A
Peace-Killing Linkage, De-linkage
By
Nicola Nasser
28 December,
2007
Countercurrents.org
Linking the "aliyah"
to what the Jewish literature has been describing as Eretz Israel or
Yisrael HaShleima (Greater Israel) to the Israeli colonial settlement
of the Palestinian land, which the Hebrew state occupied in 1967, while
at the same time negating the Palestinian Right of Return, is torpedoing
whatever prospect is left for a peaceful solution for the Arab –
Israeli conflict, undermining the latest U.S.-sponsored launch of the
Palestinian - Israeli talks in Annapolis and further splintering, so
far politically, the only viable Palestinian partner to Israel in any
viable peace process, namely the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO).
Head of North
America's Reform Movement, Rabbi Eric Yoffie, in an interview published
by The Jerusalem Post on December 25, hailed "Israel's creation"
as a "miraculous, momentous event in itself. Every day that goes
by with Israel surrounded by a wall of Arab hatred is a miracle;"
however he could have this linkage on mind when he noted what he described
as "Arab hatred" and the "anti-Israel feeling among Jewish
Americans" as an "aspect of the problem" of increasing
identification with the Jewish state's subscription to that linkage,
although he stopped short of blaming the "hatred" and the
"aspect" on this peace-killing linkage.
On the evening
of December 26, (40) new Jewish immigrants from Iran landed in Israel
in the framework of a special Jewish Agency covert operation, which
this year hit the record number of (200), on the backdrop of a 20-year
drop of (6%) of the overall Jewish immigration into Israel according
to the Ministry of Immigrant Absorption.
To judge
form the trend of the one million aliyah of the "Soviet" Jewish
immigrants late in the last century, a high percentage of the new comers
this year (19,700) will end up landing in Israeli colonial settlements
built on the Israeli-confiscated Palestinian land in the West Bank,
notably in eastern Jerusalem where at least (12%) of Soviet Jews had
settled according to Israeli media reports.
The "absorption"
of newcomers in the occupied Palestinian territories is not an Israeli
policy dictated by geographical or economic inability to absorb them
in Israel proper, but rather by Israel's strategy of unsatisfied apatite
for territorial expansion.
For example
the Israeli Labor party in 1999 considered a plan to settle five million
new aliyah in the Negev in southern Israel as a strategic goal for the
next fifty years. Moreover Israel is also capable of absorbing the return
of the Palestinian refugees it dispossessed and displaced from about
(500) towns and villages in 1948: According to Salman Abu Sitta an expert
on the Palestinian refugee issue, "90% of the village sites are
still vacant, 7% are partially built-over, and only 3% are totally built
over in Tel Aviv and West Jerusalem."
Nor could
the Israeli leaders be excused by "unawareness" of the Palestinian
plight in their "de-linking" the peace-making from the Palestinian
Right of Return and their persisting denial of this right and their
persistence on "linking" their territorial expansion through
the colonial settlement strategy to making peace with the Palestinian
people.
Referring
to the Palestinian plight, the Israeli Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert,
stated in his Annapolis speech on November 27: "Your people, too,
have suffered for many years; and there are some who still suffer. Many
Palestinians have been living for decades in camps, disconnected from
the environment in which they grew up, wallowing in poverty, in neglect,
alienation, bitterness, and a deep, unrelenting sense of humiliation."
Israeli Minister
of Absorption, Ya'acov Edri, said recently that "Aliya is the single
greatest Zionist enterprise in our sixty years of statehood," but
he failed to state that illegally (according to international law) directing
aliyah to the occupied Palestinian and Syrian land was another forced-by-the-sword
success for the "Zionist enterprise," as more than half a
million Jewish settlers live now in more than 170 colonies in the West
Bank and the Golan Heights, and constituting the second major obstacle
to peace-making after the 40-year old military occupation.
The declared
Annapolis plan of Israel and the Quartet of the U.S., U.N., EU and Russian
mediators to shore up the ruling Palestinian "peaceniks" in
the West Bank with promises of political, security and economic "horizons"
towards the creation of a Palestinian state according to the two-state
"vision" of the U.S. President George W. Bush, while at the
same time totally sealing off the totally dependent on foreign charities
Hamas ruling compatriots in the Gaza Strip, is proving to be a non-starter
tactic essentially because Israel is not subscribing in action to what
it has verbally committed herself to in Annapolis, namely to commit
to its obligation according to the Road Map peace blueprint not to expand
her settlements.
