DEBUTFÖRESTÄLLNING. I en orolig värld behöver vi sinnesro – det tycker dansaren Niki Tsappos som nu debuterar med det egna stycket “Head peace”. Föreställningen blandar hiphop, afrikanska danser och improvisation – och ska bredda representationen på svenska scener.

Elin Swedenmark/TT

The post Niki Tsappos söker sinnesro med dansen first appeared on Opulens.

OPINION. There are ways to solve the Israel-Palestine conflict, argues Tomas Nordberg in this the third of articles on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The Oslo Accords provide the guidelines for reconciliation. We must go to the roots of the conflict to arrive at its solutions. For conflict solution, not just management, both sides need to exhibit authentic acceptance of the other side rooted deep in its culture. The starting step is for Israel to relieve the economic plight of people living under its occupation, he writes. 

This article was originally published by Tomas Nordberg via Global Bar Magazine. 

The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author.

The regional context is plagued by turbulence and disorder. The conflicts intersect each other and the Israel-Palestinian conflict has a bearing on the internal conflicts of scores of countries in the region. Resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict would remove a major hindrance to better relations between the nation-states in the region which are in agreement regarding the need to prevent Iran from becoming a regional hegemon. 

Israel is under attack by groupings such as Hamas and Hezbollah. Acceptance by the Arab states is important for the Jewish state, especially given current population tendencies. There are already more Arabs than Jews between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. The land for peace formula is being challenged by a growing share of the Israeli population that wants to separate from the Palestinians. Some orthodox Jews wishes that Israel would annex and rule over what they define as historical Israel. And the two-state idea is questioned by more and more people on both sides to the conflict. The negotiations, mediations and facilitations of negotiations keep failing, thus providing more backing for Hamas. The region-wide revolution the Arab Spring didn´t succeed. To set itself on firmer footing, Israel needs a peace agreement with the Palestinians similar to its treaties with Jordan and Egypt. 

Read also: Why are the peace initiatives failing to bring lasting peace?

The parties are not starting from scratch. Previous negotiation processes have fixed the contours of the final status issues, namely refugees, the status of Jerusalem, security and territorial issues. The Trump Administration showed the inadmissibility of discontinuing funding as a means to achieve peace. The parties should negotiate a system that compensates refugees while keeping in mind that an unrestricted right of return is not feasible. Both Prime Minister Olmert and Mahmoud Abbas during President Bush presented options for a limited number of refugees returning. Proposing a compensation fund would incentivize the Palestinians to sign a peace agreement.

Worries about Security

Israel is rightly worried about its security. So, Israel should be offered membership in the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) to alleviate these concerns. On the Palestinian side, more funding is required for creating the Palestinian state and housing. Security cooperation must complement civilian state-building; a successful example is the US and Jordanian combined training of a security force in the West Bank. And the Palestinian leadership should show willingness to compromise on the final status issue of Jerusalem. The city will most likely not be divided. 

Unless the Palestinians construct a viable state, Israelis will go on to experience dread of being attacked. There is a vicious circle here: Israeli security concerns will preclude the Palestinians from developing full statehood. This is why the Palestinians have to end paying out money to perpetrators of terrorism. Israel, on its hand, incite the Palestinians to anger with its border closings which prevent Palestinians from entering Israel and working in Israel proper. Some observers claim that a demilitarized Palestinian state offers the best solution since it would not present a security menace to Israel. And Hamas would be weakened; a peace agreement would be the strongest deterrent to a Hamas take-over of Palestinian society. 

UN Security resolution 478 of 20 August 1980 dealt with Jerusalem. It seems that with regard to Jerusalem UN peacekeeping forces might be needed for securing a transition to peace. Demilitarized zones with peacekeepers that have the right to use force in emergency situations is another option.

The Israeli security barrier has saved thousands of lives argue those who think it should not be dismantled. The Palestinians want a return to the 1967 borders, right to return and withdrawal from West Bank settlements. But Israel cannot, realistically speaking, be expected to unilaterally withdraw without security requirements. The Gaza Strip withdrawal of 2005 led to 15,000 rockets being fired against Israel from Gaza. It failed because Gaza was not truly freed. And Hamas had a very different agenda from the PA. 

The mass exodus of Jews from the Arab States is a great tragedy that is often overlooked. A Jew born in Palestine would not be able to live there but a Palestine born there would have that right. Israel has a Law of Return on its books because of the Holocaust. Still, proper legal equality within the Holy Land is needed for peace. Poverty and institutional discrimination run rampant, as shown in reports from B´Tselem and the Or Commission. We are witnessing a progressive dispossession of Palestinian people. 

Opinion surveys carried out during 2000-01 indicated that the majority of Israelis wanted to end the settlements and have peace. Unfortunately, Arafat declined the offer put on table at the Taba negotiations. Netanayahu has said he wants to negotiate without preconditions but the Palestinians are hesitant to do so because of external factors including the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement. This movement seeks to end international support for what it claims is Israeli oppression of Palestinians. It aims to, among other things, boycott the Israeli regime, for banks, churches and others to withdraw investments from Israel, and sanctioning businesses with what it claims are illegal Israeli settlements. The Palestinian leaders inform the people that the International Criminal Court (ICC), the UN, and the BDS will give us a state. In reality, only negotiations will bring about a two-state solution. There is a clear risk that he BDS and the others processes disincentives the Palestinian leaders to return to negotiations.

The Right of Return

The Palestinians will have to renege on its demand of four to seven million people having the right of return. Jews lived in Jerusalem as a majority for 2000 years. Three million Palestinians did have to leave in 1948. But the Jews were the majority in Jerusalem. In addition, 700 000 Jews were expulsed from the Arab countries in what was essentially an exchange of populations. If we reexamine the so-called borders from 1947 we find that these borders are now part of Palestinian occupied territory. Numerous Israeli places and cities that are well developed and established are found there, so insisting on the right of return according to the border divisions of the Partition Plan of 1947 is most unlikely to gain traction. It would not work in practice given the sheer number and size of Israeli cities within occupied territory.

Realities on the ground inform us that the settlers are bent on staying in the West Bank and would probably successfully resist evacuation efforts. While the current administrative arrangements essentially divide Israel into several parts with slender connecting passages, there are causes for pessimism concerning the potential for change.

Read also: The Palestine Question – The two-state solution

These factors notwithstanding, the situation needs to be readdressed. The Palestinian people have been under Israeli occupation for over 50 years and the will of the international community is relevant; the United Nations General Assembly did define over 70 years ago what it considers a just solution for both the Israelis and the Palestinians. We must go to the roots of the conflict to arrive at its solutions. For conflict solution, not just management, both sides to need to exhibit authentic acceptance of the other side rooted deep in its culture. The Abraham Accords, while much aligned, offer a window of opportunity here. The UNSG has welcomed the accords and there might be way to include the Palestine question in the larger setting of peace between the Arab States and Israel. The starting step is for Israel to relieve the economic plight of people living under its occupation. 

