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