Sat, 04 Oct., 1997:
M I D - E A S T R E A L I T I E S - LIE of the Week
"ANYONE WHO TELLS YOU WE ARE LEAVING HEBRON
IS TELLING YOU A LIE. WE ARE THERE AND WE
WILL BE THERE FOREVER".
Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu
12/29/96
"ARAFAT WAS SCREAMING. IF YOU WANT TO
CONTROL AL-IBRAHIMI MOSQUE, TAKE THE
MOSQUE, TAKE EVERYTHING! TAKE HEBRON!
I DON'T WANT IT! YOU DON'T WANT AN
AGREEMENT ON HEBRON! YOU DON'T WANT
TO AGREE ON ANYTHING!"
Yasser Arafat to Netanyahu
12/24/96
The public negotiations belie the realities. Of the very meeting where Arafat screamed at Netanyahu a few days ago (and twice got up to run away), American negotiator Dennis Ross said, "It was a very positive meeting," and Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said, "The atmosphere was very productive"!
The
Americans have insisted that some kind of an agreement, any agreement be
made. Keeping the imagery of working diligently for "peace" alive
-- however fragile, however distorted, however unjust --
is
paramount for Washington in its role as regional strongman protecting its
vital interests in cheap oil and obedient client-regimes. What is
now happening in Hebron will serve as a temporary band-aid for the badly
hemorrhaging "peace process"; but major surgery is needed and that's not
in the cards for the new year.
The
reality is that Hebron is but one more in the series of disguised Palestinian
surrenders that now so divide Palestinian territories from each other that
Palestinians are much more disenfranchised now (from all but the small
central areas of about a dozen cities) then they were before the "peace
process" began. The Israelis will "redeploy", not withdraw.
The Palestinian "police" will patrol Palestinian areas with
Israeli
supplied and registered guns and identity papers. But all around
Hebron the Israeli check-points and tanks will control all comings and
goings. In a very real tragic sense, Hebron prison is now
being
legitimized and the great majority of Hebronites will be confined inside
it.
Arafat
will of course declare victory and chant his simplistic slogans.
On Christmas eve there he was at the birthplace of Jesus crying out "Help
Us, Help Us, Help Us"! But having agreed to Palestinian
reservations
and an approaching pseudo-state led by pseudo-leaders with pseudo-authority,
the die is cast for conflict long into the future in the new apartheid-style
"peace".
Having
build this pseudo and deceptive "peace", sadly, much violence and destruction
probably lies ahead.