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 hemoraging "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.