Washington Report, May/June 2006, pages 7-8

Special Report

Olmert’s Separation Plan Would End Hope for a Palestinian State

By Rachelle Marshall

EHUD OLMERT, who became Israel’s prime minister when his Kadima party won the March 28 election, now faces the same problem as his predecessor, Ariel Sharon: how to force the Palestinians to give up their struggle for independence. Contrary to most press descriptions, Kadima is not “centrist,” but an amalgam of the Likud party minus its lunatic fringe, and former right-wing members of the Labor party. Likud  consistently opposed the creation of an independent Palestinian state. Olmert’s aim is to unilaterally define Israel’s borders in a way that will achieve Israel’s permanent separation from the Palestinians. There is little difference between the two positions.

Olmert’s version of “separation” means permanently confining West Bank Palestinians behind walls and checkpoints, where they would have no control over their borders, their land or their water, and would be entirely dependent on Israel for their economic survival. Kadima’s probable coalition partner, Labor, has a progressive domestic agenda but is not likely to alter Olmert’s policy toward the Palestinians in the face of opposition by far right parties to any Israeli withdrawal. After all, it was under Labor governments that settlement construction began in the first place.

In order to carry out his plan for separation, Olmert must first subdue a people who have endured every possible hardship and humiliation yet continue to maintain their national identity and right to a genuinely independent state. One solution is to deprive their children of food and medicine. After Hamas won a majority in the Palestinian parliament last January, U.S. and Israeli officials talked of “starving” the new government of funds as a way of forcing the Palestinians to hold new elections. The Americans meant stopping aid to the Palestinian Authority while continuing to provide funds for humanitarian purposes. Israel meant starvation in the literal sense.

The Israelis broke the promise they made to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice last fall and repeatedly closed the Karni crossing, the only passage for goods between Gaza and Israel. Following Hamas’s election victory, Israel shut down the crossing completely for two months, preventing deliveries of food, medicine, and other necessities and costing the Palestinian economy tens of millions of dollars in lost trade (see Mohammed Omer’s “Death by Degrees: The Starving of Gaza” on p. 11). As shortages of baby formula, bread, and other items became critical, U.S. officials persuaded Israel to reopen Karni to allow food deliveries. They did so for half an hour on March 20, with the few openings since then lasting an hour or less.

Palestinians are in effect under siege. Because Israel is withholding their tax and customs revenues, the Palestinian Authority was unable to pay the Israeli companies that supply fuel oil, gas, electricity and water and Palestinians faced a cutoff of these supplies until the European Union offered $144 million in aid. The World Bank reported in 2004 that Israeli-imposed travel and border restrictions were shrinking the economy to critical levels. In the same year, Peace Now found that 84 percent of Palestinians were living in poverty, and that nearly a fifth of Palestinian children suffered from chronic malnutrition. Today the economy is close to paralysis, with average per capita income less than $700.

Not surprisingly, the United States and Israel are finding little support among Muslim and Arab leaders for their effort  to punish the Palestinians. When Rice toured the Middle East in late February urging Arab officials to cut off aid to the Palestinians she was turned down. Members of the 22-nation Arab League have agreed to increase aid to the Palestinian Authority, but it is not yet certain that Israel will allow the aid to reach the Palestinians. When Iran offered to send $130 million the Israelis said they would block it.

Hamas leaders have been visiting South Africa, Turkey and Venezuela as well as Moscow, on missions reminiscent of Yasser Arafat’s efforts in 1982, when he traveled to Europe seeking recognition of the PLO as the Palestinians’ legitimate representative. At the time, Israel and the United States were shunning Arafat as a terrorist, and in June of that year Israel invaded Lebanon, destroyed PLO headquarters in Beirut, and forced the organization into exile.

Like Arafat, Hamas is making strenuous efforts to overcome its terrorist image. Muhammad Abu Tir, who is a member of the new cabinet, granted an interview with the Israeli magazine Challenge for its March-April issue in which he emphasized Hamas’s positive principles and program. Abu Tir has spent 25 of his 55 years in Israeli jails. Just before the January election the Israelis raided his home and took his computer and all his documents. Nevertheless, he pointedly condemned the massacre of European Jews by the Nazis, and insisted, “We aren’t against the Jews, we’re against the occupation.”

