Christian Aid Report points at Israel’s illegal actions

A new report entitled ‘Facts on the Ground: The End of the Two-State Solution?’, by Christian Aid has stated that Israel’s illegal actions in the Gaza Strip and West Bank may destroy any chance of a two-state solution being reached for the Palestinian and Israeli people.

Christian Aid said the “security barrier” being constructed in the West Bank and the expansion of Israeli settlements were effectively a “land grab” that was fanning the flames of violence in the region.

Christian Aid has argued the Britain and the European Union are complicit in this through negligence. Baroness Shirley Williams, who travelled with Christian Aid to Israel and Palestine, will launch the report in the House of Lord.

The co-author of the report, William Bell said, “The prospect of a viable state is vanishing before Palestinian eyes as the economy is strangled. The two-state solution is looking increasingly illusory. As a result, poverty levels are rising and Christian Aid is hearing of mounting malnutrition, anaemia, of unemployment and of farmers prevented from tilling their land. Without urgent measures to address the land issue - at the heart of this conflict - there will be no end to violence. Israel's current effort to secure as much land as possible is fanning the flames of conflict and putting Israelis in greater, not less, danger.”

International humanitarian laws and United Nations resolutions are currently imposed over Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territory.

The UK has signed up to the 4th Geneva Convention and the applicable UN resolutions, and is therefore obliged to act. Theses international laws and resolutions have been breached by the policies of successive Israeli governments, who have persistently attempted to build and expand the Jewish settlements in the West Bank.

Tensions have further been raised since the decision to build the separation barrier on Palestinian territory. The aid agency have said that the separation barrier has constituted so-called “facts on the ground” that become increasingly difficult to negotiate away, as they divide the Occupied Territories so that soon it will become impossible for these areas to be made into a viable state to run alongside the Israeli state.

Christian Aid said that if the two-state solution is to be realised, which is the aim of the European Union, the British and the American governments, then these facts must be confronted.

The Christian Aid called for the separation barrier and settlements to be dismantled. It also emphasised the need for the Palestinian Authority to commit further to transparency, accountability and democratic ideals. The report blamed a lack of good governance as the reason why Palestine had been denied legitimate representation and encouraged extremist factions.