Palestinian physician, activist and politician, Dr Mustafa Barghouti has criticised Trump’s 20-point plan to bring peace in Gaza as a farce in that it favours Israel. Barghouti was speaking at a press briefing at the Desmond and Leah Tutu Legacy Foundation in Cape Town on Tuesday. On Monday, the presidents of the United States of America and Israel, during a joint press conference, presented a peace plan that they hailed as a historic breakthrough and a new chapter for the Middle East.
“Calling it a peace plan is a bit ambitious. The plan that was presented comes after Israel has committed three war crimes: namely genocide, collective punishment including starvation, and ethnic cleansing of millions of Palestinians. We heard about this plan which was negotiated by Trump and Netanyahu and during the negotiations there were many things that were changed,” said Barghouti
“The problem is that what was presented to the Palestinian side was not presented as a plan to be negotiated but an ultimatum – either you accept it or not. That is strange because why do you negotiate with the Israeli side but when it comes to the Palestinian side you have to take it,” he said.
A former minister of information in the Palestinian Unity Government and currently the secretary general of the Palestine National Initiative, Barghouti said that the plan ignores the root causes of the problem. “The plan ignores the root causes of the problem and the root causes of what led to the 7th of October, the root causes that led to this war and that is particularly the Israeli occupation – the system of Israeli apartheid which has become much worse that the apartheid system in South Africa. And it has ignored the right of self determination of Palestinian people,” he said.
Two-state solution
At the recent United Nations General Assembly, six European countries recognised Palestine as a sovereign state but this, according to Barghouti is not enough. “We cannot be a state unless there is a total end of Israel occupation, unless there is a removal of all illegal Israeli settlements – otherwise there won’t be a state,” he said.
Former leader of the British Labour Party and activist, Jeremy Corbyn, who is visiting South Africa and Namibia, said that the countries that are proposing a two-state solution should listen to what the Palestinians are saying instead of imposing their views.
“The same arrogance happened in 1884 in Berlin when the whole of Africa was divided up and lines were drawn on the map. What I would suggest is that all those who opine on what the future structure of organisation of Palestine should be in the future is to take a week off and read Said on Orientalism. Edward Said analysed this whole process very well and effectively as the mentality that pervades a great deal of universalist thinking, that there is European intellectual supremacy over everybody else,” he said.
Bourghouti accused Israel of being committed only to violence. “Israel doesn’t want a one-state or two-state but what they want is to ethnically cleanse Palestine. The most terrible thing about Trump’s plan is that it gives Israel the time to continue settlement building in the West Bank so that it would reach a point where it would be impossible to have a Palestinian state,” he said
Journalists targeted
Al Jazeera journalist, Youmna El Sayed who had to flee from Gaza because of threats from the Israeli army, shared how she had to leave the country for the safety of her family. “The day the Israelis called my home and told my husband that you have few hours and we are going to bomb your home with your family inside. As a journalist, I had to investigate, so the first thing I did was call our bureau chief in Jerusalem. I told him that I had recorded the call and wanted to know if this was a real threat. He said he would get back to me. A couple of minutes later, Doha called me and said it is real, and they are going to bomb your home, you need to get out. I was caught between the fact that I have become a threat to the most precious people in my life, who are my children,” she said
According to the UN Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner, 248 journalists have been killed in Gaza since October 2023. El Sayed told the reporters that she had to make a hard decision between being a parent and being a journalist.
“Days later they came and on the same day my 12-year-old found out and she couldn’t take the news and she is the eldest. She held me by my chest, she pulled me by my clothes, she was screaming that they were going to kill us because of [me]; can you imagine as a parent being in that situation? She screamed that they were going to kill us because of [me], they are going to kill my sisters because of [me] as if her sisters are not my daughters. You get to be in that position just being a Palestinian journalist,” she said
Corbyn criticised the big media corporations for using Palestinian journalists as freelancers and when they are faced with threats or death, their lives do not matter. “Had it been a BBC or CNN journalist who was based in Gaza and under that kind of threat, there would have been statements all over the world about Israel but because the reality is that it’s a Palestinian journalist who bears the brunt of being killed by the Israeli army, they are silent. Many of the big media corporations do often use journalists as stringers and when they have suffered the ultimate fate, they do not do anything about it because they are not directly employed by the corporations. The international journalist organisations have to do far more to protect journalists who are under threat during any conflict particularly this one in Gaza,” he said.
