There is much buzz surrounding the latest U.S./Israeli ‘peace push’. As a Ha’aretz editorial put it,
“empty words about a “diplomatic horizon” and barren meetings between representatives of the parties are giving way to genuine diplomatic processes and practical plans for solving the conflict.”
Certainly, the Israeli government has taken steps recently that, on the face of it, appear to indicate a desire to move towards a final peace settlement. The Monday meeting between Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in Jericho was the first visit by an Israeli leader to a Palestinian city in more than six years. As to what was discussed there – that depends on who you listen to. In the lead-up to the summit, the Palestinian government, eager to show signs of serious progress to a sceptical Palestinian public, insisted that “final-status” issues (borders, Jerusalem, refugees) would be on the agenda. Olmert instead stuck to ambiguities about “principles” and “fundamental issues”. When pressed, David Barker, an Israeli government spokesman, admitted that Olmert and Abbas would “not be negotiating about final-status issues”. In the event, it appears that Israel got its way and that final-status issues were not discussed. As the Financial Times reported,
‘The Israeli leader made clear at the outset of the three-hour summit, their first in the West Bank, that it was not the opening of bargaining about core issues but rather talks about talks.’
This reflects the long-standing Israeli strategy of ‘endless negotiations’, whereby talks are dragged out for as long as possible without ever actually reaching a firm, clear agreement on the nature of the Palestinian state-to-be. When Olmert met with Abbas in July he was happy to talk all day about his pitiful “gestures”, but as soon as Abbas started talking about the serious issues he became impatient, demanding that Abbas “stop talking about the occupation”. As Miri Eisin, spokeswoman for Ehud Olmert, put it last month, “[t]he Palestinians want to go a lot faster”, whereas Israel prefers to go “a lot slower”. No kidding.
The basic problem is this: for political reasons, it is important for both Israel and the United States to be seen to be doing something constructive in the way of a peace process. It is important for two reasons: firstly, the U.S. is in the midst of a battle for influence in the Middle East. It is trying to rally the “moderate” Gulf states against Iran and Syria, and making moves on the Israel/Palestine conflict is part of this effort. Secondly, it is important as part of the year-long U.S./Israeli strategy of strengthening Abbas at the expense of Hamas. I’ve written about this many times already, so I won’t go over it again. Suffice to say, from the moment Hamas entered office (even before, in fact, since the U.S. helped fund Abbas’ election campaign), Israel and the United States launched a campaign to overthrow it, through collective punishment, brutal military assault (‘Operation Summer Rains’) and, finally, by engineering inter-factionary violence between Fatah and Hamas. The aim was twofold: to isolate and ultimately topple the Hamas government, in order to avert the threat of a looming ‘peace offensive’, and to further split the Palestinian resistance and separate Gaza and the West Bank, in classic ‘divide and rule’ style.
Thus, the current diplomatic flurry is primarily about appearances, with the aim of strengthening Abbas politically. As the International Crisis Group reports (.pdf), the purpose of the “peace conference” President Bush has called for this Autumn is “to bolster Abbas, respond to repeated calls for a conference and fill the political void” (p. 29). It does not, as White House press spokesman Tony Snow was at pains to emphasise, have anything to do with peace:
“I think a lot of people are inclined to try to treat this as a big peace conference. It’s not…
I think what happened is it was being spun up as a major peace conference where people are going to be talking about final status issues, and that is not the case.”
The reason it has nothing to do with peace is, quite simply, because Israel is not prepared to offer the kind of settlement that Palestinians would find acceptable, and to which they are entitled under international law – namely, the international consensus two-state settlement that has been sitting on the table gathering dust for some 30 years. Dr. Mustafa Barghouti, former Information Minister for the PA and leader of the Palestinian National Initiative, is mostly correct when he says,
“It seems that the parties are both turning around in the same circles. The Palestinians are trying to reach discussions on final status issues, and the Israelis are sticking to the minor issues. The Israeli hesitance to enter the serious issues…is a severe mistake…To talk about a state without addressing the borders or the relation of the state to Jerusalem is a mistake.”
It’s an accurate assessment of what is happening, but it’s not a mere “mistake”. It’s a calculated strategy designed to delay or stall serious negotiations even while pretending to engage in them.
To illustrate the gap between what Israel is saying and its true intentions, it is worth taking a look at what it is doing on the ground. If we step back from the flowery rhetoric, we find that conditions for Palestinians are as bad as ever. Those living in Gaza are suffering from a deliberate Israeli policy of collective punishment, calculated to reduce popular support for Hamas. In the sterile language of the ICG,
“Gaza is being kept on a drip of welfare support, further eroding its fledgling, market-driven and Palestinian-run economy…
An Israeli border officer was heard defining his mission thus: “no development, no prosperity, only humanitarian dependency”. (p. 25, footnote 210)
This is just a rephrasing of the policy outlined by Dov Weisglass, an advisor to Ehud Olmert, last year: “[t]he idea is to put the Palestinians on a diet, but not to make them die of hunger”. Since the Hamas takeover, Israel has tightened (.pdf) its already vice-like siege on Gaza. The UN today reported that Gaza will become “a virtually 100 percent aid dependent, closed down and isolated community within a matter of months or weeks, if the present regime of closure continues”. Filippo Grandi, deputy head of UNRWA, continued, “[f]ailure to open the crossings will lead to disastrous consequences”. He’s referring primarily to the Karni crossing, which has been virtually closed (apart from emergency humanitarian aid) since the Hamas takeover in June, in violation of the 2005 Agreement on Movement and Access (which Israel has never kept to, anyway). Karni is the primary passage of goods in and out of Gaza, and its closure has had a predictable effect on Gaza’s economy. According to figures from the Palestinian Association of Businessmen, the total loss to industry in Gaza has reached $23 million since June and if the closures continue at least 120,000 workers in Gaza will lose their jobs. Already, the 600 Gaza-based garment factories have closed down due to a lack of raw materials, putting 25,000 Palestinians out of work.
