Statement by Deputy Minister A Pahad on the Situation Between Israel and Palestine

Deputy Minister Aziz Pahad stated this afternoon that the South African Government is deeply concerned by the ever-deepening cycle of violence and retribution which is currently taking place between Israel and Palestine.

He said that the presence in the region of American envoy General Anthony Zinni on a mission to broker a cease-fire and the historic response of the Arab League Summit to the initiative of Saudi Arabia to lay the ground work for a broadly based peace between the Arab world and Israel, in response to an Israeli withdrawal from all occupied Arab territories, were hopeful developments.

These hopeful signs had however been dashed by a series of events that had to be a source for concern to all peace-loving people.

The Government of South Africa found it inexplicable that Israel had seen fit to prevent President Arafat from travelling to Beirut to endorse and support the Saudi initiative. This action had been short-sighted and provocative and played directly into the hands of extremists whose sole goal was to prevent the conditions being created which would allow the achievement of a cease-fire and forward movement towards a substantial dialogue about peace in line with the requirements of the Mitchell Report.

It was also deeply troubling to the South African Government that at precisely the time that both the Israel and Palestinian leadership were engaged in discussions with General Zinni about establishing the conditions for implementation of a cease-fire, extremists had once again targeted Israeli civilians in attacks that have already left thirty Israelis dead and scores injured. The Deputy Minister said that wanton terrorist actions of this kind had to be condemned in an unequivocal fashion. They were, to quote the words of the UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, "morally repugnant".

Israel's response to these killings was once again the same massive predictable military escalation witnessed in the past, which sought to target President Arafat as an enemy, to destroy Palestinian infrastructure and try to humiliate and bludgeon the Palestinian people into submission.

"Such an approach would not work," the Deputy Minister said, and it was tragic that once again those voices in Israeli society which continued to draw attention to the fact that such actions by the IDF simply prompt a new round of Palestinian extremism, suicide bombings and a growing list of Israeli victims of terrorism, were being ignored.

Israel's security cannot be achieved through the barrel of a gun, the Deputy Minister reiterated. The current growing cycle of violence and the ever-increasing death toll of innocent Israelis and Palestinians could not be ended without a political solution. In this regard, the United Nations Security Council had recently shown the way, in its historic decision to recognise the right of the Palestinian and Israeli people to exist side by side, in peace and security with their neighbours in states of their own.

As shocking and terrible as the tragic past forty eight hours had been to Israel, no solution to such outrages was to be found in another Israeli military invasion of Palestinian cities, further destruction of Palestinian infrastructure, further killings of innocent Palestinian civilians and once again attempts to isolate, humiliate and characterise as the enemy, the elected leader of the Palestinian people.

This base and vengeful cycle of violence from both sides had to stop and General Anthony Zinni's mission has to be given another chance he said. The prize in this time of growing crisis has to be how to get both sides back to discussions about the peace agenda. The first step for this is a cease-fire which cannot be achieved without an Israeli withdrawal and an end to attempt to isolate and demonise President Arafat. Without this, as we have already seen so often over the past 18 months, the result will simply be a mounting list of innocent civilian casualties on both sides.

In order to convey these views of the South African Government, the Deputy Minister said that he had held discussions during the day with both the Palestinian Ambassador, H.E. Salman Herfi, and the Israeli Ambassador, H.E. Tova Herzl.

Issued by: Department of Foreign Affairs

29 March 2002