PALESTINIAN POLITICAL figures have castigated the Israeli parliament for adopting a Bill requiring a super-majority in the legislature or a popular referendum to mandate withdrawal from occupied East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights.
Chief negotiator Saeb Erekat said: “With the passage of this Bill, the Israeli leadership, yet again, is making a mockery of international law. Ending the occupation of our land is not and cannot be dependent on any sort of referendum.” He stressed Israel’s obligation under international law to withdraw from all territory occupied since 1967.
“This is Israel’s attempt to veil its oppression of the Palestinian people as an exercise of Israeli democracy. Ending the occupation and freeing the Palestinian people would be the purest expression of democratic values. The international community’s answer to this Bill should be worldwide recognition of the Palestinian state [within] the 1967 borders, with East Jerusalem as its capital.”
Jamal Zahalka, a member of the Israeli parliament representing the Palestinian minority, described the law as “an Israeli invention which is unprecedented in world history”. He said: “The Knesset has no right to decide the future of Jerusalem or the Golan Heights. This is not an Israeli internal affair.
“In cases of occupation, people under occupation are invited to participate in a referendum to decide their fate and future and this has happened several times last century. But the Israeli law talks about asking the occupying people to decide the fate of the occupied lands and the fate of people under occupation.”
He said the legislation is a “clear message that Israel does not want to reach a settlement or peace”.
The law, backed by prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu, was passed by 65 votes to 33 late on Monday. Referendums are required for East Jerusalem and the Syrian Golan Heights, annexed by Israel in 1967 and 1981, but not for the West Bank and Gaza Strip, which, as far as Israel is concerned, remain the subject of negotiations.
Arab rulers have repeatedly made clear that there can be no end to the Arab-Israeli conflict until East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights are returned to Arab rule alongside the West Bank and Gaza. Under the 2002 Arab peace plan the Arabs will forge peace and normal relations with Israel only when it pulls out of all occupied Arab territory.