This, clearly, the Palestinians cannot and will never accept.
Bearing in mind this fundamental fact, all this talk of peace and the peace process is a farce, a faà �ade to enable Israel to put more � ���"facts on the ground� �� � and consolidate its hold on the Palestinians. Israel's refusal to meet the recent demand of the Obama administration to freeze all construction of settlements on Palestinian lands is stark proof of this.
Given Israel's firm resolve in this matter, seeking peace in the region through a negotiated resolution of the conflict by Israel and Palestinians is to keep barking up the wrong tree.
For the UN to take the Israeli-Palestinian issue out of its orbit and ask the Israelis and the Palestinians to resolve the � ���"dispute� �� � by bilateral negotiations was an error to start with. To keep pressing for such negotiations is a grave injustice to the Palestinians. On the one side you have a powerful country, with an army among the largest and most powerful in the world. On the other, people who have no army, no armaments worth the name, their homes destroyed, their economy ruined, living under the boots of their brutal occupiers. They have no leverage. The situation is obviously and unbearably asymmetric. In such circumstances, to expect a just negotiated settlement between the two parties is unrealistic and naivetà � of the first order.
Israel, in defiance of a number of UN resolutions, has continued to illegally occupy the Palestinian lands for more than 40 years now. It has been the longest and most brutal occupation in current history. Israel has killed thousands of Palestinians, demolished their homes, devastated their cities, confiscated their lands, ruined their economy and driven them to poverty.. It continues to humiliate them daily and make their life as miserable as possible through a myriad of checkpoints within West Bank itself, making it impossible for the Palestinians to travel freely in their own land, keeping families separated, preventing timely access to hospitals, creating hurdles for students to go to schools.
And all this, to its shame and disgrace, has been going on in full view of the entire world!
If world leaders are serious about resolving this dispute justly and establishing peace in the region, they need to accept that this is not a dispute to be settled between two parties but a case of aggression and illegal occupation of Palestinian lands by Israel � ��" an occupation that needs to be vacated.
The farcical peace process must end. The UN needs to live up to its responsibilities and take firm steps to bring to an end this illegal occupation. If it cannot take any effective action, as a result of having its hands tied through a veto by Israel's � ���"best friend� �� � and ally, then those nations of the world that believe in justice and rule of law must start unilaterally and independently bringing pressure on Israel to vacate its illegal occupation and let the Palestinians establish an independent, sovereign, contiguous and viable state, even if it be on a mere 22% of the land they enjoyed prior to the establishment of Israel.
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