http://www3.haaretz.co.il/eng/scripts/article.asp?id=35794&mador=4
Ha'aretz, December 9, 1998
The Burden of the Lie
By Amira Hass
Once again the Israeli security and political
establishments are insisting that the wave of
clashes in the West Bank is the result of
"incitement" by the Palestinian Authority. True,
the Palestinian Legislative Council - headed by
Ahmed Qureia (Abu Ala), the darling of the
Americans and the Israelis in the negotiations -
did issue an outright call to its people to enter
into confrontations to defend their lands from
the Jewish settlers beyond the Green Line and the
bulldozers of the bypass roads. Others, like
Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen), who is also described
as a "good" negotiator, have declared that there
must be no compromise on the release of petty car
thieves rather than security prisoners. Thus, it
was implied that he, PA Chairman Yasser Arafat's
deputy, gave the green light to the
demonstrations that were initiated by an
organization readily identified with the Fatah
movement - "The Palestinian Prisoner's Club.".In
scenes that are becoming routine, hundreds of
youngsters in Bethlehem, Hebron and Ramallah run
unhesitatingly toward IDF barricades and guard
posts, burn tires and throw stones and broken
bottles. The IDF has been left no room for doubt.
To deter them, the soldiers immediately fire off
steel bullets covered in rubber - before they try
all the other means at their disposal, which are,
in fact, several times more effective in
dispersing demonstrations and preventing the
escalation of confrontations: tear gas, for
example. A report issued by B'Tselem last week
indicates that rubber bullets are lethal
ammunition that should be kept in reserve only
for life-threatening situations. These shootings
accomplish exactly the opposite of what was
intended. They spur the crowds to scale the
rooftops and hills, to hide behind water tanks
and boulders, or to run bare-chested at the
soldiers and try to strike at those whom they see
as perpetuating and symbolizing the occupation.
True, PA leaders have called upon their people to
enter into confrontations, but the claim of
"incitement from above" proves that the Israeli
leaders still think the Palestinians are
spineless, a flock that is putty in the hands of
the PA. The opposite is the case. In their call,
the PA leaders have responded to enormous
pressure from below. They have had to show that
they are attentive to the distress of their
people and their complaints and they are not just
being obedient to Israeli orders. They have done
this under open and trenchant criticism of the
way they are conducting and have conducted the
negotiations with Israel.
At the same time, the PA has sent its police to
intervene between the demonstrators and the
Israeli soldiers. In Ramallah, they did this with
a delicate hand and with persuasive words, and
then by pushing. In Nablus, to Israel's
satisfaction, they did it with billy clubs and
then with exchanges of fire with the
demonstrators. In its scoldings, Israel has again
revealed what it expects the PA to be: not the
representative of its people and their interests,
but the representative of Israeli interests. This
expectation is sometimes fulfilled, but in its
fulfillment it sows hostility and anger toward
the Palestinian government and undermines
confidence in the reconciliation with Israel.
Most of those who take part in the confrontations
are high school students who identify themselves
as Fatah youth. Some of the senior leaders of the
movement who accompany them (but do not throw
stones) and the Palestinian police are
dumbfounded and worried that these young people
again and again prove that they are not afraid of
the rifle barrels directed at them. Every one of
these boys has a mother at home who is tearing
her hair out with worry as the ambulance sirens
slice through the routine noise of the city.
True, those who take part in the demonstrations
do not number in the thousands. Most people
believe "nothing will come of it." But everyone
is groaning under the burden of the lie that they
are in a process of peace and liberation.
The Oslo agreements implied a deal that most of
the Palestinian public accepted. As the
Palestinians understood the agreements, as they
were presented by some of the authors of "Oslo"
and as they were understood by the international
community, the accords contained a promise that
Israeli occupation would end by stages in return
for a Palestinian promise of an immediate halt to
"violent" opposition to the occupation. But
occupation is not just the presence of civil
governors in Ramallah and in Gaza. Occupation is
the liberty one nation seizes by force to
determine the way of life of another nation and
define the limits of its welfare and its chances
of development. It is becoming clearer and
clearer to the Palestinians that Israel has not
relinquished and does not intend to relinquish
this; it has only changed its means. And under
the cover of this change, it continues with what
all the Palestinians see as a direct, conscious
and intentional threat to their lives and future:
the entrenchment of the Jewish settlements and
their welfare to perpetuate Israel's hold on 60
percent of the territories that were occupied in
1967, and the fragmentation of the remaining
territories into prison-like enclaves which, even
if they are called a "state" and accepted into
the UN, will not be able to ensure the
independent development of the lives of those who
live there.
As was the case with the outbreak of the
Intifada, 11 years ago today, the demonstrating
teenagers need no orders or "incitement" to
endanger their lives. They are declaring to the
whole world that as far as they are concerned,
the Israeli occupation is showing no signs of any
readiness to disappear
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