PALESTINE: Operation 'Determined Path' to massacre

The expression “peace process” has become increasingly meaningless. As Israel's murderous “Operation Determined Path” continues, and White House pronouncements lose any subtlety about backing Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's one-sided war, it stands a good chance of outranking “war on terror” when the list of great ironic phrases of the 21st century is compiled.

In Washington, the “hawks” have won on the issue of US policy toward Israel's war on the Palestinians. The velvet-gloved “diplomatic imperialism” associated with US Secretary of State Colin Powell has been swept away by the “kill, crush, destroy” policy of defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld and vice-president Dick Cheney — and Sharon.

US President George Bush's much anticipated June 24 speech on Middle East policy was a call for support for Israel's crushing of Palestinian resistance. As Ali Abunimah, vice-president of the Arab-American Action Network, pointed out on the Electronic Intifada web site (<http://electronicintifada.net>): “George Bush's speech on how to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict weighed in at 1867 words. By my count, more than 1000 words were devoted to criticising and making demands on the Palestinians, while just 137 words dealt with what Israel should do. And if you look for any criticism at all of Israel, you will not find it. The few remaining words were taken up with cliches and platitudes.”

Bush's speech called for a “new and different Palestinian leadership, so that a Palestinian state can be born” (translation: Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat must be replaced by a leadership more consistently subservient to US and Israeli interests). The US president said that “the Palestinian people live in economic stagnation, made worse by official corruption” (which is quite something coming from the “Enron president”).

Bush restated his backing for the Israeli assault on the Occupied Territories at the June 26-28 G8 meeting in Canada, threatening sanctions if Palestinians re-elect Arafat as head of the Palestinian Authority (PA). Bush conveniently ignores the fact that Arafat won his position in 1996 with 87% of the vote (perhaps if Arafat had received a minority of the vote and was then installed by unelected judges, Bush would be more accepting).

Israel's government has justified the invasion and occupation of most major cities in the West Bank by pointing to recent suicide bombings inside Israel. Israel's foreign affairs ministry has put the number of Israeli deaths since September 2000, including all soldiers killed in battles as well as civilians killed in suicide attacks, at 563. The number of injured is 3545, 2727 categorised as lightly injured.

By contrast, as of June 16, the Palestinian Red Crescent Society estimated that the number of Palestinians killed in the Occupied Territories since September 2000 was 1599. At least 19,452 were wounded in the same period. According to the PRCS, the actual figures are almost certainly higher because of its inability to access all of the territories, and because many of the people who “disappeared” during Israel's April assault on the Jenin refugee camp are almost certainly dead.

“Operation Determined Path”, announced by Tel Aviv on June 20, looks set to be even longer and more bloody than the murderous, and even more grossly misnamed, “Operation Defensive Shield” that decimated Jenin earlier this year. It can only fuel further retaliatory attacks by desperate Palestinian fighters.

Israeli troops opened fire on the Jenin market on June 21, killing four people, including a six-year-old and the deputy director of Jenin's department of education. According to a Ha'aretz report, the army claimed that “an armored unit fired tank shells `not in order to harm but to hold [Palestinian fighters] at bay'. Security sources said that the troops did not notice that there were people in the area.”

From Green Left Weekly, July 3, 2002.
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