Info 26 from Israel

["Jonatan Peled" <peled_j at maabarot.org.il>]

Info 26

From the burning Middle East...

Dear Friends !

Everybody speak about cease fire - and the fire is keeping on. Hard to
believe that the Palestinians will stop shooting, as long as the main
reason for outbreak of the present Intifada continues.
In this "Info" I mean to mention two issues:

1 - Settlers
2 - Territorial suggestions of Israel to the Palestinians

Settlements are expanded day by day, provocations of the settlers become
more and more violent. Actually they dictate the national schedule for the
State of Israel. Unfortunately there is nothing new about this: for the
last 30 years they violate the law, they entangle the Israeli authorities
in unwanted and harmful actions that create immeasurable harm to our
country and our society. No government had the will or the courage to
challenge them. Hard to believe the standard of tolerance of the Israeli
authorities toward the most brutal mischieves of these people.
Actually all along the years there were politicians that supported them:
some openly, most of them behind the scene. Most of them did it for short
term advantages, but this monster gained more and more power - and now a
small core of about 10.000 fanatics control the mass of the 200.000 Jewish
settlers who live in Palestinian territories - and they may determine the
future of Israel.
There is nothing new in lack of will or power in the State to enforce its
authority on extreme nationalist forces. Italy of the last century's early
20-th, or Germany of the end of that decade are warning examples, of what
may happen, when vigilantes are allowed by he State to do whatever they
want, without any restraint.

As an illustration I suggest you to read a report of CPT (Christian
Peacemakers Team) observers' team in Hebron - about the daily events in
that divided town: http://friendvill3.homestead.com/1414CPT230601.html

The Israeli readiness to give the Palestinians "95% of the West Bank and
Gaza-strip" is mentioned many times, as a generous proposal, that was
rejected by the Palestinians - and so they "uncovered they real face' as
people who never really wanted peace and compromise.

In the following document you can find graphical illustration, how this
proposal looked like.
http://friendshipvillage.homestead.com/BaraksGenerous.html

In addition to the clear facts, I have to mentione the comment of a
Palestinian to that proposal. He said: "Prisoners in the prison occupy 95%
of the space and the guards only 5%, but still it is a prison..."

The following article concerns with this issue:

Just when we were about to give them so much

By Gideon Levy mailto:levy at haaretz.co.il
Haaretz 17 June 2001


So how did it happen that just when we were about to give the Palestinians
so much, the new Intifada broke out? How is it that precisely after they
received from Ehud Barak the most far-reaching offer ever made by an
Israeli prime minister they turned to violence?

The standard, and mistaken, Israeli answer is that the reason is simple:
The Palestinians don't want peace, or they are not ripe for peace. By
citing this reply, the Israelis make things easy for themselves and absolve
themselves of responsibility for what happened. And the remnants of the
left exempt themselves from their commitment. The truth is that Israel
bears not a little responsibility for the eruption of the present cycle of
violence, no less in fact than that borne by the Palestinians. Israel did
indeed make the "most generous offer" to the Palestinians, but it was not
enough to achieve a just solution, and what preceded it was too much for
the Palestinians too swallow.

Reminder: For the three years of Benjamin Netanyahu's government, Israel
evaded implementing the majority of its commitments under the 1993
Declaration of Principles. There was no second redeployment, no release of
prisoners as agreed, no "safe passage" route, no Palestinian airport or
seaport, while on the other hand there were more and more settlements. The
spirit of Oslo ceased and was replaced by an evil spirit of despair and
disappointment on the Palestinian side. From their point of view, there
seemed to be no true partner for peace.

Netanyahu's successor, in 1999, did not alleviate their situation. Barak
took pride in declaring that he did not give the Palestinians even one
centimeter of land, not even Abu Dis, adjacent to Jerusalem, which even the
Knesset agreed to forgo - a rather strange display of pride for a
peacemaker. Indeed, Barak began by embarking on the Syrian track, and only
after it proved to be blocked did he swerve onto the other track and seek a
permanent agreement with the Palestinians.

An expert in dismantling watches but inept as putting them back together,
Barak put forward proposals that most Israelis considered daring, but which
could not be acceptable to a Palestinian leader who is going to sign a
declaration of the end of the conflict and the end of Palestinian claims.
Are we talking about 96 percent of the territory?

Salim Shawamreh, a driver from the village of Anabta, whose house was
demolished by Israel three times, probably described the characteristics of
the generous Israeli proposal better than any statesman: In jail, too, 96
percent of the territory is in the hands of the prisoners, Shawamreh said
of the demolition of his home, and the warders have only 4 percent, but
it's there that the fences and the watchtowers are located.

That was what the Israeli proposal resembled in Palestinian eyes - a
Palestinian state with tight Israeli control over the gateways: split into
small sections by blocs of settlements that would preclude a normal way of
life and free movement. And on top of that came the lack of a serious
Israeli effort to solve the refugee problem and an unwillingness to
recognize Israeli responsibility - albeit not exclusive responsibility -
for the refugees' fate.

After the Palestinians agreed to their major historic concession at Oslo -
recognition of the fact that most of the territory that was once their
country would remain in Israel's hands - one truly generous and unavoidable
offer was needed: the return of all the territories occupied since 1967,
perhaps in a territorial trade-off. Barak did not make any such offer to
the Palestinians. When he came to his senses at Taba, a few days before the
elections, it was already too late. Afterward, Barak's foreign minister,
Shlomo Ben-Ami, related that the sides were very close to an agreement at
Taba; and Yossi Beilin reported tremendous progress even on the subject of
the refugees' right of return. But it was all far too late.

Not that the Palestinians didn't make mistakes. Their mistakes are too many
to bear, beginning with a lack of sensitivity for the issue of personal
security in Israel. And not that the Americans didn't make mistakes.
Ben-Ami says the president was not authoritative and aggressive enough,
particularly toward the Palestinians. At the same time, underlying the
negotiations were two basic Israeli approaches, which remained totally
unchanged in the 34 years of the occupation: a concept of lordship and
inequality with respect to the Palestinians, and the assessment that we are
in a zero-sum game, in which every gain made by the Palestinians comes at
Israel's expense.

In a comprehensive article, which will soon be published in the United
States, Dr. Ron Pundak, one of the architects of the Oslo process, also
reaches the conclusion that the major obstacles, even if not all of them,
that blocked an agreement derived from Israeli policy. His article seeks to
refute the thesis that the Oslo process collapsed and failed; and at the
same time it refutes the new position taken by the Israeli left, namely
that the right wing is correct in its conclusion that Israel has no partner
for peace. Pundak finds that there is a Palestinian partner and that it is
important to say so precisely now, and that Israel only needs to be aware
of the limits of the Palestinians' maneuverability.

At the time Barak made his take-it-or-leave-it offer, the occupation
continued as usual. The closure went on, land was expropriated, prisoners -
heroes in the eyes of their people - remained incarcerated in Israeli jail
cells, settlements were expanded. During the 18 months of the Barak
government, the number of settlers increased by 12 percent. Barak also
shied away, as from fire, from any unnecessary contact with Yasser Arafat -
yet another bizarre decision, which weakened the Palestinian leader. The
Palestinians' economic situation deteriorated, their humiliation was
intensified. This entire course of events could only end in disaster, as it
did.