The April 14th meeting in Washington D.
C.
between Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and US President George W.
Bush resulted in a joint statement that has for the first time, publicly and officially, disregarded the framework within which the resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been negotiated for the last 37 years.
The content of the statement was given in the form of a letter of assurance to the Israeli Prime Minister.
In it US President George Bush reiterates his support for the “unilateral withdrawal” by Israel from the Gaza Strip.
The full extent of Bush’s support translates into the following: The United States publicly and officially renders the 1949 armistice lines [effectively the 1967 “Green Line”] null and void.
The United States officially recognizes the presence of illegal Jewish settlements in occupied Palestinian land and supports the annexation of the land and resources on which the major settlement blocs are situated thereby negating UN Security Council Resolution 242 of 1967.
The United States authorizes the relocation of Jewish settlers in the Gaza Strip to settlements in the West Bank.
The United States continues to consider illegally-annexed East Jerusalem as united with West Jerusalem and the surrounding areas as the “eternal capital” of the Jewish State.
The United States sanctions Israel’s building of the Apartheid Wall, which closes off Palestinian cities and villages from one another, destroys the foundation of the Palestinian economy and the fabric of Palestinian civil society.
Finally, the United States officially renounces the right of Palestinian refugees to return to the lands they owned, worked and lived on for centuries prior to 1948 and 1967, a right granted in the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights [article 13] and in United Nations General Assembly Resolution 194 of 1949.
Settlement, annexation of occupied territories and resources, and denying the right of refugees to return and/or to compensation violate the international law and the humanitarian law.
Details of the planned “withdrawal” from Gaza include the retention of military Israeli control over all access into and out of the Gaza Strip, including by air and sea; an Israeli military presence along the border between the Gaza Strip and Egypt; the sustained Israeli militarization of all land and sea borders around the Gaza Strip; the presence of specific military installations within Gaza; and full control over the Gazan economy.
The situation of the 1.
3 million Palestinian inhabitants in the Gaza Strip will worsen under these circumstances.
The Al Mezan Center for Human Rights condemns in the strongest possible terms the outcome of the meeting between Ariel Sharon and George W.
Bush.
This outcome is in direct violation of international public law and the Palestinian People's inalienable rights, particularly the rights of self-determination and of establishing an independent, sovereign state.
Al Mezan remains deeply disturbed by US subsidization of continual Israeli grave violations against the Palestinian people, particularly illegal settlement, collective disproportionate punishment of civilians and extra judicial assassinations, which are all nominated as war crimes under the 4th Geneva Convention.
The recent US position has further eroded any possibility of reaching a just settlement of the Israel-Palestine conflict, and one based on international law, especially agreements such as the 1949 Geneva Convention on the Protection of Civilians in Times of War.
Equally, United Nations Security Council Resolution 465 of 1980, considers any '[m]easures taken by Israel to change the physical character [and] demographic composition… of the Palestinian and other Arab territories occupied since 1967, including Jerusalem… [a] flagrant violation of the 4th Geneva Convention…’ Al Mezan Center for Human Rights unconditionally rejects President Bush’s recent statement emphasizing the following key points:
US bias towards and actions on behalf of Israel nullify the obligations of both Israel and the US under international law.
Both the United States and Israel are High Contracting Parties of the 4th Geneva Convention, which oblige State Parties to respect and ensure respect of the Convention in all circumstances.
US President George W.
Bush’s recent policy shift comes close to negating the possibility of achieving a negotiated political settlement.
The United States’ approval of Israel’s occupation intensifies the threat of peace and security in the region and elsewhere in the world.
Al Mezan rejects and condemns US President George W.
Bush’s recent acceptance of the policies undertaken and planned by the Israeli government.
Al Mezan demands US and Israeli adherence to international law.
Ignoring and encouraging the violation of Palestinian human rights for crass political gains has, over the past decades, only intensified and worsened the conflict and will continue to do so in the months and years to come.
Al Mezan Center for Human Rights calls upon the International Community to take a clear and unequivocal stance against the US-backed illegal Israeli occupation of Palestine.
Failure to do so will have dire consequences for us all.
END Relevant texts and links: Articles 146 and 147 of the 4th Geneva Convention: Articles 146 and 147 define a group of grave breaches of the Convention, determine them to be crimes of war, and stress the obligation to search for and punish those responsible for committing such grave breaches.
Article 147 States: “Grave breaches to which the preceding Article (Article 146) relates shall be those involving any of the following acts, if committed against persons or property protected by the present Convention: willful killing, torture or inhuman treatment, including biological experiments, willfully causing great suffering or serious injury to body or health, unlawful deportation or transfer or unlawful confinement of a protected person, compelling a protected person to serve in the forces of a hostile Power, or willfully depriving a protected person of the rights to fair and regular trial prescribed in the present Convention, taking of hostages and extensive destruction and appropriation of property, not justified by military necessity and carried out unlawfully and wantonly.
" Article 146 states: “The High Contracting Parties undertake to enact any legislation necessary to provide effective penal sanctions for persons committing, or ordering to be committed, any of the grave breaches of the present Convention defined in the following Article.
Each High Contracting Party shall be under the obligation to search for persons alleged to have committed, or to have ordered to be committed, such grave breaches, and shall bring such persons, regardless of their nationality, before its own courts.
It may also, if it prefers, and in accordance with the provisions of its own legislation, hand such persons over for trial to another High Contracting Party concerned, provided such High Contracting Party has made out a prima facie case.
” For the Full text of UNSC Resolution 465 consult the following link:
UNSC Resolution 465