http://www.lbbs.org/zmag/articles/mar95niva.htm
From the pages of March 1995 Z-magazine
Peace at Palestinian Expense
By Steve Niva and Simona Sharoni
Despite the official appearance of peace between Israelis and
Palestinians following the Israel-PLO Accords in September
1993, continued Israeli repression of Palestinians and increased
settlement construction and land confiscation in the Occupied
West Bank and Gaza have meant that Palestinians have seen
little change for the better in their daily lives. The revival
of grassroots Palestinian resistance to the illegal
settlements and land confiscation, sparked by confrontations
south of Bethlehem in Al-Khadar, has refocused attention on
the central issues obscured in the euphoria following the famous
handshake between Yitzhak Rabin and Yassir Arafat. Since
Israel has already illegally confiscated over 50 percent of
the West Bank and 45 percent of Gaza Strip for settlements,
its recent actions indicate it has no intention of allowing
Palestinians any more than a limited bantustan-style
“autonomy” in population centers while maintaining
complete territorial control and eventually annexing the settlements
to Israel.
By now, as envisioned in the two-stage Oslo Accords, limited
Palestinian self-rule was supposed to have been established
throughout the Occupied Territories, followed by a complete
withdrawal of Israeli forces from Palestinian population
centers in advance of elections for an independent
Palestinian Administrative Authority. Negotiations concerning the
final status of Jerusalem, Israeli settlements, and overall
control of Palestinian territory were to begin by 1996.
However, while the Israeli government had pledged not to
build new settlements or expand existing ones until final
status negotiations, it is clear that Israel is maximizing
its territorial gains and settlement construction before
being forced to the negotiating table. In addition, Israel
has delayed redeployment of its army from Palestinian population
centers under the convoluted pretext that to do so would
jeopardize the security of the settlements.
During a recent fact-finding trip to the Occupied Territories,
it was impossible to overlook the large-scale Israeli attempt
to ensure that little would remain for Palestinians in any eventual
settlement. Since the signing of the Oslo Accords, Israeli
settlement activity has escalated rapidly along three lines:
tightening Israel's control on Jerusalem and encircling it with
Jewish settlements, erasing the border between the West Bank, Gaza,
and Israel, and connecting settlements through an extensive
road network which bypasses Palestinian population centers.
The result of these actions is an emerging reality of five
separate Palestinian population cantons in the West Bank and
Gaza, separated by interconnected Israeli settlement blocs.
In addition, the political, commercial, and cultural center
of Palestinian life, East Jerusalem, has been subject to
permanent military closure preventing the entry of
Palestinians from the Occupied Territories. This policy
severs Jerusalem from the West Bank and strengthens Israel's
claim to absolute sovereignty over its self-declared capital
city.
The narrow Israeli conception for implementing Palestinian
autonomy appears to be that Arafat and the Palestinian
National Authority are to relieve the Israeli military of its
burden of policing the Palestinian population, long an
aspiration of mainstream labor Zionist movement. Arafat has
been informed that his primary task is to protect Israeli
security and silence opposition to the Oslo Accords, which
has meant cracking down on the grassroots Islamist and
nationalist opposition to the agreement. Although he has
little room to maneuver, Arafat hasn't helped matters by
stacking the Palestinian Authority with hand-picked
loyalists, mostly from the Palestinian Diaspora, which has
undercut popular leadership from inside the Occupied
Territories. In addition, Israel has sought to determine in
advance the composition of nominees for elections, excluding
political groups critical of the Accords, which strengthens
the claim that the elected Authority would be nothing more
than an extension of the Israeli occupation.
The present situation is ripe for failure. It seeks to
cancel any hopes for Palestinian self-determination and
eventual statehood, and can only lead to increasing
inter-Palestinian divisions and violence as Arafat is
pressured to demonstrate that he places Israeli
“security” concerns above the needs of his own
people. The terms of the Oslo Accords must either be revised
or abandoned. Final status negotiations on Jerusalem,
settlements and eventual Palestinian statehood must begin now
before the territorial status quo is too firmly imprinted. At
a minimum, to comply with the terms of Oslo, Israel must
freeze its settlement construction and land confiscation,
withdraw the military from Palestinian population centers,
and allow Palestinians to begin political and economic reconstruction
to reverse the devastation left by 29 years of Israeli
military occupation. For peace to become more than a symbolic
handshake which masks continued Israeli occupation and
expansion, it is necessary to replace the Israeli vision of
limited autonomy and cantonization with concrete steps towards
Palestinian statehood in the 22 percent of historical
Palestine that remains.
The authors are activists who currently teach international
politics at the American University in Washington, DC, and
have just returned from a month long trip to Palestine.
