Israel rejects panel report

By Kesava Menon

MANAMA (BAHRAIN) MAY 6. Israel appears to have set itself up for some hard times through its rejection of a report submitted by an international panel that enquired into the causes of the violence that has rocked the region for over half a year. The main recommendation of the panel that Israel must freeze all building activity in the Jewish settlements runs counter to the policy of the present and past Israeli governments. But it is one recommendation with which the rest of the world would be in agreement and this particular Israeli policy has also drawn the ire of U.S. administrations in the past.

The five-man enquiry panel headed by the former U.S. Cabinet member, Mr. George Mitchell, submitted its report to the Israelis and the Palestinians yesterday. While the Palestinian Authority has signalled its initial favourable response to the report and called for a summit meeting to implement its recommendations, the unofficial Israeli response has been negative. Israel has rejected the panel's recommendation that it not only refrain from building new settlements but that it also desist from building new housing units in existing settlements. Successive Israeli governments, even those that promised not to build new settlements, have insisted that they had the right to build within existing settlements to cater to the natural growth of the communities.

In actual practice the ``expansion'' of existing settlements is often indistinguishable from the building of new ones. In the West Bank in particular buildings are put up on hill-sides nearby but not within the boundaries of existing settlements. Instead of classifying these new communities as new settlements they are categorised as being parts of the older settlements. This is a contrivance to expropriate more Palestinian land while maintaining the facade that Israel is observing the international consensus against the building of new settlements. It is a policy that infuriates the Arabs, draws strong criticism from the European Union and has also on occasion drawn U.S. censure.

Israel's determination to stick to its settlement policy is evident from the reports that the Prime Minister, Mr. Ariel Sharon, is about to approach parliament for the provision of an additional 1.5 billion shekels (over $300 million) to fund building activity in the settlements. It remains to be seen whether such defiance will escape the attention of a U.S. administration that has directed strong criticism against the Israeli Government on at least one occasion already.

Besides the freeze on settlements the enquiry panel is also reported to have called for a lifting of the ban on the movement of people and goods within the Palestinian territories, for Israel to desist from the use of rubber-coated steel bullets against unarmed Palestinian demonstrators and for Israel to desist from demolishing Palestinian houses and levelling farm- land.

The panel is also reported to have rejected the Palestinian demand for the stationing of an international peace-keeping or monitoring force inside the territories.

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Section  : International
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