Wednesday, October 13, 2010

Who Are The "Inhabitants"?

Akiva Eldar writes:

...The former head of Etzel did not heed his comrades from the underground and gave back to Egypt all the territory that Israel had conquered in June 1967.

The preamble to the Camp David Accords, signed on September 19, 1978, states that "future negotiations between Israel and any neighbor prepared to negotiate peace and security with it are necessary for the purpose of carrying out all the provisions and principles of [UN Security Council] Resolutions 242 and 338." Begin crossed the Rubicon by setting a precedent that in return for peace, normalization and security arrangements, Israel interprets these instructions and principles into a pullout from the last centimeter of territory.

Moreover, Begin promised at Camp David, in connection with a permanent settlement of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip issue, that "the solution from the negotiations must also recognize the legitimate right of the Palestinian people and their just requirements." Begin referred to "the Arabs of the Land of Israel," which President Jimmy Carter confirmed that Begin informed him Israel considers synonymous with "Palestinians" and "Palestinian people." The leader of the "national camp" did not demand and did not receive an Egyptian recognition of Israel as the state of the Jewish people...

Without serving as a supporter of the Camp David Accords, far from that actually, nevertheless, I would suggest to Eldar that he neverthtless has a problem.

You see, in the 1978 Camp David Accords, you'll find this section:

A. West Bank and Gaza

1. Egypt, Israel, Jordan and the representatives of the Palestinian people should participate in negotiations on the resolution of the Palestinian problem in all its aspects. To achieve that objective, negotiations relating to the West Bank and Gaza should proceed in three stages:

1. Egypt and Israel agree that, in order to ensure a peaceful and orderly transfer of authority, and taking into account the security concerns of all the parties, there should be transitional arrangements for the West Bank and Gaza for a period not exceeding five years. In order to provide full autonomy to the inhabitants, under these arrangements the Israeli military government and its civilian administration will be withdrawn as soon as a self-governing authority has been freely elected by the inhabitants of these areas to replace the existing military government. To negotiate the details of a transitional arrangement, Jordan will be invited to join the negotiations on the basis of this framework. These new arrangements should give due consideration both to the principle of self-government by the inhabitants of these territories and to the legitimate security concerns of the parties involved.

As anyone can read, the ethnic/national identity of the "inhabitants" is not defined leaving open, in theory, the participation of any Jew resident in the area (unlike Abbas' current position of apartheid).  "All the parties" also includes Israel, which has a stake in not having Jews expelled from the territory of its their national homeland, regrdless of the political regime in place.

What would Eldar respond?

- - -

No comments: