By Sean Malloy
"It has not taken long for Palestinians to realise that the difference between Rabin and Shamir is not as great as previously advertised", writes Daoud Kuttab in Middle East International on the Labour coalition government formed after Israeli elections on June 23. The new government is led by Yitzhak Rabin.
Violence against Palestinians by Israeli troops continue in the occupied territories. During July, 12 Palestinians were killed, 383 were wounded and 381 were arrested for political reasons.
On July 16 and 17 Israeli troops raided Al-Shifa hospital and Al-Ahli hospital in Gaza. Al-Shifa hospital was raided again on July 26.
In the same month, Israeli authorities confiscated 124 hectares of Palestinian land from the villages of Kalkilya and Barqat Al-Hatab and the town of Ramallah. In Hebron, Bir Zeit, Ramallah, Jerusalem, Um Touba and Beit Hanina 13 Palestinian homes were demolished by Israeli forces.
Responding to Rabin's inaugural speech, Dr Hanan Ashrawi, Palestinian spokesperson at the Middle East peace talks, in an interview for the Palestinian weekly Al Fajr, said that "verbal gestures work for public relations, but we need actual gestures in terms of changes in the reality ... especially in terms of settlement activities and human rights violations".
Earlier this year Rabin won leadership of the Labour Party by projecting himself as intending to bring about peaceful relations with Palestinians. After winning leadership of Labour, he turned to attracting Likud voters and more conservative Labour voters, leaving behind his peace rhetoric.
Rabin has declared that only "political" settlements in the occupied territories will be frozen but not "security" settlements. Construction of highways and roads will continue.
Dr Ashrawi called Rabin's distinction between "security" and "political" settlements pure semantics. "Two types of an illegal act" can't be distinguished, she said. Rabin has cynically labelled the majority of settlements in the occupied territories "security settlements".
Labour's long-term approach to the occupied territories was outlined in the Israeli election campaign when Labour candidate Avigdor Kahalani explained Labour's program for the occupied territories was to continue settlements to "tightly surround the concentrations of Arabs to be granted autonomy". He added that "within a few years, n of Jordan] will certainly be around no more. For me Jordan is the Palestinian state."
The strategy of forcing Palestinians into Jordan is one Rabin supported in his first prime ministership. In 1974 he said that he "would like to create in the course of the next 10 or 20 years conditions which would attract natural and voluntary migration of the refugees from the Gaza strip and the West Bank to Jordan".
The other "concession" by Rabin is the proposal to change the law prohibiting Israelis from meeting members of the Palestinian Liberation Organisation. However, the PLO will continue to be excluded from participating directly in peace negotiations.
Yasser Arafat, president of the Palestinian National Council, said that legalising contacts with the PLO is "a sheer propaganda act" if it doesn't include negotiating directly with the PLO.
The PLO and Arabic newspapers in the region noted that Rabin has also steered clear of United Nations resolutions on Palestinian self-determination and Israeli withdrawal from the occupied territories, particularly resolutions 242 and 338, which the United States said were the basis for the peace talks.
But President Bush has already granted Israel the US$10 billion of loan guarantees which were withheld in 1991 to pressure Israel to attend the Middle East peace talks. The loan guarantees have been granted with no guarantees of a halt to settlements in the occupied territories.