March 22, 2001

On behalf of the Palestinian people, I would like to welcome the members of the Sharm el-Sheikh Fact-Finding Committee: Senator Mitchell, President Demirel, Foreign Minister Jagland, High Representative Solana and Senator Rudman. I would also like to take this opportunity to thank the Committee and its staff for the hard work and perseverance they have demonstrated since the Committee was formed in October.

You, the members of the Committee are charged with the important task of investigating the causes of the current violence and providing recommendations as to how to prevent its recurrence. But your investigation cannot simply be a question of “what”, it must be a question of “why”-- violence is only a symptom, you are charged with identifying the disease. As a long-time sufferer of this disease, please permit me to offer my humble suggestion that the disease you are looking for is called “military occupation”.

With Oslo, we believed that Israel’s military occupation would end, that we would live as a sovereign people, that we would share Jerusalem as an open city, that the ongoing confiscation of our property and our dignity would end. We believed that in the end, we would live in freedom, as a free people entitled to no more, but certainly no less, than our neighbors. But our hope steadily gave way first to disbelief, and ultimately to despair. Israel refused to withdraw its troops; it refused to free our political prisoners and, most tellingly, despite Oslo’s prohibition on unilateral actions which would prejudice a final agreement, Israel relentlessly expanded its settlements in an effort to create demographic facts on the ground that the Palestinians would be forced to accept.

It would be easy to recite a list of grievances – we have watched our children murdered only to hear their parents accused of sending them out to die. We have witnessed entire towns blockaded, preventing people from working, children from attending school and the sick from reaching medical care. We watched in horror as helicopter gunship fired into civilian populations. And of course, we were forced to watch as Israel confiscated more land, built more settlements and encouraged more armed settlers. All this, and yet we are the ones told to “stop the violence”.

But our challenge now is not to review grievances – it is how to revive confidence in a dialogue which has not brought the Palestinians any closer to freedom, how to move from a process of desperate confrontation to a process of trust. To do this, we need more than a “cease-fire” between Israelis and Palestinians. For there to be true revival of the peace process, there must be understanding and acknowledgment of the concerns and the injustices that have plagued this conflict. Yes, there must be an end to the killing of civilians and to other illegal uses of violence against Palestinians. Yes, Palestinians must be allowed freedom of movement and all forms of collective punishment must immediately end. Yes, the Palestinian economy must be freed from Israeli control. But do not make the mistake of believing that the peace process can be revived simply by granting the Palestinian people basic human rights which never should have been denied them to begin with.

Israel must take its place as a responsible member of the international community. It must agree to abide by United Nations Resolutions and international law, including the Fourth Geneva Convention to which Israel is a signatory. It must agree to abide by agreements it has signed with the Palestinian National Authority, particularly the third troop withdrawal which is now more than 2 ½ years overdue; it must allow international protection to enforce Israel’s compliance with international law and to protect civilians. Without such international support, any agreement reached with Israel has no guarantee of implementation, as we have painfully learned.

But most importantly – and this cannot be over-emphasized – there is no greater obstacle to peace, there is no issue more corrosive to Palestinian confidence in the peace process than the on-going construction and expansion of Israeli settlements in occupied Palestinian territory. Israel must fully and decisively abandon the policy of land confiscation and settlement building that it has relentlessly pursued for the past 34 years. Instead of encouraging more settlers, Israel should terminate economic incentives meant to lure Israelis to the occupied territories, it should implement economic incentives for settlers to move back to Israel. But instead, just this week, Israel announced plans to build settlements in the Abu Dis neighborhood of Arab East Jerusalem. I can assure you that it is very difficult, if not impossible, to convince the Palestinian people that Israel is serious about peace while it continues to confiscate land.

We have reached a point where symbolic diplomatic efforts that only dash the hopes of the Palestinian people become flashpoints for an intensification of the conflict. I am confident that this Committee, under the leadership of Senator George Mitchell, can recommend a path that will end the institutional injustices that have plagued this conflict and created so much instability both here and throughout the region. I am sure this Committee, based on an honest and thorough investigation of facts, will suggest a mechanism by which a fair, just, and moral peace in accordance with international law can be achieved.