Kuwait Times

Published Date: December 02, 2009
By Badrya Darwish

I hope that the European Union will not surrender to Israeli threats and warnings regarding recognizing East Jerusalem as the Palestinian capital. Sweden, which currently holds the Presidency of the EU, suggested the issue of making the old city the capital of the Palestinian state if there would ever be an independent Palestinian state. This move was warmly supported by the Palestinian Authority, which is trying its best lobbying to declare the West Bank an independent state.

If it is up to the Israelis, I don't think that they would want to give up anything. On the contrary, they continuously loot the country by evicting people from their houses on a daily basis on the grounds of a claim that it belongs to Jewish settlers. The Israelis keep wasting time by saying "we will talk peace; we will sit at the negotiation table" but they don't want to give anything for peace. No freezing of settlements. On the contrary, there is the building of more settlements under different pretext
s. They don't want an independent Palestinian state. They don't want to move the wall. They deny the Palestinians their rights.

I wonder how these 200 years old houses belonged to settlers who landed in Palestine only around 60 years back. Even a math-challenged student like myself can recognize the drastic difference in time. And still the Israeli courts rule in favor of the Jewish settlers.

I think it is high time Europe and the whole world stood firmly with the Palestinians. I do not know what the Israelis mean by warning? My personal favorite wording in their response is that "Europe will lose its credibility as a Mideast mediator" should they approve the proposal. Does that mean that Europe will lose its credibility in the face of Israel? So what? Does Israel support Europe or is it vice versa? If helping the Palestinians means losing credibility for Israel, I hope the whole world will lo
se its credibility for a change, especially the US.

I am sure that this resolution will fail to pass unless it is backed by the US and the whole world. So far, we haven't heard any comments from the outside world. There will be a strong enough lobby to ensure that the proposal does not see daylight and will remain shelved in the EU Commission. I remain carefully optimistic that for the first time the Palestinian lobby might overpower the Israeli one. We will wait till next Tuesday to see the outcome.