http://antiwar.com/hacohen/pf/p-h101601.html
Who Cares About the Palestinians?
Letter From Israel
By Ran HaCohen
Antiwar.com,
October 16, 2000
Dennis Ross, former envoy to the Middle East in the Clinton
administration and in Arab eyes an incarnation of the blind American
support for Israel, has published a column [1] in the New York Times
entitled "Bin Laden's Terrorism Isn't About the Palestinians." Ross
writes:
"In 1990, Saddam Hussein claimed that he had invaded Kuwait to help
the Palestinians. He understood that he was isolated and needed to
link his invasion to a cause that might appear legitimate. (?) In an
echo of 1990, Osama bin Laden tried, in his videotaped message this
week, to make the same linkage (...) He is no more credible than Mr.
Hussein was. His Al Qaeda network did not attack America because of
the absence of peace in the Middle East."
Bin Laden and the United States are both engaged in the very same
game. While both of them could not care less about the Palestinians,
they both do their best to convince the (Arab) world that they
couldn't care more. Bin Laden might have tried to attack the US even
if there was a fair peace in Palestine - I agree with Ross about that
- but he would have found considerably less support if this had been
the case. Bin Laden would have been even less attractive to the Arabs
and Muslims if the unimaginable sums of petrodollars streaming from
Middle Eastern oil-wells had found their way back to the inhabitants
of the region, not just to a couple of "royal" families and to the
American weapon industry. In fact, if this had been the case, Bin
Laden himself might not have gained access to so much wealth in the
first place. After all, Bin Laden is a product of a US-inspired
economic model that enriches the few and impoverishes the rest.
Peace Process: One Term, Two Meanings
Bin Laden uses the Palestinian plight for his own cause, but the
United States is doing the very same thing. Since justice and fairness
play no role in American foreign policy, the support of many on the
Palestinian street for Bin Laden is all but understandable. If the
Palestinians had been quiet and loyal supporters of the US, no one
would have given a damn about them at all. Their very reservedness, as
well as the solidarity of Arabs in many countries of the Middle East
with the Palestinian cause, makes the US court them. On the eve of a
new American peace initiative, the question is what this courtship is
worth.
As Ross correctly points out, we have a precedent. After the Gulf War,
to "reward" the Arabs for their support, the United States organised
the Madrid Conference to settle the Arab-Israeli conflict, which now
counts as the opening stage of the Middle East Peace Process.
The term "Peace Process," however, has two meanings. Most people
believe it means "a process that should lead to peace, and the sooner
the better." This is nice, but it is not what Israel and the United
States mean by this term. Their definition would be rather: "a process
that defers a just peace, and the longer the better." Yosef Ben
Aharon, Israel's chief negotiator in the Syrian channel following the
Madrid Conference, openly admitted that in meetings with the Syrian
colleagues he used to sing out loud and to drum on the table in order
not to hear them. Did the United States mind? Not at all, as long as
the facade of a "peace process" could be upheld.
The same holds for the Oslo Process, another indirect offspring of the
Madrid Conference. The Oslo agreements "deferred all the essential
issues to the final status agreement," as American and Israeli
officials use to put it. In fact, those "essential issues" are
synonymous to the Occupation, including the fate of the Israeli
settlements and the question of borders. Deferring them simply meant
perpetuating the Occupation till the "final status." Daniela Weiss, a
prominent leader of the extremist settlers' movement, says that PM
Rabin told her openly from the very beginning that there would never
be a final status agreement. And though the final status agreement
should have been concluded by 1998, Rabin's self-fulfilling prophecy -
in other words: Israel's premeditated intention - still holds. So does
the Israeli Occupation, in spite of the decade that passed since
Madrid.
We have every reason to believe that the new American peace plan has
been created with the same intention: gain time for another decade of
American-backed Israeli occupation, until the next international
crisis, when the next "peace initiative" will be solemnly launched.
