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REAL REALITIES OF THE DECEPTIVE "PEACE PROCESS"
"Barak runs
the country like a banana republic... The
office is
run in an underground, unplanned nature...
You can't
run a country by checking the polls every
night and
then acting according to them… Barak works
alone, runs
everything himself. Nothing gets decided,
nothing happens.
Everyone around him is in despair…
He is surrounded
by ministers who don't really want
him to succeed...
Barak has five press advisors, each
one for something
else. By the time he gets to the third
one, he is
mixed up. This hurts his sharpness, his
concentration,
his ability to get things done." 18 Aug
Shimon Batat,
Assistant Head of The Office of Prime Minister
(resigned this week)
MID-EAST REALITIES - www.MiddleEast.Org - Washington - 8/18/00:
Ehud Barak, like Yitzhak Rabin before him, has been given a mythical "peace" identity -- it's the classic "Good Cop/Bad Cop" ploy and so many otherwise sophisticated people and media follow like lemmings.
The reality is quite different. Both Generals Rabin and Barak spent their lives vanquishing and killing the Palestinians, as has their friend General Ariel Sharon, now head of Israel's Likud party. The main difference with Sharon, other than style and girth, is a strategem that with Israel now so strong and with the political stars now so favorably configured, a "final peace" on Israel's terms can possibly be arranged with Yasser Arafat. Conclusion: whatever pressures, bribes, and threats are needed should be used to press Arafat and company to legitimize Israel's designs -- and to do so urgently while he is still available on the world political stage to do the deed.
And the myths of the "peace process" are also many; the very term "peace process" itself so deceptively seductive. Indeed, to understand what is really happening today, and why the Israelis and their American ally are so desperate to get Arafat's signature even at what seems to many (erroneously) a high price, it's necessary to better understand the "Good Cops" in this complicated equation.
The following column by Professor Tanya Reinhart, originally published by MER on 3/14/97, exposes some of the myths of the Israeli "left" and their supposedly "Peace Now" minions. Rabin was no martyr for peace, Netanyahu was not really that much different than his predecessor, Barak is but a continuation of Rabin and his complicated strategy to "break the bones of the Palestinians through other means", and Yasser Arafat is either being taken to the cleaners (repeatedly!) or serving in the role of 'collaborator' -- to use Professor Edward Said's bold term.
Meanwhile, the "peace process" itself is certainly not what the Israelis, their American patrons, and the weak co-opted Arab "client regimes" want the world to believe it to be. It is a "domination process", a new Pax Americana/Pax Israelica, whose implications for the future of the Middle East are ominous, especially so as the counterforces that have been unleashed and which require ever-more repression are being fueled by the lies and deceptions.
================
MER FlashBack:
"IT TAKES AT LEAST 30 THOUSAND PALESTINIAN 'POLICEMEN'
AND A SPY IN EVERY HOUSE TO SUPPRESS THE PALESTINIAN
STRUGGLE.... IN ISRAEL, WE CONFISCATE AND EXPEL ALL
IN THE NAME OF 'PEACE'"
Professor Tanya Reinhart*
* Tonya Reinhart teaches linguistics at Tel Aviv
University and is
on the Advisory Board of THE COMMITTEE ON THE MIDDLE
EAST. This
article is translated from Hebrew and based on
a column written
by the author for the Israeli daily "Yediot Ahronot"
on 3/10/97.
Looking at the columns of the liberal media in Israel,
one cannot avoid the conclusion that nothing has changed: Again we have
a government committed to peace, working ("even against its will") to carry
out the vision of Oslo, despite the objections of the right wing, and with
the support of Labor and left.
It is fully agreed that Netanyahu is building new settlements
and pushing the Palestinians out of the center of the West Bank, only as
an unavoidable token of compensation to the right-wing, for the drastic
steps Netanyahu has taken in the peace process. "Netanyahu has never wanted
to build in Har-Homa, but was forced to do that" says Deddi Zucker of the
left-wing Meretz, in his vote-of-nonconfidence speech in the parliament.
This is precisely what they said also about Rabin, in whose time the Har-Homa
plan was conceived and approved (in May 1995). Because in Israel, we confiscate,
expel and settle only for the sake of peace.
In September 96, it appeared that Netanyahu will not
be able to control the territories, and to keep portraying the occupation
as the road to peace. The match was his acts on the tunnel beneath the
Aqsa Mosque, and the occupied territories seemed on the verge of a new
Palestinian uprising.
