By Jennifer Thompson
The assassination of Yitzhak Rabin in November started the race toward Israel's May 29 elections in earnest. As the elections drew closer, the lines between Labour — the so-called party of peace, which enjoys strong backing from the mainstream Israeli peace movement — and the conservative Likud began to blur.
After Rabin's assassination by a member of the settler movement, Likud and its prime ministerial candidate, Benyamin Netanyahu, suffered a popular backlash because of their association with the extreme right.
But while Likud has strengthened its association with some of the right-wing parties by forming an election bloc, it has softened its public rhetoric by talking about "peace". Netanyahu has said he will not reverse the Oslo accords and will continue negotiations with the Palestinian Liberation Organisation if elected.
Labour, led by Shimon Peres, has sought to convince voters that he will be tough with the Palestinians. Israel's General Security Service (Shin Bet) assassinated Hamas bomb-maker Yahiya Ayyash in January during an informal Hamas cease-fire. The provocation backfired on Labour. Hamas ended its cease-fire with the suicide bombings that sent Israeli public opinion, with Labour policy in tow, swinging toward the right.
Closure
The worst of the Israeli measures following the bombings was an 11-day "internal closure" of the West Bank and Gaza, which didn't allow the 2.3 million Palestinians to leave their village or town. This was converted to a "normal" closure on March 15; flour was allowed into Gaza to avert starvation; on March 25, 2000 Gaza workers were allowed back to new industrial zones bordering Israel, set up to exploit cheap Palestinian labour; and West Bank Palestinians returned to jobs in Israeli settlements.
The closure of Israel to Palestinians will probably not be lifted before May 29, keeping Palestinian unemployment at around 65%.
According to an April 6 report by the Ramallah-based Democracy and Workers' Rights Centre, the closure has cost Palestinians more than US$16.8 million in fines and more than 224,000 days in prison for entering Israel illegally to work. Israeli employers, particularly construction subcontractors, exploited the closure by defaulting on wages owing.
The effects on Palestinian industries have also been dramatic. The sea blockade imposed on Gaza stopped around 4000 fishermen from working, and halted the fishing industry which supplies around 16% of Palestine's entire annual income and one-third of its total protein intake.
There have been repeated cases of Palestinians giving birth or dying at checkpoints after being denied entry to go to hospitals, particularly in Jerusalem.
A UN package of $100 million to provide temporary jobs for the 60,000 workers deprived of their livelihoods has only cushioned the effects of the Israeli policy. "Unless the closure is lifted and Israel allows in the basic goods required by our economy, the UN package won't help", said PNA finance minister Zuhdi Nashashibi.
Hundreds of Palestinians suspected of links to Hamas and Islamic Jihad have been arrested and continue to languish in Israeli prisons. Israel also demolished two camps and the houses of the families of suicide bombers from Fawwar refugee camp. The IDF raided three villages around Birzeit University before dawn on March 28, arresting 370 residents, including 280 students.
Up to 12,000 people suspected of association with Hamas and Islamic Jihad were also detained by the Palestinian National Authority, already under Palestinian pressure for its seeming surrender to Israeli "security" demands.
Palestinian anger toward the PNA deepened with a police raid on a Nablus university protest rally and other security agency actions. Independent Palestinian legislative councillor Hanan Ashrawi noted, "Palestinian nationalism consists not just of the symbols of a flag, a police force and a president but, essentially, in rights". Most of those arrested were released by April 26.
According to Middle East International's Graham Usher (March 29), "in the post-Oslo era of Israel-PNA security coordination, Israel reoccupied the West Bank's 465 Palestinian villages and refugee camps — and repositioned its troops at 'strategic junctions' in Gaza — in a matter of hours and without a shot being fired, a settler being attacked or a patrol being ambushed".
Segregation
The internal closure policy may be Peres' permanent strategy. On the night of the second suicide bombing in March, Peres announced the construction of a 2 km wide and 350 km long "security seam" to run between the West Bank and Israel, broken only by 18 Israeli-controlled crossing points. The implication, in violation of Palestinian-Israeli economic protocols, is an Israeli veto on movement of Palestinian goods, capital and labour.
Israeli military orders to confiscate Palestinian land for the construction of 26 "bypass roads" in the West Bank and Gaza were approved. The roads have already taken 21 square kilometres and are nearly 220 km long. Their main purpose, according to Palestinian geographer Khalil Tafakji, is to "surround and control the main towns, so they can be militarily divided". The costs of both projects — US$80 million and US$350 million respectively — suggest they are not for temporary use.
Land grabbing by settlers has also continued unabated, and IDF demolitions of homes near Kiryat Arba settlement in Hebron began but were halted after massive protests.
The PLO-oriented daily newspaper al-Hayat al-Jadid editorialised on April 15: "Peres perpetuates the slaughter business in Lebanon, as well as starving Palestinians to death and destroying their homes, amidst official Arab silence bordering on acquiescence, and flagrant US collaboration, all this for the sole purpose of enabling him to win the elections". It concluded that Labour was no better than Likud.
This feeling has been reflected amongst Palestinians living inside Israel — 19% of the voting population. Between March 4 and April 22, Peres' support amongst Israeli Arabs fell from 92% to 46%, with the remainder planning to abstain.
Clinton's backing
The US sought to salvage Peres' prospects by staging on March 13 the Sharm el-Sheikh "conference of peacemakers" — widely dubbed the "anti-terrorism summit". In attendance were 29 delegations from the region, the US and Europe, including a number known to practise their own state terrorism against internal and external opponents.
Clinton then sped off to Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, where he attended an Israeli cabinet meeting. The US pledge to protect Israeli security included an extra $100 million in aid to "fight terrorism", adding to the $22 million in anti-bomb technology sent to Israel earlier in the month and the annual $6 billion in aid and loan guarantees.
The Palestinian Council, meeting on April 22, voted 504 to 54, with 14 abstentions, to remove from the Palestinian Charter clauses calling for the establishment of a single democratic state in the whole of the former Palestine. The amendments were part of the undertakings included in the September 1993 Declaration of Principles (the Oslo accord) and again in the interim agreement signed last September.
The Israeli Labour Party voted on April 25 to annul the clause in its constitution that opposes the establishment of a Palestinian state.
Amendment of the Palestinian Charter has provoked a huge debate amongst Palestinians inside and outside the occupied and autonomous territories.