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 the security forces nor others were in imminent danger,
resulting in unlawful killings," Amnesty International concluded in a detailed
report that was scarcely mentioned in the US. The ratio of Palestinian to
Israeli dead was then about 15-1, reflecting the resources of force available.
Barak's plan was not given in detail, but the outlines are familiar: they
conform to the "final status map" presented by the US-Israel as the basis for
the Camp David negotiations that collapsed in July. This plan, extending
US-Israeli rejectionist proposals of earlier years, called for cantonization of
the territories that Israel had conquered in 1967, with mechanisms to ensure
that usable 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 analogue. In the
West Bank, a northern canton is to include Nablus and other Palestinian cities,
a central canton is based in Ramallah, and a southern canton in Bethlehem;
Jericho is to remain isolated. Palestinians would be effectively cut off from
Jerusalem, the center of Palestinian life. Similar arrangements are likely in
Gaza, with Israel keeping the southern coastal region and a small settlement at
Netzarim (the site of many of the recent atrocities), which is hardly more than
an excuse for a large military presence and roads splitting the Strip below Gaza
City. These proposals formalize the vast settlement and construction programs
that Israel has been conducting, thanks to munificent US aid, with increasing
energy since the US was able to implement its version of the "peace process"
after the Gulf war.
For
more on the negotiations and their background, see my July 25 commentary; and
for further background, the commentary by Alex and Stephen Shalom, Oct. 10.
The
goal of the negotiations was to secure official PA adherence to this project.
Two months after they collapsed, the current phase of violence began. Tensions,
always high, were raised when the Barak government authorized a visit by Ariel
Sharon with 1000 police to the Muslim religious sites (Al-Aqsa) on a Thursday
(Sept. 28). Sharon is the very symbol of Israeli state terror and aggression,
with a rich record of atrocities going back to 1953. Sharon's announced purpose
was to demonstrate "Jewish sovereignty" over the al-Aqsa compound, but as the
veteran correspondent Graham Usher points out, the "al-Aqsa intifada," as
Palestinians call it, was not initiated by Sharon's visit; rather, by the
massive and intimidating police and military presence that Barak introduced the
following day, the day of prayers. Predictably, that led to clashes as thousands
of people streamed out of the mosque, leaving 7 Palestinians dead and 200
wounded. Whatever Barak's purpose, there could hardly have been a more efficient
way to set the stage for the shocking atrocities of the following weeks.
The
same can be said about the failed negotiations, which focused on Jerusalem, a
condition observed strictly by US commentary. Possibly Israeli sociologist
Baruch Kimmerling was exaggerating when he wrote that a solution to this problem
"could have been reached in five minutes," but he is right to say that "by any
diplomatic logic [it] should have been the easiest issue to solve (Ha'aretz,
Oct. 4). It is understandable that Clinton-Barak should want to suppress what
they are doing in the occupied territories, which is far more important. Why did
Arafat agree? Perhaps because he recognizes that the leadership of the Arab
states regard the Palestinians as a nuisance, and have little problem with the
Bantustan-style settlement, but cannot overlook administration of the religious
sites, fearing the reaction of their own populations. Nothing could be better
calculated to set off a confrontation with religious overtones, the most ominous
kind, as centuries of experience reveal.
The
primary innovation of Barak's new plan is that the US-Israeli demands are to be
imposed by direct force instead of coercive diplomacy, and in a harsher form, to
punish the victims who refused to concede politely. The outlines are in basic
accord with policies established informally in 1968 (the Allon Plan), and
variants that have been proposed since by both political groupings (the Sharon
Plan, the Labor government plans, and others). It is important to recall that
the policies have not only been proposed, but implemented, with the support of
the US. 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 takes a little work to discover
the essential facts. They are not controversial, only evaded.
As
noted, Barak's plan is a particularly harsh version of familiar US-Israeli
rejectionism. It calls for terminating electricity, water, telecommunications,
and other services that are doled out in meager rations to the Palestinian
population, who are now under virtual siege. It should be recalled that
independent development was ruthlessly barred by the military regime from 1967,
leaving the people in destitution and dependency, a process that has worsened
considerably during the US-run "Oslo process." One reason is the "closures"
regularly instituted, must brutally by the more dovish Labor-based governments.
