Can
The Arab World Be
Turned Into Gaza’s Jailers?
By Jonathan Cook in Nazareth
26 June, 2007
Countercurrents.org
The boycott by Israel and the
international community of the Palestinian Authority finally blew up
in their faces with Hamas’ recent bloody takeover of Gaza. Or
so argues Gideon Levy, one of the saner voices still to be found in
Israel. “Starving, drying up and blocking aid do not sear the
consciousness and do not weaken political movements. On the contrary
… Reality has refuted the chorus of experts and commentators who
preached [on] behalf of the boycott policy. This daft notion that it
is possible to topple an elected government by applying pressure on
a helpless population suffered a complete failure.”
But has Levy got it wrong? The faces of Israeli and American politicians,
including Ehud Olmert and George Bush, appear soot-free. On the contrary.
Over the past fortnight they have been looking and sounding even more
smug than usual.
The problem with Levy’s analysis is that it assumes that Israel
and the US wanted sanctions to bring about the fall of Hamas, either
by giving Fatah the upper hand so that it could deal a knockout blow
to the Palestinian government, or by inciting ordinary Palestinians
to rise up and demand that their earlier electoral decision be reversed
and Fatah reinstalled. In short, Levy, like most observers, assumes
that the policy was designed to enforce regime change.
But what if that was not the point of the sanctions? And if so, what
goals were Israel and the US pursuing?
The parallels between Iraq and Gaza may be instructive. After all, Iraq
is the West’s only other recent experiment in imposing sanctions
to starve a nation. And we all know where it led: to an even deeper
entrenchment of Saddam Hussein’s rule.
True, the circumstances in Iraq and Gaza are different: most Iraqis
wanted Saddam out but had no way to effect change, while most Gazans
wanted Hamas in and made it happen by voting for them in last year’s
elections. Nevertheless, it may be that the US and Israel drew a different
lesson from the sanctions experience in Iraq.
Whether intended or not, sanctions proved a very effective tool for
destroying the internal bonds that held Iraqi society together. Destitution
and hunger are powerful incentives to turn on one’s neighbour
as well as one’s enemy. A society where resources -- food, medicines,
water and electricity -- are in short supply is also a society where
everyone looks out for himself. It is a society that, with a little
prompting, can easily be made to tear itself apart.
And that is precisely what the Americans began to engineer after their
“shock and awe” invasion of 2003. Contrary to previous US
interventions abroad, Saddam was not toppled and replaced with another
strongman -- one more to the West’s liking. Instead of regime
change, we were given regime overthrow. Or as Daniel Pipes, one of the
neoconservative ideologues of the attack on Iraq, expressed it, the
goal was “limited to destroying tyranny, not sponsoring its replacement
… Fixing Iraq is neither the coalition’s responsibility
nor its burden.”
In place of Saddam, the Americans created a safe haven known as the
Green Zone from which its occupation regime could loosely police the
country and oversee the theft of Iraq’s oil, while also sitting
back and watching a sectarian civil war between the Sunni and Shia populations
spiral out of control and decimate the Iraqi population.
What did Washington hope to achieve? Pipes offers a clue: “When
Sunni terrorists target Shiites and vice-versa, non-Muslims [that is,
US occupation forces and their allies] are less likely to be hurt. Civil
war in Iraq, in short, would be a humanitarian tragedy but not a strategic
one.” In other words, enabling a civil war in Iraq was far preferable
to allowing Iraqis to unite and mount an effective resistance to the
US occupation. After all, Iraqi deaths -- at least 650,000 of them,
according to the last realistic count -- are as good as worthless, while
US soldiers’ lives cost votes back home.
For the neocon cabal behind the Iraq invasion, civil war was seen to
have two beneficial outcomes.
First, it eroded the solidarity of ordinary Iraqis, depleting their
energies and making them less likely to join or support the resistance
to the occupation. The insurgency has remained a terrible irritation
to US forces but not the fatal blow it might have been were the Sunni
and Shia to fight side by side. As a result, the theft of Iraq’s
resources has been made easier.
And second, in the longer term, civil war is making inevitable a slow
process of communal partition and ethnic cleansing. Four million Iraqis
are reported to have been forced either to leave the country or flee
their homes. Iraq is being broken up into small ethnic and religious
fiefdoms that will be easier to manage and manipulate.
Is this the model for Gaza now and the West Bank later?
It is worth recalling that neither Israel nor the US pushed for an easing
of the sanctions on the Palestinian Authority after the national unity
government of Hamas and Fatah was formed earlier this year. In fact,
the US and Israel could barely conceal their panic at the development.
The moment the Mecca agreement was signed, reports of US efforts to
train and arm Fatah forces loyal to President Mahmoud Abbas became a
newspaper staple.
The cumulative effect of US support for Fatah, as well as Israel’s
continuing arrests of Hamas legislators in the West Bank, was to strain
already tense relations between Hamas and Fatah to breaking point. When
Hamas learnt that Abbas’ security chief, Mohammed Dahlan, with
US encouragement, was preparing to carry out a coup against them in
Gaza, they got the first shot in.
