The flaws of the Oslo
Accords
"The United States has been
a terrible 'sponsor' of the peace process. It has succumbed
to Israeli pressure on everything, abandoning the principle
of land for peace (no U.N. Resolution says anything about returning
a tiny percentage, as opposed to all of the land Israel seized
in 1967), pushing the lifeless Palestinian leadership into
deeper and deeper holes to suit Netanyahu's preposterous demands.
"The fact is that Palestinians
are dramatically worse off than they were before the Oslo process
began. Their annual income is less than half of what it was
in 1992; they are unable to travel from place to place; more
of their land has been taken than ever before; more settlements
exist; and Jerusalem is practically lost...
"Every house demolishment,
every expropriated dunum, every arrest and torture, every barricade,
every closure, every gesture of arrogance and intended humiliation
simply revives the past and reenacts Israel's offenses against
the Palestinian spirit, land, body politic. To speak about
peace in such a context is to try to reconcile the irreconcilable."Edward
Said in "The Progressive", March 1998
The roots of Intifada
2000
"The explosion of Palestinian
anger last September 29 put an end to the charade begun at
Oslo seven years ago and labelled the 'peace process.' In 1993
Palestinians, along with millions of people around the world,
were led to hope that Israel would withdraw from the West Bank
and Gaza within five years and that Palestinians would then
be free to establish an independent state. Meanwhile both sides
would work out details of Israel's withdrawal and come to an
agreement on the status of Jerusalem, the future of Israeli
settlements, and the return of Palestinian refugees.
"Because of the lopsided
balance of power, negotiations went nowhere and the Palestinians'
hopes were never fulfilled. The Israelis, regardless of which
government was in power, quibbled over wording, demanded revisions
of what had previously been agreed to, then refused to abide
by the new agreements. Meanwhile successive governments were
demolishing Palestinian homes, taking over Arab neighborhoods
in East Jerusalem for Jewish housing, and seizing Palestinian
land for new settlements. A massive new highway network built
after 1993 on confiscated Palestinian land isolates Palestinian
towns and villages from one another and from Jerusalem, forcing
many Palestinians to go through Israeli checkpoints just to
get to the next town...
"According to President Clinton
and most of the media, Prime Minister Ehud Barak conceded at
Camp David virtually everything the Palestinians wanted, and
Yasser Arafat threw away the opportunity for peace by rejecting
Barak's offer. In fact Arafat could not accept it. Barak, backed
by Clinton, wanted assurance of Israel's continued strategic
control over the West Bank and Gaza, including air space and
borders, and insisted that Israel retain permanent sovereignty
over most of East Jerusalem, including Haram Al-Sharif. This
was a deal no Arab would accept.
"As the protests grew, army
helicopters rocketed neighborhoods in several Palestinian cities,
destroying entire city blocks and causing scores of casualties.
Israeli tanks surrounded Palestinian towns with their guns
turned toward the town. Armed Israeli civilians within the
Green Line rampaged through Arab neighborhoods destroying Arab
property and shouting "Death of Arabs'...Israeli police
who were quick to use bullets against Palestinian stone throwers
failed to restrain the Israelis and instead fired at Arabs
trying to defend their homes. Two Arabs were killed.
"The uprising was undoubtedly
fueled by the resentment caused by years of daily abuse and
humiliation under Israeli occupation. On September 6, a group
of Israeli border police stopped three Palestinian workers
as they were returning home from Israel and, for no reason
at all, subjected them to 40 minutes of torture. The San
Francisco Chronicle reported on September 19 that the policemen
punched the three men, slammed their heads against a stone
wall, forced them to swallow their own blood, and cursed their
mothers and sisters. The incident only came to light because
the policemen took photographs of themselves with their victims,
holding their heads by the hair like hunting trophies. Israeli
human rights workers said such beatings are a common occurance,
but they are seldom reported." Rachelle Marshall, "The
Peace Process Ends in Protests and Blood", Washington
Report on Middle East Affairs, December 2000.
