No to Normalization

In an op-ed in The New York Times (9/13/09) entitled "Land First, Then Peace," Saudi Prince Turki al-Faisal explains well the Arab position on the Israeli occupation. This position is based on justice and fairness.

Since 1967, Israel has illegally occupied Palestine and parts of Syria and Lebanon. The occupations and colonization (settlements) are in violation of international law, UN Security Council Resolutions and the Geneva Convention. For this reason, numerous nations do not recognize Israel, and for that matter, neither does Hamas. Hamas has been criticized for this, but it is important to note that Israel's ruling Likud Party Charter expressly opposes a Palestinian State in Palestine.

The Saudi prince writes, "The Arab world, in the form of the Arab peace initiative that was endorsed by 22 countries in 2002, has offered Israel peace and normalization in return for Israeli withdrawal from all Arab territories including East Jerusalem---with the refugee issue to be solved later through mutual consent."

This Arab plan is exceedingly generous since Israel gets 78% of Palestine, whereas the original 1947 UN partition divided Palestine roughly equally into a Jewish state and an Arab state, with Jerusalem left as an international city since it is holy to three religions. Palestinian President Arafat accepted this Arab peace initiative in in 2002, but the Israelis prefer continuous occupation out of greed for Palestinian land, water resources, etc. as the Jewish settlements keep growing and metastasizing.

The Israelis of course want creeping normalization without ever having to give up any land, and thus the Arab states are being pressured to make concessions. The prince is correct to just say no.