A wave of anger at Israel and solidarity with the struggle
of the Palestinians swept the world. The Israeli doves were seriously worried.
But in a few days, Arafat has managed to crash the uprising and Netanyahu
proved that his control of Arafat and the territories is just as solid
as that of Rabin and Peres. Now it was possible to turn to the nuisance
of Hebron, which Israel has been planning for about two years - to transfer
the police job to Arafat's security forces, and thus release Israeli soldiers
for other missions. Since Israel wanted this, anyway, Arafat could
present it as a courageous demand in return for his cooperation, and, thus,
market himself as a winner.
The "crisis" was over. "The peace process has won". The
Gulf companies returned to business with Israel, and the Israeli doves
realized that Netanyahu can do the job of keeping things quiet as well
as Peres. With a slight sigh, the peace-camp placed itself behind Netanyahu:
The government is corrupt, but the peace process goes on! The Palestinian
state is a sure fact to come, so we can move away from this topic now!
This is the common theme in the columns of the doves.
But compared to 'Har-Homa', the Aqsa tunnel is a marginal
issue of a symbolic nature. The tunnel can be easily closed again, if the
Palestinians ever get any rights over Jerusalem. But the new settlement
is an irreversible act which eliminates their chances to ever get such
rights.
Although in the Israeli maps, the whole center of the
West Bank is defined as Jerusalem, Jabel Abu R'neim-the Palestinian land
on which Har-Homa is to be built - is the land reserves of the Beit-Lehem
region, and much of the land was confiscated from Beit-Saxur owners. (Other
parts of this land were appropriated over the years by Israeli business
speculants, like David Mir, who took advantage of the owners fleeing away.
The government paid Mir the modest sum of 60 million dollars for his share
of the land, a transaction which is being called, mysteriously, 'confiscation'.[1])
Building in this new area is not just one more new settlement
(disguised as a new neighborhood of Jerusalem). This is the only unsettled
stretch of land between the south of the West-bank and the Palestinian
neighborhoods of Jerusalem - the only area where it was possible, in principle,
to keep a territorial link between them. If it is built now, then the south
is completely separated from Jerusalem with a thick belt of Jewish residence.
This is the final link in the plan prepared by the Rabin government to
dissociate Jerusalem and the center of the West bank, from its south. Once
this happens, the Palestinians loose access to the center, and whether
they will be allowed to visit Jerusalem in the future, will depend solely
on Israel's mercy.
This is a serious matter. That's why the previous government
did not hurry to carry out its plan. Before Israel starts building, it
is necessary to guarantee that Arafat's headquarters can indeed control
the territories, and crash any uprising, since Israel cannot do that without
Arafat. It takes at least 30 thousand 'policemen' and a spy in every house
to oppress the Palestinians struggle for independence. The Israeli army
just does not have the 30 thousand soldiers needed to replace, daily, Arafat's
policemen. To make sure that Arafat can indeed do that, one has to supply
him, along with the usual threats and pressures, also with another fictitious
victory. This is where Clinton enters the picture.
While the Palestinian opposition organizations demand
that Arafat stops negotiation with Israel as long as it keeps expanding
settlements, the Chief was brought to Washington. The headlines declared:
"USA denounces the decision to build Har-Homa!" But what does the body
of the text say? [2]. What Clinton told Israel was "I would have preferred
that this decision was not taken". As for Arafat, Clinton clarified that
"USA cannot prevent Israel from building in Har-Homa". On the other hand,
the USA "will look gravely at any violent uprising that could risk the
peace process". In other words, it is permitted to deplore, and even carry
some protest-rituals against Israel's acts, but it is forbidden to do anything
that may threaten to stop them. As always in the language of power, it
is the victim who is accused of 'violence'.
In return for his cooperation, Chief Arafat was given
honors: dinner with Allbright, interviews, and a bunch of nice words like
"half recognition of a state". For Arafat, this is enough. He agreed, as
expected. He will keep his promise even after the USA vetoed the security-council
decision to denounce Israel. When it will be clear that his security services
are ready to deliver what he promised, Israel will start building. The
peace-camp will continue to tell us that all, in fact, is fine. Why should
we bother to think of what we are doing to the Palestinians? Why should
we think of what would happen when, one day, Arafat and his secret services
will be called to pay for their deeds?.
===
(1) Ziv Maor, "Har-Homa -- much politics and no less
money", Haaretz, 23 Feb 1997.
(2) Haaretz, 4 March 1997.
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