Israel-Palestine: For Human Values in the Absence of a Just Peace | Page 34

Israel-Palestine: For Human Values in the Absence of a Just Peace
notification to the Israel army about the location of its emergency shelters after similar
incidents during the 2008-2009 war.”
The military confrontation between Hamas forces in Gaza and the Israeli military
is lopsided. Unguided projectiles from Gaza fired against Israeli towns did some damage
and violate the Geneva conventions, as they are effectively targeting noncombatants. For
instance, between 7 July and 26 August 2014, Palestinian armed groups in Gaza fired
4,881 rockets and 1,753 mortars towards Israel. On the other hand, Israeli forces have
massive material superiority, with the economic resources of a high-income economy and
the latest in weaponry, some of which the U.S. supplies. They also have nuclear arms,
ready and waiting. In the 2014 conflict, IDF carried out more than 6,000 airstrikes in
Gaza, many of which hit residential buildings. Israeli fighting forces received 5,000 tons
of munitions and fired 14,500 tank shells and around 35,000 artillery shells. Damage to
civilian property and persons in Gaza in 2014 were many times what Israelis suffered.

3. Viability of the Two-State Solution
The Oslo Accords pointed to a two-state arrangement as the way forward, and the
Israeli Government and the Palestinian Authority signed on to this. At the time, it looked
feasible that the Israeli and Palestinian leaders could implement such an agreement. Since
then the United States, many other governments, the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and
many other organizations have endorsed the Two-State Solution, even though there was
not full agreement on what this meant. The disagreement has widened since Oslo.
Nonetheless, most stakeholders have been reluctant to end their formal agreement on the
desirability of something called Two-State Solution.
In the meantime, developments on the ground, discussed above, have made it
seem increasingly unlikely that the Israeli government and the Palestinian
Authority/Hamas will agree in the foreseeable future on a two-state arrangement and a
process to get there. Many of the additional barriers to the two-state solution stem from
the expanding matrix of occupation in the West Bank and East Jerusalem: Israeli
settlements, Israeli-only highways connecting them to one another and to the
internationally recognized territory of Israel, and the separation wall. This matrix of
occupation has exacerbated conflicts between Israelis and Palestinians and thus led to
expansion of the security apparatus guarding the settlements and to increased harshness
in the security procedures.xci This in turn has further increased resentments and made
more difficult the road to agreement on any political configuration, including that of two
states. None of the parties considers the unstable, almost-one-state status quo as a
solution.

Breaking down the Walls (2010) noted the declining Christian presence in the
West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem—the three areas identified as Palestine in the Oslo
accords. While stating our commitment to equal rights for Palestinians and Israelis, a
position underlined by the 2014 Assembly, we join Christians around the world in
opposing policies that are on a path to end a vital Palestinian Christian presence in IsraelPalestine. Israeli policies discriminate against this already small minority, such as the
rules stripping non-Jewish Jerusalemites of their residency permits if they marry persons
from the West Bank or Gaza. Furthermore, the struggle goes beyond land and population.

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