Did Fatah really believe it could pull off a coup in Gaza, given the
evident weakness of its forces there, or was the rumour little more
than American and Israeli spin, designed to undermine Hamas’ faith
in Fatah and doom the unity government? Were Abbas and Dahlan really
hoping to topple Hamas, or were they the useful idiots needed by the
US and Israel? These are questions that may have to be settled by the
historians.
But with the fingerprints of Elliott Abrams, one of the more durable
neocons in the Bush administration, to be found all over this episode,
we can surmise that what Washington and Israel are intending for the
Palestinians will have strong echoes of what has unfolded in Iraq.
By engineering the destruction of the unity government, Israel and the
US have ensured that there is no danger of a new Palestinian consensus
emerging, one that might have cornered Israel into peace talks. A unity
government might have found a formula offering Israel:
* limited recognition inside the pre-1967 borders in return for recognition
of a Palestinian state and the territorial integrity of the West Bank
and Gaza;
* a long-term ceasefire in return for Israel ending its campaign of
constant violence and violations of Palestinian sovereignty;
* and a commitment to honour past agreements in return for Israel’s
abiding by UN resolutions and accepting a just solution for the Palestinian
refugees.
After decades of Israeli bad faith, and the growing rancour between
Fatah and Hamas, the chances of them finding common ground on which
to make such an offer, it must be admitted, would have been slight.
But now they are non-existent.
That is exactly how Israel wants it, because it has no interest in meaningful
peace talks with the Palestinians or in a final agreement. It wants
only to impose solutions that suit Israel’s interests, which are
securing the maximum amount of land for an exclusive Jewish state and
leaving the Palestinians so weak and divided that they will never be
able to mount a serious challenge to Israel’s dictates.
Instead, Hamas’ dismal authority over the prison camp called Gaza
and Fatah’s bastard governance of the ghettoes called the West
Bank offer a model more satisfying for Israel and the US -- and one
not unlike Iraq. A sort of sheriff’s divide and rule in the Wild
West.
Just as in Iraq, Israel and the US have made sure that no Palestinian
strongman arises to replace Yasser Arafat. Just as in Iraq, they are
encouraging civil war as an alternative to resistance to occupation,
as Palestine’s resources -- land, not oil -- are stolen. Just
as in Iraq, they are causing a permanent and irreversible partition,
in this case between the West Bank and Gaza, to create more easily managed
territorial ghettoes. And just as in Iraq, the likely reaction is an
even greater extremism from the Palestinians that will undermine their
cause in the eyes of the international community.
Where will this lead the Palestinians next?
Israel is already pulling the strings of Fatah with a new adeptness
since the latter’s humiliation in Gaza. Abbas is currently basking
in Israeli munificence for his rogue West Bank regime, including the
decision to release a substantial chunk of the $700 million tax monies
owed to the Palestinians (including those of Gaza, of course) and withheld
for years by Israel. The price, according to the Israeli media, was
a commitment from Abbas not to contemplate re-entering a unity government
with Hamas.
The goal will be to increase the strains between Hamas and Fatah to
breaking point in the West Bank, but ensure that Fatah wins the confrontation
there. Fatah is already militarily stronger and with generous patronage
from Israel and the US -- including arms and training, and possibly
the return of the Badr Brigade currently holed up in Jordan -- it should
be able to rout Hamas. The difference in status between Gaza and the
West Bank that has been long desired by Israel will be complete.
The Palestinian people have already been carved up into a multitude
of constituencies. There are the Palestinians under occupation, those
living as second-class citizens of Israel, those allowed to remain “residents”
of Jerusalem, and those dispersed to camps across the Middle East. Even
within these groups, there are a host of sub-identities: refugees and
non-refugees; refugees included as citizens in their host state and
those excluded; occupied Palestinians living under the control of the
Palestinian Authority and those under Israel’s military government;
and so on.
Now, Israel has entrenched maybe the most significant division of all:
the absolute and irreversible separation of Gaza and the West Bank.
What applies to one will no longer be true for the other. Each will
be a separate case; their fates will no longer be tied. One will be,
as Israelis like to call it, Hamastan, and other Fatahland, with separate
governments and different treatment from Israel and the international
community.
The reasons why Israel prefers this arrangement are manifold.
First, Gaza can now be written off by the international community as
a basket case. The Israeli media is currently awash with patronising
commentary from the political and security establishments about how
to help avoid a humanitarian crisis in Gaza, including the possibility
of air drops of aid over the Gaza “security fence” -- as
though Gaza were Pakistan after an earthquake. From past experience,
and the current menacing sounds from Israel’s new Defence Minister,
Ehud Barak, those food packages will quickly turn into bombs if Gaza
does not keep quiet.
As Israeli and US officials have been phrasing it, there is a new “clarity”
in the situation. In a Hamastan, Gaza’s militants and civilians
can be targeted by Israel with little discrimination and no outcry from
the international community. Israel will hope that message from Gaza
will not be lost on West Bank Palestinians as they decide who to give
their support to, Fatah or Hamas.
