Is peace In
Palestine
About To Break Out?
By Ali Abunimah
01 March, 2005
The
Electronic Intifada
Are
Israelis and Palestinians finally on the road to peace? A cursory glance
at commentary in the US press would seem to suggest so. Since Israeli
prime minister Ariel Sharon, and Palestinian Authority chairman Mahmoud
Abbas announced a truce in early February at the Sharm al-Sheikh summit,
many observers see a "window of opportunity" they are encouraging
both sides to leap through.
Sharon has announced
he is now coordinating with the Palestinians on his originally unilateral
plan to pull Israeli troops and settlers out of Gaza and the Israeli
cabinet voted to approve the "disengagement."
The New York Times
editorial gushed about the disengagement that "it would be churlish
to greet [Sharon's] historic decision with anything other than enthusiasm."
(24 February). The Chicago Tribune praised Sharon's "impressive"
perfomance and marveled as he "defies death threats and warnings
of a civil war to move his nation toward the kind of actions that are
imperative for a two-state solution and a lasting peace." (24 February).
Behind the photo
opportunities and historic handshakes, however, the evidence on the
ground is that Israel is taking advantage of the new mood not to build
peace, but to build more settlements. Without an immediate halt in settlement
construction, the possibility for a territorially contiguous, free Palestinian
state alongside Israel will remain a distant mirage, no matter how many
times President Bush talks about it, and the present easing of tension
will be no more than a short respite from more horror to come.
Phase One of President
Bush's Road Map peace plan says that both sides must immediately halt
all violence against eachother, and Israel must freeze all construction
of Jewish-only settlements on occupied Palestinian land. But Palestinians
still watch helplessly as Israeli bulldozers chew up their farms and
orchards. Palestinian Authority prime minister Ahmed Qureia complained
that "Israel is throwing sand in our eyes by continuing with the
settlement process" in the occupied West Bank.
At a press conference
with foreign reporters on 15 February, Sharon confirmed that Israel
intends to keep "Jewish population blocs" inside the West
Bank. Last Spring, the Bush administration explicitly endorsed Israel's
intention to do so. Israel's housing minister Yitzhak Herzog announced
in mid-February that Israel would build a new settlement called "Gvaot"
near the West Bank city of Bethlehem. Herzog also said that settlers
set to be evacuated from Gaza would be free to move to other settlements
in the West Bank. "I cannot prevent an individual who wants to
use his compensation to buy a house in Gush Etzion from doing so,"
he said, referring to a growing settlement near Jerusalem. (Reuters,
15 February 2005)
Israel's Ha'aretz
newspaper reported that Israel is forging ahead with plans to expand
Ma'ale Adumim, the largest settlement in the West Bank, which lies between
Jerusalem and Jericho and cuts the West Bank in two from north to south.
If this expansion goes ahead, as it seems it will, it confirms that
Israel intends there to be no possibility for a contiguous Palestinian
state. ("Herzog's Greater Jerusalem," by Shahar Ilan, Haaretz,
16 February).
Israel's Yediot
Aharonot newspaper revealed that according to the state land authority,
Israel plans to build more than 6,000 new homes in settlements in the
West Bank -- many in Ma'ale Adumim -- and that the government will also
legitimize 120 unauthorixed settlement outposts. (BBC, 25 February 2005)
A recent study by
Israel's Peace Now using aerial photography and field research found
that "the main building effort in the Jewish settlements in the
West Bank is now focused on the area between the Green Line [1967 border]
and the separation fence, and it is aimed at turning the fence into
Israel's permanent border." ("Quietly carrying on building,"
Ha'aretz, 8 January 2005). A confidential report by the Israeli attorney
general that found that "almost every major ministry in the Israeli
government assisted in the construction, expansion and maintenance of
illegal settlement outposts." ("Israelis Act to Encircle East
Jerusalem; Enclaves in Arab Areas, Illegal Building Projects Seen Intended
to Consolidate Control," The Washington Post, 7 February 2005)
This evidence bolsters
Palestinian claims that the separation wall -- ruled illegal last July
by the International Court of Justice -- is not a temporary security
measure as Israel argues, but a land grab carried out while world attention
focuses on Gaza. The deception, however, is not Israel's alone, but
requires the active participation of all those invested in the "peace
process" as it is currently configured and who prefer to talk about
the Gaza as if it were the only and most important thing happening.
