Peace activists and religious leaders gathered in Paris have called on world leaders to help them contain the surging violence against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank.
Carrying out acts such as setting fires and assault, mobs of Israeli settlers are seeking to force Palestinians from land that is supposed to be part of their future state. In Gaza, low-intensity warfare continues despite a ceasefire.
Already marginalised before the outbreak of the Gaza war in October 2023, the peace camp among Israelis and Palestinians has little sway over decision-makers. But French diplomacy has sought to amplify their voice by inviting them to a meeting on Friday in the hope of keeping the two-state solution alive.
Among those attending the event hosted by the French government in Paris is Anton Goodman, director of international developments at Rabbis for Human Rights, a Jewish-Israeli organisation he says focuses on stemming increasing levels of settler terrorism. Israeli settlers recently beat one of its volunteers unconscious, he said.
'Free fall'
“We're in a mess,” Mr Goodman told The National. “It's not like we've reached the worst possible level and it's plateaued there. We are on the way down, we are in free fall still and terrible things can happen.”
Despite the dire circumstances, “there is no better time to be imagining and engineering the discussion of peace than at a time when it has been so forgotten,” Mr Goodman said.
Around 700,000 Israeli settlers live among 3.4 million Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, territories Israel captured from Jordan in the 1967 war.
More than 1,000 Palestinians have been killed by settlers or the Israeli army since October 2023. A UN inquiry released on Tuesday found Israeli authorities were directly involved in some attacks by settlers.
Among the most shocking incidents are the death of a seven-month-old Palestinian baby, shot in Hebron by an Israeli soldier while in a car with his parents. In March, a family of four were shot dead in their car by Israeli forces near the city of Tubas as they were returning from a shopping trip.
Limited pressure
France was one of six western nations that imposed sanctions on a number of Israeli settlers this week. In parallel, there is pressure on the European Commission by France and others to issue a proposal to restrict or ban trade with illegal Israeli settlements. For now concrete action in Brussels is impeded by internal divisions.
“The international community does not have much sway on the ground here at the moment,” Mr Goodman said. “A feral teenager with a pair of bolt cutters can make more impact than the foreign community, because this is the rules of the jungle.”
Taybeh, one of the last remaining Christian village in the West Bank, has come under intense pressure by settlers. The latest incident on Thursday involved settlers blocking Palestinians from extinguishing a large fire near the village, which the parish priest suspected had been set deliberately.
Speaking in Paris after receiving France's highest-ranking decoration from President Emmanuel Macron, the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, described the situation in Taybeh as a source of concern.
“Almost every day, the parish priest calls with an emergency,” Cardinal Pizzaballa said. “We try to help as much as we can, with one thing or another, but obviously this cannot continue all the time.”
Israeli police in March barred Cardinal Pizzaballa from entering the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem to celebrate mass on Palm Sunday. The Vatican described the move as “a manifestly unreasonable and grossly disproportionate measure”.
The international community must encourage interfaith dialogue between communities, Cardinal Pizzaballa said. “To talk about our situation in France or Jerusalem is not the same,” he said. “This is something we can work on.”
Around 100 Christian families living in the West Bank and Jerusalem have left since October 2023, he added.
Kickstarter fund
Ahead of the Paris summit, Britain, Australia and Canada will launch a £3 million initiative, called the International Peace Fund, which is intended to tackle the root causes of the Israel-Palestine conflict and pave the way towards a two-state solution.
UK Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper announced the fund during a meeting with her Australian and Canadian counterparts, Penny Wong and Anita Anand, at her official country residence, Chevening, on Thursday.
Each country has put £1 million into the fund, for which other donors will be sought. Officials stressed it was designed to be unlimited in its potential.
Hostility rules
Many are aware that promoting peaceful solutions is a hard sell under current circumstances. “It’s so hard to be a solution-maker. It’s much easier to advocate hate,” said Palestinian activist Ali Abu Awwad, who embraced non-violence in his youth while in Israeli prison with his mother.
Mr Abu Awwad told The National that Palestinians should rethink a framework for a non-violent pathway to a Palestinian state, while Israelis must understand that never-ending conflict will lead nowhere. Meanwhile, the international community should support Palestinians embracing non-violence, he added.
“This cycle of blame, of competition over who is right, brought us to a reality in which you feel this conflict is unsolvable,” he said. “We activists know it can be solvable but it needs more than good intentions.”
