by Ali Abunimah
If Yasir Arafat went on Israeli
television today and declared that, yes indeed, his intention is to
destroy Israel and throw the Jews in the sea, it is possible to
speculate that American and Israeli officials would over the next
few weeks still find a way to spin this positively and declare that
an historic deal between Israelis and Palestinians is 'within
reach.'
The simple reason is that Ehud
Barak wants to be reelected and President Clinton wants to leave
office, if not with a truimph, at least with a fig leaf which will
allow him to say his efforts did not fail completely. The deeper
reason may be that Barak and his cohort believe that this is the
best opportunity to give international legitimacy to Israel's gains
with the most compliant White House in history ready to act as front
man.
At this point, the impression
that a deal is possible may be more valuable to Barak than an actual
agreement. Opinion polls are showing that a slim majority of
Israelis are still opposed to the outlined Clinton plan reported in
the New York Times and other media yesterday.
Rather than go to Israeli voters
with nothing, or with a controversial and unpopular agreement which
would give Sharon a hook to hang his opposition on, it may be
preferable for Barak to go to the Israeli public with the following
message: 'There is a deal to be clinched. We did not clinch it yet,
but we can get there. Who do you think will do it, me or Sharon?
Give me a mandate and I will bring a deal home." Ironically,
the only member of Barak's "peace cabinet" who reportedly
thinks the plan asks too many concessions from Israel is the "doveish"
Shimon Peres, indicating that the man's hope of becoming prime
minister still truimphs over bitter experience.
So far Palestinian protests that
there are still very wide gaps have been drowned out by assurances
from the US and Israel that peace is at hand. Yesterday and today,
Haaretz reported statements of rosy optimism from US officials which
take absolutely no account of the fact that Palestinian negotiators
have cast deep doubt on the prospects for success, have said that
the proposals are very close to those rejected at Camp David, and in
some cases represent retreats, and the fact that there is deep
disquiet among Palestinians all over the world.
Yet the strategy of forging ahead
regardless depends on the convincing salesmanship of several
fictions in order for the story to unfold as its authors desire.
First of all, we are to believe
that Clinton's plan is really Clinton's plan. If past experience is
a guide--particularly from Camp David--the ideas reportedly put
forward by Clinton have been previewed and preapproved by the
Israelis and then presented to the Palestinians as if they represent
bold new thinking by the Americans. Clinton would not in any
circumstances advance ideas which he knew Barak could not accept.
Unfortunately the same courtesy is not extended to the Palestinians.
Israel's role is then to pretend that the proposals it has
preapproved represent painful concessions and then to say 'we don't
like it, but if the Palestinians can accept them, then so can we.'
Already, apparently, Israel has overcome its difficulties with the
'American' proposals and is enthusiastically selling them around the
world. Israel's foreign minister, Shlomo Ben Ami, for example, told
his Japanese counterpart today "The proposal contains difficult
provisions for us to accept, but we would like to move forward in
achieving a peace deal based upon the idea." Ben-Ami continued,
"We want Japan to tell Palestinian leaders to accept the
proposal."
This strategy puts the
Palestinian side in the familiar position of being faced with the
choice of appearing to be the unreasonable spoilers, or of accepting
proposals which take no account of Palestinian rights, the most
central of which is the right of return.
This bring us to the second major
fiction on which the storyline depends: that the 'concessions'
contained in the "Clinton plan" are somehow equivalent and
'equally painful' for both sides. For Israel, the big concession is
to give up the claim to total sovereignty over occupied east
Jerusalem. For the Palestinians it is to give up the right of return
for the refugees ethnically cleansed in 1948.
In reality there is not the
remotest equivalence. In Jerusalem, Israel is not giving up
something real. It is simply admitting that the strategy of
attempting forcibly to swallow what does not belong to it has in
large part--but not completely--failed. Other means must now be
employed. Haaretz put this reality best in its editorial yesterday:
"The proposed solution for
Jerusalem is determined by the current reality in the situation on
the ground in the city. From this point of view, Jerusalem is no
different from all the rest of the territories that Israel brought
under its control during the Six-Day War in 1967. The accumulated
experience of the last 33 years leads one to an unequivocal
conclusion: Aside from the ethical quandary in which Israel found
itself as a result of the experience of occupation, it simply failed
to turn the conquered territories into Israeli ones. Demographics,
diplomatic conditions and psychological reasons resulted in the
failure of Israel's ambition to annex - if not legally, then
practically - the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. The occupied
territories remained Palestinian for the most part, and this
fundamental fact dictates the need for an agreement, and also its
nature." (Haaretz, December 26, 2000)
The 'American' ideas for
Jerusalem, however unsatisfactory they may be for Israel, do
preserve what Israel wants most: access to Jerusalem's Jewish holy
sites, and a recognized presence within the walls of the Old City.
