The Foreign Service Journal, December 2006

Rice recalled her personal involve- ment in reaching the 15 November 2005 Agreement on Access between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. To be sure, Rice did invest consider- able political capital in securing Israeli agreement to the document. But in fact, that agreement is an illus- tration of what has been wrong with American policy to date, not a shining example of sustainable peacemaking. The agreement provided, among other things, that: • Israel would “on an urgent basis ... permit the export of all agricultural products from Gaza during this 2005 harvest season.” • The Rafah, Karni, Erez and Kerem Shalom cross- ings would “operate continuously.” • Bus and truck links between Gaza and the West Bank were to be facilitated. • The U.S. and Israel were to establish a list of “obsta- cles” to movement within the West Bank, with a view to reducing them. • A Gaza seaport was to be constructed and the air- port was to be rebuilt. Yet, in the end, the pact’s only tangible achievement was the posting of European Union monitors at the Rafah crossing. It did not even rescue the Palestinian harvest, which was left to rot because it could not be transported to market. And what was Washington’s response to the Israeli refusal to live up to its pledges? Nothing that made a difference on the ground. The Gap Between Rhetoric and Reality Today, the situation is indescribably worse than it was a year ago, in large part due to U.S. support for Israel’s actions and its imposition of sanctions on the government the Palestinians elected democratically in January 2006. The United Nations estimates that there are over 540 checkpoints in the West Bank, far more than in 2005, while the Gaza crossings are almost always closed. The U.N. has repeatedly warned of an impending humanitar- ian disaster in Gaza and is urging open access, as did the European Union Council at its Sept. 15 meeting. Severely limited access to food and medicine due to Israel’s border clo- sures, and to safe water and electrici- ty due to its bombing of Gaza’s power plant, has been reflected in a dramat- ic increase of diarrhea in children, among other health impacts. At least 68 Palestinian women have had to give birth at checkpoints, leading to 34 miscarriages and the deaths of four women. Donations from Arab states and the European Community’s Temporary International Mechanism have done little to alleviate the desperate situation of some 160,000 Palestinian Authority employees. Around 80,000 of them, including teachers and health workers, began an open-ended strike in early September. Meanwhile, Israel continues to arrest Palestinian politicians to force the release of a soldier captured by three Palestinian militant groups on June 25 in retaliation for the killing of a family on the Gaza beach. A third of the Cabinet, including Education Minister Nassereddin Shaer, and a quarter of the parliament, including Speaker Aziz Dweik, have been added to the more than 9,000 Palestinians in Israeli jails. Most of the detainees are West Bank Hamas moderates. Even Israeli commenta- tors speculate that “Israel is ... seeking to eliminate every sign of sovereignty.” The International Parliamentary Union has called on Israel to respect the “parliamentary mandate,” but the United States remains silent. And instead of easing access within, between and to the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Israel has increased restrictions on the entry of Palestinian holders of foreign passports, including U.S. citizens — an issue that Rice has also promised to address. The Palestinians are now arguably further from achieving a sovereign state than at any time during the past 50 years. They could thus be forgiven for feeling considerable skepticism about U.S. policy statements, given the massive gap between stated intent and action. Nor are they alone in despairing of meaningful moves toward peace led by Washington. Nongovernmental bodies such as the International Crisis Group are stepping into the policy breach. On F O C U S 34 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / D E C E M B E R 2 0 0 6 Nadia Hijab is a senior fellow at the Institute for Palestine Studies and co-director of its Washington, D.C., office. The opinions in this piece are her own. The Palestinians are now arguably further from achieving a sovereign state than at any time during the past 50 years.