http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml;$sessionid$RRWECZIAALUJPLAUAUKSF3VMCQCQMI5G?itemNo=66311&contrassID=2&subContrassID=4&sbSubContrassID=0&listSrc=Y
They don't see the occupation
By Amira Hass, Ha'aretz 08/22/2001
Thus far, this intifada has been a total failure. It hasn't succeeded in
realizing three of its clear political aims: to explain to the Israeli public
in particular and to the world in general that the Israeli presence in the
territories is nothing other than occupation; to explain that the
occupation-control of another nation on its own land, by means of military
force, when that nation does not have the the right to make decisions about its
life, is both morally wrong and bad from a pragmatic political point of view;
to explain that the Palestinians are sick of this occupation.
The story of the entire system of rule and domination is the story of the
opposition to them. One doesn't have to go as far as South Africa, or the
period of slavery in America, or the dictatorships of the former Soviet Union
and Eastern Europe. Nobody would have talked about, or been aware of, masculine
hegemony in modern societies, had women not challenged it. The Ashkenazi [Jews
of European origin] institutional domination of Israeli society would have
continued to appear like one of the facts of nature had the Israeli Black
Panthers, and those born in deprived neighborhoods, not rebelled against it.
The Palestinian uprising in 1987, the first intifada, managed to make it clear
to many Israelis that "Arabs" are not only interesting market places and cheap
labor, but a civilian population whose life is conducted by Israel and its
army, a population that pays taxes to Israel but does not have the right to
vote and to intervene in the system that rules it. But the uprising was unable
to convince most Israelis and their government that the Israeli presence in the
territories captured in 1967 is something bad and should come to an end.
The fact is that the Israeli entrenchment in those same territories has become
stronger, through the expansion of the settlements and the increase in the
number of settlers, who are the emissaries of the government policy of
domination (and not, as we like to present it, an independent force that
imposed its will on the governments).
During the past seven years, the process of entrenchment and building
settlements has continued, while the word, "occupation," has been almost
entirely erased from our lexicon. The Palestinian Authority has been afforded
very limited administrative-civilian powers over the majority of the
Palestinian population, without control over the water, the land, freedom of
movement and of employment for the population.
The fact that these administrative powers have been limited to a minimal
geographic area, broken up into enclaves that are surrounded by Israeli
military bases and settlements, didn't seem to the Israelis as a contradiction
of their understanding that "there is no longer an occupation." The
"occupation" has been replaced by the terms "areas A, B and C," which have no
negative connotation. The territories have evolved from "occupied" or "held"
into "a disputed area" and later on, gradually, into "Israeli territory," with
Israel generously willing to "relinquish parts of it."
The Oslo process yielded a letter of commitment from PA Chairman Yasser Arafat
to the late prime minister Yitzhak Rabin in which the former undertook to end
acts of violence and terror. Most of the Israeli public understood the reality
of the occupation not as a major moral and value-related issue, but as a
function of the degree of Palestinian resistance to it. The moment the
Palestinians promised to end "the violence and the terror," the reality of the
occupation disappeared from Israeli awareness.
People in Israel don't remember that Arafat's promise was given in exchange for
an international and Palestinian understanding that Israel would end its
control over the Palestinians. Official Palestinian words of protest, here and
there, against Israel's foot-dragging in the implementation of the new
deployment in the territories and the expansion of the settlements evaporated
in the atmosphere in which Israelis convinced themselves that there is no
occupation.
In such an atmosphere, it is clear why the official Israeli version of Camp
David was accepted without argument, why Palestinian caution in signing
unfinished agreements was interpreted as a rejection of Israel's good
intentions, and why the fact that annexation of the settlements in key
strategic areas was not seen for what it was - a means of perpetuating control
over a divided Palestinian political entity.
The intifada broke out because the Palestinian public was tired of this
situation of occupation that adopts other names, which are user-friendly for
21st century Westerners. But because the Israeli public does not see the
occupation, it perceives the uprising as a unilateral and unjustifiable act of
aggression, rather than an act of resistance, of a type that has repeatedly
taken place throughout human history.
Since the first days of the intifada, the Israeli public has felt very close to
their fellow citizens in the territories, who were the first targets of
Palestinian demonstrations, stones, and later, shooting: The soldiers are our
children; the settlers are our relatives. They are seen as a peaceful
population, under attack in their homes. Palestinian frustration about the high
price that is being paid for an intifada that has not succeeded in making it
clear to Israel and to the world that what we have here is occupation is
winning people over to the tactic of suicide attacks inside Israel.
We are, therefore, at the beginning of the story of the Israeli occupation; and
this is frightening.