Donors
Miss Political Will
The Palestinian
Authority (PA) was pledged ($1.8) billion more than they requested from
their donors in Paris, but nonetheless there was no Palestinian euphoria;
the donors were only "showing financial generosity because of the
absence of political audacity and political courage," according
to Afif Safia, the most prominent Palestinian diplomat who is accredited
to represent his people in Washington D.C.
The political
will of the U.S.-led donors faces a critical test of credibility to
match their financial "generosity" with a diplomatic will
to dispel their image of impotent leverage to put their politically
promised "vision" of the two-state solution where they donate
their tax payers' money, to erase what Safia described as an Israeli
"stain on the conscience of mankind" in the "open-air
prison" of the Gaza Strip and to let loose their colonial grip
on the West Bank.
The "unreasonably
reasonable" Palestinian negotiators are still "disturbed"
by the "absence of the political will" and "the political
impotence that we have witnessed throughout the decades" because
"so far there is no indication" that the U.S. sponsors of
the resumed Palestinian – Israeli talks are ready to "vent
their annoyance with the obstacle towards advance," namely the
Israelis who invested "all their genius to lower expectations in
the weeks that preceded Annapolis" and "immediately after
Annapolis they invested all their brilliance into torpedoing the modest
results that emerged," according to Safia (Newsweek, Dec 18, 2007).
During the
twenty days that separated the Annapolis conference on November 27 from
the Paris donors' conference on December 17, the Palestinians were optimistic
and viewed the two events as complementary en route to the nation building
of Palestinian statehood.
However less
than a month on, Israel was not only "torpedoing the modest results
that emerged" from Annapolis, but also threatening to drain the
($7.4) billion pledged by the donors into the political sewage that
siphoned more than ten billion dollars donated to the PA since 1993
and to torpedo both the credibility of the newly resumed talks and that
of the Palestinian leadership, which has risked the semi-consensus Palestinian
opposition to Annapolis.
Israel has
since embarked on a two-pronged "real war" on two fronts:
A military war on the Hamas-led Gaza Strip and a colonial war on the
rival PLO-led West Bank, while officially rejecting a reciprocal truce
proposal from Hamas to trade ceasefire for lifting the siege Israel
imposes on the strip and at the same time unofficially refusing to make
peace with the PLO, thus undermining both rival leaderships in Gaza
and Ramallah.
"There
is no other way to describe what is happening in the Gaza Strip except
as a true war ... This war will continue," a statement by the Israeli
government said on Sunday.
Since June
this "real war" claimed more than 200 Palestinian lives in
Gaza, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert boasted last week, excluding
22 more killed by the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) during the Islamic
Eid Al-Adha according to the Palestinian Center of Al-Mizan for Human
Rights.
The Israeli
colonial war in the West Bank is much more detrimental to the Annapolis
process and the prospect of creating a Palestinian state because it
is focusing on strategically severing any territorial contiguity between
this prospective state and its capital in the Holy City.
In less than
a month since Annapolis, Israel announced an aggressive three-pronged
drive to expand its colonial settlements in and around the eastern part
of Jerusalem, which Israel occupied in 1967, with the aim of sealing
off with Jewish demographic and construction barriers whatever possible
routes might link up the future Palestinian state with its capital.
On the southeastern
route Israel decided to beef up its colony of Jabal Abu Ghneim (Har
Homa); "Peace Now" revealed Sunday that 50 million shekels
were allocated in the 2008 state budget to build 500 homes in Har Homa.
On the northwestern route the Israeli housing ministry decided to create
the brand new colony of Atarot, with 35.000 houses, on the Palestinian
land of Qalandia. On the eastern route 48 million shekels were allocated
in the 2008 budget for the construction of 250 homes in the Maale Adumim
colony, home for more than 35 illegal settlers.
Meanwhile
the construction of a bridge and other "tourist" facilities
continued in Bab Almagharbeh on the Al-Buraq Wall, the "western
wall" of Islam's third holiest site of the Al-Aqsa Mosque, despite
Islamic and archeological protesting outcries.
