I thank the Chairman and distinguished members of the Joint Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade for giving me the privilege of addressing them today on the longest remaining occupation on the face of our globe, the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories.
When the British Government sought to terminate its mandate in Palestine, the international community, through the United Nations, recommended a solution to the conflict between the largely immigrant Jewish communities and the indigenous Palestinian Arabs. That solution, contained in General Assembly Resolution 181 of 1947, called for the creation of two states, with Israel on 56% and Palestine on 44% of historic Palestine. Today, however, only the State of Israel exists, on 78% of historic Palestine, and it is a full member of the United Nations. Palestinians, who have suffered decades of displacement, dispossession and systematic denial of their national and human rights, have yet to be welcomed into the community of nations.
In November 1988, the Palestine Liberation Organisation, PLO, declared the establishment of the State of Palestine in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip - that is, in just 22% of our historic homeland. By limiting our national aspirations to this extent, the PLO made an historic compromise in the interest of peace. Since then, the way has been open for a two-state solution, a Palestinian state in 22% of mandate Palestine with Israel continuing to exist in the other 78%. However, this generous gesture by Palestinians has never been reciprocated by Israel, the occupying power.
After his electoral defeat in June 1992, the former Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir gave an interview to the Israeli newspaper Ma’ariv in which he spelt out the vision he was no longer in a position to implement: “It pains me greatly,” he said, “that in the coming four years I will not be able to expand the settlements in Judea and Samaria and to complete the demographic revolution in the Land of Israel.” His plan had been to negotiate for ten years with the Palestinians without giving them anything, meanwhile building an increasing number of Jewish settlements on Palestinian land, and prevent the creation of a Palestinian state. Mr. Shamir did not get to put his vision into practice personally. He never became Prime Minister again and has just died at the age of 96, but his successors, particularly his student Netanyahu, have realised his vision for him. His “demographic revolution” has been achieved. There are now more than half a million Jewish settlers in the West Bank, including east Jerusalem, more than triple the number when he left office. Years of negotiations have failed to bring about a Palestinian state because Israeli leaders have all refused to relinquish the territory taken over by force in 1967. Today, Israel continues to occupy the West Bank, including east Jerusalem. It has annexed east Jerusalem and refused to comply with Security Council demands, in Resolutions 252, 267, 271, 298, 476 and 478, that it reverse this annexation.
Israel continues to expand settlements on stolen Palestinian land. According to the Israeli human rights organisation B'Tselem, settlements now control 42% of the land area of the West Bank. The territory, which is supposed to belong to a Palestinian state one day, is being steadily eaten into by Jewish colonisation. As we all know, settlement-building is contrary to Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which states "the Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies". Based on this, the Security Council has demanded, in Resolutions 446, 452 and 465, that Israel cease settlement activity and remove the existing settlements.
The International Court of Justice, in its advisory opinion on the construction of the West Bank wall in July 2004, declared that "Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (including East Jerusalem) have been established in breach of international law". The court proceeded to order Israel to cease forthwith the works of construction of the wall and dismantle forthwith the structure already built. It also called on Israel to "make reparations" for the "requisition and destruction of homes, businesses and agricultural holdings" and "to return the land, orchards, olive groves, and other immovable property seized" to construct the wall. Israel has defied both the International Court of Justice and the Security Council and kept on building both the wall and settlements as if it were a country above international law.
Israel holds the world record for violating Security Council resolutions. It is in breach of more than 40 such resolutions that require action by it and it alone, dating back to 1967. Had Israel implemented those resolutions, a Palestinian state would have been established long ago side by side with the State of Israel. Nevertheless, Palestinian leaders have tried very hard since 1988 to negotiate a two-state solution with Israel. However, Israel refuses to negotiate on a realistic basis, since for Israel, the occupying power, negotiation is a time-gaining process to allow it to steal an increasing amount of our land.
Today, Prime Minister Netanyahu, Mr. Yitzhak Shamir's successor as leader of Likud, says he is prepared to enter into negotiations with Palestinians without preconditions. However, in his speech to the US Congress on 24 May last year, when he received 29 standing ovations, he said "No" to a return to the 1967 borders, "No" to military withdrawal from the River Jordan, "No" to a Palestinian capital in east Jerusalem, and "No" to a symbolic return of some refugees. He stated Palestinians must recognise Israel as a Jewish state. What are those if not preconditions? In addition, Mr. Netanyahu has adamantly refused to fulfil the obligations for negotiations set out in the roadmap, which we all know is the internationally approved framework for negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians and which was drawn up by the Quartet in 2003 and endorsed by the Security Council in resolution 1515. Under the roadmap, which was accepted by Israel in May 2003, prior to the start of negotiations, Israel is supposed to: make a public commitment to an independent, viable, sovereign Palestinian state; dismantle all settlement outposts erected since March 2001; and freeze all settlement activity, including natural growth. I do not need to tell members that Israel is in breach of all these obligations. Negotiations are now stalled because the Israeli Prime Minister refuses to freeze settlement activity as required by the agreement that Israel accepted nearly a decade ago.