Hamas representatives have on several occasions said publicly that they agree to a two-state solution based on the so-called Green Line (the 1967 borders). And Abbas has recommended that international society and the United Nation convene a conference together with the Middle East Quartet, namely Russia, the EU, the UN, the US, and the Security Council. He has stated that the Palestinians remain steadfast in their commitment to the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative.

Controlling the Gaza Strip

Israeli and Arab forces have fought multiple wars, most significantly in 1948–49, 1956, 1967, 1973, 1982, and 2006. These conflicts have produced an untenable situation on the ground. The EU should use its diplomatic strength to ameliorate the humanitarian situation in Gaza and strive to put an end to the Israeli blockade. Gaza is according to UNSC Resolution 1860 an integral part of the Occupied Palestinian Territories, something which the US should officially acknowledge.

Israel should be based inside of the Green line as it was determined in 1967 and the Palestinian state should be located between the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. The Oslo Accords provide the guidelines for reconciliation. To ameliorate the situation and reduce the risk of future armed conflict, Israel needs to let up the blockade of Gaza in order to make its control of imports for Gaza more similar to those of the West Bank as well as standardizing the movement of people and goods in and out of the Gaza Strip. There is an urgent need for economic bulwarks to improve the dire economic and humanitarian conditions in Gaza. But Israel won´t commit to his unless Hamas ends its armed activates.

The surrounding world should use its economic and political leverage to motivate the PA and the PLO to clarify their respective mandate and the PA to usher in a state-wide dialogue with its rival organizations with the aim of the PA coming back to the Gaza Strip. Palestinian capital in East Jerusalem should complement an Israeli capital in West Jerusalem. And Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Turkey and Egypt should be allowed to play a much larger role in ongoing peacemaking efforts.

There is also the issue of companies contravening human rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. The United Nations set of international conventions obligates states to secure redress for human rights encroachments through legislative, administrative, judicial and other channels. Mediation may, in addition, be resorted to outside the judicial sphere. But the UN structure fails to elucidate how to act in case of hindrances to legal assistance. 

The UN Human Rights Council is creating a juridically binding international instrument which may be used to demand that Israeli companies abide by human rights norms. Soft law, such as the Global Compact, may on its hand harden with time, increasing acceptance and followance, and become part of international human rights law. The US has resently reestablished its support of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA)

Employing Lawfare

Israel is adept at employing lawfare, or the strategy of using or misusing law as a substitute for traditional military means to achieve an operational objective. The U.S., on the other hand, is primarily intending to eschew accountability at the International Criminal Court (ICC). Lawfare is being developed on the ground in Israel-Palestine and successful schemes will spread to violent conflicts around the world. And it may be argued that the UN Human Rights Council is, by its almost sole focus on castigating Israel, engaged in lawfare to the detriment of its mandate which is to protect human rights. 

The seasoned Israeli peacemaker Gershon Baskin wrote in November 2020 about the importance of building on the momentum created by the normalization agreements between Israel, Saudi Arabia and Bahrain to engage the United Arab Emirates as a mediator in the conflict. There are critical immediate issues to address including the water crisis in Gaza. Final status issues such as the status of Jerusalem and borders can be sequenced in a similar fashion to the Oslo negotiations. By avoiding the thorniest subjects, agreement may be reached on other topics. This increases trust and confidence-building and eases mediation and negotiation of the most intractable issues.

Concrete examples of cooperation on the ground provide inspiration for the peace-builders. EcoPeace, which celebrated its 25th anniversary last Fall, is comprised of Israelis, Palestinians, and Jordanians working together on projects related to the environment. The city of Rawabi is a novel approach of building a Palestinian city in the occupied territories. The Palestinian Internship Program (PIP) gives young Palestinians the opportunity to intern with Israeli high-tech companies. But these examples of functional collaboration needs to be complemented by new political negotiations aimed at creating peace in the region. 

The Palestinian Leadership

Yahya Sinwar will probably emerge as the new leader of Hamas in the coming elections. While on paper already the leader of Hamas, he will most likely be formally chosen. Sinwar was declared a ”Specially Designed Terrorist” by the US government in 2015. And it is not probable that Hamas would be interested in peace negotiations. In addition, Israeli political leaders have for the past decade not been keen on meeting Abbas for peace talks. Sinwar made a surprising announcement two years ago, however, on Al Jazeera, declaring that Hamas would pursue ”peaceful, popular resistance”.

In sum, the peace process needs to start anew with the parties agreeing on the final status topics as treated by UN resolutions and international law. Confidence-building measures must remove the chief cause for terrorism, that is, the lack of peace. And political negotiations need to be complemented by functional cooperation. 

The post The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict – Some Thoughts first appeared on Opulens.

Throughout modern Israeli and Palestinian political history, there has been a realization that a balance must be struck between Palestinian aspirations for self-determination and Israeli legitimate security concerns. The Israeli settlements contribute to hardening the conflict and lessening the prospects for peace. Although international law prohibits moving one´s population to occupied ground, there are close to 620 000 Israeli settlers residing in the occupied territories today. 

This article was originally published by Tomas Nordberg via Global Bar Magazine. 

Throughout modern Israeli and Palestinian political history, there has been a realization that a balance must be struck between Palestinian aspirations for self-determination and Israeli legitimate security concerns. Palestinian leaders tend to argue that Israel has established a fait accompli since the 1967 Six-Day War. The Israeli settlements contribute to hardening the conflict and lessening the prospects for peace.

Lord Walter Rothschild announced in the Balfour Declaration of 1917 the British government´s support of the proposal to establish a Jewish homeland in Palestine, albeit under the condition that this would not encroach upon already existing non-Jewish societies civil and religious rights or the rights of Jews their political status in any other country.

A Truce Commission was established in 1948 to assist in the United Nations Palestine Commission in implementing the Partition Resolution. Count Bernadotte was able to accomplish a truce during the Arab-Israeli war of 1948. To comprehend what transpired during the previous decades, let us reexamine the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine and Transjordan of 1922 which entrusted Great Britain with the Mandate for Palestine.

Palestine and Transjordan had been yielded by the Ottoman Empire at the end of the First World War in 1918. The aforementioned Balfour Declaration provided the ideological underpinnings of the British rule which gave birth to both the Jewish and the Arab Palestinian nationalist movements. However, the Balfour Declaration failed to pronounce on how the rights of Palestinians and Israelis were to be protected.