In the West Bank, despite Olmert’s pathetic “gestures” in the order of removing a couple of roadblocks here and there, Israel’s system of checkpoints and barriers has carved the West Bank into several cantons, with movement between them difficult and dependent upon arbitrary Israeli cooperation. According to the Israeli human rights organisation B’Tselem,
“In addition to the restrictions on movement from section to section, Israel also severely restricts movement within the sections by splitting them up into subsections, and by controlling and limiting movement between them.”
These restrictions on Palestinian freedom of movement are humiliating and enormously damaging for the economy. In Nablus, for example, it is estimated that Israeli restrictions have reduced business income by more than 40%. The World Bank, for one, has emphasised that “Palestinian economic revival is predicated on an integrated economic entity with freedom of movement between the West Bank and Gaza and within the West Bank”. It added that Israel’s system of road and travel restrictions in the West Bank is aimed at “protecting and enhancing the free movement of settlers and the physical and economic expansion of the settlements at the expense of the Palestinian population”. B’Tselem agrees, noting that,
“Israel continues to apply these means even after the temporary and specific security need has passed, and use them to achieve other objectives, among them controlling and regulating the movement of Palestinian vehicles to separate them from the settlers and other Israelis on roads in the West Bank, and to create a rapid and convenient road network for the settlers. In addition, this separation results in the de facto annexation of these roads by Israel.”
B’Tselem concludes that the restrictions “constitute collective punishment, which is absolutely forbidden by international humanitarian law.” Only this week, a heart patient died trying to get to a hospital, after being refused access through an Israeli checkpoint.
In the Jordan Valley, long declared by Israel to be its “security border“, the IDF is harassing and threatening Palestinians, pressuring them to leave. Amnesty International reports that the IDF is trying to force more than 100 villagers, most of them children, to leave their homes in Humsa and Hadidiya, two hamlets in the Jordan Valley. They have been ordered to leave the area “with immediate effect”, and are regularly harassed by the IDF and denied access to water. Amnesty notes,
“The Israeli army has declared most of the Jordan Valley a “closed military area” from which the local Palestinian population is barred. However, Israeli settlements — established in violation of international law — continue to expand and Israeli settlers are allowed to move freely and use vast quantities of water.
While in Humsa and Hadidiya every single home is slated for destruction and the Palestinian villagers have to bring water for their basic needs from 20 kilometres away, Israeli settlements only a few hundreds of meters away, have well-watered gardens and swimming pools.”
As one resident asked, “We are doing no harm to Israel. We have rights to our land. Where are the settlers’ documents for land rights?” Evidently, his question fell on deaf ears – Israeli bulldozers have demolished homes in five Palestinian villages in the Jordan Valley in the past week. Another was destroyed in East Jerusalem.
Needless to say, even as Palestinian houses are being demolished, new homes for Israeli settlers in the West Bank continue to be built. In the first four months of this year, active permanent construction was seen in at least 12 settlement outposts, and no outposts were removed. In the same period,
– Instances of development and construction were noted in 86 out of the 121 official settlements in the West Bank
- Construction or development was noted in 45 of the settlements situated east of the fence
- Construction or development was noted in 41 of the settlements situated west of the fence
- 32% of the sites on which either construction or development is being carried out are situated east of the fence
- 65 tenders for new residential units in the settlements have been published since the beginning of the year
Meanwhile, three years after the International Court decision that ruled it illegal, construction continues on Israel’s annexation wall. The wall poses huge problems for Palestinians by restricting access to fields, workplaces, relatives and hospitals – as one Palestinian from Abu Dis, separated from his workshop by the wall, exclaims, “It is easier for me to go to Venezuela than to the Damascus Gate”. In June, the OCHA released a report (.pdf) on the humanitarian, social and economic consequences of the wall on East Jerusalem, which has cut off from the West Bank. Some of its findings:
– Palestinians from the West Bank require permits to visit the six specialist hospitals inside Jerusalem. The time and difficulty this entails has resulted in an up to 50% drop in the number of patients visiting these hospitals.
- Entire families have been divided by the Barrier. Husbands and wives are separated from each other, their children and other relatives.
- Palestinian Muslims and Christians can no longer freely visit religious sites in Jerusalem. Permits are needed and are increasingly difficult to obtain.
- School and university students struggle each day through checkpoints to reach institutions that are located on the other side of the Barrier.
- Entire communities, such as the 15,000 people in the villages of the Bir Nabala enclave, are totally surrounded by the Barrier. Movement in and out is through a tunnel to Ramallah which passes under a motorway restricted for Israeli vehicles only.
The OCHA notes that the barrier, only 20% of which will follow the Green Line when completed, has now become a “de facto border”, which is exactly what it was intended to be.
If any doubt remains about Israel’s sincerity, one need only look at the intensive pressure it is applying to Abbas to keep him away from talks with Hamas – a step that all informed analysts (and anyone with a functioning brain in their head) agree is a necessary one for a settlement of any kind to become a meaningful prospect.
These ‘peace talks’ are pure theatre, a political distraction from the reality on the ground – a reality that continues to changed, actively and deliberately, by an Israel intent on making the occupation an irreversible ‘fact’. The point is this: you and I may be fooled by the diplomatic niceties and vigorous handshakes, but those Palestinians who daily experience Israel’s continuing efforts to expand and entrench its control over the occupied territories will not. They’re not that stupid.
Cross-posted at The Heathlander