INFORMATION BRIEF Number 72
28 March 2001
Center for Policy Analysis on Palestine / 2425-35 Virginia Avenue, NW
/ Washington, DC 20037 / Tel: 202.338.1290 / Fax: 202.333.7742 /
http://www.palestinecenter.org
Despair: Israel's Ultimate Weapon
Jeff Halper
"A comprehensive agreement is undoubtedly out of the question now.
For only after total despair on the part of the Arabs, despair that
will come not only from the failure of the disturbances and the
attempt at rebellion, but also as a consequence of our growth in the
country, may the Arabs possibly acquiesce to a Jewish Eretz Israel."-
David Ben-Gurion, 1936
Overview: This is the calm before the storm. By the time you read
this, all hell might have broken loose. If not today, it is only
because Israel's Prime Minister Ariel Sharon does not want to provoke
a strong reaction from the Arab Summit meeting in Amman, Jordan. If
not by Friday, it is only because Sharon does not want to add oil to
the flames of Palestinian Land Day. But the shoe has fallen, the
orders have been given. We all wait. Israel's final push to "break"
the Palestinians is about to commence. This is what Sharon was
elected for; this is what he has been waiting for these past 53 and
more years.
The Need for Bush's Blessing
One obstacle stood in the way of Israel's National Unity Government,
which includes Nobel laureate Shimon Peres as foreign minister, and
Nathan Sharansky, the Soviet-Jewish human rights hero, as deputy prime
minister. It needed the blessing of President George Bush. Sharon was
the first Middle East leader to visit the White House after the U.S.
election (his first order of business was to urge Bush not to invite
Palestinian Authority (PA) President Yasser Arafat). Sharon set out
his agenda before the new government: bringing "security" to Israel's
citizens; ending Palestinian "terrorism"; and, because he believes
peace is impossible, perhaps negotiating an "interim" agreement with
the Palestinians.
All this is code for two underlying policies. First, breaking
Palestinian resistance once and for all; forcing the Palestinians to
accept a mini-state on half of the West Bank and Gaza. The mini-state
is necessary to relieve Israel of having to grant citizenship to some
three million inhabitants of the Occupied Territories, but it will be
far from viable or truly sovereign. It will have no territorial
contiguity, being squeezed between Israeli settlements, bypass roads,
and military checkpoints and facilities. It will have no borders,
being completely encircled by Israel, and no control of border
crossings. It will be unable to develop a viable economy, its people
remaining casual laborers forever dependent upon the Israeli economy.
Its sovereignty will be limited at best. Second, reverting to the
familiar tactics of delaying negotiations so as to create additional
"facts on the ground," thus prejudicing the very negotiating process
itself. The bottom line is that the Palestinians better accept this
"reality"-or else; occupation by consent, or absolute suppression.
What Sharon needed from Bush, then, was permission to ruthlessly
suppress any Palestinian resistance to the military occupation. This
he received, with one proviso: Do not do anything that "embarrasses"
the United States. Do not expect, then, U.S.-made Apache helicopters
to attack Hebron, as they did Beit Jala and Gaza. Less visible means
will be employed: a more extensive campaign of assassinations of
Palestinian leaders and grassroots activists; surgical "operations" to
"punish" the people and to "clear" agricultural land and urban
neighborhoods (watch what happens in the Palestinian neighborhood of
Abu Sneineh in Hebron over the next couple days, where shots were
apparently fired that killed an Israeli infant); reverting to
bureaucratic methods, such as house demolition orders and land
expropriation measures; massive settlement expansion and
road-building; "painful" sanctions on the PA, and more.
Israeli State Terrorism:
All this will be cast, of course, as justified "responses" to
terrorism. After all, Sharon was elected to bring personal security
back to the Israeli public. But this cynically conceals the major
goal of the Sharon-Peres government: creating such despair among the
Palestinians that they will finally submit to Israeli dictates. Signs
of this proactive policy-and not mere reactions following Palestinian
actions-are already evident. Just this week, the Jerusalem
Municipality issued dozens of demolition orders, and the Israeli Civil
Administration is doing the same for the West Bank and Gaza.
Settlements are being expanded-also this week, the government
announced its intent to build a new city in the Etzion Bloc (Giva'ot)
with 6,000 housing units in the first stage. Hundreds of acres of
farm and horticultural land are being cleared for a massive "bypass
road" near Turkumiyya, close to Hebron. And much more. All that was
needed was the spark-the attacks on Israeli civilians this week-to
jump-start the Campaign of Despair. Israel is again the victim with
no responsibility, able to blame the Palestinians for the "violence."
Meanwhile, the United States is let off the hook.
State terrorism on a scale we have not seen before, coupled with
creating massive "facts" on the ground and perhaps causing the
collapse of the PA, will now be employed to break Palestinian
resistance once and for all. What unites Sharon and Peres is the
belief that Israel can win. The United States-and Congress in
particular, Israel's trump card-is unwavering in its total support.
Europe, more critical, has no independent policy apart from the U.S.
The UN is neutralized by the U.S. as an effective force. The Arab
countries will give the Palestinians only lip-service. Nothing will
prevent Israel from either creating facts or brow-beating the
Palestinians. Indeed, the only countervailing force at this time
seems to be the Palestinian street. Here, assassinations and
punishment (besiegement until hunger, preventing people from working,
house demolitions, land expropriation, mass arrests, constant
harassment, and the extensive use of undercover police to undermine
social solidarity) are intended to do their part.
'Master Plan' of Annexation:
Sharon hopes to finally fulfill his mentor's dream of utterly
defeating the Palestinians and taking possession of the entire Land of
Israel. In a famous article entitled "The Iron Wall," published in
1923, Ze'ev Jabotinsky, the founder of Revisionist Zionism who
described his attitude towards the Arabs as one of "polite
indifference," set forth the platform of the present National Unity
Government. "Every indigenous people," he wrote, "will resist alien
settlers as long as they see any hope of ridding themselves of the
danger of foreign settlement. This is how the Arabs will behave and go
on behaving so long as they possess a gleam of hope that they can
prevent 'Palestine' from becoming the Land of Israel." The sole way
to an agreement, then, is through the iron wall, that is to say, the
establishment in Palestine of a force that will in no way be
influenced by Arab pressure. . . . A voluntary agreement is
unattainable. . . . We must either suspend our settlement efforts or
continue them without paying attention to the mood of the natives.
Settlement can thus develop under the protection of a force that is
not dependent on the local population, behind an iron wall which they
will be powerless to break down.
After 34 years of occupation, including 24 years following Sharon's
1977 "Master Plan" for annexing the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and
Gaza, the iron wall is nearing completion. The "facts" have been
created, the Master Plan almost concluded. All that remains is to
extinguish that "gleam of hope" among the Palestinians that they might
eke out a small but viable, independent state in 22 percent of the
land of historic Palestine. The conquest and consolidation have been
accomplished; only the despair remains that will allow Israel to
control the Greater Land of Israel while getting rid of Palestinians
through forcing a bantustan upon them. Has the world seen the last of
apartheid? The next few weeks and months will tell. And it will all
be happening in front of us, if we can discern the repression through
the public relations of "defense" and "security."
Jeff Halper is Coordinator of the Israeli Committee Against House
Demolitions and Editor of News From Within. The above text may be used
without permission but with proper attribution to the author and to
the Center for Policy Analysis on Palestine. This Information Brief
does not necessarily reflect the views of CPAP or The Jerusalem Fund.