Jordan annexed the West Bank after it had occupied the land during the Arab-Israeli war of 1948. The territory that was occupied is located to the west of the Jordan River and covers Hebron, Nablus, Bethlehem, East Jerusalem and the Old City, and Jericho. The land was returned in 1994 with the earlier discussed peace treaty between Israel and Jordan. Disputes over water rights over the Jordan River and water usage continue to this day.

The Two-State Solution
UN Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338 were the frameworks of the Camp David Accords that spelled out Palestinian autonomy. They do not require Israel to withdraw from all the land they occupied in 1967. PLO held their first consultations with the Israeli side in Lebanon in 1977. Israel invaded South Lebanon the following year and UNIFIL was created by the Security Council in resolutions 425 and 426. UNIFIL included 1000 Norwegian troops.

When Arafat expressed a wish for a secretive back-channel for negotiations in 1982, Thorvald Stoltenberg worked together with the Israeli Labour Party to set up one. The Amirab-Husseini Plan was the model for the Oslo Accords.

Resolution 242 was consented to by the PLO in 1982, who by doing so set question marks around the future of a Palestinian state. Sweden acted as a mediator six years later, in 1988, between the US and PLO during a meeting held in Stockholm. PLO representation was vetoed at the Madrid peace conference by Yitzhak Shamir in 1991. Instead, a joint Palestinian-Jordanian delegation participated. Then US Secretary of State James Baker remarked that the US wasn´t in support of an independent Palestinian state.

Haidar Abdel-Shafi, the Head of the Palestinian delegation was preoccupied by the issue of settlements. In 1991, there were already over one hundred thousand settlements in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. PLO was the only possible representative of the Palestinian people. As a consequence, separate secret negotiations with Israel began. The parties had nothing to lose because they wouldn´t be binding.

Abu Alaa met Stoltenberg at the Foreign Ministry in Stockholm 1992. The advantage of involving Norway was that its foreign policy was independent given their position outside the European Union. For Israel, the timing was good since the PLO and Arafat were very weak at the time. Yair Hirschfeld who was an Israeli academic, and Israeli historian Ron Pundak were instrumental in laying the groundwork for the Oslo process. Hanan Ashrawi, the Palestinian peace negotiator who was the official spokesperson of the Palestinian delegation to the Middle East peace process, and Hirschfeld had been talking in secret to Faisal Husseini of the PLO since 1989. Hirschfeld contacted Ahmed Qurei, or Abu Alaa, who was the finance minister of the PLO. And Norway, through Deputy Foreign Minister Jan Egeland and Terje Rød-Larsen of the Norwegian Institute of Applied Social Sciences, met with Abu Alaa in London in December of 1992.

The International Court of Justice (ICJ) has declared the Israeli West Bank Barrier illegal. In its Advisory Opinion titled ”Legal Consequences of a Wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory” of 9 July 2004, the Court found that the construction of the wall was contrary to international law. It is unilateral action of this kind that leads some academics to opine that Jerusalem should return to being a UN protection zone with free movement and safeguarding of Holy sites for Muslims, Jews, and Christians. Still, progress might be on the horizon.

Who Should Control Jerusalem?
The Jerusalem Law of 1980 says that ”Jerusalem, complete and united, is the capital of Israel”. The law has been described as largely symbolic. It was amended by the Knesset, however, in its Basic Law of 2000 to stipulate that Israel should have exclusive control over the city as defined by the boundaries spelled out by the government order of June 28, 1967. The Israeli Supreme Court has labelled it an effective annexation of East Jerusalem. Both the UN Security Council and the International Court of Justice have declared the 1980 Basic Law null and void.

West Jerusalem was overtaken by Israel during the 1948 war. The Holy Basin is key to settling the conflict This area is made up of the Old City and the circumjacent sections including Silwan, Mount Zion and Mount of Olives, most of which are located in East Jerusalem that Palestinians maintain is their capital. According to the International Crisis Group, US-led mediation should recommence with the objective ”to secure an agreement on several key principles if and when negotiations resume, to preserve Jerusalem as a city that respects the religious rituals of the three monotheistic faiths.”

There is disagreement over the Old City and the area surrounding it. It should be noted that East Jerusalem is a small area. But the Jewish people allege a 3,800 years old association with Jerusalem. Zionists assert that this is an important element of the so-called unfolding redemption process, the Zionist dream. The Jewish position is that an Arab or Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital has never existed. The Zionist movement also points out that there are 215,000 Jews living in East Jerusalem.

The Settlements
Israel has occupied the West Bank of the Jordan River, the Gaza Strip, the Sinai Peninsula, and the Golan Heights ever since the Six-Day war of 1967. Jewish settlement in the Occupied Palestinian Territories commenced the same year and the first settlement was Kfar Etzion. According to the Israeli government, the Judea and Samaria Area represents the administrative district that includes Israeli-occupied West Bank excluding East Jerusalem.

Although international law prohibits moving one´s population to occupied ground, there are close to 620 000 Israeli settlers residing in the occupied territories today. These settlements are contrary to international humanitarian law. And they repeatedly cause condemnation from the highest level in the diplomatic community.

Many legal experts contend that the settlements either contravene Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention or that they fail to comply with international declarations. We should note here that human rights law has parallel application to the law of armed conflict in occupations that have been in place for a long period of time and that transform the society of the occupied.

It has been argued that the Trump Administration transgressed UN Security Council Resolutions 242 and 497 (from 1981) by recognizing the Golan Heights as part of Israel. The only real city in the Golan Heights is Katzrin, the so-called capital of Golan, with a population of around 7,300. The international consensus is that Israeli settlements in the Golan Heights are in violation of international law. Relevant UN SC Resolutions on settlements include 446 (1979), 452 (1979) and 465 (1980).

Recognition
In contemporary Palestine, Israel and the PA are supposed to be able to exercise effective territorial sovereignty over their land, but only Israel enjoys extensive recognition as a state. The UN General Assembly voted to recognize Palestine as a non-member observer state in 2012. And twelve European nations have recognized the Palestinian state.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres has voiced his support for the two-state solution based on mutual recognition. This past summer the SG expressed great concern over Israeli annexation plans of the West Bank, claiming that ”annexing parts of the West Bank will grievously harm two-state solution”. The SG has underlined the need for a will to peaceful co-existence and indicated that Palestine has been recognized as a state by over 130 other states after it declared independence from Israel in 1988.

The Abraham Accords do link to the suspension of Israel´s West Bank annexation plans. But they need to be coupled with stronger pressure on Israel to revisit its nation-state law, changing the status quo in the occupied territorism and reconsidering preferential treatment of Israeli Jews over non-Jewish citizens of Israel.

