As the Sharon government edges reluctantly back toward the negotiating table, the sheer pointlessness of all the bloodletting that it has unleashed becomes painfully apparent.
It sought to impose its will upon the Palestinian people by sheer brute force. It claimed that it could isolate and destroy the militants and stop the bombings. But as the awful attacks of recent days have shown, far from stopping the militants, Israeli heavy-handedness has made militants of more Palestinians. Even moderates who disapprove of militant tactics have found themselves seething with anger at the humiliation and brutal repression of the Israeli reoccupation of Palestinian lands.
All these “peace efforts” should, however, be treated with extreme caution, because there is still a significant section within the Bush administration that refuses to recognize the plight of the Palestinians and sides blindly with the Zionists. These people’s views were accurately represented by an unguarded comment from US Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld who last week referred to the “so-called occupied territories” of Palestine and went on to claim that Israel had acquired these legitimately by conquest in the 1967 war.
Even as Palestinian negotiators were preparing this week to travel to the United States to meet Secretary of State Colin Powell and National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, Rumsfeld continued his criticisms, by declaring that the Palestinian Authority was behind the terrorism and in any event would not be effective in making peace with Israel.
These two statements underline the fatal contradiction that lies beneath both present Israeli and US policy towards the Palestinians. If indeed the Palestinian government is directing the terror bombings, then it has to be in a highly effective position to make peace with Israel, because it has the power to stop the attacks. If on the other hand, Yasser Arafat’s administration is unable to make an effective peace, then it cannot be responsible for sending out the bombers. And, of course, the contradictions do not end there. The current moves toward negotiation are based upon an Israeli withdrawal from Palestinian territory in return for a crackdown on militants. With much of the West Bank and Gaza effectively locked up by the Israeli military, it is hard to see what the PA can do to act against militants. Only two days ago, one of its policemen was shot down and killed by Israeli troops while trying to do his duty.
Sharon has so inflamed Palestinian public opinion that the bombers and the men who direct them are seen as the only way that a crushed people can fight back against an immensely more powerful enemy. If the Palestinian Authority really does move against the extremists, it will be in the teeth of opposition from a significant section of a now radicalized population.
Despite all that Washington and Tel Aviv may claim, Arafat’s government still represents moderate opinion. The only people able to replace it would be extremists. Knowing this, Sharon is hoping to undermine the present Palestinian administration at every turn. He needs the violence to continue to justify his long-term policy of ousting Palestinians from their land and even of throwing out Palestinians who have become Israeli citizens.
