'What we feared has come true," Israeli sociologist Baruch
Kimmerling writes in Israel's leading newspaper. Jews and Palestinians
are "regressing to superstitious tribalism - war appears an
unavoidable fate", an "evil colonial" war.
There is, of course, no symmetry between the "ethno-national
groups" regressing to tribalism. The conflict is centred in
territories that have been under harsh military occupation since 1967.
The conqueror is a major armed power, acting with massive military,
economic and diplomatic support from the global superpower. Its subjects
are alone and defenceless, many barely surviving in miserable camps.
The cruelty of the occupation has been sharply condemned by
international and Israeli human-rights groups for many years. The
purpose of the terror, economic strangulation and daily humiliation is
not obscure. It was articulated in the early years of the occupation by
Moshe Dayan, one of the Israeli leaders most sympathetic to the
Palestinian plight, who advised his Labor Party associates to tell the
Palestinians that "you shall continue to live like dogs, and
whoever wishes may leave".
The Oslo "peace process" changed the modalities, but not
the basic concept. Historian Shlomo Ben-Ami, a dove in the US-Israeli
spectrum, wrote that the intent was to impose on the Palestinians
"almost total dependence on Israel" in a "colonial
situation" that was to be "permanent". He soon became the
architect of the Ehud Barak government proposals, virtually identical to
Bill Clinton's final plan.
These proposals were highly praised in US commentary; the
Palestinians were blamed for their failure and the subsequent violence.
That presentation "was a fraud perpetrated on Israeli - and
international - public opinion", Kimmerling writes accurately. He
continues that a look at a map suffices to show that the Clinton-Barak
plans "presented to the Palestinians impossible terms".
Crucially, Israel retained "two settlement blocs that in effect cut
the West Bank into pieces". The Palestinian enclaves also are
effectively separated from the centre of Palestinian life in Jerusalem;
the Gaza Strip remains isolated, its population virtually imprisoned.
Israeli settlement in the territories doubled during the years of the
"peace process", increasing under Barak, who bequeathed the
new government of Ariel Sharon "a surprising legacy", the
Israeli press reported as the transition took place early this year:
"The highest number of housing starts in the territories"
since Sharon supervised settlements in 1992, before Oslo. The facts on
the ground are the living reality for the desperate population.
The nature of permanent dependency was underscored by Israel's High
Court of Justice in November 1999 when it rejected yet another
Palestinian petition opposing further expansion of the (Jewish) city of
Maale Adumim established to the east of Jerusalem, virtually
partitioning the West Bank.
The court suggested that "some good for the residents of
neighboring (Palestinian villages) might spring from the economic and
cultural development" of the all-Jewish city. While they try to
survive without water to drink or fields to cultivate, the people whose
lands have been taken can enjoy the sight of the ample housing, green
lawns, swimming pools and other amenities of the heavily subsidised
Israeli settlements.
Immediately after World War II, the Geneva Conventions were adopted
to bar repetition of Nazi crimes, including transfer of population to
occupied territories or actions that harm civilians. As a so-called high
contracting party, the US is obligated "to ensure respect" for
the conventions.
With Israel alone opposed, the United Nations has repeatedly declared
the conventions applicable to the occupied territories; the US abstains
from these votes, unwilling to take a public stand in violation of
fundamental principles of international law, which require it to act to
prevent settlement and expropriation, attacks on civilians with
US-supplied helicopters, collective punishment and all other repressive
measures used by the occupying forces. Washington has continued to
provide the means to implement these practices, refusing even to allow
observers who might reduce violence and protect the victims.
For 25 years, there has been a near-unanimous international consensus
on the terms of political settlement: a full peace treaty with
establishment of a Palestinian state after Israeli withdrawal, an
outcome that enjoys wide support even within Israel. It has been blocked
by Washington ever since its veto of a UN Security Council resolution to
that effect in 1976.
It is far from an ideal solution. But the likely current alternatives
are far more ugly.
Philosopher and social critic Noam Chomsky recently wrote 'A New
Generation Draws the Line: Kosovo, East Timor, and the Variable
Standards of the West'.
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