Daoud Kuttab: An Arab “Third Way”

AMMAN – Throughout the post-colonial period, Arab countries have consistently failed to produce an efficient – let alone democratic – system of government. Now, after a half-century of competition between military or royal dictatorships and militant Islamist regimes, many Arabs are again seeking a “third way” – a path toward a credible form of representative democracy. But will their efforts prove as futile now as they have in the past?

The Middle East – named for its geographic position between Europe and East Asia – was under Ottoman rule for 400 years before the Allied powers, after defeating the Ottomans in World War I, partitioned the region into distinct political units that, under the Sykes-Picot Agreement, fell within spheres of influence carved out by the United Kingdom and France. But, in response to these new divisions, an Arab awakening – shaped by pan-Arabism and support for Palestine – was occurring.

Charismatic young military rulers-turned-dictators like Egypt’s Gamal Abdel Nasser, Iraq’s Saddam Hussein, Libya’s Muammar el-Qaddafi, Yemen’s Ali Abdullah Saleh, and Syria’s Hafez al-Assad used these popular causes to win public support. But their failure to deliver better lives to their citizens, together with the discrediting of left-wing ideologies following the Soviet Union’s collapse, fueled the rise of a rival movement: political Islam.

The Muslim Brotherhood – established in the Egyptian town of Ismailia in 1928 and political Islam’s oldest, best organized, and most widespread proponent – was (and is) despised by both secular Arabs and Arab monarchies. Indeed, secular dictators have worked to suppress the Brothers at every turn – often violently, as when Assad ruthlessly crushed a Brotherhood-led uprising in Hama in 1982.

Forced to operate clandestinely, the Brotherhood built its support base with a social agenda that targeted the needs of the poor, while consistently reinforcing its Islamic ties, even using the compulsory zakat (annual financial contribution to religious causes) to build up its social network. The Brothers, with the help of a conservative society and the mosques, were prepared to seize power whenever the opportunity arose.

Another Islamist movement, Algeria’s Islamic Salvation Front, almost had such an opportunity in 1991, when it won the first round of a general election. But the military prevented its victory by canceling the second round, triggering a brutal eight-year civil war in which an estimated 200,000 people died. Palestine’s Hamas, an offshoot of the Brotherhood, succeeded at the ballot box in 2006, but has since failed to deliver credible governance.

Then the Arab Spring erupted in 2011, creating new opportunities for political renewal. Within months, Islamist parties shaped by the Brotherhood’s ideology had replaced secular dictators in Tunisia and Egypt, and seemed poised to take over Yemen and Syria, largely because they were the only well-organized political movements on the scene.

Moreover, the Muslim Brotherhood gained control of Egypt, the largest and most influential of the Arab Spring countries. But their exclusive, rigid ideology was poorly suited to governing such a large and diverse country. As a result, after only a year in power, the military – backed by the same secular, liberal young people who had opposed it in 2011 – drove President Mohamed Morsi out of power. Unable to mount a political alternative, however, the protesters’ rejection of the Islamist government served only to put the army back in charge.

Some argue that the absence of a secular liberal option in Arab politics stems from fear of political Islam. For decades, Western powers backed military regimes in the Arab world, willingly ignoring their systematic repression of democratic movements and rights, in order to ensure that Islamists did not gain power.

Now that both the military- and Islamist-led systems have been discredited, an ideological vacuum has appeared in Arab politics. But Arabs today – most of whom are under the age of 30 – are less interested in an overarching political ideology than they are in an efficient representative government that implements sound policies aimed at creating jobs and bolstering economic growth. In short, they want a government that is focused on improving citizens’ lives.

In fact, the absence of a specific ideology was essential to the Arab Spring’s initial success in Egypt and Tunisia, for it allowed a large number of young activists to forge loose alliances. But mass movements can take a country only so far; establishing a credible representative government requires political parties organized around clearly defined principles.

While the Muslim Brotherhood has such an organizing principle, its internal rigidity – at least with Morsi at its helm – made it unfit to govern. Meanwhile, infighting among Egypt’s liberals prevented them from establishing a disciplined, reliable alternative to the Brotherhood based on principles like diversity, plurality, respect for women, and freedom of expression. So when the Islamist government’s credibility collapsed, the military was Egypt’s only remaining option.