Ever since the First Intifada in 1987, a permanent status agreement has been sorely wanting. The Oslo Process was supposed to lay the foundations of such an agreement. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak offered 92 percent of the West Bank to the Palestinians at the Camp David Summit in 2000 and 100 000 refugees to return to Israel, but Arafat turned him down. During the peace talks between Prime Minister Olmert and Abbas eight years later, it became clear that quality of life should be improved for both sides. Israel´s legitimate security concerns must be tackled by a combination of security-building measures and concessions. Israeli land confiscations in the West Bank coupled with the massive wall.

Borders
One of the main barricades to peace is the contested delineation of the borders of Israel and Palestine. The Palestinian area supposedly encompasses land inside East Jerusalem, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip. The PA also argues that Israel should give back the land it won in the Six-Day War of 1967. The PA thinks that settlements on the West Bank are illegal and that Israel should retire to the pre-1967 borders and surrender to the Palestinian state the entire West Bank. The boundaries of the Palestinian state may be defined by looking to the relevant UNSC resolutions with Res 242 as the footing. Resolution 338 fortifies this viewpoint.

Israel is of the view that the borders of Palestine weren´t defined in 1967 and still are not defined. But many observers argue that the spirit of Res 242 should be respected. Resolution 338 called for the implementation of Resolution 242 which meant an obligation on the part of Israel to withdraw from the territories occupied in the Six-Day War. At stake is the principele of the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war.

The long-serving Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyau, has attempted to legally define Israel as a Jewish state. Learning from the Camp David Accords, and its peace-making between Israel and Egypt, Israel could replicate its strategies to achieve peace with a neighbour by relinquishing land areas that it took over during wartime. As a quid pro quo, Egypt recognized Israel. Israel also gave up settlements in the Sinai. Israel and Palestine should enter into diplomatic relations through a treaty and return settlers´ land. This treaty can incorporate information-sharing on terrorist-related topics. This is carried out between Israel and Egypt regarding ISIS. A demilitarized zone should be created. The peacekeeping force could be created by the General Assembly through a resolution that ensures global legitimacy for the force. Security agreements, mutual assistance concords and extradition treaties should be concluded between the parties.

Mahmoud Abbas sought UN backing for formal Palestinian statehood in 2011. Many states have recognized the Palestinian state, thus providing a ground for ascertaining the borders between it and Israel. Israel under its current leadership is however more interested in planning for new settlements and annexation on the West Bank. Such annexation plans risk the stability of Jordan, the occupied territories and Israel itself. The UN, the EU and others should not support these plans but rather use political, diplomatic and economic tools to persuade the Netanyahu regime to abolish these schemes.

The Case of the Bedouines
The UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights has come up with guidance on the obligation of States parties to guarantee non-discrimination in the exercise of each of the economic, social and cultural rights enshrined in the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights states in article 2 (2) that “the States Parties to the present Covenant undertake to guarantee that the rights enunciated in the present Covenant will be exercised without discrimination of any kind as to race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status.” The indigenous peoples of Palestine, the Bedouin Jahalin, al-Kaabneh, al-Azazmeh, al-Ramadin and al-Rshaida, are victims of house demolitions and property confiscations and limitations of their freedom of movement. They are tribes of semi-nomadic shepherds who fled from the Negev desert to the West Bank upon Israel´s declaration of independence in 1948. Nowadays they reside in surrounding areas of Hebron, Bethlehem, Jerusalem, Jericho and the Jordan Valley. Israel abstained from voting for the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in 2007.

The main humanitarian concern relates to the indigenous Palestinian Bedouins who are about 27,000 pastors subsiding under Israeli military authority. The 7,000 or so Bedouins residing in 46 minor neighbourhoods on the perimeters of Jerusalem are especially vulnerable. Some of the refugee Bedouins living in the occupied territories are land-owners. They have no legal rights, but could be entitled to greater protection under emerging laws and scholarly works dealing with the rights of indigenous people.

The Road Map
The Road Map aimed for a nonmilitarized and democratic Palestinian state. But Israel insisted on the annexation of Jewish settlement blocs in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. And it required that the PA recognize Israel as a Jewish state.

Palestinian authorities are attempting to spread information concerning, inter alia, the statistical aspects of the on-going situation. Around five million people, about half of the Palestinian people, are refugees. These people are living with the results of what Ian Shapiro labels an ossified conflict. Professor Shapiro describes how economic incentives can change the conflict realities. It is important, at the same time, to consider the historical background to this severe crisis.

There are those who claim that the withdrawal from the Gaza Strip in 2005 ended the peace process. This is clearly exaggerated. But the proponents of this line of reasoning argue more convincingly that there can be no Palestinian state with Gaza and the West Bank as separate territories. In today´s Israel, Prime Minister Netanyahu has stated that Israel wants a certain degree of Palestinian demilitarisation and a recognition of Israel as a sovereign state. The Prime Minister dutifully avoids mentioning an independent state because of the legal ramifications.

Post Oslo, sixty percent of the West Bank remained open for settlements. A by-pass system became commonplace, subsuming parallel road, water and electricity systems. Between 100,000 and 140,000 Palestinians from the West Bank and the Gaza Strip became legal residents of Israel and settled there. Jerusalem was placed under separate international management with the passing of Resolution 181 in the General Assembly. The Palestinians were worried about losing Islamic rights in Jerusalem´s Old City and areas around it. Jordan became the guardian of the Christian and Islamic sites of the city.

This has had repercussions up until the present time. Organisations such as the Israel Land Fund endeavours for Israelis to purchase all the land in Palestine. And orthodox Jews make it their life´s purpose to fulfil the 613 commandments. Access to the Temple Mount is particularly contentious issue. Time-sharing arrangements have been set up to take into account, for example, Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, on which only Jews are allowed to pray and corresponding feast-days for Muslims. In this vein, it seems necessary to consider aspects such as independence, freedom, equality, and end of occupation and to avoid defining the conflict by religious claims.

Who are the Leaders of the Palestinians?
The struggle between Fatah, which rules the West Bank, and Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip, continues. In addition, there is the ever-present danger of violent conflict between Israel and Gaza. The Palestinian Legislative Council (the PA´s parliament) is inoperative. And parliamentary and presidential elections are long delayed. If the PA, which was created by the Oslo Accords, were to collapse, Hamas would fill the vacuum.

The last time elections were held for Parliament in Palestine was in 2006 when Hamas prevailed by a large margin.Agence France Presse (AFP) reported on September 25 that Fatah and Hamas have agreed to hold the first elections in Palestine in almost 15 years. Parliamentary and presidential polls are to be scheduled within six months and include legislative elections presidential elections and elections for the Palestine National Council. The Palestinian Legislative Council has been effectively suspended since 2007. The President issues laws by decree and Council committees keep working, albeit at a lower pace. Parliamentary panel discussions do take place.

