by MARIANNA JORDAN for ISLAMiCommentary on OCTOBER 4, 2013:
Jessica Montell, the executive director of Israel’s leading human rights organization B’Tselem has a “love/hate” relationship with the Arab-Israeli peace process.
She made a point to distinguish between “peace” and the “process” at a brunch talk last month (Sept. 8) to a full audience of Duke University students, faculty and members of the public.
“My ambivalence surrounding the peace process stems from many years of experience in that there is a complicated and problematic dynamic around [the peace process’s] relationship to the human rights reality on the ground,” Montell said.
Her talk came at a time of renewed efforts in recent months by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry to facilitate negotiations between the Israelis and Palestinians with the end goal of creating two states for two peoples.
Duke senior Prashanth Kamalakanthan, who is involved with Duke Students for Justice in Palestine, said, in an interview with ISLAMiCommentary, that he believes B’Tselem’s work “is a very necessary counterweight;” bringing a necessary humanitarian angle to something that is always seen as a geopolitical issue.
The issue of land control and territorial disputes is the number one human rights dilemma linked to the peace process, explained Montell.
In 1995, the second phase of the Oslo Process — brokered by former President Bill Clinton — divided the West Bank into areas A, B and C. Area A is under full civil and security control by the Palestinian Authority. Area B is under Palestinian civil control and joint Palestinian-Israeli security control and Area C is under full Israeli civil and security control.
Perhaps the most contentious area — Area C — takes up approximately 60% of the West Bank, which means that Israel deals with all land-related matters there. Montell noted there are 180,000 Palestinians in Area C and 25,000 Israeli settlers. The area encircles all of the built-up Palestinian cities and the threat of Palestinian house demolitions at the hands of the Israeli authorities is pervasive.
“(B’Tselem) is working in a highly controversial, disputed area in terms of some of the issues that we’re talking about here,” she said, and the dual legal systems are also problematic.
“The most entrenched [human rights] violation is that you witness two populations living in the same territory, working under two different legal systems…for example, if one Israeli and one Palestinian commit the same crime of stone-throwing, there is a strikingly different way of handling [the crime] in the Israeli legal system (vs the Palestinian legal system).”
She stressed that while the backbone of the B’Tselem’s work lies in researching and documenting human rights violations, B’Tselem also places a priority on educating the Israeli public and policymakers of their findings.
The organization has begun to utilize new media strategies in their public outreach efforts and has made use of video in particular as a tool to promote human rights. B’Tselem has trained 220 Palestinians in the art of creating videos, primarily in the West Bank — with the goals of further empowering Palestinians in their communications efforts, and exposing Israelis to the realities in the Occupied Territories.
The organization’s website notes that its video archive contains thousands of hours of raw material, testimonies, and footage from various places in the Occupied Territories, and can be accessed by filmmakers, the media, academics, students, and any person who wants to learn the reality of life under occupation.
While Montell believes the political process is the only way to end the Israeli occupation and resultant human rights abuses in the Palestinian territories, her organization doesn’t take specific political positions.
“Our organization is not taking a position on political processes in that we’re working in a highly politicized context,” Montell said “So we don’t take a stance on issues such as the two-state solution or borders…though I can say that anyone concerned with human rights must be welcoming a political process to end this conflict.
She explained her wariness of the process, however, when she described the irony of the Oslo process that began in 1993 with the first Oslo Accord. Montell said that Israeli settlements in the Palestinian territories, deemed illegal within the context of international law, have tripled in the 20 years of the “peace process” that began in the early 1990s.
“When we link our [human rights] issues into the diplomatic process…then it puts off addressing those issues,” she said, explaining that there have been blatant examples of numerous human rights violations justified in the name of “peace.” For example, jailing a Palestinian without due process of law might be justified by some in the name of maintaining order in a peace agreement.
Montell said the main lesson (or fault) of the Oslo process was that the broad umbrella of human rights has paid symbolic “lip service” in the agreement itself. The focus of Israelis throughout the “peace process” has been in ensuring security for Israelis, but there has been no official language, attention or enforcement of human rights.
She painted a rather bleak picture of the current political climate:
“There has been a tremendous amount of cynicism among Israelis and Palestinians due to a disconnect between the rhetoric of Israeli officials — with American counterparts — in terms of their actions on the ground.”
Said student Kamalakanthan, “The US mainstream media is so complicit [in this conflict] and is often interested in showing a distorted view of the occupation.
Montell pointed out that illegal settlement expansion has explicitly become part of Israeli government policy, yet it is irreconcilable to be thinking about a two-state solution in light of Israel’s increasing infringement on Palestinian lands.
“Human rights is not gesture of goodwill….We’re talking about legal …going forward, “, said Montell, who emphasized, “It’s in Israelis’ self-interest to think about human rights.”
Said Liraz Cohen, Duke’s new Israel Fellow, and an Israeli herself: “The event was a valuable opportunity to hear a perspective about Israel as part of a larger ongoing conversation about Israel and the Middle East. I hope hearing this one perspective will inspire people to learn and listen to other perspectives to get a more complete view of the situation.”
Montell’s talk was sponsored by Duke Human Rights Center at the Franklin Humanities Institute, Duke Center for Jewish Studies, and the Duke Islamic Studies Center.
Marianna Jordan is Co-President of Duke’s J Street U chapter, an organization advocating rigorous American involvement in a peaceful, two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. A senior at Duke University, she is majoring in International Comparative Studies (with a focus on the Middle East) and Arabic. She is also receiving a certificate in Policy Journalism and Media Studies through the Sanford School of Public Policy. This year she is also a Communications fellow with the Duke Islamic Studies Center-managed Transcultural Islam Project, which includes the ISLAMiCommentary web site.