As discussed by another outstanding journalist, Amira Hass, this policy was
initiated by the Rabin government "years before Hamas had planned suicide
attacks, [and] has been perfected over the years, especially since the
establishment of the Palestinian National Authority." An efficient mechanism of
strangulation and control, closure has been accompanied by the importation of an
essential commodity to replace the cheap and exploited Palestinian labor on
which much of the economy relies: hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants
from around the world, many of them victims of the "neoliberal reforms" of the
recent years of "globalization." Surviving in misery and without rights, they
are regularly described as a virtual slave labor force in the Israeli press. The
current Barak proposal is to extend this program, reducing still further the
prospects even for mere survival for the Palestinians.
A
major barrier to the program is the opposition of the Israeli business
community, which relies on a captive Palestinian market for some $2.5 billion in
annual exports, and has "forged links with Palestinian security officials" and
Arafat's "economic adviser, enabling them to carve out monopolies with official
PA consent" (Financial Times, Oct. 22; also NYT, same day). They have also hoped
to set up industrial zones in the territories, transferring pollution and
exploiting a cheap labor force in maquiladora-style installations owned by
Israeli enterprises and the Palestinian elite, who are enriching themselves in
the time-honored fashion.
Barak's new proposals appear to be more of a warning than a plan, though they
are a natural extension of what has come before. Insofar as they are
implemented, they would extend the project of "invisible transfer" that has been
underway for many years, and that makes more sense than outright "ethnic
cleansing" (as we call the process when carried out by official enemies). People
compelled to abandon hope and offered no opportunities for meaningful existence
will drift elsewhere, if they have any chance to do so. The plans, which have
roots in traditional goals of the Zionist movement from its origins (across the
ideological spectrum), were articulated in internal discussion by Israeli
government Arabists in 1948 while outright ethnic cleansing was underway: their
expectation was that the refugees "would be crushed" and "die," while "most of
them would turn into human dust and the waste of society, and join the most
impoverished classes in the Arab countries." Current plans, whether imposed by
coercive diplomacy or outright force, have similar goals. They are not
unrealistic if they can rely on the world-dominant power and its intellectual
classes.
The
current situation is described accurately by Amira Hass, in Israel's most
prestigious daily (Ha'aretz, Oct. 18). Seven years after the Declaration of
Principles in September 1993 -- which foretold this outcome for anyone who chose
to see -- "Israel has security and administrative control" of most of the West
Bank and 20% of the Gaza Strip. It has been able "to double the number of
settlers in 10 years, to enlarge the settlements, to continue its discriminatory
policy of cutting back water quotas for three million Palestinians, to prevent
Palestinian development in most of the area of the West Bank, and to seal an
entire nation into restricted areas, imprisoned in a network of bypass roads
meant for Jews only. During these days of strict internal restriction of
movement in the West Bank, one can see how carefully each road was planned: So
that 200,000 Jews have freedom of movement, about three million Palestinians are
locked into their Bantustans until they submit to Israeli demands. The bloodbath
that has been going on for three weeks is the natural outcome of seven years of
lying and deception, just as the first Intifada was the natural outcome of
direct Israeli occupation."
The
settlement and construction programs continue, with US support, whoever may be
in office. On August 18, Ha'aretz noted that two governments -- Rabin and Barak
-- had declared that settlement was "frozen," in accord with the dovish image
preferred in the US and by much of the Israeli left. They made use of the
"freezing" to intensify settlement, including economic inducements for the
secular population, automatic grants for ultra-religious settlers, and other
devices, which can be carried out with little protest while "the lesser of two
evils" happens to be making the decisions, a pattern hardly unfamiliar
elsewhere. "There is freezing and there is reality," the report observes
caustically. The reality is that settlement in the occupied territories has
grown over four times as fast as in Israeli population centers, continuing --
perhaps accelerating -- under Barak. Settlement brings with it large
infrastructure projects designed to integrate much of the region within Israel,
while leaving Palestinians isolated, apart from "Palestinian roads" that are
travelled at one's peril.
Another journalist with an outstanding record, Danny Rubinstein, points out that
"readers of the Palestinian papers get the impression (and rightly so) that
activity in the settlements never stops. Israeli is constantly building,
expanding and reinforcing the Jewish settlements in the West Bank and Gaza.
Israel is always grabbing homes and lands in areas beyond the 1967 lines - and
of course, this is all at the expense of the Palestinians, in order to limit
them, push them into a corner and then out. In other words, the goal is to
eventually dispossess them of their homeland and their capital, Jerusalem"
(Ha'aretz, October 23).
