Constructive Action?

A year ago, the Hebrew University sociologist Baruch Kimmerling observed that "what we feared has cometrue … War appears an unavoidable fate", an "evil colonial" war. His colleague Ze'evSternhell noted that the Israeli leadership was now engaged in "colonial policing, which recalls thetakeover by the white police of the poor neighbourhoods of the blacks in South Africa during the apartheidera".

Both stress the obvious: there is no symmetry between the "ethno-national groups" in thisconflict, which is centred in territories that have been under harsh military occupation for 35 years.

The Oslo "peace process" changed the modalities of the occupation, but not the basic concept.Shortly before joining the Ehud Barak government, historian Shlomo Ben-Ami wrote that "the Osloagreements were founded on a neo-colonialist basis, on a life of dependence of one on the other forever".He soon became an architect of the US-Israel proposals at Camp David in 2000, which kept to this condition.

At the time, West Bank Palestinians were confined to 200 scattered areas. Bill Clinton and Israeli primeminister Barak did propose an improvement: consolidation to three cantons, under Israeli control, virtuallyseparated from one another and from the fourth enclave, a small area of East Jerusalem, the centre ofPalestinian communications. The fifth canton was Gaza. It is understandable that maps are not to be found inthe US mainstream. Nor is their prototype, the Bantustan "homelands" of apartheid South Africa, evermentioned.

No one can seriously doubt that the US role will continue to be decisive. It is crucial to understand whatthat role has been, and how it is internally perceived. The version of the doves is presented by the editorsof the New York Times, praising President Bush's "path-breaking speech" and the "emergingvision" he articulated. Its first element is "ending Palestinian terrorism" immediately.

Some time later comes "freezing, then rolling back, Jewish settlements and negotiating newborders" to allow the establishment of a Palestinian state. If Palestinian terror ends, Israelis will beencouraged to "take the Arab League's historic offer of full peace and recognition in exchange for anIsraeli withdrawal more seriously". But first Palestinian leaders must demonstrate that they are"legitimate diplomatic partners".

The real world has little resemblance to this self-serving portrayal - virtually copied from the 1980s,when the US and Israel were desperately seeking to evade PLO offers of negotiation and political settlement.In the real world, the primary barrier to the "emerging vision" has been, and remains, unilateral USrejectionism. There is little new in the current "Arab League's historic offer".

It repeats the basic terms of a security council resolution of January 1976 which called for a politicalsettlement on the internationally recognised borders "with appropriate arrangements ... to guarantee ...the sovereignty, territorial integrity, and political independence of all states in the area". This wasbacked by virtually the entire world, including the Arab states and the PLO, but opposed by Israel and vetoedby the US, thereby vetoing it from history. Similar initiatives have since been blocked by the US and mostlysuppressed in public commentary.

Not surprisingly, the guiding principle of the occupation has been incessant humiliation. Israeli plans forPalestinians have followed the guidelines formulated by Moshe Dayan, one of the Labour leaders moresympathetic to the Palestinian plight. Thirty years ago, Dayan advised the cabinet that Israel should make itclear to refugees that "we have no solution, you shall continue to live like dogs, and whoever wishes mayleave".

When challenged, he responded by citing Ben-Gurion, who said that "who- ever approaches the Zionistproblem from a moral aspect is not a Zionist". He could have also cited Chaim Weizmann, first presidentof Israel, who held that the fate of the "several hundred thousand negroes" in the Jewish homeland"is a matter of no consequence".

The Palestinians have long suffered torture, terror, destruction of property, displacement and settlement,and takeover of basic resources, crucially water. These policies have relied on decisive US support andEuropean acquiescence. "The Barak government is leaving Sharon's government a surprising legacy,"the Israeli press reported as the transition took place: "the highest number of housing starts in theterritories since … Ariel Sharon was minister of construction and settlement in 1992 before the Osloagreements" - funding provided by the American taxpayer.

It is regularly claimed that all peace proposals have been undermined by Arab refusal to accept theexistence of Israel (the facts are quite different), and by terrorists like Arafat who have forfeited"our trust". How that trust may be regained is explained by Edward Walker, a Clinton Middle Eastadviser: Arafat must announce that "we put our future and fate in the hands of the US" - which hasled the campaign to undermine Palestinian rights for 30 years.

The basic problem then, as now, traces back to Washington, which has persistently backed Israel's rejectionof a political settlement in terms of the broad international consensus. Current modifications of USrejectionism are tactical.

With plans for an attack on Iraq endangered, the US permitted a UN resolution calling for Israeliwithdrawal from the newly-invaded territories "without delay" - meaning "as soon aspossible", secretary of state Colin Powell explained at once. Powell's arrival in Israel was delayed toallow the Israeli Defence Force to continue its destructive operations, facts hard to miss and confirmed by USofficials.

When the current intifada broke out, Israel used US helicopters to attack civilian targets, killing andwounding dozens of Palestinians, hardly in self-defence. Clinton responded by arranging "the largestpurchase of military helicopters by the Israeli Air Force in a decade" (as reported in Ha'aretz), alongwith spare parts for Apache attack helicopters. A few weeks later, Israel began to use US helicopters forassassinations.

These extended last August to the first assassination of a political leader: Abu Ali Mustafa. That passedin silence, but the reaction was quite different when Israeli cabinet minister Rehavam Ze'evi was killed inretaliation. Bush is now praised for arranging the release of Arafat from his dungeon in return for US-UKsupervision of the accused assassins of Ze'evi. It is inconceivable that there should be any effort to punishthose responsible for the Mustafa assassination.

Further contributions to "enhancing terror" took place last December, when Washington againvetoed a security council resolution calling for dispatch of international monitors. Ten days earlier, the USboycotted an international conference in Geneva that once again concluded that the fourth Geneva conventionapplies to the occupied territories, so that many US-Israeli actions there are "grave breaches",hence serious war crimes. As a "high contracting party", the US is obligated by solemn treaty toprosecute those responsible for such crimes, including its own leadership. Accordingly, all of this passes insilence.

The US has not officially withdrawn its recognition that the conventions apply to the occupied territories,or its censure of Israeli violations as the "occupying power". In October 2000 the security councilreaffirmed the consensus, "call[ing] on Israel, the occupying power, to abide scrupulously by its legalobligations..." The vote was 14-0. Clinton abstained.

Until such matters are permitted to enter discussion, and their implications understood, it is meaninglessto call for "US engagement in the peace process", and prospects for constructive action will remaingrim.

(Znet)