ISRAEL: Attack on US leaves Israel the winner

September 12, 2001
Issue 

BY AHMAD NIMER

RAMALLAH — If those responsible for the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, DC, believed they were acting on behalf of the victims of US imperialism, the events of the last few days in the occupied Palestinian territories have proved the utter folly of such a notion.

Covered by the world's condemnation of the attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, the Israeli government and its army in the West Bank and Gaza Strip have dramatically escalated their campaign against the Palestinian people.

The Israeli government's strategy has followed a two-pronged approach — one military and the other diplomatic — in an effort to destroy Palestinian resistance and impose a pact of surrender on the Palestinian population.

Israel's military campaign against the Palestinian population has come to follow a familiar pattern — temporary re-occupation of Palestinian towns, with the aim of assassinating key activists in the Palestinian resistance and destroying the physical infrastructure used as bases for this resistance.

The night prior to the September 11 attacks, Israel had entered the northern West Bank town of Jenin and stationed dozens of tanks and soldiers at the outskirts of the city.

As the world's attention was diverted by the events in the US, Israeli troops entered the city, cutting electricity supplies and systematically destroying physical infrastructure. By night's end, 10 Palestinians had been killed, including three as a result of targeted assassinations of intifada leaders in Jenin.

The following day, while the Israeli army remained in Jenin, its campaign extended to other towns in the north and centre of the West Bank. Three more people were killed in Jenin, and the towns of Salfeet and Qalqilya were also occupied.

Thirty tanks entered the city of Jericho, where tens of Palestinians were injured on the night of September 12. A Palestinian was also killed on the morning of September 13, as he tried to cross a checkpoint near Ramallah.

At the time of writing, the city of Nablus is surrounded on all sides by Israeli tanks and the population is expecting an invasion in the near future.

Accompanying the Israeli army's attacks on Palestinian cities, a very clear diplomatic campaign is being waged by the Israeli government.

This campaign aims to de-legitimise the Palestinian resistance to occupation and end international support for the year-long uprising that has exposed the reality of Israeli rule in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Israeli spokespeople are attempting to portray Israel's war against the Palestinian population as a struggle between the "civilized world" and the "evil world of terrorism". This bipolar characterisation of the globe has been repeated ad nauseum by Israeli government representatives, particularly Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and foreign minister Shimon Peres.

Receiving strong affirmation from US Secretary of State Colin Powell, Peres has called on Palestinian President Yasser Arafat "to get out of the world of terrorism. He cannot hold on to both at the same time — to be engaged in terrorism, while at the same time being accepted internationally. No one can. Yesterday, in the United States, this choice was made clear cut, and no room for compromise now remains. I hope the Palestinians reach the proper conclusion".

The aim of Peres, Sharon, Powell and company is to force the Palestinian Authority back to the negotiating table in order to sign a pact of surrender.

Despite the demonisation of the Palestinian Authority and Arafat by Israeli leaders, it is in both the Israeli and US interest to keep him in power, as Arafat remains the only person able to quell the Palestinian uprising.

Israeli and US demands are clear: arrest the leadership of the intifada, demobilise the population and forego the core demand for the right of return of Palestinian refugees. In return, Israel will give Arafat limited control and the illusion of sovereignty over most of the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Despite the Palestinian Authority's willingness to return to negotiations, it has been unable to undertake any real action against the intifada due to the overwhelming desire of the population to continue the struggle.

As one leader of the intifada said on Palestinian TV recently, "Too much of our people's blood has been spilt to return to Camp David [site of negotiations between the US, Israel and the Palestinian Authority last year] empty handed."

Over the last few months Israel's propaganda campaign had begun to unravel in the eyes of the people of the world.

The massive loss of Palestinian life, Israel's unrelenting strangulation of Palestinian cities and towns, escalating house demolitions and the unprecedented incarceration of thousands of Palestinians were beginning to be acknowledged for what they are — the cruel face of military occupation in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

But now, after the attacks in the US, and regardless of the fact that all Palestinian organisations have condemned them, both Israel and the US are using the opportunity to stoke the flames of anti-Arab racism and whip up support for the Israeli state and its repression of the Palestinian people.

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