This Israeli
colonial drive is sure to make or break the fragile resumed talks. Final
status negotiations can resume when the Palestinian side gets a "clear-cut
answer" on Israel's readiness to immediately halt all settlement
activity in "all Palestinian lands, without exception," said
chief Palestinian negotiator, Ahmad Qurei, and the Secretary General
of the PLO Executive Committee, Yasser Abed Rabbo.
But Israel
was defiant both to Palestinian warnings as well as to those of the
U.S. sponsors of the Annapolis process. The colonies targeted by the
Israeli settlement drive are "an integral, organic part of Jerusalem"
and, "No promise was ever given to anyone that we wouldn't continue
to build" in them because they are "within the municipal borders
of Jerusalem," Israeli Minister for Jerusalem Affairs, Rafi Eitan,
told Army Radio.
"The
international community did not show the political courage needed in
Annapolis or in the pre-Annapolis period, which necessitated some confrontation
with the Israeli territorial appetite," Safia said. This courage
is still missing after Annapolis, before and after the 87-donor conference
in Paris, despite what Safia hailed as "the reservoir of goodwill
and the diplomatic and universal unanimity the birth of a Palestinian
state enjoys" as shown by the donors.
PLO
on Verge of Splintering
The Israeli
colonial drive and the impotence of the international Quartet to stop
it are discrediting the PLO leadership not only in the eyes of its people
but also in the eyes of its coalition member factions. The Palestinian
– Israeli Steering Committee of negotiators failed to make any
progress in their second meeting since Annapolis on Monday. Abbas himself
acknowledged publicly the talks are facing obstacles because of the
Israeli settlement expansion.
The Popular
and the Democratic Fronts for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP and
DFLP respectively) have gone public in demanding in official statements
last week that President Mahmoud Abbas stop all contacts and negotiations
with Israel in protest against her military escalation and settlement
expansion. Both fronts represent the third strongest electoral and political
power after Hamas and Fatah and wield a leading influence on intelligentsia,
media and public opinion. As PLO members both sided with Fatah in its
rivalry with the non-PLO Hamas.
However by
calling for a stop to all contacts and negotiations with Israel after
voicing strong opposition to the Annapolis conference both fronts are
in fact adopting a key Hamas demand and reinforcing the arguments of
the Islamic movement against the Abbas-led PLO.
The PFLP
went a step further in practically moving independently from the Fatah-led
PLO. Despite Abbas leadership's protests the PFLP decided to attend
a 10-faction Palestinian "national conference" that was scheduled
to coincide with the Annapolis conference in the Syrian capital, Damascus;
Syria's participation in Annapolis led Damascus to appeasing the PLO
protests and postponing the conference. However the Syrian Foreign Minister
Farouq al-Shara' revived his country's dispute with the PLO over the
issue when he announced two weeks ago Syria's disappointment with the
outcome of Annapolis and with Israel's settlement drive and "welcomed"
the Palestinians to convene their Hamas-led conference in Damascus.
More detriment
to the Abbas-led PLO's unity is a simmering undeclared opposition that
is now surfacing into public among the rank and file of Fatah to the
negotiations as well as to the government of Prime Minister Salam Fayyad.
Fatah's 40-year
old monopoly of the decision-making and finances of the PLO and later
the autonomous Palestinian Authority (PA) under the Israeli occupation
has kept the coalition of member factions under tight control, but the
deadlocked peace process with Israel, the corruption of the PA and the
integration of the movement and the self-rule have all exhausted the
credibility of the national liberation movement, creating the right
environment for the rise of the Hamas challenge and as well an opportunity
for those factions to show more independence and even dissent.
The Central
Committee of Fatah on Monday warned in a statement after a meeting chaired
by Abbas that the Israeli government is dooming the peace talks to failure
before they start and that the settlement expansion could abort the
Annapolis process. Negotiator Qaddora Faris of Fatah announced Monday
he will not take part in future negotiations and demanded the Palestinian
negotiating team do the same because it will be "a big strategic
mistake" to negotiate while Israel continues its settlement expansion.