Echoing Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniya, Abu Tir said that if Israel were to withdraw to its 1967 boundaries and permit an independent Palestinian state and the return of refugees, Hamas would agree to a long-term truce. Meanwhile, he added, “We want to act on the issues of education and health and improve the social situation. We want to develop the legal system and to ensure its independence, as part of the war on corruption. We want to eliminate unemployment and poverty.”

Abu Tir also stressed that unlike the previous Palestinian Authority, “We don’t put money in our own pockets, and we don’t buy arms. When we say that [the money] will go to health, it will go to health. When we say it will go to welfare, it will go to welfare...I myself won’t find it shameful in the least to take a broom and sweep the street even if I should rise to the top of the PA.”

Whether Hamas members such as Abu Tir are able to live up to their promises depends on whether the Israelis allow them to live or resume the killing of relatively moderate Hamas leaders as well as militants. On March 7, a day after an Israeli air strike killed two members of Islamic Jihad and three bystanders, including two children, Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz said Israel would not hesitate to assassinate Hamas leaders if attacks on Israel resume.

Provocations, Not Peace

Israel’s actions seem calculated to provoke renewed resistance. Olmert announced plans in March to build 3,500 new homes in the land between East Jerusalem and the settlement of Ma’ale Adumin, which will create a barrier of Jewish settlements running just east of Jerusalem. In the historic city of Bethlehem, once a destination of tourists and pilgrims from all over the world, Israel is building a wall that will slice off part of the city and join it to Jerusalem. The wall will enclose Rachel’s Tomb as well as a new settlement of 400 homes for ultra-Orthodox Jews.

Bethlehem’s mayor, Dr. Victor Batarseh, fears the settlement will turn Bethlehem into another Hebron, where Jewish extremists routinely attack the Palestinian inhabitants and vandalize their property. According to Dr. Batarseh, Israel’s confiscation of land inside the city to make way for the settlement and an adjoining military base forced 72 Palestinian businesses to close and destroyed a once vibrant neighborhood.

Assassinations and raids by the army are a continuing provocation. In mid-March the army stormed a Palestinian prison in Jericho using tanks, bulldozers and helicopters, and killed a security guard and a prisoner, in order to capture six inmates the Israelis feared would be released by Hamas. Before taking them to Israeli jails, soldiers forced all of the prisoners to strip to their underwear. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas called the raid “an ugly crime” and “an insult for the Palestinian people.”

While the Americans and Europeans were insisting that Hamas recognize Israel and accept their “road map to peace,” Israeli bulldozers and construction crews were busy extending Israel’s borders. Olmert intends to annex the 10 to 15 percent portion of the West Bank that lies east of the separation barrier and includes greater Jerusalem and the large settlement blocs. Israel also will retain most of the Jordan Valley. So even after Olmert dismantles a few West Bank settlements, as he promises to do, more than 375,000 Israelis will remain on territory outside of Israel’s 1967 borders.

The Palestinians are therefore being asked to recognize a state that is in the process of taking over a third of the West Bank and leaving them with fragments of territory totaling less than 15 percent of original Palestine. Olmert said he would wait a reasonable time for Hamas to recognize Israel and disavow violence, but threatened that if it “is not willing to accept these principles, we will need to begin to act.” In other words, Palestinians must surrender their claim to independence or else.

The fact that Israel enjoys the full support of the Bush administration has consequences far beyond Israel’s borders. The Bush administration hawks whose aim is to extend American power over the oil-rich regions of the Middle East have long found in Israel a helpful ally with a shared interest in eliminating recalcitrant Arab leaders. The neocons’ dreams of power have so far led to tens of thousands of deaths, destroyed Iraqi state and civic institutions, and given rise to tribal conflicts that were unknown in Iraq before the U.S. invasion. By the end of March Iraq was a charnel house, with scores of killings taking place every day.

Iraqis Unite in Blaming U.S.

The New York Times reported on Feb. 24 that both Sunnis and Shi’i in Iraq blame the Americans for the disaster that has befallen their country, and recent public opinion polls show that a majority of Iraqis want U.S. forces to leave. This will not happen, however, as long as Bush is in office. One of the administration’s enduring lies is that the U.S. Army will leave Iraq as soon as the Iraqis are able to defend themselves. Recent reports in The Nation and The Washington Post indicate that, on the contrary, American bases are in Iraq to stay. Although Gen. John Abizaid, chief of U.S. forces in the Middle East, told Congress in late March that “The policy on long-term presence in Iraq hasn’t been formulated,” Bush’s 2006 emergency war funding bill includes $348 million for base construction.

