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Palestine: the end of their dreams
Recent events in the Palestinian occupied territories present a bleak outlook for the Middle Eastern peace process, and an even bleaker one for the the lives of poverty stricken Palestinians. Nick Dearden, Global Justice campaigner at War on Want, takes an in depth look at the current situation in the first part of a two part feature.
“The Palestinians understand that this plan is to a large extent the end of their dreams, a very heavy blow to them... In the unilateral plan, there is no Palestinian state.”
These words, uttered by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon just a week before obtaining Washington’s backing for his ‘disengagement’ plan, suggest that there is more to his proposals than the “historic and courageous actions” hailed by George W Bush or the welcome “opportunity” Tony Blair describes it. Incredibly Bush and Blair, in their White House press conference, claimed not to have heard Sharon’s comments – broadcast on the front page of every Israeli newspaper only the previous week. But they cannot claim to be unaware of the reality of the disengagement: the creation of an over-populated prison in the Gaza Strip to mirror the prison being created by the West Bank Wall, where the fear is that the impoverished Palestinian population, their humanitarian aid suspended and the leaders facing coordinated assassination campaigns, will turn to ever more extreme means to resist their desperate situation.
Despite defeat by his own party – who have no more interest in Palestinian welfare than Sharon, but perhaps a less sophisticated way of achieving their ends – Ariel Sharon’s disengagement plan pushes on. It will exacerbate poverty in Palestine and in so doing fuel the seemingly endless downward spiral of violence in which almost everyone loses.
The Palestinians are suffering, in the words of the UN Relief and Works Agency, the “effect of a terrible natural disaster”, but one that has been created by people and politics. A manmade catastrophe where a power imbalance, maintained and exaggerated by Western governments lies at the heart of mass impoverishment and dehumanisation of an entire people. Palestine is a microcosm of everything going on in the world today. One Palestinian partner of War on Want wrote that we have an “inner feeling that we are a expendable people”, a feeling replicated by millions across the developing world living in a global system of Apartheid where birthplace and race dictates whether you live with adequate means of survival or in conditions of modern slavery.
‘The biggest prison in the world’
At first glance Sharon’s plan to disengage settlements and military presence from the Gaza Strip and from four settlements in the West Bank appears to be a step towards meeting the requirements laid down by countless UN resolutions: that Israel must unconditionally end its occupation of all lands taken in 1967 (including all of the Gaza Strip and West Bank). It enabled Sharon to claim in Washington that he “came to you from a peace-seeking country”. But you don’t need to scratch too hard at the surface to realise that Sharon’s own comments on disengagement to Israeli newspapers (that it is a “heavy blow” to the Palestinians) is nearer the mark.
What the disengagement plan does is to “get rid of the people, i.e. to create a situation where Israel has minimum responsibility for the people living in Gaza while continuing to control entry, exit, the sea and airspace” as the BADIL Resource Center in Bethlehem puts it. In effect, Israel will maintain control of the Gaza Strip – which will be allowed no foreign policy, international trade, armed forces or government in any meaningful sense, and will be surrounded by Israeli troops, who reserve the right to intervene if ‘security’ dictates. Meanwhile Israel disinvests itself of responsibility for the 1.3 million Palestinians living on the most densely populated piece of land in the world. In these circumstances living standards can only get worse, if that is possible, as Palestinians are left to rot in Gaza, or what President Arafat now terms the “big prison”.
British MP Richard Burden sums up the plan: “The West Bank and Gaza are both illegally occupied by Israel... It is simply not acceptable for Ariel Sharon to dictate to the world which parts he is prepared to quit and which parts he wants to incorporate into Israel”. Bush takes a different view. As a reward for Sharon’s “bold and courageous” action, the US has torn up international law. Apart from violating his own Road Map principles by endorsing a non-negotiated settlement, Bush stated more clearly than any previous US President that Palestinian refugees will not be able to return to the homes they were forced from when Israel was created. This violates the clauses of the Geneva Conventions and UN Resolution 194, and leaves 4 million Palestinian refugees, many in neighbouring countries, angry and hopeless.
More surprising, Bush endorses the retention of many of the illegal West Bank settlements, that is to say continuing Israeli occupation of some Palestinian land in perpetuity. It leaves large chunks of Israeli land inside Palestine and makes a properly functioning Palestinian state impossible, quite apart from flying in the face of all UN resolutions passed on this issue to date. The Israeli government, in the days following Sharon’s trip to Washington, have stated they will invest tens of millions of dollars in the remaining illegal settlements.
Little wonder that earlier this week 52 former British ambassadors and senior diplomats wrote a critical letter to Tony Blair, who appears to have broadly endorsed Sharon’s plan as an “opportunity” towards the Road Map. The letter accuses Blair of “abandoning the principles which for nearly four decades have guided international efforts to restore peace in the Holy Land” by seemingly endorsing Sharon’s “one-sided and illegal” action. It is unprecedented in modern British history for senior civil servants, former or not, to so openly criticise government policy and is a sign of the seriousness of the disengagement plan and the effects it will have on hope for peace.
Richard Burden MP spoke for the fears of many when he said he believed that Bush’s endorsement had “single-handedly boosted the credibility of extremists on both sides and given a new impetus to the cycle of violence”. The very same week as Bush’s endorsement, Israel assassinated Hamas leader Abdul Aziz Al Rantissi, only a month after the assassination of his predecessor Sheik Yassin. Scores of other civilians were killed in Gaza in the weeks following both murders, almost totally unreported, as Israeli forces killing ordinary Palestinians is hardly news. Not only will disengagement do nothing to end the violence, it also risks spreading it right across the Middle East. Little wonder when the international community seems to reward violence so highly.
Next week: How the Israeli government's palestine policy has literally bulldozed chances of Palestinian development
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