IF the Sharon government does indeed go ahead with its plan to evacuate part of the occupied territories by closing some illegal settlements in the West Bank and all those in Gaza, the 1,600 Israeli families involved are scheduled to receive generous compensation covering not only the lost of their homes but of their businesses and incomes.
Of course, Israel has never considered offering financial recompense for the many thousands of Palestinian homes its army has bulldozed and its air force has rocketed, for the livelihoods destroyed by its occupation, the innocent lives lost through aerial bombardment, the young children gunned down as they hurried to the shops, the women hit “accidentally” by heavy arms fire, the people buried in the rubble as their houses were bulldozed and the wanton destruction of the already pitiful lives of ordinary Palestinians. And no one, including the self-appointed global champion of human rights, has said a world about it. But these settlers, almost exclusively rabid Zionists who believe they have an inalienable right to occupy other peoples’ land, are to be paid generously to relinquish what they have stolen.
Sharon’s much-vaunted withdrawal may yet be thrown out by Parliament, if only because Israeli legislators refuse to sanction the compensation payments to the settlers. This is anyway not a plan that Sharon wants to succeed. He once promised settlers they would never be moved and indeed has actively encouraged yet more illegal settlements. Even now existing settlements are being expanded and new ones planned. There is also still a steady stream of token land grabs which will inflate the number of settlements that Sharon will one day announce to the world that Israel is prepared to give up in order to make peace with the Palestinians.
This is of course all window dressing for the world public. Many of these settlers claim that they will fight to hold on to their stolen land. It has happened before. Television viewers around the world will again see Zionists carried away screaming by Israel troops and will imagine that the government is acting firmly against these bigots. But in truth, the spectacular ending of one crime will be a smoke screen to cover the continuation of other land grab crimes on Palestinian territory that the Zionists fully intend to keep.
By seeming to enforce the law, Sharon will hope to get away with breaking it far more extensively elsewhere within Palestine. The Israelis have brought this sleight of hand to an art form. When it comes to engaging world opinion on its behalf, they leave the Palestinians standing, even though it is the Palestinians who have suffered the greatest wrong and continue to suffer appallingly. For Sharon, the useful byproduct of this cynical maneuver is that it will stoke the furnace of Palestinian fury and lead to yet more suicide bombing outrages, the only way in which Palestinians can fight back against their oppressors. This will allow Israel yet again to present itself as the victim and not the victimizer, as the oppressed and not the oppressor.
