Palestine expects Israel to end occupation within 3 years!

-DR. ABDUL RUFF COLACHAL 

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Positive signals emanate form Mideast  about  the possible  resolution of deadly crisis  in the region, targeting the Palestine for decades of Zionist occupation, and genocides as part of Israeli state policy of expansionism  

As the April deadline for a credible result of US-backed peace talks is just a few months away, the White House is pushing Israel to come to terms with the emerging reality of sensible peace talks and wind down its expansionist agenda in favor of peaceful coexistence with neighboring Palestine nation by finally resolving the dispute.

In a way to unnecessarily prolong the occupation for many more years, Israel has sought  to maintain its military presence in the region making the deadline looming for faltering US-backed peace talks.

Israel and Palestine began a nine-month track of US-backed peace negotiations in July but so far there has been little visible progress. Palestinian negotiators complain that Israel is trying to sideline their demands in the talks -- such as future borders -- by imposing its own agenda of security in the Jordan Valley and Palestinian recognition of Israel as a Jewish state.

The Palestinians recognised Israel more than two decades ago but have refused to recognize its religious character, fearing that doing so would undermine the "right of return" of Palestinian refugees from the 1948 Arab-Israeli war.

Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas, who represents Palestinian community in peace talks with Israel, asked the peace brokers to make the Palestine territories freed from the occupiers. Abbas has said Israel should withdraw from occupied territories within three years under any peace deal, rejecting Israel's demands for a long-term security presence in border areas. His remarks came as an April deadline loomed for faltering US-backed peace talks, which have been in deadlock over the issue of future security arrangements and other core disputes.

Meanwhile, obviously with a view to annoying the Palestinians to oppose Zionist crimes, the hawkish Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu reiterated his demand Palestinians recognize Israel as the Jewish state, and all Israel’s hawkish pro-occupation ministers spoke out against “concessions” to  the people of Palestine, highlighting the lingering gulf between the two sides. Netanyahu called such a recognition as the first foundation for peace between us and the Palestinians" since it would "end the conflict" by "cancelling the right of return" and any territorial claims. Netanyahu also said he could only accept an agreement leading to the creation of "a demilitarized Palestinian state that recognizes the (nuke) Jewish state." He says the Americans want to reach such an arrangement, and he wants the Palestinian leadership is ready to make the necessary concessions.

Israel know for sure that when Palestine state is established, mutual recognition would automatically follow, leading to friendship and peace, cooperation and fruitful mutual assistance. But they just raise this issue just only to annoy the Palestinian, besieged by Israel-Egypt terror twins and disrupt peace talks.

This is their age old triclomacy.

Now Israel should recognize Palestine as a sovereign nation.

Abbas point blank said in an interview screened at the annual conference of the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) held in Tel Aviv: "Those who are proposing 10 to 15 years (before a withdrawal) do not want to withdraw at all. We say that in a reasonable time frame, no longer than three years, Israel can withdraw gradually," he said.

Having drawn Palestinian blood for years now, Israel also wants now to maintain a long-term military presence in the Jordan Valley, where the West Bank borders Jordan, but the Palestinians insist Israeli troops must completely withdraw, making way for an international force. "We have no problem with there being a third party present after or during the withdrawal, to reassure Israel and to reassure us that the process will be completed," Abbas said. "We think NATO is the appropriate party to undertake this mission."

Abbas reiterated Palestinian demands that a two-state solution be based on the lines which existed before the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, east Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip in 1967, and said east Jerusalem must be the legitimate Palestinian capital while Israel already has Tel Aviv as its nuke capital.  

But hawkish Israeli cabinet ministers speaking at the conference voiced fierce opposition to the Palestinian demands, particularly for territory.  Economy Minister Naftali Bennett said, in a veiled warning to Netanyahu:"Our ancestors – blood thirsty and now dead in grave - will never forgive an Israeli leader who divides our land and our capital".

Like other elements supporting illegal settlements in Palestine, Bennett also criticised US efforts to bring about a peace agreement. "Anyone who comes up with a bizarre idea in the Western world, they say, let's try it out on the Jews," he said, referring to reports that Jewish settlers could remain in the West Bank and lease their land from a future Palestinian state. 

Hard core, terror minded Israelis oppose peace talks in any form. "The state of Israel is not your laboratory," Bennett said, apparently addressing US Secretary of State John Kerry, who kick-started talks in July and has been on 11 visits to the region.

The Palestinians have already warned that after the deadline they could take legal action in international courts against Israel over its settlement expansion in the occupied territories. "I hope we succeed so we don't have to resort to legal or diplomatic or political confrontation on the world stage," Abbas said. 

OBSERVATION

USA and international community should help the illegal Jewish settlers and colony promoters among the Israeli politicians and lobbyist in USA shed the Palestinian blood taste and expansionist dreams they cherish. They must become normal humans so that entire world could recognize them.  

A solution, when executed properly, will bring Israel recognition from 57 Muslim countries, a clear, straightforward and diplomatic recognition between these countries and Israel. Abbas added. "I hope the Israeli people can understand what it is to be in an ocean of peace, from Mauritania to Indonesia, rather than in an island of peace as it is at the moment."

Also, Israel should be demilitarized to suggest that it has no cunning intentions to reoccupy Palestine on some flimsy grounds.

The IAEA should help Israel dismantle its nukes, obtained illegally and maintained secretly.

Israel-Palestine relations, when nourished by them as well as big powers, can make the region credibly secure and diplomatically prosperous!

Even 3 years is a lot of time, it could be less than that.