At least 4 of the 110 U.S. operating bases in Iraq resemble medium-sized cities complete with miniature golf courses, fast food chains, Hertz rent-a-car offices, bus routes, and other amenities. A fifth super base is under construction. Tom Engelhardt in The Nation calls them “American islands of eternal order in an anarchic sea,” and predicts they will remain permanently in Iraq as a substitute for the abandoned U.S. bases in Saudi Arabia.

Additional evidence of a permanent American presence is the $592 million embassy the Bush administration is building inside Baghdad’s walled-off Green Zone. As the largest U.S. Embassy in the world it will be a virtual little America, according to Engelhardt. The complex will include ground-to-air missiles, hundreds of homes for officials, and a large Marine barracks. It will have its own independent water, electricity and sewage treatment plants.

There is no mystery as to what these bases are needed for. In time of peace they would be an impressive reminder of American might to any regime that challenged U.S. or Israeli interests in the region. In case of war with Iran, they would serve as vital launching sites for U.S. forces. The National Security Strategy paper released by the White House on March 16 lists seven nations as “despotic regimes” but singles out Iran for special mention, saying, “We may face no greater challenge from a single country than from Iran.” Bush earlier called Iran a “grave threat to the security of the world,” echoing  statements he made just before invading Iraq,

The updated strategy paper also includes a reaffirmation of Bush’s doctrine of pre-emptive warfare, specifically saying that U.S. policy does not rule out the use of force even before attacks occur. In an obvious threat to Iran for refusing to give up its uranium enrichment program, the paper declares, “When the consequences of an attack with WMD are so devastating, we cannot afford to stand idly by as grave dangers materialize.” The danger the administration has in mind is to Israel, of course, not the United States.

The above “of course” is Bush’s. “I see a threat in Iran,” he told an audience in Cleveland on March 21. “The threat is, of course, their stated objective to destroy our strong ally Israel.” He added, ”I made it clear that we will use military might to protect our ally Israel.” Experts say that Iran is still 5 to 10 years away from developing a bomb, and Iran’s rulers are in any case aware that an attack on Israel would bring devastating retaliation from America and Israel. A nuclear weapon would serve Iran only as a deterrent against attack. Therefore it seems likely that Bush’s confrontational approach is motivated less by fear of Iranian aggression than by the desire to remove Iran’s current leaders and restore to Israel and the United States an ally they lost when Riza Shah Pahlavi was overthrown in 1979.

The price of a Middle East policy based on establishing U.S. and Israeli supremacy in the region comes high, however. Actions by the U.S. army in Afghanistan and Iraq, and unwavering U.S. support for Israel, cast doubt on America’s commitment to human rights. While Bush was talking about fighting terrorism in mid-March, witnesses accused U.S. Marines of breaking into a house in a Sunni village and killing a family of 15, including old people and children. A few days later, Shi’i officials charged that American and Iraqi soldiers surrounded a mosque in a Shi’i neighborhood of Baghdad and killed 17 civilians who were inside. Afghan-American writer Masuda Sultan, who lost 19 relatives when Americans bombed a village outside Kandahar, said that a cousin had asked her, “Is this not terrorism?”

According to Rami Khouri, editor of the Beirut-based Daily Star, the U.S. policy of waging “vigorous battles against any Arabs, Muslims, or others in the world who dare to resist Israel’s occupation and subjugation of Arabs” is a major reason why Islamist groups that defy the United States and Israel have gained favor. Khouri wrote in a recent issue of the San Francisco Chronicle that these groups “have more legitimacy in the Middle East than all of [Condoleezza] Rice’s copious democratic rhetoric and all the Marines in Mesopotamia put together.”

But promoting democracy in the Middle East is clearly not Bush’s first priority. In refusing to recognize the Palestinians’ elected leaders and branding Palestinian resistance groups as terrorist, Washington serves as an accomplice to Israel’s colonization of Palestinian land. In threatening Iran rather than seeking conciliation and engagement, the administration is serving the interests only of American and Israeli hard-liners. It is a policy that will lead to perpetual confrontation, not peace.

Rachelle Marshall is a free-lance editor living in Stanford, CA. A member of the Jewish International Peace Union, she writes frequently on the Middle East.

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