In this article, written in September on the thirtieth anniversary of the first Oslo accord – and before the eruption of the recent war – JUDY BEISHON discusses what conditions would be necessary for achieving an independent Palestinian state.
The human geography of Israel-Palestine has been far from static. ‘Facts on the ground’ pushed ahead by successive Israeli governments have been changing the landscape of the West Bank and east Jerusalem since Israel’s victory in the 1967 war. Jewish settlements have been expanded in size and number, to now encompass around 500,000 settlers in the West Bank and 230,000 in east Jerusalem.
Palestinians meanwhile are more and more atomised into poverty-stricken enclaves, including the Gaza strip which remains largely blockaded by both Israel and Egypt. They suffer land expropriation, home demolitions, restrictions on movement and brutal repression. Since the year 2000, over 10,700 Palestinians have been killed in the conflict, many of them during the four Israeli military onslaughts on Gaza since 2008.
This year, Palestinians in the West Bank have so far suffered the highest death toll – the most there since the UN began recording it in 2005. Not only have they suffered regular raids and killings by the Israeli military – including a bloody assault on Jenin in July – but also increasingly ferocious, communal violence from right-wing ultra-nationalist Jewish settlers.
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