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No Justice = No Peace
Palestine After the Election
Danilo Mandic
"The Palestinian people? Where is that people?"
- Golda Meir, when asked her opinion ‘on the Palestinian issue’
Arafat’s death has opened yet another “window of opportunity.” The “obstacle to peace” is buried in his Ramallah grave and Israel finally has its partner in the peace process. “Man of peace” Ariel Sharon is pushing a “disengagement plan,” welcomed with praise and reverence by Israelis, Americans and Europeans alike, while Bush sends American financial and diplomatic support to the new Palestinian Authority. Of course, the true causes of the violence are not being addressed, the fundamental needs for justice on both sides are being ignored, and discussion of the prerequisites for a lasting peace is being postponed yet again.
Sharon’s “disengagement plan” is being presented as problematic, sacrificial, and politically agonizing. Right-wing settler fanaticism promotes the presentation, as if the minority is capable of burdening Sharon’s honorable intentions. Considerable pretension is needed for this idea. We are supposed to pretend that his decision was not a concession to tremendous international pressure. We are supposed to pretend it is not an alleviation of severe problems with controlling the Israeli military (hundreds of Israeli refusniks have been arrested, as dissidence grows). Above all, we are supposed to pretend that settler withdrawal would not be welcomed as a tremendous relief. Towards the end of last year, Amnon Kapeliouk wrote in the Monde Diplomatique:
“It is clear that the settlement of the Gaza Strip has been a failure. Barely 7,000 settlers have moved in, although there are 250,000 in the West Bank (and 200,000 in the occupied part of Jerusalem). Though they have taken over 40% of Gaza's land and use half its water, they are nothing compared with the million-and-a-half Palestinians crowded into the area. Providing security for settlers costs a huge amount of money and needs many soldiers, some of whom die doing this terrible job. Withdrawing from Gaza should be as much a relief for Israel as a sacrifice.”
Sharon’s “disengagement plan” is everything but a courageous and benevolent “good-will” gesture. From Taba onwards—and, arguably, even before that—Sharon has shown no interest in resuming negotiations and outright contempt for Israeli withdrawal from Palestinian territories. His current decision is a product of overwhelming political pressure, external as well as internal, and a convenient way to hold back broader demands for Palestinian independence.
Also lauded was President Bush (another prominent man of peace) whose benevolence drove him to promise a special aid packet to the Palestinian Authority. Mind you, $50-80 million of that packet would go to Israel for construction of “innovative border crossings” which will further restrict Palestinian freedom of movement. IDF remains in control of checkpoints, Gaza Strip borders, air space, the sea, and reserves the “right of self-defense, including taking preventive steps as well as responding by using force against threats that will emerge from the Gaza Strip.” Palestinian water supplies remain under Israeli control and the Israeli wall—-condemned by the International Criminal Court as “illegal”-—remains intact. Little wonder, then, that only 45% of eligible voters constituted that celebrated political panacea called the “Palestinian elections.” The low voter turnout, Amira Hass points out,
“proves that the Palestinian public is not suffering from the illusion about who really rules over its life. It is not Abu Mazen, or Fatah, but the Israeli government and its emissary, the army. At no point on election day was it possible to forget that” (Jan 12, Ha’aretz).
Even those who shortly entertained the illusion were quickly disappointed: on Feb. 2 they learned that, in response to the election, the Israeli government secretly seized thousands of acres of land around Jerusalem from its Palestinian owners. The decision was only reversed when the Attorney General, Menachem Mazuz, announced that it was unlawful. Similarly, the illusory hope of the Sharm el-Sheikh truce was shattered when Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) killed a 22-year-old Palestinian the very next day. By the time Bush revealed the U.S.’s readiness to support an Israeli strike on Iran, and by the time the Israeli Air Force leadership decided it must be prepared to do so, the belief that the election will end war was well gone. If Sharon and Abbas have one thing in common, it is the need to propagate this mythical appearance of progress for their own domestic reasons.
Most lauded of all, however, was the West’s “new man” in Palestine himself: Abu Mazen. Sanitized of any resemblances of Demon Arafat, Mahmoud Abbas is the hope for peaceful negotiation and diplomatic settlement. Whatever this hope is based on, it certainly is not Abbas’s disastrous reputation as a peacemaker. Robert Fisk reminds us that…
“We had to forget that it was this same Abbas who wrote the Oslo Accords, who in 1,000 pages failed to use-—even once-—the word "occupation", and who talked not of Israeli "withdrawal" from Palestinian territory, but of "redeployment.” At no point [during the Abbas-Sharon negotiations] did anyone mention occupation. Like sex, "occupation" had to be censored out of the historical narrative. As usual—as in Oslo—the real issues were put back to a later date. Refugees, the ‘right of return’, East Jerusalem as a Palestinian capital: let’s deal with them later” (Feb. 9, Independent).
In Abbas’s defense, though, he is far from alone in failing to address some of these issues. Bringing up “the refugee question” has been considered distasteful and impolite for almost forty years. When it occasionally does reach the surface of reputable political discourse, it is virtually never entertained by Palestinians themselves (at Princeton, leave it to Bernard Lewis rather than Edward Sa’id to examine the refugee problem). After Oslo, the number of settlers living illegally on Palestinian land rose from 80,000 to 150,000. Israel’s disrespect for all the withdrawal agreements of the Oslo peace process was echoed in its refusal to live up to its obligations under the Taba accords. At the time, Abbas was not committed to ending the occupation, but negotiating with it. Of course, the situation at the beginning of 2005 is strikingly different than the Oslo Accords era; namely, it is much worse. Will Abbas work his magic again?
Whether or not we agree with Samir Ghattas of the Maqdis Centre for Political Studies in Gaza that the UN’s partition resolution of 1948 was “one of the biggest humanitarian tragedies in modern history”—-the Palestinian “nakba” (catastrophe)—-we really should appreciate why Palestinians might feel sore about the topic. The decision uprooted an entire national identity: 89% of Palestinians were driven from what became Israel. The remaining minority had Israeli nationality imposed on them, becoming exiles in their native lands, strangers in their own home. The Palestinians live under a regime that accords Jewish settlers a distinct and superior legal status, in violation of the fourth Geneva Convention. That the Palestinians are reduced to second-class citizens is an understatement. Not only is the refugees’ right of return a political issue—-it is a symbolic matter of the highest importance for the Palestinians, without which there can be no meaningful justice.
A report published by the Palestinian National Information Center (PNIC) reveals that 963 Palestinians were killed by the Israeli army in the occupied territories in 2004. Since the intifada began in September 2000, a total of about 3,600 Palestinians have been killed (more than three times as many Israelis). The last TEN TIMES cease-fires have been announced, a resumption of violence was soon to follow. Abbas or no Abbas, the land conquered in the 1967 war will remain conquered, with minor Israeli concessions. The UN Charter and the Geneva Conventions remain violated, but irrelevant. As long as the status of Jerusalem, Israeli settlements, and the right of return for Palestinian refugees are not addressed, there will be no justice; there will be no peace.
Danilo is a Sophmore from Belgrade, Serbia. He's editor of Dollars & Sins, President of the Princeton Coalition Against Capital Punishment, and Assitant Editor of the Progressive Review.
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