"Israel has failed the test"
"In the Oslo Agreements,
Israel and the West put Palestinian leadership to a test: In
exchange for an Israeli promise to gradually dismantle the
mechanisms of the occupation in the West Bank and the Gaza
Strip, the Palestinian leadership promised to stop every act
of violence and terror immediately. For that purpose, all the
apparatus for security coordination was created, more and more
Palestinian jails were built, and demonstrators were barred
from approaching the [Jewish] settlements.
"The two sides agreed on
a period of five years for completion of the new deployment
and the negotiations on a final agreement. The Palestinian
leadership agreed again and again to extend its trial period...From
their perspective, Israel was also put to a test: Was Israel
really giving up its attitude of superiority and domination,
built up in order to keep the Palestinian people under its
control?
"More than seven years have
gone by and Israel has security and administrative control
of 61.2% of the West Bank and about 20% of the Gaza Strip and
security control over another 26.8% of the West Bank. This
control is what has enabled Israel to double the number of
settlers in 10 years...and to seal an entire nation into restricted
areas, imprisoned in a network of bypass roads meant for Jews
only...
"Israel has failed the test.
Palestinians control of 12% of the West Bank does not mean
that Israel has given up its attitude of superiority and domination...The
bloodbath that has been going on for three weeks is the natural
outcome of seven years of [Israeli] lying and deception." Israeli
journalist Amira Hass, "Israel Has Failed The Test," in
Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz, 10/18/00.
Jimmy Carter's simple statement
of the facts—November 2000
"An underlying reason that
years of U.S. diplomacy have failed and violence in the Middle
East persists is that some Israeli leaders continue to 'create
facts' by building settlements in occupied territory...
"At Camp David in September
1978...the bilateral provisions led to a comprehensive and
lasting treaty between Egypt and Israel, made possible at the
last minute by Israel's agreement to remove its settlers from
the Sinai. But similar constraints concerning the status of
the West Bank and Gaza have not been honored, and have led
to continuing confrontation and violence...
"[Concerning UN Resolution
242] Our government's legal commitment to support this well-balanced
resolution has not changed...It was clear that Israeli settlements
in the occupied territories were a direct violation of this
agreement and were, according to the long-stated American position,
both 'illegal and an obstacle to peace.' Accordingly, Prime
Minister Begin pledged that there would be no establishment
of new settlements until after the final peace negotiations
were completed. But later, under Likud pressure, he declined
to honor this commitment...
"It is unlikely that real
progress can be made...as long as Israel insists on its settlement
policy, illegal under international laws that are supported
by the United States and all other nations.
"There are many questions
as we contine to seek an end to violence in the Middle East,
but there is no way to escape the vital one: Land or peace?" Former
President Jimmy Carter in The Washington Post, November 26,
2000.
Oslo and Intifada 2000 - continued
"After three weeks of virtual
war in the Israeli occupied territories, Prime Minister Ehud
Barak announced a new plan to determine the final status of
the region. During these weeks, over 100 Palestinians were
killed, including 30 children, often by 'excessive use of lethal
force in circumstances in which neither the lives of security
forces nor others were in immminent danger, resulting in unlawful
killings,' Amnesty International concluded in a detailed report
that was scarcely mentioned in the US.
"Barak's plan...ensure(s)
that useable land and resources (primarily water) remain largely
in Israeli hands while the population is administered by a
corrupt and brutal Palestinian Authority (PA), playing the
role traditionally assigned to indigenous collaborators under
the several varieties of imperial rule: the Black leadership
of South Africa's Bantustans, to mention only the most obvious
analagoue...
"It is important to recall
that the policies have not only been proposed, but implemented,
with the support of the U.S. That support has been decisive
since 1971, when Washington abandoned the basic diplomatic
framework that it had initiated (UN Security Council Resolution
242), then pursued its unilateral rejection of Palestinian
rights in the years that followed, culminating in the 'Oslo
process.' Since all of this has been effectively vetoed from
history in the US., it takles a little work to discover the
essential facts. They are not controversial, only evaded," Noam
Chomsky, "Al-Aqsa Intifada", October 2000, on Znet,
www.lbbs.org/meastwatch.
