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The mockery that is 'security for peace'

March 26, 2015 at 10:17 am

‘Despite their importance, the Palestinian Authority’s threats to end security coordination with Israel will not mean anything if they are not part of a larger and broader strategy that includes building Palestinian unity and preparing to face the inevitable Israeli and American punishment. However, we cannot be liberated from the grips of this security coordination without being liberated intellectually from the illusion of the “peace process”.

Such cooperation with the Israelis includes creating a situation in which the Palestinian people are submissive in order to force them to accept Israel’s control and end all resistance to the occupation. Meanwhile, Israel continues its expansionist policies of seizing more land and displacing the Palestinian people. The goal behind the security coordination is not coordination per se, but ensuring that Israeli security conditions are met. This basically means that the PA is to prevent all resistance operations against Israel and keep protesters away from the military checkpoints and barriers. In other, words, Israel’s security is prioritised over any human, legal or political considerations that might benefit the Palestinian people.

This blackmail began with the Oslo Accords, as they include clauses that protect the Palestinian people and their land from the brutality of the Israeli occupation, but do not include any reference to international law and the Fourth Geneva Convention, which prohibits the confiscation of land, the displacement of the population, and the transfer of settlers to the occupied territories. In addition to this, Israel refused to commit to any charters or covenants that prohibit torture, murder and persecution.

Since the beginning of the “peace process”, the purpose was to impose Israel’s conditions by means of military superiority and American support instead of international law and UN resolutions. Hence, the agreements, especially their security aspects, have become the main reference for the phased and final status agreements because Israel does not recognise the historical, political or legal rights of the Palestinians.

Israel regards the recognition of Palestinian rights to be a threat to its legitimacy. Indeed, Zionism does not recognise the presence of an Arab Palestinian nation on the land it considers to be the homeland of Jews born in and citizens of countries all over the world. Zionists view the Palestinians merely as an obstacle to the realisation of their state and its expansion.

Israel’s demands are based on the basis of “the need to contain the Palestinians” by turning the PLO into an authority with no power or sovereignty but which relieves Israel of the burden of direct contact with the Palestinian population. However, since there are no hindrances to the Israeli army’s regular offensives against local civilians, the Palestinians are sitting ducks and an easy target with no legal or physical protection.

The “security coordination” was imposed on the Palestinians as a part of the American-Israeli conditions, which linked the withdrawal of the Israeli army to the condition that the Palestinians commit to the security guarantees. The US Middle East envoy, Dennis Ross, brokered a memorandum emphasising this association with the “fight on terrorism” as part of the Protocol Concerning the Redeployment in Hebron in 1997.

The concept of “security for peace”, within which the Palestinians must preserve Israel’s security in order for them to deserve the trust of the occupation forces, also became a condition for implementing the “Road Map” in 2002. This means that Israel will not withdraw, nor will a Palestinian state be established, without the Palestinians’ commitment to Israel’s security demands.

However, the security coordination seems to be a Palestinian need because Israel controls the movement of both people and goods in domestic and foreign travel. This has given Israel the dubious right to prevent Palestinians – including the president – from moving at any time, under the pretext of breaching security guarantees. No coordination; no relative freedom of movement.

There are Palestinian concerns that stopping the security coordination would result in collective punishment by Israel that may extend to military raids and assassinations. However, continuing the coordination does nothing more than legitimise the occupation and turn a section of the Palestinian people – the PA and its security forces – into tools enabling the occupation forces by doing their job for them.

It is necessary to put an end to the mockery of “security for peace” because under this slogan, the occupation will continue and the Palestinian dream of freedom and independence will slip further and further away.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.