At the White House on 20 May last year, Prime Minister Netanyahu declared that Israel "cannot go back to the 1967 lines". He justified this by saying that the 1967 lines "don't take into account certain changes that have taken place on the ground, demographic changes that have taken place over the last 44 years". Here he is referring to Mr. Yitzhak Shamir's demographic revolution, as a result of which more than half a million Jewish settlers now reside illegally east of the 1967 lines, on land that does not belong to Israel. Mr. Netanyahu is saying that because this illegal transfer has changed the demography of the land, it should now belong to Israel permanently. According to this strange principle of Mr. Netanyahu, it follows that the more land Israel colonises, the more land it can keep forever. No state in the world other than Israel would dare to argue in the 21st century that permanent rights to foreign territory can be acquired by planting settlers on it. That is the outlook of the 19th-century colonial power.
It once was observed that so doing is like negotiating over a pizza while one party to the negotiations is eating it.
In my opinion, there is no doubt but that Israel's actions on the ground in Jerusalem and in Area C on the West Bank are putting in jeopardy a two-state solution. This is not my opinion alone but is that of the European Union. On 14 May, the European Union's Foreign Affairs Council expressed "deep concern about developments on the ground which threaten to make a two-state solution impossible". The developments cited by the Council include:
the marked acceleration of settlement construction following the end of the 2010 moratorium, the recent decision of the Government of Israel regarding the status of some settlements outposts, as well as the proposal to relocate settlers ... within the occupied Palestinian territory, while all outposts erected since March 2001 should be dismantled, according to the Roadmap.
In addition, the Council cited:
in East-Jerusalem, the ongoing evictions and house demolitions, changes to the residency status of Palestinians, the expansion of Givat Hamatos and Har Homa, and the prevention of peaceful Palestinian cultural, economic, social or political activities.
The Council carried on by noting:
the worsening living conditions of the Palestinian population in Area C and serious limitations for the PA to promote the economic development of Palestinian communities in Area C, as well as plans of forced transfer of the Bedouin communities, in particular from the wider E1 area.
The Council also condemned the ongoing violence by settlers against Palestinians in Area C and demanded that all these Israeli actions must cease. The Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade, Deputy Gilmore, stated after the Council meeting that if matters continue to worsen in the autumn, Ireland may propose "the exclusion from the EU of settlement products and of individual settlers engaged in violence". While I welcome the Tánaiste's statement by all means, long and bitter experience has shown that Israel does not respond to verbal requests. If the longest occupation left on the face of our globe is to be ended, words from the European Union must be transformed into deeds.
Another step that must be taken is the admission of the state of Palestine into the membership of the United Nations, as with such a step, the international community would reaffirm its commitment to a two-state solution, that is, to the continued existence of the Israeli State in its pre-1967 internationally recognised borders and to the creation of a Palestinian state with the West Bank, including east Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip, as its internationally recognised territory. This would reaffirm that Israel has no valid claim to any part of the territory it took over by force in 1967, which would now be the internationally recognised territory of the state of Palestine. This is consistent with the long-established principle of international law that the acquisition of territory by force is inadmissible and which the Security Council emphasised in November 1967 in its Resolution 242. If Palestine is admitted to membership of the United Nations, Israel would be in the unique position of being the occupier of the territory of another United Nations member state, which it would find difficult to defend. In his speech to the United Nations General Assembly on 24 September last, the Tánaiste pledged Ireland support for United Nations membership for Palestine. In this regard, and on behalf of my people, I wish to take this opportunity to thank the Irish Government publicly for this support. This is just the latest example of Irish support for self-determination for the Palestinian people, for which we will always be grateful.
Finally, I remind members that we always have stated that our admission to the United Nations is not a substitute for negotiations. However, negotiations must be on a realistic basis with the possibility of, in the words of the roadmap, "an independent, viable, sovereign Palestinian state" being achieved within a reasonable period of time. While I envisage no possibility of this at present we hope that when the nations of the world recognise the state of Palestine in the West Bank, including east Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip, Israel will realise it cannot defy the international community on this issue forever and it then will be possible for negotiations to take place on a more realistic basis with the objective of ending the longest remaining occupation on the face of the globe. I thank the Chairman and members of the joint committee.