Peace delayed is peace denied

Although the Israeli-Palestinian peace talks have resumed after a gap of five years, there’s little to expect from the latest round of attempts at establishing calm, ending the protracted conflict or reaching a settlement on the sensitive issue. The secret meetings, apparently to ward off influence from belligerent local medias of both regions, are, however, immersed in inherent contradictions and despite the negotiators’ good intentions, showing all the signs of running into choppy waters. With Israel’s announcement of building about 1,000 homes in the Jewish settlements in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip, the peace talks are already bedeviled by the naked display of aggression on the part of Tel Aviv. And in spite of John Kerry’s attempts at catalysing calm, Israel is hell bent on continuing with its long-running settlement policy, in effect perpetuating the state-sponsored violence that could actually be deemed a war crime. Israel is thoughtlessly pursuing its hostile strategy and by deciding to go ahead with the fresh slot of construction in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, it is continuing to seek legitimacy, backed by the US, of course, for its blatantly illegal actions. 

     

 Israel’s doublespeak on the question of Palestine and its rank hypocrisy over granting the people much deserved statehood, come as part and parcel of the equivocation that it resorts to every time the topic is brought up the international high tables. The policy of engaging the global media by dangling the carrot of peace talks, while carrying out missile attacks and other forms of violence on the people of Palestine, is strictly against international humanitarian and human rights law. In fact, all Israeli settlements in the OPT violate the Fourth Geneva Convention, and have caused enormous disservice to the Palestinians, who have been living as refugees in their own land for decades now.  Hence, the latest round of peace talks would not amount to anything but an olive branch of grandiloquent show of empty gesture, if the foundational wrongs are not corrected.