BY AHMAD NIMER
RAMALLAH — As the Palestinian uprising (intifada) enters its eighth month the gap between the Palestinian population and the interests of the Israeli government has never been wider. The systematic policy of state-sponsored terrorism currently being conducted by the Israeli government illustrates a clear intent to impose an imperialist-sponsored settlement on the Palestinian people.
The refusal of the Palestinian population to bow before this pressure has led to an escalation of Israeli actions and a chorus of myth-peddling by Israeli leaders supported by the United States. The widespread distrust in Palestinian society of current negotiations around "security" issues and an Egyptian-Jordanian proposal to return to political negotiations demonstrates that Palestinians are not prepared to accept a return the pre-intifada status quo.
The picture presented by the Israeli government has been uncritically accepted by many Western news reporters and media commentators on the current situation in the Occupied Territories of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. This picture presents the situation as one of a military conflict between armed Palestinians and the Israeli military. The Palestinian people are presented as pawns in this conflict, manipulated as unwilling victims of violence orchestrated by the Palestinian Authority (PA).
This line of argument has been echoed by the US government. According to press reports, US President George W. Bush said to Israeli foreign minister Shimon Peres in a meeting held last week that he could not understand, "Why Palestinians are encouraging their children to carry out suicide bombings rather than protecting them from harm".
Myth and reality
The Israeli position can be summed up with the following argument: Palestinians are being manipulated by the PA, media and "activists"; the large number of deaths and injuries are a result of this cynical policy of manipulation; Palestinians are to blame for the conflict.
This argument could not be further removed from reality. What has occurred over the last eight months is a systematic attack by Israel on the Palestinian population that has devastated the very fabric of Palestinian society. A few points illustrate this:
- More than 420 Palestinians have been killed during the intifada by Israeli soldiers or settlers. Approximately 30% of total deaths are minors under the age of 18 years. It becomes clear from an examination of the statistics that Israeli forces have utilised a shoot-to-kill policy and despite the large number of deaths have refused to alter their open-fire procedures. Twenty-seven percent of total deaths were a result of live ammunition fired to the head. Seventy-two percent of deaths resulted from shots fired to the upper part of the body (head, chest, and eye). Thousands of Palestinians have been injured and more than a third of those injuries were a result of shots fired to the upper body. One-quarter of those injured were aged below 12 years.
- The types of weapons and ammunition employed by Israel refutes any claims that its military has attempted to minimise casualties among Palestinian civilians. Rather, these weapons and ammunition are designated for war situations and not for controlling civilian unrest or protests. There has been widespread use of fragmenting bullets fired from M-16 rifles at unarmed demonstrators. The injury types caused by these bullets, 5.66mm in diameter, resemble those of the internationally banned dum-dum bullets. They are designed to splinter on impact — tearing tissue and muscles and causing multiple internal injuries.
- Even so-called "riot dispersal" techniques employed by the Israeli military are demonstrably lethal — in particular, the use of rubber-coated steel bullets. More than 700 people have been shot by rubber-coated steel bullets during the intifada. By the end of 2000, 47 children had been hit in the eye by these bullets, with seven of them losing an eye.
- A widespread arrest campaign by the Israeli government has led to the detention of thousands of Palestinians. The vast majority of detainees are subjected to various forms of torture from the moment of their arrest. This torture ranges from sleep deprivation to beatings with sticks and fists, to being tied up in uncomfortable positions for long periods of time.
- Nightly shelling of Palestinian residential areas continues and thousands of hectares of Palestinian land has been bulldozed by the Israeli military authorities. In addition, Israel has continued a policy of state-sponsored assassinations of leading activists in the intifada.
This is the reality on the ground and its causes are clearly located in one factor — the Israeli military and "civilian" settler occupation of Palestinian land. Palestinian society has been encircled, beaten and strangled by this occupation for more than 30 years.
Israeli colonisation
Since the signing of the Oslo accords in 1993 there has been an acceleration of the Israeli colonisation of Palestinian land despite the illusion of sovereignty given by formal Israeli military withdrawal from Palestinian cities.
Events since the beginning of the second intifada in last September have demonstrated the ever-present reality of the Israeli occupation. As soon as the intifada began it became clear that Israel's control over the Palestinian economy, land and people had never been relinquished. Palestinian "sovereignty" was always contingent on accepting the hidden logic of this occupation.
In just a few short weeks of the commencement of the intifada, according to the World Bank, the poverty rate among Palestinians increased by 50% and more than a third were reduced to living on around US$2 per day. Palestinian education came to almost a complete halt in the face of restrictions on movement and Israeli attacks on schools. Palestinians were unable to move outside the few square kilometres of their towns and villages.
These practices required little preparation or planning by the Israelis. In a sense they were always present, they just needed to be activated. There was no "reoccupation" of the West Bank and Gaza Strip as the occupation had never been removed in the first place.
The form of occupation may have changed but the content has remained the same. It is this content that lies at the heart of the conflict and gives legitimacy to the Palestinian struggle for liberation.
'Peace' plan
Given this situation, the resumption of various channels of negotiation has been widely condemned by the Palestinian population. Of particular concern is the so-called Egyptian-Jordanian plan that is currently being touted by Arab leaders and has received the support of the US and European governments.
According to the plan, which was formally presented to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon by Jordanian foreign minister Abdullah al-Khatib last month, Israel would lift its siege of Palestinian towns and villages in the West Bank and Gaza Strip and withdraw to positions it held on the eve of the intifada, as well as freeze new settlement activity. The Palestinians would guarantee a renewal of security cooperation, and end "incitement to violence". After a period of calm in the territories, the negotiations for a final agreement would resume, with an effort to complete them within a year.
The PA has strongly supported the plan and while Israel has expressed some reservations about the proposal it has, in general, accepted its basic premises. The two main points of disagreement concern the time-frame for the resumption of final status negotiations, with Israel wanting two months and the PA asking for one month, and the issue of Israeli settlements, with Israel wanting a clause allowing for the "natural growth" of its colonial settlements.
The "Palestinian street" strongly opposes the plan however, fearing that a return to the situation prior to the intifada would merely legitimise the Israeli occupation and fail to tackle the issues that led to the uprising in the first place. The casualties of the last few months make it difficult for the Palestinian leadership to return to the status-quo without winning any significant concessions from Israel.
"Security" talks between Israeli and Palestinian security forces have been occurring almost daily over the last month, mediated by the US Central Intelligence Agency. Many of these meetings have taken place at the home of the US ambassador in Tel Aviv. Israel and the US are strongly urging the PA president, Yasser Arafat, to crackdown on Palestinian activists of both the Islamic and leftist hues and put a halt to the intifada.
In the recent weeks, Arafat has ordered a halt to mortar attacks by Palestinians on Israeli settlements in the Gaza Strip and has also ordered some arrests of those responsible (primarily members of Hamas and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine).
There has also been a notable decline in the participation of Fatah, Arafat's political party, in demonstrations and other activities associated with the intifada.
Whether the PA will accede to Israeli and US demands is still an open question. It is clear that the full pressure of US imperialism and its Arab proxies in the region, particularly the Egyptian and Jordanian governments, is being brought to bear on the PA to halt the intifada. It is also clear that a return to the situation prior to the beginning of the intifada will not be acceptable to the vast majority of the Palestinian people.