On the 41 Anniversary of the Israeli Occupation,
‘Israel still persistent and relentless to sentence prospects of Peace to an end’

The Israeli occupation of the Arab territories in 1967: the West Bank & Gaza, Syria's Golan Heights and Egypt's Sinai desert is the longest of its kind in modern history; and even though Egypt and Israeli have concluded a peace pace; in which the latter withdrew from the Sinai desert, Israel still occupies the West Bank & Gaza, Syria's Golan Heights. Recently, extensive talks of possible peace deal between Syria and Israel is surfacing about, which could lead to a peace deal by the end of this year. For Israel, this is all secondary concerns as the heart of the matter really have to do with the occupied Palestinian territory. At some point, in 1993, the Palestinians represented by their historic leadership: the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) and Israel came to some sort of an arrangement, in which Israeli would withdraw from a 100% of the 362 Km2 Gaza Strip and some 95% of the 5661 Km2 West Bank by 1999. The remaining 5% represent occupied East Jerusalem and the Israeli settlements' built-up area in the West Bank. However, Israel had no intention to see this particular deal through, hence Israel intensified the settlements program and since 1993, the number of Israeli settlers living in the occupied Palestinian territory has doubled in every possible way; more than 500 thousand settlers reside in the West Bank (including East Jerusalem ) area. More than that, Israel initiated a control system, which if anything is best described as a collective punishment measure, as Israel has rigged 592 different kind of obstructions through out the West Bank (checkpoints, earth mounds, road blocks, cement block, tunnels, towers, agricultural gates, etc). in Jerusalem, Israel has relentlessly attempting to manipulate the demographic status of the occupied East Jerusalem in favor of the Jewish population; as more Palestinian are driven out of the city while more settlements' clusters added to the illegal municipal boundary drawn by Israel after 1967.

The constant Israeli provocation of the Palestinian side; the tenders issued to buff-up the settlements in Jerusalem area in particular and the fact that Israel insist not to admit that East Jerusalem is part of the occupied territory really says much how Israel perceives peace: much more like a one side street: their side; in spite of the fact that no of the countries of the world recognizes East Jerusalem as part of Israel including the long time alley, the US government.  More than that, the UN resolutions after the 1967 war calls upon Israel to withdraw from the territories it occupied in the 1967 war including East Jerusalem, which if anything is indisputable evidence that the Israeli activities in the occupied city are illegal and in violation of the international law.

Today, 41 years have passed by, and the Israeli occupation seems to not have changed its strategy since, it still has to do with land grab, depriving the Palestinians from their god given rights, manipulating the geographic and demographic realities, inflicting massive collective punishment policies on the Palestinian population, persistent colonization strategy; all within determined policies to push the Palestinians into a massive voluntarily immigration and taking what ever left of the land with as little population as possible.

ARIJ calls upon the government of Israel to abide by the international law with regard to its occupation of the occupied Palestinian territory and to END its prolonged daily attacks and assaults on the Palestinian people and the immediate release of all political prisoners and to stop all the attacks on the Palestinian institutions and residents and to abandon its policy of land confiscation and razing particularly against the agricultural land, which is the only source of livelihood to many of the Palestinian farmers.

ARIJ calls upon Israel to relinquish its intolerant policy that resulted in the mass murder of thousands of Palestinian civilians, entire families at times.

ARIJ calls upon Israel to conform to the international humanitarian law and all international regulations and to respect the Palestinian humanitarian and basic rights to live freely with dignity to practice their religious freedom, freedom of movement, their right to live anywhere, all of which granted and sanctioned under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

ARIJ calls upon Israel to

• Stop and dismantle the Segregation Wall being built illegally in the West Bank

• Respect and concede the ICJ ruling of July 9, 2004 

• Release all Palestinian political prisoners fro Israeli jails; particularly minors and women

• Stop all forms of torture and humiliation against Palestinian prisoners

• Release all members of Palestinian parliament taken in custody

• Remove all kinds of obstacles and barriers (518+) put in the occupied territory to restrict Palestinian movement, which consequently affected the education, health, economic and social segments of the Palestinian society

• Remove all checkpoints surrounding occupied East Jerusalem and isolating it from the rest of the West Bank to allow freedom of access to the city's holy sites for both Christian and Muslims to practice religious freedom

• Stop all forms of manipulation to alter the geographic and demographic status of occupied East Jerusalem in favor of the Israelis.

ARIJ calls upon the international community:

• To stop its support to the Israeli government and to boycott its extremists members

• To stop its support to the aggressive assaults carried out by the Israeli government against the civilian population in Gaza and Lebanon

• To press the government of Israel to conform with the UN resolution and the ICJ ruling

• To lift the international siege on the freely elected Palestinian government for the negative consequences it has on the Palestinian people

• To persecute those in the Israeli Army who authorized the use of illegal weapons against civilians in Gaza and Lebanon.

Prepared by 
The Applied Research Institute – Jerusalem