Hamas is not likely to go away. The organisation survived Operation Cast Lead in 2008, which involved numerous strikes from Israel. Both at the Taba and Geneva negotiations in 2003, both sides agreed on territorial swaps and the two-state formula. But some experts on the conflict think that the basis of peacemaking efforts during this period of time, the Clinton Parameters, didn´t go far enough in recognizing the Palestinians´ right to sovereignty over all of the West Bank and Jerusalem, the right of return of Palestinians to the places in Israel they lived in before 1948, and dissolution of Israeli settlements on the West Bank.

Hamas appears ready to accept a two-state solution and a long-term ceasefire on the condition that it doesn´t have to officially recognize Israel. Incendiary balloons and the firing of rockets by Hamas seems never to cease. And the PA risks financial collapse. Over 70 per cent of the women in Gaza are unemployed. And poverty and harsh economic conditions lead to violence against women in Gaza. Egypt tried to reconcile the parties last year, to no avail. Now it seems concrete action is needed, for example, promoting intra-Palestinian reconciliation, expanding the fishing zone in Gaza, and lifting border closures.

The post The Palestine Question: The Two-State Solution first appeared on Opulens.

Ever since the Six-Day War, Gaza and the West Bank have been presided over by Israel. The genesis of the conflict harkens back to Israel’s founding and the advent of the Arab nationalist and Zionist projects of the 19th century. This analysis by Tomas Nordberg examines many of the initiatives that we have seen so far and why they have all failed to bring enduring peace to the region. 

Individuals have played and continue to play a vital role in peacemaking efforts. The Swedish jurist Emil Sandström was the Chairman of the United Nations Special Commission on Palestine (UNSCOP) that produced the Palestine plan of partition with economic union in 1947, the so-called Sandström plan. The aforementioned Israeli legal adviser Joel Singer not only took on a leading role during the Oslo process but has worked for decades on a peaceful solution to the intractable conflict.

Another prolific Swedish mediator in the Middle East was Sten Andersson. Yassir Arafat visited Sweden in december of 1988 which raised controversy. But the hallmark of Foreign Minister Andersson´s approach was quiet diplomacy. Susanne Palme writes insightfully about FM Andersson´s central role in laying the basis for Arafat´s recognition of Israel´s right to exist which occurred in Geneva in 1988. This bestowed a mandate for the Palestinians on the West Bank and Gaza to commence negotiations with the Israeli government.Foreign Minister Andersson came up with a novelty at the Swedish Ministry of Foreign Affairs: a top secret task force to be devoted full time to the Middle East.

Shimon Peres was a disciple of David Ben Gurion, the founder of the Jewish state. Ben Gurion was of the opinion that Israel would not survive as a both democratic and Jewish state unless it gave back the land it occupied in 1967 to the Palestinians. He argued that the demographic realities would transform Israel into an Arabic nation if it annexed the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

The United States contributes greatly to the process of finding peace in the Middle East. A telling example in financial terms is the support of the Quartet; the US being the single greatest contributor by far. Norway is the fifth largest single contributor, interestingly enough. The West Bank had been under Jordanian trusteeship and Jordanian law since 1950 and remained so, formally speaking, post 1967. But Arafat announced the birth of the state of Palestine on the 15h of November 1988. The Palestinian parliament in exile endorsed the two-states solution and accepted the two core UN Resolutions 242 and 338 the night before. Arafat held an almost mythical belief in ”the Swedish way” according to Sten Andersson. And the Swedish lack of geopolitical interests in the region contributed to it being accepted by both parties to the conflict.

The Abraham Accords: is this the way to peace?

The Abraham Accords constitute a joint declaration between Israel, the United Arab Emirates, and the United States, arrived at on August 13, 2020. They refer to the Israel-United Arab Emirates normalization agreement and the Bahrain-Israel normalization agreement. The joint statement of August 13, 2020 was the first public normalization of relations between Israel and an Arab state since that of Egypt in 1979 and Jordan in 1994. To label the accords peace agreements is counter-intuitive given that the countries involved have never fought a war with Israel. But other Arab states may very well trail the UAE and Bahrain. The Trump Administration facilitated the accords and it combined this initiative with a new peace plan for the Palestine question. The peace plan has largely been with met with distrust and it is actively opposed by the Palestinian leadership. It does make Israeli annexation of the West Bank more effortless.

Are other Arab countries going to follow in the footsteps of the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain and sign normalization agreements with Israel? And will the incoming Biden Administration take advantage of the more congenial atmosphere in the region to suggest a new attempt to make peace between Israel and the Palestinian state?

The Trump Administration

United States President Trump has by leaving many multilateral instruments and institutions made dispute resolution significantly more difficult. Other states have as a result resorted to unilateral means of dispute settlement more often. The Trump Adminstration has, by departing from the Optional Protocol on Compulsory Jurisdiction to the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, as a reaction to Palestine suing the United States under the Convention in September of 2018 concerning the change of residence to Jerusalem of the U.S. Embassy, left the floor wide open for future conflicts to be resolved by violent methods rather than legal. The embassy move coupled with the recognition of the Golan Heights as being part of Israel could very well cause Prime Minister Neanyahu to proceed with the annexation plans in the West Bank.

Annexation is a serious threat to the two-state solution and should be discouraged. It would cause Palestinians to seek refugee from the West Bank in Jordan. And it might jeopardize Jordan´s position as the caretaker of the Muslim holy places of worship in Jerusalem according to Article 9 of the peace treaty between it and Israel. Jordan must be engaged in peace talks. The Treaty of Peace between the State of Israel and the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan of October, 26, 1994, established peace between the two countries. And the threat of Iran, which subsumes it trying to acquire nuclear weapons, should be dealt with by the US by returning to the JCPOA. The nature of the leading actors that must be dealt with on the Palestinian side complicates the picture. Egypt, another obligatory participant in peace negotiations, is fiercely opposed to Hamas which it claims is allied with the Muslim Brotherhood. Hamas overtook the Gaza Strip from the PA in 2007. It is responsible for the launching of thousands or rockets and mortal shells which has hit southern Israeli cities and villages and disrupted the lives of hundreds of thousands of Israelis. The Israeli retaliatory attacks have caused mayhem on a large scale and the deaths of many civilians.

However, to many the Trump Administration´s ”Peace to Prosperity” plan seems misguided. The Palestinian state would under this framework consist of separated territories guarded by Israel and with up to 30 per cent of the West Bank annexed by Israel. The Arab Peace Initiative from 2002 is much more promising. This peace plan conditionalized normalization between Arab states and Israel on the completion of the occupation and the setting up of an independent Palestinian state. The Abraham Accords discourages Israel from meeting the Palestinians halfway. As a result, the two-state solution becomes more elusory.

