There are two important event threads currently at the fore of the Israel/Palestine conflict. The first is the (literal) embracing of PA President Mahmoud Abbas by Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. This, of course, is nothing new – Israel, the U.S. and Britain have hailed Abbas as the voice of `moderation’ ever since Hamas was elected to power (such support was notably absent when Abbas was Prime Minister). This support must be understood in terms of the relentless U.S./Israeli campaign to topple the Hamas government. After the U.S. failure (not for lack of trying) to ensure Fatah’s victory in the January elections, this has taken the form of both devastating economic strangulation and brutal military aggression (under the banner, `Operation Summer Rains’). Both are collective punishment, the idea being that the Palestinians would blame Hamas for their suffering and vote/kick them out of office.
This has worked, to a degree. Hamas were unable to pay the huge wage bill of civil servants (including the police) for months, because the international community withheld aid and Israel refused to hand over tax revenues it collects on behalf of the Palestinian Authority. After months without pay and with the economy collapsing, workers began staging huge strikes. Fatah has shamefully capitalised on this suffering by using it as a basis to attack Hamas, despite knowing that the economic failure is not due to Hamas mismanagement but is rather a result of foreign intervention.
The siege of Gaza has as-of-yet been unsuccessful in so far as Hamas remains in power. But it has succeeded in turning public opinion against Hamas (60% now support early elections), setting Palestinians against each other and reducing Palestinian society to a point where regime change looks likely. As Amira Hass wryly observed, the `experiment’ has worked: the Palestinians are killing each other. Numerous truces between Fatah and Hamas militants have resulted in numerous violations, and the slide to civil war continues. Civil war is not inevitable, but unless either Hamas or Fatah change their positions (Hamas on recognising Israel and renouncing violence, Abbas on calling early elections and demanding Hamas recognise Israel) it is hard to see how it can be avoided.
Of course, the U.S. and Israel are hardly going to stay out of a civil war they helped engineer. In October 2006, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice met with Abbas in Ramallah, where she expressed “great admiration” for his leadership and pledged to him the “strong commitment of the United States”. This was accompanied by an announcement that the U.S. would allocate $26 million to expand Abbas’ Presidential Guard from 3,500 to 6,000 men (despite fears that, through the Fatah-allied Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades, those weapons could end up being used against Israeli civilians) and the launch of a $42 million programme to `bolster’ Hamas opponents in any upcoming election.
In this way, the U.S. has safeguarded against both possible outcomes of Abbas’ call for early elections – if Hamas refused (as it has) Abbas’ private military force would be strong enough to win a civil war (or so the theory goes). If Hamas complied, it would lose the elections thanks to the economic sanctions and the American funding of Fatah’s election campaign. Either way, the U.S./Israeli goal of toppling the Hamas government would have been achieved. Naturally, the U.S. defended Abbas’ decision to call for early elections. Likewise, Tony Blair has added his official support for Abbas and announced that Britain will spend £1 million expanding and strengthening Abbas’ private army. The U.S. has even gone so far as to start training Fatah forces in Jericho. As Khaled Abu Toameh, Palestinian affairs correspondent for the Jerusalem Post, writes,
`The U.S. believes that by giving Abbas more rifles and cash, it would be able to bring about regime change…What the Palestinians need is not more rifles — which they never use to stop Hamas, Islamic Jihad or other militias anyway — but good governance and credible leaders’.
In short, then, the U.S. and Britain have worked to engineer a civil war in Gaza and are now busy arming and training the side they want to win.
It is in this context that we should view Olmert’s meeting with Abbas, where he offered to release $100 million of the more than $600 million in tax revenues Israel has withheld from the PA this year, to remove 59 roadblocks in the West Bank (although he didn’t give a date for when) and to release a small number of Palestinian prisoners as a gesture of goodwill. Of course, Israel has no right at all to hold the vast majority of the roughly 9,000 Palestinians currently rotting in Israeli jails and, unless followed up with concrete diplomatic moves towards a peace settlement, this gesture will not prevent future militants (like those who captured Cpl. Shalit), from continuing to fight for the release of the prisoners. Likewise, the offer to dismantle 59 roadblocks should be seen in the context of a 40% increase in military roadblocks in the West Bank this year.
