestinians' sense of isolation from Jerusalem.
East Jerusalem is now severed by force from its natural Palestinian surrounding and plagued by stepped-up Israeli settlement construction and a systematic Israeli campaign of discrimination against the Palestinian residents. That campaign is epitomized by the revoking of identification cards of thousands of Jerusalemites, effectively banishing them from the city.
Many Jerusalemites would tell you theirs is a choked city, crippled by an Israeli security crackdown that never ceases, but rather, only escalates to be stark enough for media cameras to capture. Cameras were on this Friday, documenting prayers in the street for those denied the right to pray in their mosque and youths bursting with anger.
Then…quiet. Israel announces it will ease restrictions and slowly lift the siege on Al-Aqsa, allowing those inside to leave. Cameras turn off.
But the reality continues.
Israeli settlements keep expanding in the city, eating precious occupied land, one meter at a time. The latest was a new neighborhood in the middle of Jabal Al-Mukaber, a densely populated Palestinian neighborhood.
There is international consensus Israeli settlement activity, including that in occupied East Jerusalem, is illegal. But so far, that consensus has not put the brakes on Israel's settlement policies. It continues, encouraged by the various rightwing elements in the current Israeli government, like the head of Israeli diplomacy, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, who is also a settler.
Awarding promises
This morning, Palestinians were baffled by the news that American President Barack Obama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize because of his efforts to seek peace in the region and to create a world free of nuclear weapons. This means little to the ordinary Palestinians, who battle a harsh reality that has yet to change despite President Obama’s undisputed oratory skills and enticing rhetoric about peace.
In the Middle East, comments by any American president are closely scrutinized; more so for Mr. Obama because he invoked hope among Arabs that change has really come to American foreign policy.
In the past month, Palestinians and Arabs have seen President Obama speak about a world free of nuclear weapons, only to then read reports in Israeli media that Israel’s so far unchecked, undisclosed nuclear arsenal is exempt from his campaign. They have also heard President Obama say that Israel must freeze all settlement activity and that negotiations must produce a sovereign and viable Palestinian state. Public joy was short lived. Obama quickly retracted, going from a demand for a freeze to a call for “restraint”. Hopes came crashing down, and turned to despair.
And this despair explains the diminished interest in American shuttle diplomacy in the region. As the American Special Peace Envoy to the Middle East arrived here, ordinary Palestinians had little interest in hearing what he had to say. They expected “much of the same”. Their expectations were not let down.
After an hour and a half of dialogue with the Palestinian president, George Mitchell appeared in front of cameras to read a written statement that sounded like a copy of his last statement. The American administration was deeply committed to peace in the region, Mr. Mitchell announced, saying that a “sovereign, viable, and independent Palestinian state” was the goal. No announcement of a breakthrough. And no opportunity for journalists to ask the many questions they had in mind.
So what was new? Palestinian and Israeli delegations are invited to Washington to “continue the discussions”, which will not be face to face. Discussions about what? About the framework of negotiations, the ground rules…
Then, with a forced smile, Mr. Mitchell nodded and turned his back, waiting for his car to take him back to Jerusalem.
So the Palestinian official, Saeb Erekat, was left alone to face journalists. This was a candid meeting, he announced. But aside from that description, no details have emerged from a meeting about discussions, not results.
Cameras off. One day of “diplomacy” down, plenty left to go.
The question ordinary Palestinians keep asking: at this snail pace of “diplomacy”, what land will be left to negotiate on for a Palestinian state? Settlements and Israeli actions on the ground are determining the outcome. Positive rhetoric is not.