America—An impartial mediator?
"America's credibility as
mediator had long been questioned by Palestinians, and with
reason. 'The Palestinians always complain that we know the
details of every proposal from the Americans before they do,'
one Israeli government source told The Independent recently.
'There's good reason for that: we write them.'" Phil
Reeves in "The Independent" (U.K.), 10/9/2000
Lockstep U.S. Media tell (some
of) the facts but not the truth
"Rarely do American journalists
explore the ample reasons to believe that the United States
is part of the oft-decried cycle of violence. Nor, in the first
half of October, was there much media analysis of the fact
that the violence overwhelmingly struck at the Palestinian
people.
"Within a period of days,
several dozen Palestinians were killed by heavily armed men
in uniform—often described by CNN and other news outlets
as 'Israeli security forces'. Under the circumstances, it's
a notably benign-sounding term for an army that shoots down
protestors.
"As for the rock-throwing
Palestinians, I have never seen or heard a single American
news account describing them as 'pro democracy demonstrators.'
Yet that would be an appropriate way to refer to people who—after
more than three decades of living under occupation—are in the
streets to demand self determination.
"While Israeli soldiers and
police, with their vastly superior firepower, do most of the
killing...American news stories highlighted the specious ultimatums
issued by Prime Minister Ehud Barak as he demanded that Palestinians
end the violence—while uniformed Israelis under his authority
continue to kill them...
"Like quite a few other Jewish
Americans, I'm apalled by what Israel is doing with U.S. Tax
dollars. Meanwhile, as journalists go along to get along, they
diminish the humanity of us all." Norman Solomon, "Media
Spin Remains In Sync With Israeli Occupation," from FAIR's
Media Beat, October 14, 2000.
Intifada 2000—An overview
"There is, in the final analysis,
only one way to 'stop the violence,' and that is to end the
occupation. The desire for liberation will, eventually, always
bring an occupied people out into the streets, stones in hand,
ready to face the might of powerful armies, preferring to risk
death than live in bondage. This is not extreme nation.0 racism
or religious fervor. It is the need to be free...
"[Occupation] means a reality
of unending violence. It means being surrounded by an abusive
foreign army that enforces a social system indistinguishable
from apartheid; confiscations of land that is then given to
hundreds of thousands of Israeli settlers in Jewish-only communities
linked by Jewish only roads; home demolitions; torture; cities
cut off from each other, closed down on a regular basis. It
means living in a massive prison...
"Since 1967, there has been
only one workable solution to the conflict. The plan is articulated
in U.N. Security Council Resolution 242, which sets up a two-part
'land for peace' solution. Part one holds that Israel must
withdraw from the territories occupied in 1967. Part two calls
for all states in the region to live in peace and security
in those borders. The Israeli obligation, withdrawal from the
occupied territories, is utterly unfulfilled." Hussein
Ibish, communications director of the American-Arab Anti Discrimination
Committee, in the Los Angeles Times, October 18, 2000.
Albright stands the facts on their
heads
"With the same deadpan, expressionless,
emotionless, glazed look, Madam Albright repeated: 'Those Palestinian
rock throwers have placed Israel undeer siege,' adding that
the Israeli army is defending itself...[But] It is Israel that
is the belligerent occupant of Palestine (and not the other
way around) Israeli tanks and armored vehicles are surrounding
Palestinian villages, camps and cities (and not the other way
around). Israeli (American-made) Apache gunships are firing
Lau and other missiles at Palestinian protestors and homes
(and not the other way around). It is Israel that is confiscating
Palestinian land and importing Jewish settlers to set up illegal
armed settlements in the heart of Palestinian territory (and
not the other way around). The settlers on the rampage in the
West Bank and Israelis terrorizing Palestinians in their own
homes (and not the other way around)...Israel is committing
atrocities against the Palestinians with total impunity, and
yet you maintain, 'Israel is beseiged.'" Hanan Ashrawi,
in "The Progressive", December 2000
What Arafat was offered
"In American coverage of
the recent Camp David meetings, the American press obediently
followed the Israeli and US government spin that while Israeli
Prime Minister Ehud Barak made courageous concessions for peace,
Palestinian unwillingness to compromise caused the meeting
to fail.