Fatah
Opposition on the Rise
Whereas the
Fatah-Hamas bloody race for controlling the PA institutions is self-evident,
all indications refer to an emerging third power, which seems gradually
snatching the reins of the self-ruled authority from both rivals, first
and foremost in the West Bank.
Fatah is
gradually becoming a "former" ruling party and developing
into a de facto opposition to both rival governments of the Fayyad-ruled
West Bank and the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip, which the Israeli journalist
Amira Hass described as the two "quasi-state" entities or
the "two non-states for one people" (Haaretz on Dec. 12, 2007).
Following
the military showdown of "Hamas," which bloodily forced Fatah
out of the driving seat in the Gaza Strip in June, Fatah grudgingly
yielded the governmental seat to a western-oriented grouping led by
the World Bank veteran Salam Fayyad.
The grudge
seems to be no more tolerated by Fatah, who sees its power and influence
eroding further while in the public eye the movement is held responsible
for all the "politically sensitive" as well as the repressive
measures that the Fayyad government has taken or plans to take. Its
simmering opposition has recently surfaced into public.
Member of
Fatah's Central Committee and former cabinet minister of information
Nabil Amre, in an article published Nov. 11 by the Ramallah-based Al
Hayat Al Jadida, described the protests within Fatah as a "snow
ball" of concerns, criticism and accusations, seeking an answer
to the question whether the Fayyad government is an "established
ally or an illusionary alternative" to Fatah.
Acknowledging
there is a "crisis' between Fatah and what he described as the
"phenomenon of Salam Fayyad" and confirming that several cabinet
ministers of Fayyad government as well as politicians around him, "whom
Fayyad influences or influenced by them," are attacking Fatah "in
their private councils," squeezing Fatah employees out of their
ministries or refusing to employ them, Amre asked: "Are we facing
an intractable crisis?"
Amre however
suggested "preserving" Fayyadm but after "separating"
the premier from his cabinet ministers and political entourage "for
self-evident reasons," including the "post-Annapolis"
commitments, the upcoming visit by U.S. President George W. Bush and
the Palestinian donors' conference in Paris, in addition to the paralysis
of the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC), which makes any cabinet
reshuffle unthinkable.
He concluded
by preferring "calming down" the Fatah opposition to Fayyad
government "in exchange for doubling his efforts towards more and
clearer internal balancing" that would add to the "most important
card which Fayyad maintains, namely the absolute American support to
him."
Although
Fatah's complaints seem so far confined to partisan reasons, they are
politically important because they add the opposition of the mainstream
wing within the movement, which backs President Mahmoud Abbas' policies,
to the opposition of another wing inside and outside the occupied territories
which contests Abbas' peace strategy and strongly oppose Fayyad's U.S.-backed
policies. Sensing a real threat to his government, Abbas has reportedly
intervened to curb further Fatah opposition.
Definitely
Fayyad's government would be in a very critical impasse were it to face
a united Fatah opposition that would join Hamas in opposing his IMF
and World Bank-advised economic policies.
Fayyad was
on record that his government is bent on two "politically sensitive"
economic measures, decreasing the public sector payroll, which so far
has left about 40,000 people unemployed, including a large number of
security personnel, and lifting the subsidies to electricity and fuel,
which has yet to be implemented. Both measures are preconditions to
solicit more of the donors' money.
But both
measures are sure recipe for antagonizing more and more of the Fatah
rank and file, for partisan as well as for economic and political reasons.
Fayyad's government now has to face opposition from Fatah while preoccupied
with neutralizing the Hamas threat to the PA in the West Bank.
However the
major threat to Fayyad's government remains Israel's military occupation.
The World Bank on Thursday warned that even if the donor countries meet
all of PA's demands for financial aid, the Palestinian economy will
continue to deteriorate and the Palestinians will get poorer if Israel
does not lift its siege of Gaza and its restrictions on free movement
of people and goods in the West Bank.
All indications
confirm the Israeli settlement expansion, siege and blockade are staying,
the World Bank's warning is valid, Fayyad can promise his people only
more of the same, and opposition to his government and the PLO will
grow deeper and wider by the day to dispel whatever illusions of peace
are left over from the Annapolis conference last month.
Nicola Nasser is a veteran Arab journalist based in
Bir Zeit, West Bank of the Israeli-occupied territories.
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