PFP Fax to British Embassy on Blair Visit
30 January 2003
PFP Fax to British Embassy on Blair Visit
PARTNERS FOR PEACE
1250 4th Street Southwest
Suite WG-1
Washington DC 20024
202-863-2951 phone office
202-863-2952 fax office
Email: pfp@igc.org
Web: www.partnersforpeace.org
Date: January 30, 2003
To: Joe Adamson
Fax: 202-588-7870
From: Michael F. Brown, Executive Director, Partners for Peace
Re: Palestinian-Israeli conflict and visit of Prime Minister Tony Blair
The Near East faces an explosive crisis that could ravage the area by the end of February. Chaos and human misery loom.
To date, the Bush administration has been singularly unwilling to grapple with the Palestinian-Israeli conflict that is at the center of concern for the region’s people. Seventy percent of the Palestinian people in the occupied territories are now surviving on less than $2 per day. The humanitarian situation deteriorates at a relentless pace between growing malnutrition and homelessness. Despair is deepening.
Yesterday, a Palestinian colleague and friend of the office told us that when she sees the injured Palestinians she wishes she had never been born. This is from a bright, cheerful Palestinian woman educated in a leading British university.
The perils posed by such despair must be impressed upon President Bush. Palestinians have almost completely lost hope in the peace process and are rapidly losing hope in both the United States and Europe.
Millions of the region’s people want to see UN Security Council resolutions carried out on behalf of the Palestinians. The double-standard is blatant.
Friday, Prime Minister Blair should seize the opportunity to urge President Bush to adopt the Quartet plan. This should not be delayed further for the formation of the Sharon government.
As part of the supplemental aid likely to be provided by the United States to Turkey, Jordan, and Israel, desperately needed food aid must be provided also to Palestinian NGOs. Indeed, both nations should come forward with Palestinian aid packages.
Care should be exercised, however, not to reduce the Palestinian plight to an economic one. Therefore, the president should be asked to make real the words of Secretary of State Colin Powell in Davos that we do not want “a phony state that’s diced into a thousand different pieces.” To give weight to these words, President Bush should be urged to support the same “conditionality” on loan guarantees that his father pursued 12 years ago. Aid money is fungible and funding that goes to illegal Israeli settlements directly forecloses on any possibility of a viable future Palestinian state.
The combination of the United States bombing Iraq and indirectly funding Israel’s building of settlements will not be received well in the region. The choice is before us — only President Bush does not see it. Time is short, but this opportunity must be seized by Mr. Blair to impress upon Mr. Bush that the Palestinian situation is dire and demanding of immediate American, European, and Arab attention. Waiting until after war with Iraq is not a live option. By then, the American election cycle may be upon us and providing a whole new excuse for not addressing 36 years of occupation. More importantly, by then, political chaos may have enveloped the region with results that we simply cannot fully fathom at this time.
Public opinion in the Middle East will not be positively transformed by war with Iraq. But it could well be transformed by dynamic action to resolve the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. The concerned voices of Anglican bishops from Great Britain to the occupied territories are calling for thoughtful action from Mr. Blair. Their calls are now reinforced by Christian Aid Charity and the dreadful picture the charity paints of life in the occupied Palestinian territories.
Time is short. More than words must be offered the Palestinian people and the people of the region. Guarantees of action — immediate action — need to be set out now. Such words stated from the side of President Bush would be an excellent start.