In order to make progress, the youth-led movements that drove the Arab Spring must translate their shared principles into effective political structures, and choose leaders who are capable of placing the search for consensus ahead of personal ambition. If they succeed, the Arab world may finally have an alternative to rule by generals or mullahs. Even if they fail to gain power, the emergence of such an alternative would surely influence the Arab world’s agenda for years to come.

Daoud Kuttab, a former professor at Princeton University and the founder and former director of the Institute of Modern Media at Al-Quds University in Ramallah, is a leading activist for media freedom in the Middle East.

Daoud Kuttab: The Case for Palestine

RAMALLAH – Nowhere are the grievances that perpetuate violence and war more evident than they are in Palestine today. But the world’s politicians continue to dance around the problem, rather than confront it. The recent deadly violence in Gaza is only the latest proof that people living under occupation and siege need a political horizon, and not simply a cease-fire: the case for an independent state of Palestine has never been so compelling as it is today.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’s decision to proceed with plans to seek a vote this week on recognition of Palestine at the United Nations General Assembly has come despite pressure, promises, and threats from Israel and some of its Western allies. Rather than pursuing the UN route, the Palestinians, according to these interlocutors, should continue to depend on asymmetrical negotiations that have served as little more than a photo opportunity.

The UN vote (which coincides with the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People) would not grant Palestine full membership. Rather, it would upgrade Palestine’s status to a level comparable to that of the Vatican, allowing its political leaders to bring war-crimes charges against Israelis to the International Criminal Court in The Hague.

Zionists in Palestine rejoiced in 1947, following the UN General Assembly vote for partition into a Jewish and an Arab state. It is ironic that, as rockets from Gaza reach the outskirts of Tel Aviv, those Israelis who celebrated the partition, and their descendants, do not see the importance of fulfilling the other half of the partition plan.

It is true that Palestinians, who comprised the vast majority of the population and owned an overwhelming share of the land, were unhappy with the partition plan, which awarded them 46% of mandatory Palestine. Today, Palestinians are seeking statehood on a mere 22% of the territory that had been part of mandatory Palestine until Israel was unilaterally established on areas much larger than those awarded by UN General Assembly Resolution 181 in 1947.

Palestine’s quest for statehood within the borders of June 4, 1967, falls squarely within international law. The UN Security Council resolved in November of that year that “acquisition of territory by war” is unacceptable. Subsequent Security Council resolutions and international treaties have upheld this principle.

In fact, a Palestinian state based on the 1967 borders is exactly what US President Barack Obama has called for. Similarly, the European Union has long advocated a two-state solution, with Palestine being established on areas occupied by Israel in 1967.

As Abbas has said, the upcoming General Assembly vote is not aimed at delegitimizing Israel. It follows the Palestinian National Council’s declaration in 1988 of a Palestinian state alongside the state of Israel. It also follows the Arab Peace Initiative, adopted by the Arab League at its Beirut Summit in 2002 (and to which Israel has yet to respond).

The Arab League initiative, which was also approved by the Organization of the Islamic Conference, embraces a two-state solution based on the 1967 borders, but goes one step further, calling for a “just” and “agreed upon” solution to the thorny Palestinian refugee issue. By accepting the words “agreed upon,” Palestinians, Arabs, and other Muslim-majority countries have conceded that Israel will not recognize Palestinian refugees’ inalienable right to return to their homes. This should allay Israeli fears that the right of return would end Israel’s existence as a Jewish state.

Abbas will go to New York holding an even more important card. Israel’s recent brutal violence in Gaza has united Palestinians who were split along partisan lines. Leaders of Abbas’s Fatah faction, which controls the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority, and of Gaza-based Hamas have been meeting regularly to implement the Egyptian-Qatari reconciliation plan. Political prisoners from both sides have been released, and a senior Fatah delegation just visited Gaza.

Hamas officials, including Mahmoud Ramahi, the leader of a bloc in the Palestinian National Council, have publicly supported the UN recognition bid. According to Mousa Abu Marzook, Hamas’s deputy leader, his movement is not opposed to Abbas’s diplomatic initiative.

