Russian Foreign Affairs called Wednesday for pooling efforts to resolve the longstanding Palestine-Israel conflict.
Official representative of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Maria Zakharova, said Russia props up all collective efforts in the way of creating the necessary preconditions for the resumption of the peace process, speaking to the Russian news agency TASS on the 30th anniversary of the Oslo Accords.
“It is time to make the best out of the Russian initiative with the heads of the diplomatic missions of the Arab States, Turkey and the League of Arab States, which designed to develop a unified approach to the settlement issue in the Middle East,” Zakharova highlighted.
Zakharova indicated that Russia intends to engage closely in the Palestinian-Israeli settlement and other conflict situations in the region, in addition to maintaining closer contact with its Middle East partners, including Palestine and ‘Israel’.
It is essential to learn lessons from the Oslo Accords which help in building a solid settlement structure and resuming peace negotiations on a whole range of final status issues, Zakharova stressed.
Zakharova stressed that the United States shouldn’t play alone in the mediation file. “The parties must renounce unilateral actions, particularly settlement construction in the occupied Palestinian territory. Focusing only on the economic and security sectors without opening a political “horizon” for conflict resolution only exacerbates the situation.
Peace Process is an Illusion
Experts in the Palestinian-Israeli issue see that the prospect of creating a Palestinian state alongside one that defines itself as Jewish is zero because basically, Oslo is dead.
This view calculates many key factors on the ground. One of the essential factors is the spike in settlers’ numbers moving from all over the world to Palestinian-occupied territories. There are 700,000 settlers in the West Bank and occupied Jerusalem, and there is no clear plan by Israeli politicians or movements to remove them.
David Hearst, editor-in-chief of Middle East Eye, estimates that the second factor is the annexation crisis which exists at two speeds: creeping annexation favoured by a broad spectrum of the Israeli political elite, from centre to right; and annexation tomorrow, as proposed by the National Religious Party.
The third factor is the fragility of the Palestinian Authority (PA). Its loss of the national compass, popularity and meaning has served only Israel’s sovereignty on the West Bank and Jerusalem. The PA only exists as an extension of Israeli security policy.
Public Resistance
A rapid response to Oslo is that a new generation of resistance took shape following Oslo till these days.
Palestinians themselves reject any possibility of creating a way towards building peace with ‘Israel’ because they view Israeli occupation as an apartheid regime that occupied their lands and is still practising all ethnic cleansing measures on a daily basis, including home demolitions.
Confrontations usually erupt between Palestinian freedom fighters and Israeli occupation forces in many towns and villages of the West Bank in response to Israel’s ongoing atrocities against Palestinian civilians.
Furthermore, clashes usually erupt between the two sides at the Gaza fence as Palestinians peacefully demonstrate to demand an end to the 17-year-old blockade imposed by ‘Israel’ on the Gaza Strip.
Thirty years on from the signature of the Oslo Accords, the one lesson learnt is that only equal rights between equal citizens, Palestinian and Jewish, can end this conflict, David Hearst concluded.
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