http://www.zmag.org/turmoil_in_palestine.htm
Turmoil in Palestine:
The Basic Context
By Alex R. Shalom and Stephen R. Shalom
As the occupied Palestinian territories suffer their worst paroxysm of
violence in years, with the casualties, as always, overwhelmingly
Palestinian, the mainstream media, also as always, focus on peripheral
questions, offer misleading answers, and ignore the underlying causes
of the conflict. The fundamental, neglected reality is that the
Palestinian people have been denied their basic rights for years by
the Israeli government, aided and abetted by its Washington ally.
More than half a century ago, the United Nations (which at the time
had comparatively few Third World members) recommended the partition
of Palestine into Palestinian and Jewish states, and an
internationalized Jerusalem, with the Jewish minority to receive the
majority of the land, as well as most of the fertile land. A civil war
and then a regional war ensued and when the armistice agreements were
signed there was Israel, the Jewish state, but no Palestinian state
and no international Jerusalem, both of these being taken over and
divided between Israel and Jordan. The occupying Israelis, however,
were not content to block the emergence of a Palestinian state; they
wanted as well to expel as many Palestinians as possible. This ethnic
cleansing -- forced expulsions facilitated by acts of terror -- drove
hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from their ancestral lands, to
refugee camps where they lived in squalor, longing to return. In 1967,
Israel conquered Jordan's share of Palestine, creating a new wave of
Palestinian refugees, and subjecting many more to ruthless Israeli
rule in the occupied territories.
Through all the peace plans and negotiations this is the central
question: how can Palestinians achieve the right of self-determination
that has so long been refused them? To the Israeli government, justice
for Palestinians has always been subordinated to the Israeli desire
for land, for scarce water resources, and for military supremacy in
the region. And the United States government has likewise disregarded
Palestinian self-determination and human rights, motivated by its
desire to see a dominant Israel that could help keep radical Arab
nationalism in check in a region of great economic and strategic
value.
This past week's violence was sparked by the visit of the leader of
Israel's right-wing opposition Likud Party, former general Ariel
Sharon, to Haram al Sharif, a Muslim holy site in Jerusalem, revered
by Jews as the Temple Mount. The media has asked what Sharon intended
by his visit, what role Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak played in
Sharon's decision to go there, and whether the Palestinian response
was spontaneous or orchestrated by the Chairman of the Palestinian
Authority, Yasir Arafat. But these limited questions cannot be
answered without considering the recent history of the
Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
Yasir Arafat was Chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization
(PLO) in 1974 when it was recognized by the U.N. (and by nearly every
survey of Palestinian opinion) as the sole, legitimate representative
of the Palestinian people. But, by the mid-1980's, Arafat and his
lieutenants had been away from Palestine for many years, and their
connection with Palestinians living in the occupied West Bank and Gaza
Strip began to weaken. In December 1987, after 20 years living under
the systematic violence of Israeli rule, Palestinians in the occupied
territories began wide-spread resistance known as the intifada. The
intifada, often remembered for its vivid images of Palestinian
children throwing stones at Israeli soldiers who responded with
automatic weapons, included, in fact, highly organized non-violent
resistance in addition to the more spontaneous stone throwing.
Impressively, the intifada with its remarkable self-discipline and
courage was an indigenous uprising - neither initiated nor controlled
by the PLO leadership-in-exile -- indicating that Arafat no longer
spoke for the Palestinian people.
It thus came as something of a surprise when Arafat joined with
then-Israeli Prime Minister Yitzak Rabin to sign the 1993 Oslo
Accords. The peace process agreed to by Arafat and Rabin called for
the redeployment of Israeli troops from most areas of dense
Palestinian concentration to other parts of the West Bank, but not for
their full withdrawal from the territory. Israeli settlements -- whose
presence even Israel's closest ally, the United States government, had
always considered a violation of international law -- were to remain
in place. Israel retained authority over most of the land, and all the
settlers, roads, water, and borders, while the Palestinians gained
civil control -- not sovereignty -- over a tiny portion of the West
Bank, which essentially meant that they became responsible only for
maintaining order over a population seething in grueling poverty and
despair. While Israeli analysts saw this arrangement as more
manageable than direct Israeli military rule over masses of
Palestinians, it was clear that a peace process that did not provide
justice and self-determination to a long-suffering people was unlikely
to provide much peace either.
Why did Arafat accept this raw deal on behalf of his people? It
appears that Arafat was more interested in being the ruler of a
Palestinian State, whatever its condition, than in continuing to seek
a just solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Since his return
to Palestine in the wake of the Oslo process, Arafat has ruled the
Palestinian Authority with a brutally authoritarian fist and, despite
some public posturing, has made further concessions to the Israeli
government -- most notably giving up the refugees' right of return,
something demanded by the U.N. since 1949, and the Palestinian claim
to any part of Jerusalem. In so doing, Arafat has further alienated
himself from the Palestinian people, who no longer see him as a brave
freedom fighter but as a corrupt collaborator.
