THE MIDDLE EAST peace process remains dormant. Palestinian Authority is under tremendous pressure to end the so-called terrorism (read resistance to occupation). Herein lies a recipe for disaster.
In the aftermath of Sept. 11, Israel succeeded in persuading the US in equating Palestinian national resistance with terrorism against which the US is waging a global war. Since Sept. 11, there has been a willingness to polarize the world without looking at the causes of anger, desperation and revenge. It has become a simplistic version of good and evil, as portrayed by George Bush and eagerly embraced by Ariel Sharon.
Whether it is merely wanton violence or a fight for national liberation, the definition of terrorism is in the eye of the beholder. One man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter. When people are repeatedly assaulted, their lives destroyed, or people around them are killed, this is a collective trauma which forces a lashing back. The provocation to Palestinians has been enormous, beyond endurance.
CIA Director George Tenet is to be sent to the region again with the primary mission of helping the PA restructure, reform and unify its security services. But as long as the Israeli Army continues to make daily incursions into Palestinian population centers, effectively eliminating any semblance of PA control or sovereignty, Palestinians know that a cease-fire, reform and negotiations will remain castles in the sand.
Israel has not totally lifted its siege of the West Bank and Gaza. Since last week, the Israeli Army has invaded Nablus, Tulkarm, the Balata refugee camp, Qalqilya, Bethlehem, Beit Jala, Jenin and Hebron in incursions aimed at mopping up remnants left over from April’s full-scale re-conquests of Palestinian areas and consolidating Israel’s military rule throughout the occupied territories. But the incursions appear to be acknowledged as being somehow less and less a reason for Palestinian complaint. Accent is not on ending such infringements, but on reforming the PA.
It is not coincidental that just when the Israeli Army declared its West Bank objectives a success, suicide operations resurfaced. The Israeli strategy was to hit the Palestinians hard enough so that they would give up resistance and reconcile to occupation and permanent servitude. But Israel has neither managed to force the Palestinians into submission nor end their struggle. If anything, the military intervention has only fortified their will.
Political and security reforms, including elections, are likely to remain hypothetical as long as Israeli troops remain entrenched in and around Palestinian population centers. How can elections be conducted freely, without interference and intimidation from Israeli occupation forces?
Nobody denies the need for reforming the PA. But the clamor for change should not overshadow the larger picture. And the larger picture is a just and comprehensive settlement. There is an Arab peace plan which provides an excellent road map for negotiations leading to such a settlement. The question is how to prevent the plan from being hijacked by Israel and watered down by the US.
The Arab attitude to a peace conference, like the one proposed for the summer, assumes crucial importance in this context. No decision has yet been reached on the conference’s possible make-up, venue and agenda, but one thing stands clear: Israel is exploiting the proposed peace conference to buy time to create more facts on the ground. It is not just the creation of buffer zones; there is the annexation of land and massive military assaults. On the ground there are realties that are superseding all talks.
It seems idiotic, therefore, to keep asking the Palestinians, who have neither army nor air force, no tanks, nor functioning leadership, to renounce violence without demanding comparable limitation from Israel and reactivating the peace process.
