PEACE ' A MIRAGE AND DISILLUSION' FOR PALESTINIANS

ANALYSIS ( PALESTINE)

To many observers the 'Peace' in the West Bank, is this just a mirage and disillusion.
Some 750,000 people - half Gaza's population - are displaced and dependent on food hand-outs from the UN relief agency, UNRWA.
About half of Gaza's population are without foods, medical supplies, power lines, and running water, according to UNRWA..
"Nothing's changed," says Mouna Alzohari, in a city centre square criss-crossed by shoppers. "I don't think there will be a Palestinian country for 50 years."
Outside a money-changer, Tamer Jamim says Palestinian hopes have only receded. "We are further from having a Palestinian state. We'll need five or six years just to rebuild Gaza."The sentiment is increasingly widespread.
Jamil Rabah runs Near East Consulting, one of the West Bank's most respected polling organisations.
He says that pessimism about the prospects of statehood is deepening. He lists a whole staircase full of steps backward since the start of Annapolis, among them: "An increase in settlement activity; an increase in Palestinian in-fighting; an increase in the delegitimisation of the Palestinian Authority…
"So the situation is not better, it's much worse than before the start of Annapolis, and I think most Palestinians see that."These were his findings even before the current conflict in Gaza, which he is convinced "makes things even worse".
Mamdouh al-Aker was a negotiator for the Palestinians during the 1990s. He now runs the Palestinian Independent Commission for Human Rights, as well as having a packed day job as a surgeon.
He is no firebrand. But he speaks with quiet passion.
"If you talk to Palestinian people on the street, and mention the words 'peace process', they not only feel sick, they feel angry," says Dr Aker.
"This was one of the major reasons why Hamas won that overwhelming majority in parliamentary elections in January 2006. Because of the failure of the peace process, and the mismanagement of our affairs by the Palestinian Authority."
He calls the peace process "a mirage, a facade and disillusion". Not only is it not leading anywhere, "on the contrary, it makes us lose more and more of our land". He said
There is one very rosy scenario for those in the West Bank who believe in a two-state solution: a strong and flexible Israeli government after elections in three weeks' time; a move to Palestinian unity after all the death and division; and an energetic new American president.
Source: BBC, AP and Free Palestine news