Donatella Rovera, chief researcher for Amnesty International on Israel and the Palestinians, said that human rights issues — meaning closures, roadblocks, the security fence, etc. were not on the table at Annapolis.
And it’s clear to her that these ‘violations of Palestinian rights’ are due to the presence of Israeli settlements in the territories:
“Now these are consequences of the settlements. If you put a grid of where the closures, the forbidden roads, and the separation barrier are located over a map of the area, [you will see that] the location of all of them is determined by the location of the settlements. Clearly, as long as the settlements are there, the restrictions will not be lifted.” — Jerusalem Post [my emphasis]
Simple cause and effect: the settlements cause the problem; take them away, and the problem will go away.
REALITY INVERSION!
The ‘rights violations’ are there because Palestinians are trying to attack the settlements and kill their residents. Take away the al-Aqsa brigades, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, ad inf., and there will be no need for closures, checkpoints, or a security fence. It would have been more correct to say “as long as the terrorists are there, the restrictions will not be lifted”.
But Ms. Rovera doesn’t see that she has it backwards, because she is convinced that the settlements themselves are a violation of the Palestinians’ rights — the ‘right’ that they claim to be free of Jews in ‘their’ land — and so their terrorism is entirely justified. Anything the Jews do to prevent it is a further violation.
She also obviously does not see that removing the settlements would not end the problem, because if the settlements were removed, the terrorism would move up to the Green Line — just as it did when Israel withdrew from Gaza. And there would be more ‘rights violations’ when Israel tried to defend herself from there.
So the settlements are in fact not the cause of the problem — the Palestinians’ use of terrorism to drive the Jews out of the land is. But it should already be clear that this is not a problem for her.
Technorati Tags: Israel, Palestinians, terrorism, Amnesty International, Donatella Rovera