Editorial
Stabroek News
May 23, 2001

We have got used to the daily violence in the Gaza Strip, the West Bank and Israel. On good days people only get hurt, sometimes seriously. On bad days some people, usually innocent civilians, usually Palestinian, lose their lives. Last week Friday was different.

A Palestinian suicide bomber killed five innocent Israeli civilians and injured scores more, a dastardly act. Predictably, Israel struck back with what the UN Secretary General called disproportionate force. The Israelis had used before tanks and helicopter gunships, this time they used US built F-l6 fighter bombers, the first time such war planes had been seen in action in a Middle East conflict for 30 years.

This was escalation to the level of war. Accordingly, TV viewers were treated to the slightly pathetic figure of Colin Powell calling for an immediate cease fire. Powell who a few months earlier had stated on the assumption of office that he intended to give priority not to the Arab-Israeli conflict but to Iraq.

The prevailing framework of analysis of this situation which we get from the Western media is that the bloodshed must stop so that talks can resume in the peace process which would in due course yield to the Palestinians driblets of land over which they have "autonomy". However, the Palestinians now involved in the struggle, including the suicide bombers, came for the most part from the three generations who have lived in the refugee camps. They have little use for Yasser Arafat, they don't want a resumption of the Peace Process and so-called Land for Peace. That was why Arafat could not accept at Camp David the seemingly generous offer of former Israeli Prime Minister Barak. Had Arafat accepted he knew that he would have been removed in one way or another.

The situation is no longer that of an intifada or uprising. The Palestinian objective is to drive Israel out of their lands. They have been encouraged by the example of the Hizbullah who drove the Israeli army out of the security zone which it had occupied for two decades in Lebanon. Moreover, they feel that they have international law on their side. The UN position is that these lands are occupied lands from which the occupants must in due course withdraw. The lands are not disputed territory subject to negotiation.

The background to this now salient dimension in the struggle lies in the realities on the ground. The seeming autonomy and control over land which has been yielded to the Palestinians by the Israelis as a result of the Oslo Peace Process is a huge deception. The territory is honey-combed by Jewish settlements under continuous guard by the Israeli army and these settlements are being steadily expanded. Moreover the lands are criss-crossed by a network of roads, which the Israelis claim are to connect the settlements but on which Palestinians are not permitted to travel except occasionally by permit. The airport in Gaza is subject to closure at the will of the Israelis. The Israelis collect taxes due in the Palestinian lands which they hand over when they wish to the Palestinian authority at irregular intervals.

An analogy might drive home this point. It is as if the British at the time of independence had retained control of key roads and kept for themselves several enclaves, for example the sugar plantations, over which the Union Jack continued to fly and which were guarded by the British army. And for good measure had retained control of the airport.

Such Israeli control and penetration has led to demoralisation and despair among the Palestinians. There is continuing massive unemployment, little new investment, deepening poverty and no freedom of movement. That is why the Palestinians now engaged in the conflict do not want a resumption of the peace process.

It is a seemingly unequal struggle but not altogether so. It is true that ninety per cent or more of the persons killed are Palestinians but there are balancing factors. The Jewish settlers are beginning to leave the settlements. It takes two Israeli soldiers to provide security for one settler, an unbearable level of expenditure. Then there are the discontents in the Israeli army. The UK Guardian has reported that one recent estimate is that 2,500 Israeli soldiers have refused to serve since the Palestinian struggle began last September.

In the longer term there is the demographic trend. The Palestinian birthrate is more than twice that of the Israelis. Time is not on the Israeli side.

In view of their commitments to Israel and the Peace Process it is unlikely that the US or the European Union States can take the initiatives to end the escalating conflict as such moves are based on assumptions which are no longer acceptable to the Palestinians namely the Oslo Peace Process and (bits of) Land for Peace.

Despite the reported initiative by Syria and Jordan, the Arab states with their own fragile state structures are unlikely to take necessary action namely at the level of United Nations, perhaps the only setting for a fresh start. Arafat is an old man and even if not removed might soon leave the scene.

It is therefore unlikely that even if it were possible to restart the Peace Process the Palestinians will discontinue the struggle.

So we can expect more killings and destruction and suffering. And all this is happening in the lands where three of the world's great religions began, each of which insists on brotherly love as the only basis for human society.