An Inconvenient Democracy

Through the turn of the 19th century, the Balfour Declaration of 1917, which encouraged Jews from all over the World to migrate to Palestine, the subsequent Arab rebellions of the 1920's, WWII, the Nakba of 1947/48 that displaced 1 million Palestinians to refugee camps, where their families have remained ever since (now 4.5 million refugees), the founding of the State of Israel in 1948 (after the ‘land grab’ of the Nakba), the wars of 1967 (which resulted in occupation of Gaza and the West Bank by the Israelis, until today) and 1973, the many peace talks that have stretched from Oslo to Annapolis, withdrawal of the Israelis from the Gaza strip in 2005, election of a Hamas-controlled Government in Palestine in January 2006, the bloody battle of the Summer of 2007, which resulted in the schism between Fatah and Hamas, and the breaking of the recent cease-fire between Israel and the Palestinians in Gaza the ‘facts on the ground’ have all underlined the ultimate aim of Zionism, namely to take control of the whole of Palestine, however long it takes.

During a long series of ‘peace talks’ President Arafat of the PLO and his successors were urged by Western powers, particularly the Americans, to pursue democracy. However, the election of a Hamas-controlled Palestinian Authority in 2006 under the eyes of observers from all over the World resulted in ‘an inconvenient democracy’. The consequence of that was that the Western powers provided the Fatah faction with arms, which resulted in the blood bath of the Summer of 2007, with in Palestinians killing Palestinians - divide and rule?

We now have two major problems to overcome to bring peace to this region: 1) the schism between the Fatah and Hamas factions in Palestine; and 2) the Israeli constitution, which requires proportional representation to be used to elect Israelis to the Knesset. That results mainly in weak coalition Governments which cannot bring in the measures necessary for peace because the extreme parties are in control and can collapse the Government at any time.

The sooner we can establish a just two-State settlement for this region, based on the 1967 boundaries, the better it will be for all those who live there.

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I am the Secretary to the All-Party Parliamentary Britain-Palestine Group and a Member of Labour Friends of Palestine. I have visited the region a number of times, as recently as April 2008 and will be visiting Jordan in February 2009.

In the last few days I have attended, marched and spoken on Gaza at rallies in Manchester, Preston and Bolton, and will be attending and speaking at a rally in Blackburn on Sunday 11 January.

On Friday 16 January, I will give a PowerPoint presentation on my visit to Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories at Wood Street Socialist Club in Bolton.