Uri Savir wrote a groundbreaking editorial in the Jerusalem Post in 2014 on the need for a two-state solution. In this piece, the master negotiator presents a comprehensive outline for a peaceful unravelment of the conflict. Savir points out that the expansion of the settlements are the biggest threat. He writes: “Expanding and planning settlement housing is intended to prevent a two-state solution. Without a border, we are faced with the question of equal rights for Palestinian Arabs, including the right to vote. Equality is the furthest away from those people who treat Arabs not only as second-class citizens, but also as second-class human beings.” And he makes the well-founded claim that without an Palestinian state, Israel will cease to be a Jewish state, due to the population dynamics within Israel. Also, the occupation is not compatible with the founding of the Palestinian state.

In January 2020 President Donald Trump of the United States announced his peace plan for the Israel-Palestinian conflict. This plan allows for Israel to annex 30 percent of the West Bank and Netanyahu has initiated the annexation. Shimon Peres wanted a Palestinian state in Gaza and an Israeli-Palestinian-Jordanian conglomeration in the West Bank. One of the lessons of the Oslo negotiations is that a minor country like Norway cannot play a symmetric role in peacemaking. But the United States under Trump´s leadership failed to replicate earlier successes such as Henry Kissinger´s feat of orchestrating a peace treaty between Israel and Egypt in 1979. Five years earlier, 1974, saw Arafat approving a plan to gain a foothold in the region, administered by the PA. 

Now, the question will of course be how Biden will act. Is he the president that could bring the long peace process to its completion, or will it be (failing) ”business as usual”?

The post Palestine: Why are the peace initiatives failing to bring lasting peace? Part 3 first appeared on Opulens.

Ever since the Six-Day War, Gaza and the West Bank have been presided over by Israel. The genesis of the conflict harkens back to Israel’s founding and the advent of the Arab nationalist and Zionist projects of the 19th century. This analysis by Tomas Nordberg examines many of the initiatives that we have seen so far and why they have all failed to bring enduring peace to the region. 

This article was originally published by Tomas Nordberg via Global Bar Magazine 

US President Jimmy Carter invited Prime Minister Begin of Israel and President Sadat of Egypt to Camp David for negotiations in 1978. The first of the two agreements that were concluded was named ”A Camp David Accords: The Framework for Peace in the Middle East”. The agreement refers to Article 2 of the UN Charter, including Article 2 (3) which states: ”All Members shall settle their international disputes by peaceful means in such a manner that international peace and security, and justice, are not endangered.” The agreement says in the Preamble: ”To achieve a relationship of peace, in the spirit of Article 2 of the United Nations Charter, future negotiations between Israel and any neighbour prepared to negotiate peace and security with it are necessary for the purpose of carrying out all the provisions and principles of Resolutions 242 and 338.” The Palestinians were not a party to the agreement. The European Community (EC) voiced in 1979 that a two-state solution is required for sustained peace.

Israel withdrew its soldiers and evicted Israeli settlers from the Gaza Strip in 2005 under the so labelled Disengament Plan. Territorial control was transferred to the PA but Israel remained in charge of the seafront, access (except from the border crossing with Egypt) and airspace, including the deliverance of humanitarian assistance. 

Peace through Territorial Arrangements: The Case of Secretary of State John Kerry

US Secretary of State John Kerry attempted to find a peaceful solution between the parties during the Obama administration. As facilitator, he tried to address all the core and final status issues and reach a final status agreement. Secretary of State Kerry focused on peace dividends and on convincing the parties that they both have an interest in the sucess of the other. Economic initiatives would strengthen the Palestinian economy which were to become a partner with Israel who would prosper. Sustainable peace with Arab and Muslim states would put an end to the charges that Israel was not a legit state. Security matters was dealt with by expanding the capacity of Palestinians to deal with these issues. Israel helped in improving conditions in the occupied territories which was appreciated by Palestinian security agencies and followed by a drop in attacks on Israelis.

Furthermore, the Arab League reconfirmed that they stand behind the Arab Peace Plan of 2002. And world leaders tried to convince the parties to seek peace based on this initiative. Kerry intended to facilitate sustained, continuous and substantive negotations on the core subjects such as how Jerusalem is to be divided up and the creation of a Palestinian state that respects human rights and is able to survive. Kerry is a firm believer in the two-state solution as the only sustainable way for a democratic and Jewish Israel to last. 

President Obama did veto a UNSC Resolutions that condemned settlements. The US has traditionally been in opposition to settlements, a sentiment that is widely shared in the world community. The Palestinians try to take advantage of this to create a state of their own via international organisations. We saw how President Trump changed the bipartisan consensus since fifty years regarding settlements, paving the way for complete Israeli annexation of the West Bank. Kerry, on the other hand, had ever since he was Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee strived for bilateral negotiations between the parties with the US as a facilitator.

We must try to understand the legal context. The Geneva Conventions forbid a country that has taken over territory during an armed conflict to move its citizens into the territory of an occupied country. Israel accepted already in 1947 the notion of a Palestinian state but the Arabs refused this idea. The United Nations came up with the two-state solution which has been the basis for subsequent peace negotiations. It was argued that Jerusalem should be the capital of two states, a concept that President Bill Clinton incorporated in the Clinton Parameters. Under the UN plan, the Jewish sections would constitute the capital of Israel and vice versa for the state of Palestine. Of course Jerusalem in 1947 was a smaller city than it is now. Israel annexed large swaths of territory in 1967 to the north, south and east of Jerusalem, areas that were part of the West Bank but that Israel viewed as part of Jerusalem.

Back in 2002, King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz Al Saud of Saudi Arabia made an attempt to normalize relations with Israel in exchange for ”full withdrawal from all the occupied territory, in accordance with UN resolutions, including in Jerusalem.” Israel asserts that the settlements are excogitated by the settlers with the intent of settling state land which is not owned by the Palestinians. The late Saeb Erekat worked all his life for what he called a comprehensive peace with an independent, sovereign Palestinian state and all Israelis and Palestinians living in peace, freedom and dignity. John Kerry worked with Saeb Erekat to resuscitate the Arab Peace Initiative. It aspires for Israel to withdraw from the Gaza Strip, the West Bank and East Jerusalem and full normalization between the Arab States and Israel. Israel refused land swaps during the Obama Administration because it wanted to proceed with settlements. The Palestinian state would set up a postal service under the Arab Peace Initiative but it would not be allowed to control the borders of the state or have an army. It was glaringly obvious during Kerry´s negotiation rounds as a facilitator that the very border referred to in the Arab Peace Plan is missing.

