11:02am Tuesday 12th March 2013
By Reader's letter
DAVID LYONS claims that Israel favours an independent Palestine (Letters, March 6), yet Naftali Bennett, leader of the Jewish Home Party, says, “Most Israelis couldn’t care less about it... There is not going to be a Palestinian state... it is not going to happen.”
For decades, Israel has denied Palestinians their rights of freedom, equality, and self-determination through ethnic cleansing, colonisation, racial discrimination, and military occupation.
In 1979, Israel signed a peace agreement with Egypt and undertook “to establish an autonomous authority in the West Bank and Gaza Strip within five years”. Nothing happened. Later, Israel signed the Oslo Accords, and undertook to work for a final-status agreement with the Palestinians within five years. They did nothing.
For years, Israel claimed that Yasser Arafat was the sole obstacle to peace. Arafat died – and again nothing happened. Israel’s excuses become increasingly hollow and the truth is increasingly exposed. Israel does not want to reach a solution that would result in a Palestinian state.
If Israel continues to oppose a just outcome, it will be increasingly isolated, and as happened with apartheid South Africa, it will face a global campaign of boycott, divestment and sanctions until it complies with international law.
Terry Gallogly, Lowther Court, York.
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