"Never mind that Barak's
'courageous concessions' consisted of allowing the Palestinians
to have joint administrative responsibility over a couple of
remote Arab neighborhoods of Arab East Jerusalem—pathetic
crumbs tossed on the floor which Arafat was expected to gratefully
pick up." American Jewish reporter, Eduardo Cohen,
from "What Americans Need to Know—But Probably Won't
Be Told—To understand Palestinian Rage" from Palestine
Media Watch, www.pmwatch.org
What Arafat was offered - continued
"Barak appears to be asking
for only 10% of the occupied territories. In reality, it's
closer to 30%, taking into account the territories he wants
to annex in the Jerusalem area and place under his "security
control" in the Jordan Valley. But even worse, in the
map submitted to the Palestinians, these percentage points
cut the country up from East to West and from North to South,
so that the Palestinian state will consist of groups of islands,
each surrounded by Israeli settlers and soldiers.
"World opinion is always
on the side of the underdog. In this fight, we are Goliath
and they are David. In the eyes of the world [outside the US],
the Palestinians are fighting a war of liberation against a
foreign occupation. We are in their territory, not they on
ours. We are the occupiers, they are the victims. This is the
objective situation, and no minister of propaganda can change
that." Israeli peace activist. Uri Avnery, "12
Conventional Lies About the Palestine-Israeli Conflict" from
Palestine Media Watch, www.pmwatch.org.
An Israeli's "Open Letter
to a Friend In Peace Now"
"It has been seven years
exactly since I wrote my last letter to you. It was the day
after the signing of the Oslo Accords, when you invited me
to dance with you in Menorah Square...Permit me to quote for
you a few passages from that old letter.
"'You danced in the square
because you were happy about this peace. Not just plain peace,
but a blend of peace,security, Palestinian chest-beating over
sins committed (renunciation of terrorism), and far-reaching
concessions by the other side. A peace that you can be proud
of. A peace—so you boast—for which we are giving nothing
("Just a tiny bit," whispers the prime minister)
and gaining much; recognition, greater security, a halt to
the Intifada, renunciation of terrorism, being relieved of
the Arabs and more. You are happy about this peace, and in
its honor you invite me to dance with you. No thank you...You
got rid of Gaza, you separated Israelis from Palestinians,
you gave them the dirty work and you didn't even promise withdrawal
or a real state. Could peace possibly be bought more cheaply?"
"'I, by contrast, see peace
as an end and not merely as a means, and call for getting out
of the Occupied Territories because we have nothing to be there
for, even if the occupation did not cost us even one victim
or one cent; and I am against shooting children—and adults—simply
because it is forbidden to shoot children or ordionary civilians.'
"Since the writing of these
lines you celebrated the peace and you became fat and prosperous.
The repeated and varied violations of the agreements did not
move you, not to speak of any change in our culture of war
and occupation, the arrogant tone of those negotiating in our
name and their attempts to demand more and more in exchange
for less and less...
"What is there to be confused
about? A conquering army is using tanks and helicopter gunships
to disperse demonstrations. What is so hard to understand here?...There
is an occupation and there is a struggle against the occupation.
There are demonstrators and there is an army that has received
orders to shed their blood. And don't come to me with the story
of the rifles, Your glorious war record qualifies you to understand
that even CNN reporters understand, that those rifles do not
endanger either Israel or the soldiers if they don't get too
close...