And what of the other players focused upon by the mainstream media?
Ariel Sharon, who has received some criticism in the press, is no
stranger to being vilified, or more precisely to being a villain. He
is best-known for his role in Israel's invasion of Lebanon in 1982,
where -- as even the Israeli Kahan commission found -- he bore
indirect responsibility for the indiscriminate slaughter of hundreds
of Palestinians in the refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila. He has long
been an opponent of any negotiations with Palestinians and rejects any
Israeli territorial concessions. Perhaps his visit to Haram al Sharif
last week was intended as a provocation to thwart any progress in the
peace process (though no real progress was in the offing); perhaps he
saw an opportunity to bloody some more Palestinians; or perhaps it was
all part of a maneuver to secure his leadership of Likud against a
challenge from former Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu. But the exact
mix of motives here doesn't really matter. No one could possibly have
doubted that going to Haram al Sharif and proclaiming it eternal
Israeli territory would ignite a firestorm.
As for Prime Minister Ehud Barak, also a former general and the leader
of the Labor Party, he is portrayed in the press as a pursuer of
peace, willing to make concessions on important issues. But his
fundamental position allows no compromise. In 1998, Barak declared
that Labor has a "set of red lines which it will under no
circumstances cross.... A united Jerusalem must remain under full and
unequivocal Israeli sovereignty; most of the population of the
settlements will remain under Israeli rule in large settlement blocs;
under no circumstances will we return to the 1967 lines" (Jerusalem
Post, 13 May 1998, p. 1). So whatever other concessions Barak might be
willing to entertain, any that might offer the Palestinians real
justice has been automatically excluded.
What role did Barak have in Sharon's decision to go to Haram al
Sharif? All indications are that Barak knew of Sharon's visit before
it occurred. The extent to which Barak would have been able to prevent
the visit had he so desired is not clear, but there is no evidence
that Barak had any such desire. In recent weeks, even before the
latest outbursts of violence, as Barak's support in the Israeli
Knesset (parliament) had been waning, there had been rumors that he
was seeking to form a coalition government with Sharon's Likud Party.
His inaction did nothing to belie these rumors. In any event, however,
the role Barak played in Sharon's visit is less important than Barak's
overall role in the latest violence. In addition to his support for a
peace process that offers no justice and thus no peace, it is he and
his Cabinet who are ultimately responsible for the Israeli military's
vicious lack of restraint during this past week: the killing of an
unarmed, cowering 12-year-old boy, the killing of an ambulance driver
who tried to save the boy, the killings of dozens of others (more than
seventy at this writing), the maiming of many hundreds of others, the
tank and helicopter gunships blasting apartment buildings.
As for Arafat's role in the latest violence, he can be viewed as the
initiator only to the extent that his role in the Oslo process has
made conditions in the occupied territories ripe for violence. What
has inflamed the Palestinians -- and world opinion, at least outside
Washington -- was the provocation of Sharon and the bloody actions of
the Israeli military; no orders from Arafat were needed to bring
thousands of enraged Palestinians into the streets. On the other hand,
while not indicating a causal relationship as many of Israel's
supporters have argued, it must be acknowledged that given Israel's
savage history with respect to the Palestinians, Arafat might have
anticipated this sort of Israeli over-reaction, perhaps allowing him
to regain some of his lost credibility and putting some international
pressure on the Barak government. But neither Arafat's attempts to
keep up with Palestinian popular sentiment nor the occasional mindless
excesses by some frustrated Palestinians (such as the trashing of
Joseph's tomb, a Jewish holy place) change the basic situation: what
has transpired in these past two weeks has been a legitimate,
indigenous response to the denial of Palestinian rights, Israel's
brutal occupation, and Arafat's capitulation.
What will come of this latest violence is unclear. Certainly the dire
poverty in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, the repression by Arafat's
police, and the hopelessness of the Oslo process are factors which
make another intifada possible. And Barak has made clear how he would
answer any such uprising: the Israeli military would use "all means at
their disposal" and they would do so "[e]ven if it is against the
whole world." (Karin Laub, Laura King, both AP, 7 Oct. 2000) And
indeed Israel is unlikely to concern itself with international
pressure as long as the United States continues to flak for Israeli
barbarism. U.S. officials may work to quiet outbursts of violence, but
they still fail to insist that Israel offer justice to the
Palestinians. Peace and justice in the Middle East will never occur
until Washington stops giving Israel a blank check. And that will
require decisive action by the American people.
Alex R. Shalom spent five months in 1998 studying in Jordan, Israel,
and Palestine; Stephen R. Shalom teaches political science at William
Paterson University.