The Clinton Parameters said that a Palestinian state should include 94-96 % of the West Bank and allowed for Israeli annexation of settlements in blocs, with 80 % of the settler population at the time. Further, the Parameters included Arab areas for the Palestinians in East Jerusalem and Jewish ones for the Israeli; temporary international and Israeli presence in the Jordan Valley and the long-term presence of three Israeli-controled ”early warning stations”; Palestinian sovereignty over its own airspace and return of refugees only to the Palestinian state. Gaza was not mentioned; however, President Clinton declared publiclty that the Palestinian state would include the Gaza Strip. Furthermore, Israel vowed to acknowledge the ”moral and material suffering caused to the Palestinian people by the 1948 war, and the need to assist the international community in addressing the problem”.

The main problem of this peace proposal was that it didn´t provide for a geographically contiguous Palestinian state. The Palestinian Negotiating Team (NAD) went as far as saying that the parameters divided the Palestinian state, including East Jerusalem, into separate cantons. The team also refused to relinquish the right to return. And it was naturally against the Israeli annexation of settlement blocs in the West Bank, including east Jerusalem. Interestingly, a Hebrew University opinion poll found in 2011 that 58% of Israelis and 50% of Palestinians supported a two-state solution based on the Clinton Parameters, compared with 47% of Israelis and 39% of Palestinians in 2003, the first year the poll was conducted.

Both sides did agree that a solution should be found along the lines of UNGA Resolution 242 and lead to the implementation of UNGA Resolution 194. The main critique levelled against the Clinton/Barak plan of 2001 was that it would afford Israel around nine percent of the West Bank, deprived the Palestinian state of good land and water and almost split the Palestinian state by Israeli annexation flowing east from Jerusalem.

Part 3 will be published on Monday 2021-04-05

The post Palestine: Why are the peace initiatives failing to bring lasting peace? Part 2 first appeared on Opulens.

Ever since the Six-Day War, Gaza and the West Bank have been presided over by Israel. The genesis of the conflict harkens back to Israel’s founding and the advent of the Arab nationalist and Zionist projects of the 19th century. This analysis by Tomas Nordberg examines many of the initiatives that we have seen so far and why they have all failed to bring enduring peace to the region.

This article was originally published by Tomas Nordberg via Global Bar Magazine 

Israel´s Declaration of Independence speaks movingly of the Jewish quest for statehood and the fulfillment of the Zionist vision:  

”In the year 1897 the First Zionist Congress, inspired by Theodor Herzl’s vision of the Jewish State, proclaimed the right of the Jewish people to national revival in their own country. This right was acknowledged by the Balfour Declaration of November 2, 1917, and re-affirmed by the Mandate of the League of Nations, which gave explicit international recognition to the historic connection of the Jewish people with Palestine and their right to reconstitute their National Home. The Nazi Holocaust, which engulfed millions of Jews in Europe, proved anew the urgency of the re-establishment of the Jewish state, which would solve the problem of Jewish homelessness by opening the gates to all Jews and lifting the Jewish people to equality in in the family of nations.”

Count Bernadotte imagined Palestine (including Transjordan) as a union comprised of a Jewish and an Arab member. The negotiating parties would together with the mediator decide on the boundaries between the members and the Boundary Commission would determine the specifics concerning the borders. And the Union would aim to: ”promote common economic interests, to operate and maintain common services, including customs and excise, to undertake development projects and to co-ordinate foreign policy and measures for common defence.” Importantly, Count Bernadotte emphasized ”religious and minority rights be fully protected by each member of the Union and guaranteed by the United Nations”.

Folke Bernadotte (who was later murdered by terrorists, one later to become the president of Israel) proposed the inclusion of the City of Jerusalem in Arab territory, with municipial autonomy for the Jews and certain dispositions with regard to the Holy Places. For this, he received much criticism. Israel had agreed to a ceasefire prior to Bernadotte arriving in the Holy Land. The Israeli public did not welcome the peacemaker´s suggestion to separate Jerusalem from the state of Israel given that it meant international authority over the city or, even less acceptable by the Jews, Arab governance. Jerusalem as a corpus separatum under international jurisdiction is a controversial idea, to say the least, in the Jewish state. However, UN General Assembly Resolution 181 from 1947 embodies this principle in that it contains the UNGA Partition Plan Map. And in November 1988 the Palestine National Council (PNC) (the PLO’s ”parliament”) declared the establishment of a Palestinian state on the legal footing of UN Resolution 18.

Various peace proposals with a focus on territorial arrangements have been put forward throughout the years, including to incorporate the whole or parts of the Negev in a Palestinian state. Count Bernadotte proposed that the whole or part of Western Galilee should be included in Jewish territory. Further, he controversially suggested to the Arab and Jewish negotiators that Jerusalem should be included in Arab territory, with municipal autonomy for the Jewish communitry and special arrangements for the protection of the Holy Places. The UN mediator underscored that Holy Places, religious buildings and sites must be preserved and that both parties to the conflict bear responsibility for guaranteeing the rights with respect to these places. And he insisted, equally controversially, on Israel recognizing the right of Palestinians who had left their places of residence due to the the Arab-Israeli war of 1948 to return to their homes with no restrictions and their right to regain their lost property.

The Cairo Agreement and the Oslo Framework

The Cairo Agreement of 1994 dealt with the Israeli troop withdrawal from Gaza and Jericho, the transfer of authority from Israel to the Palestinian Authority (PA), the make-up of the PA and the relationship between Israel and the PA. Arafat famously initially refused to sign the maps at the signing ceremony. The Palestinians made it clear that they wanted all the trappings of statehood even if they didn´t have it formally. Israel and the Israeli negotiators, on the other hand, interpreted both the Cairo Agreement and the Oslo process as a devolution of powers. There were more specific disagreements as well, for instance related to the fact that the Palestinians didn´t want patrols at the crossings. 

Uri Savir chronicles in his amazing book how 1100 days of peace talks ended in May of 1996. This was the month of his penultimate meeting with Abu Alaa as Head of the Israeli negotiating team. In 2003, Yossi Beilin published the draft of a permanent status agreement. Arafat approved the agreement, Israel did not. The Beilin-Abu Mazen Agreement of October 1995 incorporates many of the thoughts that have been the basis for subsequent negotiations and included in draft agreements on issues such as refugees, the status of Jerusalem, the legal status of the settlements and the principle of territorial exchange, or ”land for peace”. The Peres Center for Peace and Innovation, a leading force in the search for peace, supports peacemaking projects in the Holy Land and elsewhere. The IPNP (Israeli Palestinian Negotiation Partners) is especially intriguing since it builds on the negotiation philosophy of Harvard professor Roger Fischer. 

