The Swiss newspaper "Le Temps" said that the war in Ukraine is attracting all the world's attention, while frustration is rising among the Palestinians who have disappeared from the international diplomatic agenda, despite the flagrant violation of international law evident on the ground, and in everything, when traveling In the Israeli settlements under construction and roads designated for settlers, and the annexation of new neighborhoods in East Jerusalem or in the occupied West Bank.
This introduction came as the opening of an article in the newspaper, in which Mario Carrera, the former director of the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation in Palestine, denounces the absence of the Palestinian state from the agenda of international diplomacy, and the cuts in aid budgets allocated to it publicly, at a time when Western media focus on Ukraine, and Europe is harnessing all means for it.
The former director explained that the phrase "You Europeans are mobilizing yourselves against the war in Ukraine as you have never done with us before", which he heard several times and the world heard immediately after the beginning of the Ukrainian war from the Palestinians, expresses the great frustration that is rising there in a country occupied by Israel since 1967, It is being subjected to an increase in food and energy prices under a leadership divided between the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) in Gaza, which lives under an Israeli siege, and the corrupt and illegitimate Palestinian Authority in the West Bank.
And on the ground - as the writer says - the suffering of the Palestinians appears in everything, in times of travel, in the Israeli settlements under construction, new roads designated for settlers, and the annexation of new neighborhoods in East Jerusalem and in the occupied West Bank, where the number of settlers is constantly increasing from about 200,000 in 1989 to some Nearly 700,000, in addition to the Israeli government's decision to build 4,500 new units last May to satisfy the extremist, religious Zionist and far-right parties in the fragile government of settler Prime Minister Naftali Bennett.
The writer pointed out that this settlement is a “flagrant violation of international law” according to UN Security Council Resolution 2334 of December 2016, which calls for an immediate halt to the confiscation of land and water, and the construction of roads and economic infrastructure for settlers, which creates a state of insecurity. permanent for the Palestinians.
They are the two-state solution
Politically, the Swiss diplomat believes that this ubiquitous settlement undermines the "two-state" solution that the international community has promoted for years without any effect. Therefore, many Palestinians who supported this solution, which provides them with an independent, recognized state called Palestine, are now claiming Today, of course, without enthusiasm for the establishment of a single bi-national state, despite their feeling that they will not enjoy full citizenship in it, especially since the Knesset classified Israel in 2018 as “the nation-state of the Jewish people.”
Mario Carrera asked: What should be done now in the face of the absence of the rule of law and the emergence of extremism on both sides?
Noting the need to actively support weak secular civil societies, revitalize Palestinian government structures or rural associations, in addition to stimulating partnerships between actors in Israel (startup state) and many potential partners in Palestine, including in Gaza.
Mobilizing the international community
The possibility of a bi-national state should restore hope to daily Palestinian life, as the writer sees it, by dismantling hundreds of fixed and mobile checkpoints that arbitrarily limit movement, increasing foreign investment, in addition to stopping settlement, violence and land theft, and opening horizons for Palestinian youth. Instead of letting him immigrate to Canada and the United States.
The writer concluded that the international community must bear a great responsibility to prevent the disappearance of Palestine under the pressure of the cycle of occupation, violence, poverty and the destructive apartheid state, by bringing about a just and lasting peace without occupation while respecting international law, as stipulated by the United Nations plan to partition Palestine 75 years ago. .