Readers of the Israeli press, Rubinstein continues, are largely shielded from
the unwelcome facts, though not entirely so. In the US, it is far more important
for the population to be kept in ignorance, for obvious reasons: the economic
and military programs rely crucially on US support, which is domestically
unpopular and would be far more so if its purposes were known.
To
illustrate, on October 3, after a week of bitter fighting and killing, the
defense correspondent of Ha'aretz reported "the largest purchase of military
helicopters by the Israeli Air Force in a decade," an agreement with the US to
provide Israel with 35 Blackhawk military helicopters and spare parts at a cost
of $525 million, along with jet fuel, following the purchase shortly before of
patrol aircraft and Apache attack helicopters. These are "the newest and most
advanced multi-mission attack helicopters in the US inventory," the Jerusalem
Post adds. It would be unfair to say that those providing the gifts cannot
discover the fact. In a database search, David Peterson found that they were
reported in the Raleigh (North Carolina) press.
The
sale of military helicopters was condemned by Amnesty International (Oct. 19),
because these "US-supplied helicopters have been used to violate the human
rights of Palestinians and Arab Israelis during the recent conflict in the
region." Surely that was anticipated, barring advanced cretinism.
Israel has been condemned internationally (the US abstaining) for "excessive use
of force," in a "disproportionate reaction" to Palestinian violence. That
includes even rare condemnations by the ICRC, specifically, for attacks on at
least 18 Red Cross ambulances (NYT, Oct 4). Israel's response is that it is
being unfairly singled out for criticism. The response is entirely accurate.
Israel is employing official US doctrine, known here as "the Powell doctrine,"
though it is of far more ancient vintage, tracing back centuries: Use massive
force in response to any perceived threat. Official Israeli doctrine allows "the
full use of weapons against anyone who endangers lives and especially at anyone
who shoots at our forces or at Israelis" (Israeli military legal adviser Daniel
Reisner, FT, Oct. 6). Full use of force by a modern army includes tanks,
helicopter gunships, sharpshooters aiming at civilians (often children), etc. US
weapons sales "do not carry a stipulation that the weapons can't be used against
civilians," a Pentagon official said; he "acknowleged however that anti-tank
missiles and attack helicopters are not traditionally considered tools for crowd
control" -- except by those powerful enough to get away with it, under the
protective wings of the reigning superpower. "We cannot second-guess an Israeli
commander who calls in a Cobra (helicopter) gunship because his troops are under
attack," another US official said (Deutsche Presse-Agentur, October 3).
Accordingly, such killing machines must be provided in an unceasing flow.
It
is not surprising that a US client state should adopt standard US military
doctrine, which has left a toll too awesome to record, including very recent
years. The US and Israel are, of course, not alone in adopting this doctrine,
and it is sometimes even condemned: namely, when adopted by enemies targeted for
destruction. A recent example is the response of Serbia when its territory (as
the US insists it is) was attacked by Albanian-based guerrillas, killing Serb
police and civilians and abducting civilians (including Albanians) with the
openly-announced intent of eliciting a "disproportionate response" that would
arouse Western indignation, then NATO military attack. Very rich documentation
from US, NATO, and other Western sources is now available, most of it produced
in an effort to justify the bombing. Assuming these sources to be credible, we
find that the Serbian response -- while doubtless "disproportionate" and
criminal, as alleged -- does not compare with the standard resort to the same
doctrine by the US and its clients, Israel included.
In
the mainstream British press, we can at last read that "If Palestinians were
black, Israel would now be a pariah state subject to economic sanctions led by
the United States [which is not accurate, unfortunately]. Its development and
settlement of the West Bank would be seen as a system of apartheid, in which the
indigenous population was allowed to live in a tiny fraction of its own country,
in self-administered `bantustans', with `whites' monopolising the supply of
water and electricity. And just as the black population was allowed into South
Africa's white areas in disgracefully under-resourced townships, so Israel's
treatment of Israeli Arabs - flagrantly discriminating against them in housing
and education spending - would be recognised as scandalous too" (Observer,
Guardian, Oct. 15).
Such
conclusions will come as no surprise to those whose vision has not been
constrained by the doctrinal blinders imposed for many years. It remains a major
task to remove them in the most important country. That is a prerequisite to any
constructive reaction to the mounting chaos and destruction, terrible enough
before our eyes, and with long-term implications that are not pleasant to
contemplate.
By Noam Chomsky