In order to get to this kind of solution, we need brave leadership that understands that we can, should, and will achieve the two-state solution by employing a Joint Problem-Solving approach. Our current approach does not empower the moderates or diplomacy, but rather empowers Hamas, a terror organization.

I am proud to say that the Joint Problem-Solving approach and the win-win perspective is leading our vision and projects at the Peres Center for Peace and Innovation. Cooperation in medicine, education, business, entrepreneurship and the environment between Israelis and Palestinians and between Arabs and Jews within Israel is what we do every day in order to achieve peace and coexistence.”

It is clear under the Oslo Accords that the Israeli army is responsible for monitoring the terms of the agreements. Uri Savir and Yossi Beilin were not invited to subsequent negotiation rounds and Mr Beilin has lamented that he wasn´t able to convince then Prime Minister Shimon Peres to further certain terms of the agreements. It is imperative to understand that the Palestinians desiderated an agreement that would end the occupation and restore the national rights of their people. And they were willing to carry out security coordination with Israel. 

The Fafo Institute was of central importance in the Oslo back channel negotiations. And individuals such as professor Saeb Erekat took on a leading part. Saeb Erakat was Chief Negotiator for the Palestinian Authority under the Oslo Process and he has remained in this capacity with brief interruptions. The Oslo channel consisted of secret diplomacy and of Norwegian diplomats creating a secret channel between Israel and PLO because the official, bilateral talks that were ongoing didn´t produce any results. The Norwegian foreign policy leadership wanted to talk directly with the PLO. 

Part 2 will be published on Friday 2021-04-02

The post Palestine: Why are the peace initiatives failing to bring lasting peace? Part 1 first appeared on Opulens.

INTERVIEW. Hind Al-Eryani is a writer and journalist from Yemen. She received the Arab Woman of the Year Award in 2017 in the category of Achievement in Public Awareness and is a member of the Yemenite Women Pact for Peace and Security. She is a well-known peace negotiator, journalist and activist for LGBTQ rights. Because of her work, Hind Al-Eryani was forced to move to Turkey and then, as threats continued, to Sweden where she and her daughter have residency. Here Hind Al-Eryani tells her story to Tomas Nordberg.

This article was originally published by Tomas Nordberg via Global Bar magazine. 

”I was born in a small town called Jiblah, this town was actually the governor´s central for Queen Arwa, she is the first Muslim queen and the only real queen we had in Yemen and I think this had an impact on me, the idea of a woman leading a country and being a leader. I had my High School in Yemen and also BS in Computer Science in Yemen and then I moved with my family to Lebanon. In Lebanon, I worked with the UN. It was during the Arab Spring and I was so excited about it. But it was wrong, because as an employee with the UN you shouldn´t have your own opinion.

I did a campaign during that time called ”Shame on Reuters”. It was about a Reuter´s reporter who was working with the government. I was surprised why Reuters did not cover the revolution in Yemen, and then it turns out he is the personal reporter of President Saleh, so I decided to do this campaign. In the beginning, Reuters refused to fire him. They said: ‘We have been working with him for so long and we trust him’, but then we put more pressure, the New York Times and the Washington Post wrote about the campaign and they had to fire him.

This was my first campaign. When I realized that I could make an impact using social media, I decided to do a campaign against chewing khat, which is a drug that people are using a lot in Yemen. As a result, they grow more khat than any other plants. This means that Yemen had to import fruits and vegetables from outside of the country. I went to Yemen and I led protests in front of the Parliament, asking those elected to accept a strategy to solve the khat problem in twenty years. After every protest, the parliament would discuss this law and then they voted against the measures because many members themselves grow khat on their land. After the parliament refused it twice then the national dialogue started. So I went there and we suggested a constitution article that could solve khat gradually, and they actually accepted it and added it to the draft constitution 2015 but then unfortunately the war started.

My next campaign was in 2016, after the war in Yemen started in 2014. Peace talks where organized in Kuwait, and people were so hopeful, because Kuwait was always a country that is accepted by Yemenites and also Saudi and Houthis. We started the campaign ”Don´t come back without peace”. The politicians on all sides said they supported the campaign, ‘we are not going to come without peace’ and all this blah blah. Of course they were just talking and it wasn´t true. The journalists who were related to these parties were against peace and they all wanted the war to continue, because they are gaining from it. So then, of course they didn´t agree, and the Kuwait talks failed.

Lately I worked for LGBTQ rights, which is a very sensitive subject.

After that I took part of the Yemeni Women´s Pact for Peace and Security. The UN Women organized this group and our goal is to work for peace so last time we did a campaign to support the UN Envoy for ceasefire. We also did a meeting with the Foreign Minister of Sweden, when Sweden hosted the peace talks in 2018, which resulted in the Stockholm Agreement. Unfortunately the Stockholm agreement did not reach to any long lasting result, even if it stopped the war in Hodeida.

Today, the war still goes on. One reason is that all parties in the war want it to continue, because they are gaining from it. There should be more pressure from the international society and from the UN. They should of course also put more pressure Saudi and Iran, as both countries are running a proxy war in Yemen and there should be talks between these countries.

During all those years, I worked for women´s rights and this caused me lots of problems because I was criticizing some clerics and they threatened my daughter and me.

Lately I worked for LGBTQ rights, which is a very sensitive subject. Actually there were no activists that were talking about this before in Yemen, because they know how sensitive the issue is. I wrote an article about the Prime Minister of Finland and how she was raised in a gay family. Many Arabs were commenting about this when it was published in one of the newspapers. They were saying: ‘How come she is a good person, how come she is not lesbian?’  So I wrote an article and I explained all the wrong things that the homophobic believe about gays and the title was: ‘Why are you scared of homosexuality?’ or ‘Why you are homophobic’. As a result, the backlash was really strong. There were newspapers saying: ‘Kill her when you see her ‘.

But the output of this was that I started a group for LGBTQ in Yemen and we gathered many people from the community. They started to contact me after I talked about the subject and then the UN – for the first time – decided to write about the LGBTQ in Yemen and what they are facing. As a result, a report was published in September this year. Today, I am based in Stockholm with my daughter. I am studying Swedish and I am still working with Monte Carlo Radio. We have residency, we are ok. Also, our work with the Yemeni Women´s Pact continues. Recently I moderated a meeting between a coalition of Yemeni women working for peace, the Swedish foreign ministry and the Swedish Institute. One issue that I have been brought up has been the situation for the Baha’i community in Yemen and I was happy that we secured the release of several jailed persons.”

The post “Kill her when you see her.” Hind Al-Eryani tells her story first appeared on Opulens.