Palestinian activist: ‘Abraham Accords’ not stopping Israeli annexation
Yesterday, the Israeli government gave the green light for the construction of more than 2,000 new housing units in the Occupied West Bank. For Peace Now, Netanyahu is missing another chance for peace. Adel Misk sees the Accords as a “mask” like many others in the past, starting with Oslo. The Arab world has betrayed the Palestinians.
Jerusalem (AsiaNews) - As a Palestinian and as a person who "loves peace and wants to defend the rights of the citizens of this land", the signal sent by the Israeli government is further confirmation that "it will never stop its annexation plans. This shows a complete lack of interest in our rights,” said Adel Misk, a Palestinian neurologist and activist, speaking to AsiaNews, after the Israeli government approved the construction of 2,000 new housing units in the occupied West Bank.
This is the move after the signing of the Abraham Accords when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu put on hold his plan to annex a big part of the West Bank. "All of us who love peace know that they (the settlements) are illegal and a denial of the rights of the owners of the land, the Palestinians, who are the poorest".
Yesterday, Israel’s centre-right government approved plans to build 2,000 new units, the first such project after the normalisation of relations with the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain.
The plan calls for 560 new buildings in Har Gilo (1,600 residents), a settlement that lies between Jerusalem and Bethlehem; hundreds more will be built in Beit El, near Ramallah, and Efrat, near Bethlehem.
According to Peace Now, an Israeli anti-occupation advocacy group, these are the first units after an eight-month pause. In doing so, Netanyahu “is "de facto strengthening the annexation of the West Bank" and "is losing an opportunity for peace".
Adel Misk, spokesperson for The Parents Circle, an association that brings together about 250 Israelis and 250 Palestinians, all family members of victims of the conflict, stresses that the so-called Abraham Accords are actually "a mask, like many others in the past, that the Israeli government wears” to pursue its own interests.
On the one hand, “there are the words; on the other, there are facts, like the Olso agreement" and all the other agreements signed that are worthless paper.
“We have seen this for years and it is an ongoing denial of the Palestinians' right to have a land". As a Palestinian, “I feel betrayed” by Gulf nations and Arab countries in general, the doctor and activist. “As the Palestinian leadership has rightly emphasised, it is a stab in the back.”
“All that has been said and written in the various pan-Arab conferences are only slogans, beautiful but superficial promises, never carried out. Everyone is pursuing their own interests, dismissing the Palestinian issue, which has lost its topicality and become only a marginal element, of little interest to the Arab world.”
For the Palestinian neurologist, "the economic aspect has always prevailed" and "for 20 years the Emirates have stopped supporting our cause.”
As for the future, the situation remains uncertain, especially now that the novel coronavirus pandemic has further impoverished an already suffering population.
“The situation in the coming months will remain complex,” Misk said. “The determining factors will be the US elections and the eventual confirmation of Donald Trump, Benjamin Netanyahu’s trials, and the situation determined by COVID-19.”
The people of Israel must wake up and give more life to the ongoing protests; they must be able to redeem themselves and fight to solve the Palestinian issue.”
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04/05/2017 17:52
13/09/2023 20:22
