Gaza Visit - Day Two - Wednesday 22 July

Posted on July 23, 2009 at 10:30 PM

A glorious morning,

Today is the day to meet the Israelis; we arrived at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs at the civilised hour of 9.00 a.m..  We were met courteously by Ron Yaaboly and Ester Solomon.  Ester had paid a visit to Dublin a month earlier and was impressed that a woman was Lord Mayor of Dublin!

We met with Uer Zinger from the Liaison Committee of Cogat (Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories) the Deputy foreign minister Davy Ayalo and David Taub Head of the Legal Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

We had a wide-ranging and frank discussion on the Palestinian question and the role of the Israelis in the recent conflict.  The hard questions and the Gazan elephant in the room were skirted around.  White phosphorous, we were told, was also used by the U.S Army (having previously been denied) and in any way it was used as smoke bombs not as and anti-personnel weapon.

Corporal Ghilard Shalit was, according to the Deputy Foreign Minister the most serious violation of human rights in the area.  He had been kidnapped three years ago by Hamas.  Could we or the international community get him back to his family?  Hamas was anathema and justified the invasion of Gaza, the injuries and fatalities and targeted destruction of homes, industry and schools.  Likewise no reconstruction could take place because Hamas might get their hands on some of the materials like cement and use them to make bombs.

It was a sad litany of woes with Hamas as the universal bogeyman.  The Deputy Minister did however state that Israel was prepared to talk without preconditions, that the Israeli position was evolving and that when the time came they would make the hard decision on the basis a second state solution and that they would make the hard compromise.  Mr Taub took exception to my remarks about the targeted destruction of Gaza by the Israeli military, the responsibility of the Israelis to allow the border crossings to open and to allow building materials to enter Gaza.

He rejected my assertion that there were human rights questions to be answered by Israel in relation to the Gaza incursion and he rejected the bone fides of international non-governmental organisations like Amnesty International and United Nations.  They lacked military expertise to properly determine the situation on the ground and were living in a parallel universe he said.

One could only think that the elephant in the corner of the room was getting bigger as our discussions continued.  A little frost was descending on the discussions too.  However, we made it clear that we felt progress had to be made on the reconstruction of Gaza and that UNWRA was the initial avenue to proceed.  Mr Taub expressed his disappointment that there were no fora for Israel to discuss issues at an international level.

We met Gadi Baltiansby of the Geneva Accord a joint Israeli and Palestinian approach to the Palestinian question.  The Geneva Accord is a model, Israeli –Palestinian peace agreement dating back to 2003.

Gadi stated that the final solution must be a two state solution that the majority of Palestinian and Israeli people were already in favour of that solution and that it should be negotiated sooner than later.

Gadi was hugely encouraged by the positive speech made by Obama in Cairo last month and by the response of Prime Minister Netanyahu recently confirming his Government’s commitment to a two state solution.

He urged that there be an international conference convened to tease out the issues involved in creating a peace process.  He felt that the Irish National Parliament could be the catalyst to start the initiative and that Obama, George Mitchell and the EU would be key players in moving the Israelis and the Palestinians forward.  It was agreed that as a starting point that representatives from the Geneva Accord would come to Dublin in the autumn and address the joint foreign affairs and EU Affairs Committees.

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