"[From 1993 letter]"peace
is a tango that takes two equal partners dancing in unity;
it is not a dance of one who drags around his partner at will...In
your dance of peace you have no partners, only enemies. For
your peace is his occupation, your success is his loss...Peace
is still far away because peace demands honesty, because peace
demands equality. You want to force them to lie, you want of
them a peace of surrender, you are celebrating a peace of master
and slave. Under such conditions there will perhaps be peace-and-quiet,
but Peace, no. Not until you open your eyes and your heart.
Not until we are ready for a peace of partnership and equality." Michael
(Mikado) Warschawski, "The Party Is Over: An Open Letter
to a Friend In Peace Now,", from Znet, www.lbbs.org/ZNETTOPnoanimation.html
"Barak promised peace and
brought war, and not by accident."
"(Barak) promised peace and
brought war, and not by accident. While speaking about peace,
he enlarged the settlements. Cut the Palestinian territories
into pieces by 'by-pass' roads. Confiscated lands. Demolished
homes. Uprooted trees. Paralyzed the Palestinian economy...Conducted
negotiations in which he tried to dictate to the Palestinians
a peace that amounts to capitulation. Was not satisfied with
the fact that by accepting the Green Line, the Palestinians
had already given up 78% of their historic homeland. Demanded
the annexation of 'settlement blocs" and pretended that
they amount only to 3% of the territory, while in fact he meant
more than 20% would remain under Israeli control. Wanted to
coerce the Palestinians to accept a 'state' cut off from all
its neighbors and composed of several enclaves isolated from
each other, each surrounded by Israeli settlers and soldiers...Boasts
publicly that he has not given back to the Palestinians one
inch of territory...When the intifada broke out, sent snipers
to shoot, in cold blood from a distance, hundreds of unarmed
demonstrators, adults and children. Blockaded each village
and town separately, bringing them to the verge of starvation,
in order to get them to surrender. Bombarded neighborhoods.
Started a policy of mafia-style 'liquidations', causing an
inevitable escalation of the violence." Israeli peace
activist, Uri Avnery, February 3, 2001, www.gush-shalom.org
A 'benign' occupation?
"Israelis like to believe,
and tell the world, that they are running an 'enlightened'
or 'benign' occupation, qualitatively different from other
military occupations the world has seen. The truth was radically
different. Like all occupations, Israel's was founded on brute
force, repression and fear, collaboration and treachery, beatings
and torture chambers, and daily intimidation, humiliation and
manipulation." Israeli historian, Benny Morris, "Righteous
Victims."
What "closure" means
"Just an hour's drive from
Jerusalem, a cruel drama has been underway for the past five
months, the likes of which have not been seen since the early
days of the Israeli occupation, but the majority of Israelis
are taking absolutely no interest in it. The iron grip of the
closure in its new format is increasingly strangling a population
of 2.8 million people, yet no one is saying a word...
"It has to be said starkly
and simply: There has never been a closure like this there,
in the land of barriers and closure. In the worst of times
of the previous Intifada, when the iDF was in eveÄr and curfew
reigned supreme, there was not a situation in which a whole
people was jailed without a trial and without the right of
appeal.
"Israel has split the West
Bank by means of hundreds of trenches, dirt ramparts and concrete
cubes which have been placed at the entrance to most of the
towns and villages. No one enters and no one leaves, not those
who are pregnant and not those who are dying. There isn't even
a soldier with whom one can plead and beg. A network of bizarre
Burma roads that break through the encirclement are sending
an entire people along muddy, rocky routes, with the situation
aggravated by a substantial risk of getting caught or getting
shot by soldiers who often open fire on the desperate travelers...
"Never before has there been
distress and suffering on this scale among the Palestinians
in the territories. They will engender unprecendented despair
and ultimately they will spark violence more cruel and painful
than anything seen so far...This is the point: the horrific
distress of the Palestinians because of the present closure
will quickly turn into the distress of the Israelis...The
current siege, a shamefully appalling operation, must be lifted
quickly. This must not be made conditional on the cessation
of the violence, because the siege itself is the most effective
spur to violence." Israeli writer, Gideon Levy, in Ha
aretz, March 4, 2001
