http://www.commondreams.org/views01/0211-02.htm
Published on Sunday, February 11, 2001 in the Raleigh News & Observer
Fundamentally Unfair to Palestinians
By Sarah Shields
CHAPEL HILL -- News coverage of last week's Israeli election
inaccurately reframed the players and repositioned the issues. Ehud
Barak is presented as a peacemaker whose concessions were spurned by
the Palestinians; Palestinian violence led the Israelis to turn their
collective back on the peace process and embrace the hard-line Ariel
Sharon as prime minister. This narrative is misleading on all counts.
The Oslo Accords, signed in 1993, claimed to be a new beginning, an
agreement by which Israel and the Palestinians would gradually resolve
the outstanding issues. Israel would withdraw from territory occupied
in 1967 in return for peace. But the accords were realized only
partially, and the post-Oslo period has been devastating for
Palestinians.
By the beginning of September 2000, when the Palestinians began their
new uprising, Israel had withdrawn from only 18 percent of the West
Bank and Gaza. Israel's Peace Now movement claims that, in the years
since Oslo was signed, housing construction in the occupied
territories increased by 52 percent, the number of Israeli settlers in
occupied territories increased by 53 percent, and 740 Palestinian
homes have been demolished. The Israelis imposed complete closure on
the occupied territories for more than 300 days during those "peace
process" years, closures that inflicted billions of dollars of losses
on Palestinians.
What Palestinians saw during the "peace process" was the loss of land
and a plummeting standard of living.
International law does not permit the acquisition of territory by
force. Occupied people must be respected, their property protected.
Richard Falk, a widely respected scholar of international law, points
out that "As long as Israel maintains its occupation of the West Bank
and Gaza, it is bound to respect the fundamental human rights of the
Palestinian people under the Fourth Geneva Convention."
Israeli writer Uri Avnery sums up the Israeli peace movement's view of
Barak: "While speaking about peace, he enlarged the settlements. Cut
the Palestinian territories into pieces with 'bypass' roads.
Confiscated lands. Demolished homes. Uprooted trees. Paralyzed the
Palestinian economy. Did not do a thing to put an end to the daily
harassment of Palestinian civilians at the hundreds of army roadblocks
all over the territories. Caused a huge accumulation of rage in the
hearts of the Palestinians. Conducted negotiations in which he tried
to dictate to the Palestinians a peace that amounts to capitulation."
Palestinians began a new uprising NOT because they wanted to reject
peace but because the Israeli occupation has gone on for decades, and
under Barak things seemed to be getting worse. Since Barak took office
in July 1999, for example, construction began on 2,270 new housing
units in the occupied territories.
As of late last week, "peacemaker" Barak's army had killed 351 and
wounded 11,195 Palestinians. Many of them are children. (50 Israelis
have died, and 610 have been injured over the same period.) During the
present uprising, Israel has attacked medical personnel, killed
civilians by shooting into their homes, and relied on live ammunition
for crowd control.
Barak claimed that massive force was necessary because stone-throwers
threatened Israel's very existence. But stones thrown in occupied
territories cannot reach Tel Aviv. If the occupying armies were not in
those cities, Israelis would not be threatened.
International agencies, from Amnesty International to Doctors without
Borders, have condemned the severity of Israel's actions. American
allies throughout the world have called on Israel to abide by its
international obligations to its occupied population and stop the
violence. Israeli opposition forces have demanded that the Barak
government stop killing Palestinians. Only in the United States do we
get an undiluted Israeli version of events, a narrative that makes the
victims responsible for their own deaths.
Fewer Israelis than ever went to the polls. Israeli Arabs, who had
voted overwhelmingly for Barak in the last elections, were appalled by
his violent efforts to put down the new uprising. The Israeli peace
movement saw no one for whom to vote. Huge demonstrations by Israelis
opposed to Sharon have taken place in the past few weeks. With no
peace-oriented candidates, Israelis in record numbers stayed home or
voted with blank ballots.
Nonetheless, those who voted elected a man widely recognized as a war
criminal. Sharon is responsible for the massacre in the Jordanian town
of Qibya in 1953, the start of a bloody career. The Israeli Supreme
Court held him indirectly responsible for the massacres of nearly
2,000 Palestinians in the refugee camps of Sabra and Shatilla in 1982,
and insisted that he give up his Cabinet portfolio. His political
rehabilitation has been slow, but he has now achieved his dream.
The likeliest positive outcome of this election will be the ending of
the Oslo "peace process." Israelis and Palestinians must now return to
U.N. resolutions to create peace. Those resolutions demand the end to
occupation and the right for displaced Palestinians to return.
Americans do have a role to play. The United States provides billions
of dollars in aid to Israel each year. Israelis advocating peace have
long claimed that the U.S. policy of unconditional support for Israel
makes their work much harder. They point out that extremist Israeli
groups promoting new settlements and the annexation of occupied
territory have until now received U.S. aid despite their flagrant
disregard of international law.
The news has missed the story on all counts. Neither Palestinians nor
Israelis have rejected peace. Both have rejected the violence that
continues today. The only way to end that violence is to return to
internationally accepted norms of behavior. We must call on Israel to
stop the occupation, and we must call on our own government to stop
sending all governments in the region the weapons they use to kill
their neighbors and their own populations.
Sarah Shields is an associate professor of history at UNC-Chapel Hill
who teaches courses in Middle Eastern history and Islamic
civilization.
(c) Copyright 2001, The News & Observer
