Colonies hinder smooth transition to peace

Nothing is causing a perpetuation of the current Palestinian – Israeli violence more than the existence and growth of illegal Jewish colonies in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.

In June 1967 Israel occupied the West Bank, Gaza (as well as the Golan and Sinai) saying at that time that they would relinquish these areas in return for peace. This Israeli claim has now been proven to be a public relations ploy.

Palestinians and Arabs (see the latest Arab League Commitment) have continuously offered peace for land but Israel has refused to give up Palestinian territories.

If Israel really was willing to give up land for peace, one might ask, why has it built exclusive Jewish colonies on lands it intends to return?

Every Israeli government since 1967 has planned, built, subsidised and protected Jewish colonies and colonisers in occupied lands. The Fourth Geneva Convention, which deals with cases of prolonged occupation, states clearly that occupying powers are not allowed to expropriate land or to move its citizens to occupied territories.

Since then, numerous UN General Assembly and UN Security Council resolutions have opposed Jewish building of colonies. Official U.S. policy has ranged from calling colonies "illegal" to "an obstacle to peace."

Israel's leading ally, the U.S., has repeatedly called on Israel to reverse its policy without any success. U.S. officials have asked Israel to "stop it , suspend it, end subsidies to colonisers, freeze it and take a time out," yet it has continued uninterrupted.

When the Oslo peace process began, respected independent Palestinians like Dr. Haider Abdel Shafi complained that the process will fail because it lacked an Israeli commitment to suspend building of colonies during the five year interim period. I remember during those days in 1994 that along with other Palestinian journalists I attended a special press briefing with Israeli foreign minister Shimon Peres.

When a journalist complained about the Rabin governments continued activity in the occupied lands, Peres tried to deny it. When he was faced with statistics of Palestinian lands expropriated for colonies and bypass roads he shrugged the issue aside.

You ought not concentrate on this issue, he preached to us, all this will become irrelevant once there is a permanent solution that will see the West Bank and Gaza as an independent Palestinian entity.

Now, eight years later, the independent Palestinian entity has not materialised, the handful Palestinian cities that were evacuated by Israeli troops are now more brutally occupied with nearly two million Palestinians under permanent house arrest. The largest Palestinian city of Nablus has been under continuous 24-hour curfew for more than 16 days.

For sure Israel has paid a heavy toll for its policy of occupation, assassinations and collective punishment. Many in Israel want nothing less than their army leaving Palestinian territories. There is a small problem, however. The Jewish colonies dotting the Palestinian lands.

From tiny hilltop colonies to urban-like cities, more than 130 of these exclusive Jewish-only colonies have created a security nightmare for the Israeli army. And the Israeli public is paying a high price for their government's policy of building and protecting these illegal outposts.

These exclusive Jewish colonies are turning Israel not only to a military occupier but also into an apartheid state. Jews living in the West Bank and Gaza get subsidised housing, reduced-price and more plentiful water supply, freedom of travel, no curfews and none of the coloniser's relatives get their homes blown up even if – as in the case of Hebron's Baruch Goldstein – they massacre 29 praying Muslims; or the coloniser that killed a Palestinian teenage girl last week.

Coloinisers' cars have different license plates to Palestinians so they don't get stopped at checkpoints; they vote for Israel's Knesset and get 24-hour army protection on West Bank and Gaza roads built and used only by Jewish colonisers.

The Palestinian population in the North of the West Bank was forbidden from driving on the roads this week. Forty-four Palestinian homes were demolished as a punishment for having a member of their family involved in attacks against Israelis.

The Bush administration is on the record as supporting the creation of the State of Palestine in the West Bank and Gaza alongside Israel within three years. Some members of his administration seem to think that this goal, supported by the majority of Palestinians and Israelis as well as the internationally community, can happen without a position on illegal colonies.

The Israelis are given a free hand to violate international law and grant their army-protected bulldozers special status to continue stealing Palestinian lands to built Jewish homes in occupied lands.

A peaceful resolution to the conflict is possible. A determined and unified U.S. administration can ensure that in the Middle East there is a secure Israel and a free Palestine. This can't take place while one side plunders the land of the other. Colonies are clearly an obstacle to such a dream. One has to be stupid not to realise and accept that.

Daoud Kuttab is an award winning Palestinian journalist from Jerusalem and the director of the Institute of Modern Media at Al Quds University in Ramallah.