Palestinians’ Anger at PA, U.S. and Israel Continues to Grow Following Bush Visit

By Jesse Rosenfeld


	Rijad Arbak’s grocery store in Nablus, which the Israeli army has destroyed seven times, most recently during an incursion in early January. (Photo Jesse Rosenfeld).

THE RESPONSE BY Palestinian residents to President George W. Bush’s Jan. 9 arrival in the occupied territories for his first ever official visit ranged from complete skepticism to indignation and outrage. However, their resentment over Bush’s talks in Ramallah with Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas was barely evident, as PA security forces attacked and dispersed anti-Bush protests in the West Bank.

It was facts on the ground, moreover, not ideology, that fueled protesters’ anger. According to the Palestinian Monitoring Group, a subset of the PLO’s Negotiation Affairs Department, in the first 16 days of 2008 Israeli forces killed 55 Palestinians in the occupied territories, wounded 233 and detained 273.

Despite the Nov. 27 Annapolis peace conference, construction of illegal Israeli settlements has continued unabated. Indeed, within days of Bush’s departure a new outpost was being constructed just outside the settlement of Modiin Illit near the Palestinian town of Bil’in. Despite the American president’s comments in his Jan. 9 joint press conference with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert that settlement “outposts, yeah, they ought to go,” the U.S. president has basically remained silent on settlement expansion as well as on Israeli attacks in and on the occupied territories, condemning only the violence of the Palestinian resistance. As a result, many Palestinians believe that Israel’s largest supplier of weapons and dollars is aiding the state in expanding its occupation. This is, in fact, one of the few Palestinian beliefs shared by Israeli settlers.

During a visit to both the Har Homa and Ma’ale Adumim settlements under the pretext of looking for an apartment in the areas currently under construction, this reporter was assured by settlers that construction would continue—even if temporarily halted—and that Washington will defend that expansion. One religious settler from Har Homa (Abu Ghneim), outside Bethlehem, walking with four children under the age of 8, was so confident in U.S. loyalty that she placed the blame for a possible expansion freeze solely on the Olmert government’s shoulders. “I don’t believe it’s the U.S. forcing us to stop building,” she said, “it’s Olmert asking [Washington] to put pressure on construction so he has a reason to stop.”

Nor is it only settlement expansion that contributes to lack of faith in Annapolis among West Bank Palestinians. Many say they have seen only an escalation in Israeli attacks and land confiscations since the summit. “Before Annapolis the Israelis would come once a week,” said a shop owner in the Jenin Refugee Camp on the first day of Bush’s visit. “Now they come every night.”

Asking to remain anonymous for fear of Israeli army reprisal, he said that during military raids soldiers drive around the camp in jeeps with a list of wanted people, stopping residents at random to see if they are on the list. “The army basically hunts people,” he explained. Only the day before a suspected Islamic Jihad resistance fighter was killed in the camp. According to residents, he was executed, shot in the back after he had been cuffed and blindfolded.

Given the growing gulf between the Annapolis road map rhetoric of Israel, the PA and the U.S. and the reality on the ground, many West Bank Palestinians attempt to maintain a business-as-usual approach in the face of escalating violence. Visiting Nablus’s Old City on Jan. 6—the day after Israeli troops pulled back from their three-day incursion which wounded 40 people—the market was bustling as residents cleaned up rubble and repaired the damage.

Nablus residents have become almost accustomed to Israeli incursions and curfews. “Of course I’ll rebuild my store again, life should continue,” said Rijad Arbak in front of the spot in the Old City where his grocery store had stood three days before. More than half the street’s shops and kiosks were destroyed during the incursion and, according to Arbak, this was the seventh time the Israeli army has destroyed his shop.

Despite the semblance of normalcy and feeling of compete exhaustion among many Palestinians, there is increasing anger at Israel, Washington and Ramallah. Fury is increasingly directed at the PA, its leaders commonly being called collaborators for their silencing of dissent and willingness to continue with negotiations, as the lives of Palestinians deteriorate. This sentiment was only exacerbated by the PA’s use of hundreds of security forces against 300 anti-Bush protesters during President Bush’s visit to Ramallah. In an effort to prevent the march from reaching the city center, police beat demonstrators with clubs, used pepper spray, destroyed anti-war and anti-occupation signs, and arrested 25 people. Some journalists taking photos of the beatings and arrests were themselves attacked by police and had their cameras confiscated, or were arrested. PA security forces then redirected traffic through the demonstration in an effort to disperse protesters.

“The PA is sending the message to the Palestinian people that they are against freedom of expression. They don’t want the world to see anyone who isn’t greeting Bush hello,” said Khalida Jarrar, a Palestinian Legislative councilor for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), part of a coalition of left-leaning political parties and social movements that called the demonstration.

“Stop the Wall Campaign” coordinator Jamal Juma, who was in the front lines of the demonstration, expressed anger at the PA’s actions, accusing it of betraying the Palestinian people. “This is totally outrageous, it’s unacceptable and not Palestinian” he charged. “It’s unfortunate that we see the PA collaborating with Israel and the U.S. It’s separating itself from the people and sending the message that the PA is the enemy of their people.”

The perception of the PA as a collaborator with Israel has only increased on West Bank streets since Bush’s departure—and is reinforced every time Bush heaps praise upon Abbas as a partner for peace. With Hamas officially using the “c-word” to describe the PA’s response to Israeli violence, Ramallah has been forced to demonstrate a willingness to stand up to Israeli attacks, even if only by a few moderately crafted phrases. Although the Abbas regime describing the 19 people killed and 45 injured during Israel’s Jan. 15 raid on Gaza as “a massacre about which Palestinians will not remain silent,” PA security forces in Ramallah quietly dispersed demonstrations protesting the killings on the first day of a three-day national general strike called in protest of the raid by Hamas in Gaza. By the second day of the strike, it was back to business as usual in the West Bank, as further demonstrations continued to be quickly swept off the streets.

As conditions in the occupied territories continue to worsen, with Israel once again closing Gaza’s borders to fuel and aid following more rocket attacks, anger at the United States, Israel and the PA is gaining increased popular support. Despite the anger and disillusionment that drove the PA stronghold of Ramallah to participate out of national solidarity in a Hamas-called strike, it remains to be seen if West Bank Palestinians will overcome their exhaustion and the strong support Ramallah receives from the U.S. and Israel.

Jesse Rosenfeld is a freelance journalist based in Ramallah. He has written for Now Magazine, This Magazine and the Montreal Mirror.