A few weeks ahead of the upcoming peace conference in Annapolis, Israel has been guilty of acts that will never produce the necessary good will if results are to be produced in Maryland. The Israeli decision to cut electrical and fuel supplies to Gaza, the mysterious death of a Palestinian inmate in an Israeli jail and the continuing economic strangulation of Gaza, added to what has been going on for years, lends credence to a widespread belief that Israel is behaving in a calculated way. It looks as if Tel Aviv wants to raise the already high level of anti-Palestinian violence at this crucial time; the aim of doing so is, of course, to thwart any meaningful attempt at peace in the conference and thus allay Israeli fears that the conference might actually achieve something positive.
Israeli leaders claim that the electrical blackouts are due to the shelling Israel is receiving from the other side. The real reason, however: The general terror under occupation is a means of softening up the Palestinians ahead of Annapolis for a peace deal that, if one materializes, will fail to meet minimum Palestinian expectations. By that time, Israel’s hope is that Palestinians will have become so desperate that they will have no other viable option in sight and so will accept anything. International law requires occupation forces to take care of the needs of occupied peoples. By formally declaring Gaza “hostile,” Israel argues it is no longer bound by international law governing the administration of occupied territory — as if it had ever been treated as a friendly entity. Israel remains legally responsible for the coastal strip, despite withdrawing almost two years ago, because it still controls Gaza’s borders, airspace and territorial waters.
Surely the Palestinian shelling cannot be the reason for the cutoff of electricity. According to statistics, the number of Palestinians killed by occupation army bullets in the West Bank and Gaza since the beginning of the year is 350 while the number of occupation soldiers and settlers killed by Palestinian resistance operations has been five. So because of those five, Israel is willing to trigger a humanitarian crisis? No, there is something greater afoot and it has much to do with Annapolis. Israel has publicly announced it is not in favor of summit language that elaborates proposals or spells out in detail what a final peace would look like. It is not in favor of what lays out stages of the peace’s implementation or sets a realistic timetable for the creation of a state. It wants a conference so stripped of the ingredients needed to succeed that its failure is assured.
But just in case, Israel is paving the way to guarantee that the conference does not make any headway to make the Jewish state even slightly uncomfortable. The UN says Israel must not inflict collective punishment on Gaza’s civilian population by cutting vital supplies and services. Exploiting human needs to blackmail the Palestinian people will never weaken their resolve in Annapolis or anywhere else.
