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Who Cares About the Palestinians?
by Ran HaCohen
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 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 KuwaiUniv 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 i="ROs 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:
“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 Westof
k 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.
Ran HaCohen was
born in the Netherlands in 1964 and has grown up in Israel. He has B.A. in
Computer Science, M.A. in Comparative Literature and he presently works on
his PhD thesis. He lives in Tel-Aviv, teaches in the Department of
Comparative Literature in Tel-Aviv University. He also works as literary
translator (from German, English and Dutch), and as a literary critic for
the Israeli daily Yedioth Achronoth. His work
has been published widely in Israel. His column appears monthly at Antiwar.com.
Source:
by courtesy & © 2001
Antiwar.com & Ran HaCohen
by the same author:
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