Palestinians react to Kerry’s speech
“John Kerry just gave an eloquent eulogy for the two-state solution”
IMEU offers the following reactions from Palestinians experts: Diana Buttu, Zaha Hassan, Noura Erakat, Ali Abunimah.
Diana Buttu, Ramallah-based political analyst and former advisor to Palestine Liberation Organization Chairman Mahmoud Abbas and Palestinian negotiators:
“It’s very good that in his speech today, Secretary Kerry recognized that the sole reason for Israel’s settlement enterprise is to cement its occupation over Palestinian lands and prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state. He also highlighted the suffering that Palestinians have endured for the past 50 years living under Israel’s oppressive military regime.
“However, the parameters that he laid out for a permanent peace agreement perpetuate the same framework and process that have failed to advance the cause of peace for more than two decades now. In particular, the insistence on denying fundamental Palestinian rights, like the right of return of Palestinian refugees, and the right of Palestinian citizens of Israel to live as full and equal citizens in their homeland in light of the demand that Palestinians recognize Israel as a ‘Jewish state.’ The establishment of a Palestinian state alone will not bring peace if it isn’t accompanied by the realization of the basic human rights of Palestinians, whether they currently live under Israeli occupation, as second-class citizens of Israel, or as refugees in the diaspora.
“Secretary Kerry also laid out a vision in which there were only two alternatives for peace, a two-state solution or one state in which Israel rules over millions of Palestinians without granting them equal rights. In other words, apartheid. There is a third alternative, though, which is being increasingly embraced by Palestinians and others. That is a single state in all of Palestine and Israel with equal rights for all, regardless of religion or race.
“Ultimately, as has been demonstrated by decades of ineffective US efforts to make peace, the only way forward to a true and lasting peace in the region is to impose costs on Israel for its illegal actions and denial of Palestinian freedom, through the grassroots boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement and other international pressure.”
Zaha Hassan, Human rights attorney and Middle East Fellow at New America. During Palestine’s bid for UN membership and Quartet-sponsored talks between 2010 and 2012, Ms. Hassan was the coordinator and legal advisor to the Palestinian negotiating team:
“No other high-ranking US official has ever discussed the Israel-Palestine conflict and what is at stake if Israeli settlement construction on Palestinian land is allowed to continue unabated as eloquently as Secretary Kerry just did. However, the timing of the Kerry’s parameters — just as a pro-settlement US administration is about to take the reins of power — is not only too little, too late, but Kerry’s call for Palestinians to relinquish certain legal rights and claims and to recognize Israel as a Jewish state could also have the effect of putting Palestinians in the occupied territories and inside Israel in an even more vulnerable position moving forward.
“US pronouncements on parameters tend to lower the floor for the Palestine Liberation Organization in negotiations, but not for Israel, which tends to increase settlement construction. Palestinian recognition of Israel as a Jewish state, particularly in the absence of a constitutionally based equal rights provision in Israel, may encourage more discriminatory treatment of Palestinians in Israel and jeopardize Palestinian refugee rights to return and reparation.
“Unfortunately, on the whole, Kerry’s parameters ask Palestinians to enter new peace talks giving up legal rights in exchange for a promise by Israel that it will cease from engaging in a legal wrong in the form of more settlement construction. After more than twenty-years of negotiations, that is not a safe bet for Palestinians.”
Noura Erakat, Human rights attorney, Assistant Professor at George Mason University, editorial board member of the Journal of Palestine Studies, and Co-Editor of the e-zine Jadaliyya and the book, Aborted State? The UN Initiative and New Palestinian Junctures (2013):
“Secretary Kerry’s speech was an absolutely refreshing recap of US law and policy opposing settlement expansion and Israel’s military regime in the Occupied Palestinian Territories since 1967. It was also a great intervention in that it reminded the world that Israel’s establishment marked the forced removal and mass dispossession of Palestinians, better known as the Nakba. However, it’s unfortunate that the Obama Administration is saying this with only 23 days left in office when it can do little to nothing to make it meaningful as opposed to myriad opportunities it has had in past eight years.
“Unfortunately, he also left a lot for want, including explaining how Israel’s Palestinian citizens, 20% of its population, would enjoy equal treatment in a ‘Jewish state’ as opposed a state for all Israeli citizens, regardless of their religion. Kerry’s emphasis on Palestinian violence as a problem also wrongly suggests that Israel established an apartheid regime in response to violence and not because it sought to remove Palestinians and implant Jewish-Israelis in their place, which has been the raison d’être of Israeli settlement policy within and beyond the imaginary armistice line dividing Israel and the occupied territories.”
Ali Abunimah, Director of the Electronic Intifada, and author of One Country: A Bold Proposal to End the Israeli-Palestinian Impasse (2006), and The Battle for Justice in Palestine (2014):
“John Kerry just gave an eloquent eulogy for the two-state solution. His detailed critique of Israeli settlements and occupation was striking in its forthrightness — rare from US officials. But it serves more than anything as an indictment of the United States, which funded, enabled and protected the brutal reality Palestinians have lived under for so long. Weeks before Obama leaves office, Kerry’s speech only underscores what a total failure this administration’s policies have been. Why did Obama wait until now when it is too late for him to do anything meaningful?
“Kerry claimed that two states is the only way to peace and justice, while laying out a vision that requires Palestinians refugees to give up their right to return in order to preserve Israel’s ethno-racial composition. How can it be democratic or just to say that Palestinians are barred from returning to their homes and birthplaces solely because they are not Jews? Moreoever, no one can seriously believe there is going to be any progress toward the vision Kerry laid out, not under the far-right Israeli government Obama has enabled and funded, and not under Trump, who promises to be even more extreme.
“The good news is that there are alternatives to these failed policies. Palestinians and some Israelis have for years been thinking about what a democratic, decolonized one-state solution with equal rights for all could look like. It is time for those who really care about justice and peace to engage with and embrace these ideas.
“And Palestinians have not been waiting for Kerry or Obama to finally act. They have been pursuing their rights through the growing boycott, divestment and sanctions movement. BDS will continue to grow as means to pressure Israel to end its denial of Palestinian freedom and to end the complicity of institutions and firms around the world in Israel’s racist practices and colonialism.”
