April/May 1994, Page 12

Seven Views: Reassessing Declaration of Principles of Peace in Light of the Hebron Massacre

Signs of Another Israeli Deceit

By Paul Findley

Must the Palestinians give up all hope of East Jerusalem as the capital of the independent state they dream will someday come into being? In supporting the accord negotiated at Oslo and signed at the White House on Sept. 13 by PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, have Palestinians fallen into a trap that gives Israel the time needed to complete its total Jewish encirclement of Jerusalem and its cantonization of Palestinians in the occupied territories?

In articles in The Nation magazine published in New York and Al-Hayat Arabic newspaper, Columbia University Professor Edward E. Said, a prominent Palestinian commentator, raises these troubling questions. Dismissed by some as a chronic nay-sayer, Said writes an impressive and discouraging critique of PLO maneuvering and concludes that Palestinians should thank Arafat for his past services but demand that he resign so that new leadership can take over.

Observers need not accept Said's conclusions and recommendations in thanking the professor for putting on the record grim facts that must be recognized and considered, as Rabin maneuvers the peace process. Nor must observers rely mainly on Said as a source of facts.

The Washington Post recently published an article by David Hoffman, one of its Jerusalem correspondents. Headlined, accurately, "Israel constructing a Jewish cordon around Jerusalem, " it gives credence to the headline by providing chapter and verse sources.

Under the terms of the Arafat-Rabin accord, the "final status" of Jerusalem will not be subject to any formal discussion until three years after Israel begins to withdraw troops from Gaza and the Jericho region. The accord timetable specified that the Israeli withdrawal would begin in mid December, but at this writing withdrawal has not yet begun. Even when the three year clock begins to run, there is no forecast as to when settlement of the "final status" of Jerusalem will occur. Cynics believe it has already occurred and dismiss any possibility that Israel will agree to share the city with Palestinian authority.

Arafat periodically makes declarations that Jerusalem-meaning East Jerusalem will one day be the capital of the new Palestine and announces his intention ultimately to pray at the city's great Islamic monument, Al-Aqsa mosque. These statements serve to keep a dream alive and deflect criticism that he made a bad deal in Norway.

"Facts on the ground," however, are sobering. Although Rabin has slowed the construction of some settlements in the occupied territories that he classifies as "political," the building of so-called I I security" settlements continues at a rapid rate.

Maale Adurnim is a settlement of 20,000 people located on a hilltop near Jerusalem. It is established on land Israel captured in the 1967 war and is considered by Palestinians as a part of the occupied territories, and therefore subject to negotiations, to say the least. Its Jewish inhabitants have a different view. To them, Maale Adumim is a part of Jerusalem and the boom in construction that the settlement is experiencing is evidence that Jerusalem is expanding. The settlement stretches over a 14,000-meter area. Its border comes within a quarter-mile of Jerusalem's city limits.

"There is no final decision that Maale Adumim should be a part of Israel, but the fact that the government is investing hundreds of millions of Israeli shekels in roads and infrastructure shows that the policy is, in the end, to make it a legal part of Israel," Maale Adumim's mayor states.

He told a reporter that Rabin had confided: "Why make Maale Adumim an international issue? Let's put facts in Maale Adumim, so when talks begin about the final settlement we will have 30,000 to 40,000 residents, so no one will talk about evacuation. " Already the residents of the settlements commute on a new highway that avoids Arab villages.

Elsewhere, the government is building a $40 million road and tunnel complex that will let Israeli settlers bypass Bethlehem and other Arab centers in commuting daily to Jerusalem. The complex will substantially advance Israel toward the goal of fragmenting and isolating the Palestinian Population.

Maale Adumim is only part of an expansion program. The Israeli government has declared large areas near Jerusalem as "nature preserves." This, according to Palestinian critics, will prevent Arab construction there and reserve the areas for future Israeli settlements.

Hoffman writes: "The precise definition of what territory will be included in a final settlement remains far from clear, and the disputed city remains in the throes of a complex tug-of-war for hegemony. The weapons are sewer lines and roads, neighborhoods and fences; the opposing forces, two populations claiming the same land."

Israel, of course, controls all the weapons. For 25 years, Palestinians have been sharply restricted on any construction. Permits to dig wells, build homes or business structures, or establish or improve roads have been almost impossible to secure. Israeli settlers, on the other hand, have had no difficulty gaining permits.

Jerusalem's boundaries were enlarged after the 1967 war to include East Jerusalem. It subsequently was annexed to West Jerusalem, and Jewish expansion into the east began at a rapid pace. Recently, the Jewish population in East Jerusalem exceeded the Arab population.

The continuing expansion of Jerusalem into Arab territory is effectively surrounding the city, including East Jerusalem with two rings of Israeli settlements. While these have not formally been annexed to Jerusalem, they complicate, to say the least, PLO ambitions to establish any part of East Jerusalem as a Palestinian capital in years to come.

Rabin's Labor Party has the enthusiastic support of its Likud opposition in the program to encircle Jerusalem with Israeli settlements. Nor is there any objection from the United States government, Israel's chief benefactor. President Bill Clinton's administration is more subservient to Israeli demands than any of its predecessors, including the administration of President Ronald Reagan.

Israeli settlement construction seems destined to go far beyond the encirclement of Jerusalem. It will create a nearly unbroken chain from Jerusalem to Jericho on the Jordanian border and effectively establish a barrier between Palestinians living north and south of the chain.

Professor Said forecasts an even greater fragmentation of Palestinians: "Already the whole of the West Bank and Gaza has been divided into 10 or 11 cantons by some 57 road barriers," he writes. "Rabin's government is proceeding with a $600 million road system for the occupied territories.

It is to be controlled by Israel and will connect the settlements to one another, to Jerusalem and to Israel, bypassing Arab areas and completing the territories' cantonization.

"Meanwhile, land confiscation continues at a stunning pace. More than 9,000 acres in the West Bank were forcibly taken and declared Israeli military zones in December alone."

In calling for Arafat's ouster, Said declares: "There is no such thing as partial independence or limited autonomy. Without political independence there is neither sovereignty nor real freedom, and certainly not equality with an Israeli Jewish state that destroyed Palestine in 1948 and is not anxious to give it another chance in 1994. "

Former Congressman Paul Findley is chairman of the Council for the National Interest.