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by Jeff Halper
Media Monitors Network
6/25/07
For all the attention and hysteria the latest events in Gaza have
generated since the Hamas “takeover,” for Israel they represent nothing
but a minor blip in its inexorable drive towards its own unilateral
“solution:” apartheid. Israel’s end-game, explicit and unruffled by the
recent turmoil on the ground, is clear. It is laid out in detail in the
Convergence Plan” Olmert presented to a joint session of the American
Congress in May, 2006, based on Sharon’s plan of “cantonization.” With
minor adjustments, it constitutes the plan Israel’s Foreign Minister
Tzipi Livni is quietly advancing with the help of Condoleezza Rice, and
it is accepted in its entirety by Ehud Barak, the newly-elected leader
of the Labor Party, who played a key role in its formulation. The
Israeli plan for apartheid is as follows:
(1) Creating a truncated Palestinian “state” comprised of four
disconnected cantons, three in the West Bank and Gaza. By annexing its
major settlement blocs defined by the Wall, Israel thereby expands onto
85% of the country, leaving the Palestinians confined to impoverished
enclaves on the remaining 15% of the land. In such a “two-state
solution” Israel would control the borders, external and internal
Palestinian movement, the “Greater” Jerusalem area, all the water
resources, the air space, the communications sphere and even the
Palestinian state’s foreign policy. Such a Bantustan would have no
genuine sovereignty or viable economy – but would have to accept all the
traumatized and impoverished Palestinian refugees.
(2) If this fails, primarily because Israel cannot find the quisling
Palestinian leader who would sign off on a Bantustan, Plan B – the Livni-Rice
plan – calls for the unilateral declaration by the US of a “provisional”
Palestinian state with no fixed borders, no meaningful sovereignty and
no viable economy, squeezed between the Wall, Israel’s eastern
“demographic” border incorporating the settlement blocs, and the Jordan
Valley, Israel’s eastern “security” border. The Palestinians would thus
be left in the limbo of a “provisional” state indefinitely – or until
they agree to a Bantustan – all in conformity to the parameters of the
“Road Map.”
Period. Regardless of the “peace initiative” of the moment – the Road
Map, the Saudi initiative, the summit at Sharm el-sheikh, the
appointment of a Middle East envoy – all these plans will have to
conform to one of these alternatives or be doomed to irrelevance.
What happens in Gaza, then (tellingly nicknamed “Hamastan,” the
Palestinian cantons of the West Bank now dubbed “Fatahland”), is
therefore irrelevant to Israel, since Gaza represents nothing more than
a tiny part of the tiny Palestinian Bantustan (about 8%). Whether Gaza
would have been “quieted” after the Israeli disengagement as Sharon had
planned, exporting cheap labor into Israel and perhaps enjoying limited
economic growth, whether it was merely isolated and impoverished due to
US and Israeli sanctions after the Hamas election victory or whether, as
happened, it explodes, nothing will hamper Israel’s ceaseless process of
consolidating its hold on the West Bank. Sooner or later, in the
Israeli-American plan, Gaza will fall into place.
Not only are the Palestinians irrelevant, in Israel’s view, but the
Hamas “takeover” is actually a positive development, since it furthers
the apartheid process. A key reason why Palestinians voted for Hamas was
the perception that it would resist pressures to accept a Bantustan
better than the weak, vacillating Fatah movement, which was seen as
little more than Israel’s policeman in the Territories. Israel, the US
and a complicit Europe is thus seen as trying to isolate precisely those
who truly resist the Occupation while “strengthening” Abbas and the
“moderates” – “moderate” defined as those willing to pacify the
Palestinians without securing their fundamental right to a sovereign and
viable state of their own. The American-sponsored program of arming
Fatah against its own people, complete with “lending” them an American
general (Dayton), only confirms these suspicions, especially if they
make Abbas dependent upon outside forces for his survival.
Israel and the US are doing in microcosm in Palestine what the US is
doing throughout the Muslim world, forcing the Palestinians to choose
between two unacceptable options: either the prospects of an apartheid
regime which is all the “moderates” can deliver or continued resistance
to occupation and apartheid under Hamas at the price of international
isolation and an unwanted process of Islamization. Where are the true
liberators who can deliver a viable Palestinian state while recognizing
– though standing up to – Israel? Where are the progressive leaders who
represent the wishes of the overwhelming majority of the Palestinian
people? Where are the “strong” leaders that Bush claims are lacking on
the Palestinian side? Either dead, the victims of a 30-year campaign on
the part of Israel to eliminate any effective Palestinian leader, or
languishing in refugee camps or in exile, or in prison. If Marwan
Bargouti and the prisoners of all the factions who produced the
Prisoners’ Document, the only viable peace plan that has any chance of
success, were free and allowed to lead their people, the
Israel/Palestine conflict could be resolved tomorrow.
What is lacking, of course, is good faith. The will among governments to
stand up for Palestinian rights and against Israeli apartheid is totally
lacking. The Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz (21.6.07) noted the cynicism
underlying the recent Olmert-Bush meeting. “Olmert reached an
understanding with…Bush during his visit to Washington that it is
necessary to support Abbas,” a senior political source in Jerusalem
said. “The decision to aid Abbas was made despite skepticism about his
chances for success, in view of past experience. Olmert and Bush agreed
they must not allow the impression that Abbas failed because Israel or
the U.S. failed him.”
Israel is not going to bolster Abbas – unless he becomes the
collaborator Israel is looking for, which he won’t. Olmert has already
announced that there will be no final status negotiations in the
foreseeable future. So neither the Saudi Inititative nor the Sharm
meeting will lead to genuine negotiations. The US, with its moribund
Road Map, will not facilitate the establishment of a viable Palestinian
state and Europe will not act independently to do so, even in its own
interest. The Palestinians, for their part, are powerless to achieve a
viable state on their own and will continue to be beaten and blamed for
their own incarceration and resistance.
Our governments have failed us. Unless we, the people worldwide, can
mobilize grassroots opposition to the Israeli-US-European Occupation, a
new apartheid regime,in the Holy Land no less, will soon emerge before
our very eyes. Its only when the people lead that our “leaders” will
even contemplate doing the right thing.
Jeff Halper is the Coordinator of the Israeli Committee Against House
Demolitions (ICAHD).
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