'Surprises' That Are Unsurprising
Journalists love to see a crisis where there is none. It dramatises
their reports. The world was outraged by Sharon's "We are Not
Czechoslovakia" speech and by its harsh rejection by President Bush
("unacceptable"). What an unbridgeable crack in the intimate
relations between the United States and Israel! What a historic
landmark! So irreversible was the "crisis," that it took less than 48
hours for both sides to declare it that was over, forgiven and
forgotten.
Another favourite journalistic term is "surprise"; many columnists
seem to have developed a selective memory in order to be "surprised"
again and again by quite unsurprising information. Thus, Bush's claim
that his "vision" (?!) always included a Palestinian State was
perceived as both a "surprise" to, and a "crisis" with, Israel.
Columnists have willingly forgotten that just a few days before Bush's
speech, PM Sharon himself said he wanted to give the Palestinians
"what no one had given them before," namely a Palestinian state: in
fact, this was the top headline of Haaretz on the 24th of September.
Three Offers That Are One
Sharon's readiness to accept a Palestinian state was itself perceived
as a great "surprise," until it had to be forgotten in favour of the
"surprise" when Bush reiterated it. If, however, columnists had
minded checking their archives, they would have been forced to give up
their surprise in view of a report published in Haaretz on December
11th, 1998. Sharon was at the time Neyanyahu's Foreign Minister, and
he was on a visit to the United States.
"U.S. sources have told Ha'aretz that during his visit Sharon promoted
a formula under which a Palestinian state may be established only in
what are now Areas A and B of the West Bank. When the Wye process is
compete, Area A, under Palestinian control, and Area B, under joint
Israeli-Palestinian control, would account for a total of 42 percent
of the West Bank, leaving Israel in control of 58 percent. In return
for Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's agreement to this formula, the
United States would recognize the mini-state. Several outstanding
issues, such as Palestinian refugees, Jerusalem, Jewish settlements
and final borders would all be indefinitely postponed under the Sharon
plan. (...) Israel would thus retain control of the majority of the
West Bank."
The date, again: 11th of December, 1998.
What has so far been leaked about Bush's expected peace initiative for
the Middle East is totally compatible with Sharon's old plan. Bush
will probably offer the Palestinians what Sharon offers them: a
"state" on less than half of the West Bank, no more a state than any
Bantustan was under Apartheid; with core issues like borders and
settlements postponed - in other words: the Israeli occupation
perpetuated - indefinitely. This "peace offer" may seem stingy
compared with the 96% Barak purportedly offered, but in fact this is
one and the same offer, as Robert Fisk of the Independent reveals [2]:
"In reality, Palestinian officials and American sources - the latter
wisely avoiding Israeli condemnation by talking anonymously - have
pointed out that the figure of 96 per cent represented the percentage
of the land over which Israel was prepared to negotiate - not 96 per
cent of the entire West Bank and Gaza Strip. Left out of the equation
was Arab east Jerusalem - illegally annexed by Israel after the 1967
Arab-Israeli Six Day War - the huge belt of Jewish settlements,
including Male Adumim, around the city and a 10-mile wide military
buffer zone around the Palestinian territories. Along with the
obligation to lease back settlements - built illegally under
international law on Arab land - to Israel for 25 years, the total
Palestinian land from which Israel was prepared to withdraw came to
only around 46 per cent - a far cry from the 96 per cent touted after
Camp David."
Barak's offer of 46% thus more or less equals Sharon's offer of 42%:
this is the Israeli offer, and Bush's ideas will be no different.
So exactly like during the Gulf War, Bush's expected plan for the
Middle East will be just an attempt to pacify the Arab rulers, or at
best the Arab masses, by false illusions until their support is no
longer necessary - when the nice words, just like the imaginary crises
with Israel, will be thrown to the dustbin of history and the United
States will return to its traditional one-sidedness in favour of
Israel's expansionism. Israeli-American rejectionism offers the
Palestinians just one peaceful option: surrender now, or join a "peace
process" and surrender later. It is as negotiable as Bush's ultimatum
to the Taliban.
1.) www.nytimes.com/2001/10/12/opinion/12ROSS.html?ex=1003915382&ei=1&en=adce117c2e5aadde (Ross article)
2.) www.independent.co.uk/story.jsp?story=84792 (Fisk Article)
