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October 1, 2008

Aid agencies say Middle East Quartet is failing peace task

by Judith Sudilovsky
Ecumenical News International

JERUSALEM — International Middle East peace negotiators have failed in their self-proclaimed mission to improve the lives of Palestinians and the prospects for peace in the region, a group of aid agencies has charged in a joint report.

“The Middle East Quartet: a Progress Report” was issued by 21 aid agencies and human rights organizations on Sept. 25, the day before a meeting in New York of the Quartet of Middle East negotiators, who are the European Union, Russia, the United Nations and the United States.

“The lack of progress on key goals calls the Quartet’s current approach into question,” said the report. “Analysis of the reality on the ground demonstrates that in five of the ten areas in which the Quartet has laid down clear recommendations, there has been either no progress or an actual deterioration in the situation. Clearly, a new approach is warranted.”

The agencies behind the report include Save the Children UK, CARE International UK, British charity Christian Aid, DanChurchAid, Oxfam International, United Civilians for Peace (a coalition of Dutch organizations Oxfam Novib, Cordaid, ICCO and IKV Pax Christi) and World Vision Jerusalem.

The key areas on which the agencies say progress has stalled include halting construction of Israeli settlements, improving access and movement for Palestinians, and lifting the blockade on Gaza that Israel implemented last year as a response to Palestinian shelling of Israeli towns.

 The report also reviewed the situation of Palestinian security sector reform, donor pledges, and the revival of private sector activity in the Palestinian Territories.

The report notes that in November 2007 the Middle East negotiators identified 2008 as a crucial year, and committed themselves to promoting a just, comprehensive and lasting settlement of the conflict in the Middle East.

“The deadline for an agreement by the end of 2008 is now looming and seems unlikely to be met,” said the report.

Hanan Elmasu, emergency advocacy officer for Christian Aid in Britain, said the report was intended as a “score card” of sorts and an opportunity to take an in-depth look at where the Quartet stood in terms of the goals it had set for itself in key areas.

“We recognize that it is not the Quartet who has to make the changes, and that it is Israel and Palestine who have to fulfill their commitments but the Quartet has not been effective in facilitating that,” Elmasu said in a telephone interview with Ecumenical News International.

The report said that although the Middle East quartet had spoken out 18 times against Israeli settlements, including in East Jerusalem, it had failed to hold authorities accountable for failing to meet their obligations. Indeed, the report continued, there has been “a marked acceleration in construction” with no “serious efforts” to dismantle illegal outposts.

Israel does not consider Jerusalem to belong to the West Bank and sees any construction there as part of the natural expansion of neighborhoods in the city.

On further issues, the report said that the Quartet had achieved negligible impact in improving Palestinians’ ability to move freely in their own territory, to work, reach their schools or access basic services, and to import and export goods.

The agencies acknowledged that the Quartet had achieved progress in five other key areas of the cessation of violence in Gaza, re-invigoration of the private sector, the fulfillment of donor pledges, Palestinian security sector reform, and increasing fuel supplies to Gaza. Still, the report complained, progress in these areas had not approached the “scale demanded by the Quartet.”