Second, at their meeting last week Olmert and Bush revived talk of Palestinian
statehood. According to Olmert, Bush “wants to realize, while
he is in office, the dream of creating a Palestinian state”. Both
are keen to make quick progress, a sure sign of mischief in the making.
Certainly, they know they are now under no pressure to create the single
viable Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza once promised by
President Bush. An embattled Abbas will not be calling for the inclusion
of Gaza in his ghetto-fiefdom.
Third, the separation of Gaza from the West Bank may be used to inject
new life into Olmert’s shopworn convergence plan -- if he can
dress it up new clothes. Convergence, which required a very limited
withdrawal from those areas of the West Bank heavily populated with
Palestinians while Israel annexed most of its illegal colonies and kept
the Jordan Valley, was officially ditched last summer after Israel’s
humiliation by Hizbullah.
Why seek to revive convergence? Because it is the key to Israel securing
the expanded Jewish fortress state that is its only sure protection
from the rapid demographic growth of the Palestinians, soon to outnumber
Jews in the Holy Land, and Israel’s fears that it may then be
compared to apartheid South Africa.
If the occupation continues unchanged, Israel’s security establishment
has long been warning, the Palestinians will eventually wake up to the
only practical response: to dissolve the Palestinian Authority, Israel’s
clever ruse to make the Palestinian leadership responsible for suppressing
Palestinian resistance to the occupation, thereby forcing Israel to
pick up the bill for the occupation rather than Europe. The next stage
would be an anti-apartheid struggle for one state in historic Palestine.
For this reason, demographic separation from the Palestinians has been
the logic of every major Israeli policy initiative since -- and including
-- Oslo. Convergence requires no loss of Israel’s control over
Palestinian lives, ensured through the all but finished grid of walls,
settlements, bypass roads and checkpoints, only a repackaging of their
occupation as statehood.
The biggest objection in Israel to Olmert’s plan -- as well as
to the related Gaza disengagement -- was the concern that, once the
army had unilaterally withdrawn from the Palestinian ghettoes, the Palestinians
would be free to launch terror attacks, including sending rockets out
of their prisons into Israel. Most Israelis, of course, never consider
the role of the occupation in prompting such attacks.
But Olmert may believe he has found a way to silence his domestic critics.
For the first time he seems genuinely keen to get his Arab neighbours
involved in the establishment of a Palestinian “state”.
As he headed off to the Sharm el-Sheikh summit with Egypt, Jordan and
Abbas this week, Olmert said he wanted to "jointly work to create
the platform that may lead to a new beginning between us and the Palestinians”.
Did he mean partnership? A source in the Prime Minister’s Office
explained to the Jerusalem Post why the three nations and Abbas were
meeting. “These are the four parties directly impacted by what
is happening right now, and what is needed is a different level of cooperation
between them.” Another spokesman bewailed the failure so far to
get the Saudis on board.
This appears to mark a sea change in Israeli thinking. Until now Tel
Aviv has regarded the Palestinians as a domestic problem -- after all,
they are sitting on land that rightfully, at least if the Bible is to
be believed, belongs to the Jews. Any attempt at internationalising
the conflict has therefore been strenuously resisted.
But now the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office is talking openly
about getting the Arab world more directly involved, not only in its
usual role as a mediator with the Palestinians, nor even in simply securing
the borders against smuggling, but also in policing the territories.
Israel hopes that Egypt, in particular, is as concerned as Tel Aviv
by the emergence of a Hamastan on its borders, and may be enticed to
use the same repressive policies against Gaza’s Islamists as it
does against its own.
Similarly, Olmert’s chief political rival, Binyamin Netanyahu
of Likud, has mentioned not only Egyptian involvement in Gaza but even
a Jordanian military presence in the West Bank. The “moderate”
Arab regimes, as Washington likes to call them, are being seen as the
key to developing new ideas about Palestinian “autonomy”
and regional “confederation”. As long as Israel has a quisling
in the West Bank and a beyond-the-pale government in Gaza, it may believe
it can corner the Arab world into backing such a “peace plan”.
What will it mean in practice? Possibly, as Zvi Barel of Haaretz speculates,
we will see the emergence of half a dozen Palestinian governments in
charge of the ghettoes of Gaza, Ramallah, Jenin, Jericho, and Hebron.
Each may be encouraged to compete for patronage and aid from the “moderate”
Arab regimes but on condition that Israel and the US are satisfied with
these Palestinian governments’ performance.
In other words, Israel looks as if it is dusting off yet another blueprint
for how to manage the Palestinians and their irritating obsession with
sovereignty. Last time, under Oslo, the Palestinians were put in charge
of policing the occupation on Israel’s behalf. This time, as the
Palestinians are sealed into their separate prisons masquerading as
a state, Israel may believe that it can find a new jailer for the Palestinians
-- the Arab world.
Jonathan Cook, a journalist based in Nazareth, Israel,
is the author of “Blood and Religion: The Unmasking of the Jewish
and Democratic State” (Pluto Press, 2006). His website is www.jkcook.net
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