Seen in this light, it becomes obvious that Israel’s diplomatic overtures toward Abbas are not aimed at peace but rather are just the latest instalment in the long campaign to discredit, undermine and topple the Hamas government. By channelling aid and conducting diplomacy through Abbas and Fatah only, Israel and sections of the international community hope, essentially, to bribe and bully the Palestinians into supporting Fatah over Hamas. It may well be working.
Further evidence that Israel is not in fact interested in peace came today, with the approval of the first new settlement in the West Bank since 1992. Maskiot, in the northern Jordan valley, will comprise 30 homes and will house families evacuated from Gush Katif during the `disengagement’ from Gaza. The connection between the Gaza `disengagement’ and expansion in the West Bank has never been made so obvious. Said one of the Gush Katif evacuees,
“We aren’t moving to the Jordan Valley just to be evacuated in two years…Some say the Jordan Valley is a question mark, in which case, we are the exclamation point.”
This continued settlement confirms that Israel’s true commitment is to expansion, not peace. This is further confirmed by the other thread dominating the conflict at the moment, namely Israel’s continued refusal to talk to Syria. Syria has made several explicit overtures towards dialogue with Israel recently, all of them dismissed by Israel. For example, Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Moallem said earlier this month that Syria wanted negotations with Israel without pre-conditions:
“There are no preconditions [to talks with Israel]…A constructive dialogue has to start without preconditions. Dialogue has a literature (of proper procedure). You don’t put demands. You put agreed goals. Under this, you put each side’s commitment to achieve the goals in a parallel way”.
Olmert rejected this outright, declaring vaguely that conditions are `not ripe’ for talks with Syria. Israel has demanded that Syria first stop supporting Hizbullah and Hamas before it will deign to grant it an audience. Of course, demanding the other side accede to all your demands before engaging in negotiations is simply rejectionism – to quote Israeli author Amos Oz,
`Israel is demanding, as a precondition, that Syria give all that it has to give — even before sitting down at the negotiating table…That is a ludicrous demand.’
Syria has made clear many times its price for peace with Israel – the Golan Heights. However, the decades of quiet on that front have left Israel feeling complacent. Why should it give up the Golan? It was exactly the same with the Sinai; rejectionism then led directly to the Yom Kippur war. On the other hand, peace with Egypt has brought Israel far more security than any of its wars against Lebanon or the Palestinians. The lesson seems clear. But Olmert’s refusal to talk to Syria is not just about a desire for the Golan. It has more to do with placating the Bush administration, which is following a policy of isolating Syria as a member of the dreaded `axis-of-evil’. As Olmert explained:
“At a time when the president of the United States, Israel’s most important ally, with whom we have a network of strategic relations — when he is fighting in every arena, both at home in America, in Iraq and in other places in the world, against all the elements that want to weaken him — is this the time for us to say the opposite?”
This is very dangerous thinking, especially since it appears that Syria is sincere in its desire for peace. According to Nimrod Barkan, director of the Foreign Ministry Centre for Policy Research,
“Syria is ready for negotiations and there are sources in the Arab states who believe that Syria will ally itself to the Western bloc headed by the United States and Britain”.
Of course, if that `Western bloc’ rejects Syria as it is doing now, it is inevitable that Syria will becoming more closely allied to Iran. A senior Israeli security source said that, “[t]here is no doubt that there is a movement within Syria that is interested in talks with us. The only way to gauge their level of seriousness is to talk to them…But Olmert is inflexible on the issue at the moment – he is more driven by political considerations regarding American reservations [on the issue of talks] than by renewing contacts with Damascus.”
Israel’s Military Intelligence concurs. “Syria is genuinely interested in negotiations,” said Brig. Gen. Yossi Baidatz before a Knesset panel. “The Syrian regime believes that dialog with Israel will only better its position and improve its standing.”
In both dismissing Syrian calls for peace and continuing to ferment internal Palestinian conflict whilst expanding settlements, Israel is once again choosing confrontation and violence over peace. This is against the interests of all the peoples in the region – including Israelis. If peace is to be given a chance, Israel must engage in dialogue with Syria and conduct meaningful peace negotiations with the Palestinian leadership, whoever it may be. The Israeli public must pressure their leadership to break with U.S. policy in the region and choose dialogue over force, integration over confrontation – because, for everyone’s sake, peace must be given a chance.
Cross-posted at The Heathlander