The biggest gain is that the vast settlements housing nearly 200,000
Israeli settlers, which Israel illegaly built on confiscated land in
and around east Jerusalem since 1967 would remain in place, most
likely under full Israeli sovereignty. This is a substantial gain
which Haaretz does not fully acknowledge, and represents a major
success for Israel's policy of creating 'facts on the ground.' So
the pain of Israel's 'concessions,' such as they are is almost
purely psychological and political. Practically, Israel will retain
most of what it seized in 1967. The genius is to label these
conquests as concessions.
But for the Palestinians, giving
up the right of return--if it could be done--would be an enormous,
real concession with catastrophic implications for millions of
people who constitute half the Palestinian nation. I say 'if it
could be done' because international jurisprudence is very clear
that the right of return is an individual human right, just like the
right to freedom of religion and the safety and sanctity of the
human person. No political authority or government can purport to
sign away its subjects' human rights.
This brings us to the third and
final fiction on which the plot depends: that despite the fact that
the Palestinians overwhelmingly reject efforts to cancel the right
of return, somewhow an agreement can be reached along the lines
proposed, that it will be accepted, recognized and enforced. Here,
the American and Israeli strategy appears to still depend on putting
maximum pressure on Yasir Arafat. His dwindling and discredited rule
is the crumbling pedestal on which all their hopes rest. This is
what they tried at Camp David, and it backfired with disasterous
consequences. Nothing, apparently has been learned. Arafat is if
anything in an even weaker position to make the demanded concessions
than he was before the Intifada began. Palestinians are less likely
to accept a sell out of their rights now that three hundred more
martyrs have been added to the rolls of the thousands who have died
resisting the occupation.
How will this be handled? Most
likely in the same familiar and discredited ways of the past: a
summit in Sharm Al-Sheikh is already planned. President Mubarak will
be there to put pressure on Arafat to be 'reasonable.' The
Jordanians may be invited along as stage decoration.
And if the media is a guide, the
strategy will continue to be to ignore the Palestinian refugees as
an inconvenience, and as spoilers, rather than as human beings
against whom an enormous injustice has been committed and whose
rights must be restored in order for there to be peace and
reconciliation. Take for example this sentence from the Associated
Press which typically sums up the attitude: "Now, the nearly 4
million Palestinian refugees -- whose families fled or were driven
from their homes during Israel's 1948 war of independence and
subsequent fighting -- may prove the single biggest obstacle to a
U.S.-proposed peace accord being weighed by leaders on both
sides." (December 27)
"Peace" is not to be
made FOR these people--the principal victims of the conflict--but
DESPITE them and AGAINST them. They are in the end just an
"obstacle."
Or how about The New York Times
which says of the refugees: "Mr. Arafat has always promised
these people, unrealistically, that they would be able to return to
their ancestral homes after a peace agreement. Israeli leaders
understandably oppose the demographic shift this would entail, which
would threaten Israel's character as a Jewish state." (December
27).
Of course it is not Mr. Arafat
who has made the "unrealistic promises." It is
international law, the United Nations and decades of declarations by
world leaders that have assured the refugees of their right to
return not to their 'ancestral homes' as the New York Times
disingenuously puts it but to their own homes. But these are mere
details which must be swept away in the rush to get an agreement. If
these views are reflective of official US thinking (usually a safe
assumption), then the signs are not good. As long as Israel's
illegal and unreasonable demands are treated as equal to
Palestinians' fundamental rights, the prospects of peace are slim
indeed--and receding fast.
But perhaps on second thoughts
the Palestinian people are the "obstacle." Yes, they are
an obstacle to peace just like the bride at a forced wedding is an
obstacle to the happy marriage that everyone else has decreed for
her and are impatiently waiting to celebrate despite her tears and
protests.
Ali Abunimah
http://www.abunimah.org
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