wfn.org | Lives of Palestinians have worsened since peace accords, lawyer

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says

June 12, 1998	Contact: Linda Bloom*(212) 870-3803*New York
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NEW YORK (UMNS) -- The plight of the Palestinians is actually worse now
than before the Oslo peace accords were signed, according to the founder
and director of the Palestinian Center for Human Rights.

"We have seen increasingly drastic human rights situations develop,"
said Raji Sourani during a June 11 briefing hosted by the United
Methodist Board of Global Ministries.

The civil rights lawyer was visiting Boston, New York and Washington,
D.C. on a speaking tour sponsored by Grassroots International, an aid
and development agency based in Boston. Its supporters include the
United Methodist Committee on Relief and United Methodist Women. 

Sourani, a 1991 recipient of the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award,
has represented Palestinians before Israeli military courts in the Gaza
Strip, monitored prison conditions, represented those threatened with
deportation and worked to increase understanding between Palestinians
and Israelis.

When the Israeli government and Palestine Liberation Organization signed
the Oslo Declaration of Principles nearly five years ago, "great hopes"
were raised among the Palestinians, he said.

But as his center - which was one of two recipients of France's highest
human rights awards in 1996 --  has monitored the human rights
obligations of both the Israelis and the Palestinian Authority, those
hopes have been dashed. Now, according to Sourani, Palestinians live
under what is, in all practicality, an apartheid system.

While the Palestinians are responsible for most of their population,
crammed in small parts of the West Bank and Gaza, Israel maintains full
control over most of the land and resources of the West Bank and nearly
half of Gaza.

In addition, the Israeli government's policy of closure - which
restricts the movement of  people and goods in and out of those two
areas - has devastated the Palestinian economy, splintered families and
communities and prevented individuals from receiving health care,
education and other services or even going to the Dome of the Rock or
Church of the Nativity to pray. For many Palestinians, according to
Sourani, trying to live a normal life often becomes "mission
impossible."

Money pledged to Palestinians by the international community to improve
living conditions and rebuild infrastructure instead has been used for
relief assistance, he said. 

Confiscation of land by the Israelis has continued in "an extreme and
drastic" way, he added. New Jewish settlements are added without
restriction, physically dividing Palestinian territory so that social
networks and family connections are "totally suspended."

In Jerusalem, Sourani declared, the Israeli government is using a
complicated and sophisticated "policy of conceptual ethnic cleansing" to
push Palestinians out. He predicted that, in 10 or 15 years, there might
be no significant presence of Palestinians in that city.

"In the end of the day, out of these practices, what do we really have?"
he asked. "What we have, in this era of peace, is an apartheid system."

Sourani said he is shocked by the "conspiracy of silence" among the
international community about what is happening to the Palestinians. He
warned that the Palestinians' total loss of faith in the peace process
opens the door to violent confrontation, but added that international
recognition of the worsening situation and pressure on the Israelis
would be a positive step.

Grassroots International supports seven community-based organizations,
including the Palestinian Center for Human Rights,  in the West Bank and
Gaza Strip. Those organizations work  at four key components for
autonomy, peace and security: physical and mental health care, economic
development, human rights and democracy and women's equality.
   
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