Contribution to The International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian Peoples on 29 November 2004

Erwin Lanc, Minister ret., President of the International Institute for Peace (IIP)

Erwin Lanc

It was 20 years ago when I first addressed a UN-Conference on the unalienable rights of the Palestinian People in my then capacity as a Minister for Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Austria in the Geneva UN-Headquarters.

Today I am invited to speak on behalf of NGO’s at least the International Institute for Peace in Vienna. My approach therefore may be less diplomatic. 

At length the situation in Palestine has been reiterated from different viewpoints: human rights, international law, non-observance of decisions of the UN-Security Council by Israel, legitimacy of Palestinian resistance, the intifada one and two, youth driven to despair and used by irresponsible fundamentalists as bombs against innocent Israeli civilians, Israeli State terrorism started by stealing land for illegal settlements in West bank and Gaza to killing of partly complete, destroying their houses, cutting their trees, justified as retaliation, keeping their elected president under house arrest, telling him he will be killed whenever Israel likes. They succeeded physically, but he will be more than under normal circumstances a symbol of the Palestinian fight for self determination and land. 

Why could and can it happen? Because under the umbrella of US-support for Israel’s economy and army by billions of Dollars every year and US-veto power in the Security Council, Israel does not need to permit a Palestinian State alongside Israel. The threat of being driven into the sea has vanished since long. Arab countries two years ago expressed their readiness to recognise Israel if the Palestinians get their own state. Israel does not even move out of Gaza and stay in the West bank putting their illegal settlements behind a wall. They should look to the fate of the Berlin wall. 

18 Jewish peace groups in 10 European countries qualified Prime Minister Sharon’s plans on October 5th „The plan for Gaza has nothing to do with peace and everything to do with the subjugation of the Palestinians to control by the Israeli army. It has nothing to do with ending the occupation through a negotiated withdrawal from the occupied Palestinian territories. It has nothing to do with the only hope for progress towards a peaceful and just solution of the conflict.” 

The former Swiss M.P. Jean Ziegler, UN food expert, called on the EU, to freeze Israel’s special trade partner status. His report to the UN- General Assembly tells that 22 percent of the Palestinian children in the occupied territories were suffering from malnutrition, tells Israeli newspaper Haaretz correspondent Shlomo Shamir. They do not forget to add that a Geneva based Jewish organisation monitoring UN activities demanded that the Secretary General Kofi Annan shall dismiss Ziegler. 

I personally know Ziegler. He never has been easy going, but always honest. 

Former Knesset deputy and old friend Uri Avnery once warned Shimon Perez that every Israeli settlement will become a kind of land mine on the road to peace. Meanwhile the radical leadership of the settlements is preparing conditions for a civil war, says Avnery. 

When late Austrian Chancellor Kreisky once expressed his concerns, that Israel may become a police state by keeping the occupied territories, he was sharply attacked. Now it is preparing for an upraise of settlers, says Avnery 

It is in the vital interest of both, the Palestinians and Israel that the road map powers meet to prepare and guide a meeting between Israel and the Palestinians. A new draft has to be worked out with concrete obligations at concrete dates and under UN-control. All neighbouring Arab countries ought to be part of the treaty. Any process has to be started by a plebiscite in Israel and in the Palestinian territories, including East Jerusalem/Al Quds, because the legitimation for big steps to peace does exist, neither in Israel nor in the Palestinian territories.  

The world, not only the majority of Palestinian and Israelis, is waiting for a peaceful solution. Palestine, based on two states can develop to a garden Eden.

Even oil business and nuclear non-proliferation can profit and the United States will save much money in the future.