There is a vast
and growing gap between the Bush administration's peace rhetoric and
what is happening on the ground. Lately it has been easier to ignore
these contradictions because exhausted Israelis and Palestinians are
ready to give anything a chance. But time is very short.
Post-"truce"
talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority to handover the West
Bank city of Jericho to Palestinian control quickly stalled over where
to place Israeli roadblocks around the town. Israel refused Palestinian
demands for free movement from Jericho to Ramallah. Many Palestinians
feel that what is happening now is not a genuine quest for peace, but
simply discussions between the jailor and the prisoner on easing prison
conditions.
Meanwhile, in Ramallah,
democratic "reform" Palestinian Authority-style continues.
The recent wrangle over the approval of a Palestinian cabinet has been
presented as a struggle between the Arafat old guard and young reformers
grouped around Abbas. While Palestinian Authority prime minister Ahmed
Qureia has forced by the Palestinian Legislative Council to bring a
number of technocrats into the cabinet, but he also brought in Mohammed
Dahlan, the Gaza strongman closely allied with Abbas. Dahlan, the Gaza
security chief in the heyday of Oslo is implicated in massive corruption
and human rights abuses in Gaza. Qureia himself was the subject of a
Legislative Council investigation into allegations that his family cement
business sold concrete to Israel to build the separation wall in the
occupied West Bank. Despite the investigative committee's recommendations
for action, nothing has been done. Rather than genuine reform, the tussle
in Ramallah appears to be little more than a redivision of the spoils
among top figures in Fatah, the movement that monopolizes power in the
Palestinian Authority.
If Palestinians
feel that Abbas' Palestinian Authority is receiving international aid
and support only to act as a proxy police force on behalf of a deepening
Israeli occupation, it will rapidly lose what legitimacy it has. Abbas'
problem was well illustrated by one Palestinian police officer in Gaza
who told the Associated Press, "I will never raise my weapons against
the [Palestinian] fighters ... I can only ask them not to fire."
No Palestinian leader can order Palestinians to engage in civil war
on Israel's behalf. In recent municipal elections in the Gaza Strip,
Hamas trounced Fatah, an indication that despite a campaign of assassination
against their leaders by Israel, Islamist opposition groups remain the
strongest force in some parts of the occupied territories.
Other noteworthy
developments on the ground bode ill for Palestinians. Under Israeli
and American pressure, scandal-plagued UN Secretary General Kofi Annan
recently decided not to renew the term of Peter Hansen, the Commissioner-General
of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), which employs
thousands of Palestinian refugees and cares for the basic needs of millions.
Hansen, a seasoned and widely-respected professional, had angered Israel
by vigorously defending his agency and staff against false Israeli allegations
that they were involved in armed activity. Hansen's departure will be
a blow to Palestinians, and only the more so if he is replaced by the
new breed of UN official that Annan's dismal reign has ushered in, who
are self-interested politicians first and international civil servants
a distant second.
The dynamic that
exists looks ominously like the failed Oslo peace process during which
Israel doubled the number of settlers on Palestinian land, and never
let up on forced land confiscation and house demolitions, sustaining
a cycle of violence which claimed thousands of innocent lives. Despite
the continuing euphoria created by Sharon's theatrics, there is no evidence
that Israel has any intention of seizing perhaps the last opportunity
to save itself through the two-state solution. Neither is there any
sign that its chief sponsor, the United States, has any intention of
pressuring it to do so.
Note: This article
was published hours before a suicide bomber blew himself up outside
a nightclub in Tel Aviv killing four people and injuring several dozen
others.
Ali Abunimah is
a co-founder of The Electronic Intifada.