An independent and free Palestine alongside a safe and secure Israel is a plan upon which the entire world agrees. Palestinians have shown that they are willing to accept minor and agreed-upon land swaps, and will be open to creative ideas for solving the problem of Jerusalem, possibly following the parameters set out by US President Bill Clinton at the end of his second term.

What is needed now more than ever is political will to give the peace process a serious boost. Obama, now free of electoral shackles, and the international community should give Palestinians’ peaceful effort a chance at life. The case for Palestine has never been so clear. A vote for recognition of Palestinian statehood is a vote for peace.

Daoud Kuttab, former Professor of Journalism at Princeton University, is General Manager of the Community Media Network in Amman.

Daoud Kuttab: Israel and Palestine After Oslo / 奧斯陸之後的以色列和巴勒斯坦

 RAMALLAH – On September 13, 1993, Shimon Peres and Mahmoud Abbas met on the South Lawn of the White House to sign the Israel-PLO Declaration of Principles, or the Oslo Accords. PLO leader Yasir Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin then sealed the agreement with a historic handshake.

The Oslo Accords – the result of secret talks that had been encouraged by the Norwegian government and conducted in the country’s capital – called for a five-year transitional period during which Israeli forces would withdraw from the Gaza Strip and unspecified areas of the West Bank, and a Palestinian Authority would be established. Letters of recognition between the PLO and Israel accompanied the agreement. The ultimate aim, though never explicitly stated, was to create a Palestinian state roughly within the 1967 borders.

But the goals laid out in the Oslo Accords remain unfulfilled. In fact, the agreement is unlikely to survive 89-year-old Peres and 77-year-old Abbas, who are now presidents of Israel and the Palestinian Authority, respectively. Several factors contributed to the deterioration of prospects for lasting peace.

Perhaps the most important factor has been the continuation – and, at times, acceleration – of Israeli settlement activities in occupied Palestinian territories. Some Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza objected to the Accords’ failure to call explicitly for the end of illegal Israeli settlement building. But, given the PLO’s weakness and lack of support in the Arab world after its refusal to oppose Iraq’s occupation of Kuwait, its leaders accepted the flawed agreement, arguing that Palestinian borders would be agreed upon during the transition period.

But, 19 years later, the Washington-based Foundation for Middle East Peace reports that more Jewish settlements have been built in the occupied Palestinian territories since the Oslo Accords than before they were signed. As a result, the need for Israel to freeze settlement activities has become an international – not just a Palestinian – requirement for effective peace talks.

Another crucial factor is continued violence. Since Rabin and Arafat shook hands, roughly 7,500 Palestinians and 1,400 Israelis have been killed, and many more have been injured or jailed. Israel’s unilateral policy of demolishing homes in Palestine has resulted in scores of Palestinians being deported or made homeless in Jerusalem, Hebron, the Jordan Valley, and elsewhere. While killings have declined sharply in recent years, hardly a day passes without some form of violence, often against civilians – including children.

Fueling this violence is growing hopelessness in the absence of a diplomatic agreement. While international leaders fill the airwaves with talk of peace, they have failed to address the conflict boldly and resolutely.

For example, US President Barack Obama’s election four years ago revived hope that negotiations would resume. But Obama’s peace envoy, George Mitchell, resigned, and the quartet (the United Nations, the European Union, Russia, and the United States) was sidelined. Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s conditional promise to support Palestinian statehood has been rendered meaningless by his government’s provocative settlement policies in the areas that were supposed to comprise the Palestinian state.

The Oslo Accords divided the occupied territories into three regions. Palestinians took charge of the most densely populated urban areas, while Israel maintained total military and administrative control over the largest territory, “Area C,” which makes up 61% of the West Bank.

Many Palestinians believe that this serves a long-term Zionist aim to keep the land without the people. Indeed, Israeli settlements have amounted to de facto Israeli annexation of territory into which Palestinians seek to expand their state. As a result, without a clear agreement on borders, Area C will witness the most serious confrontations.

The Oslo Accords have also failed to put Palestinians on a path toward economic independence. According to the World Bank and other international agencies, slow and complicated bureaucratic and security processes, including hundreds of checkpoints, make Palestinian economic development impossible.

Palestinian dependence on Israeli goods exacerbates the problem, as does Israeli control over the movement of goods and people to, within, and between the West Bank and the blockaded Gaza strip.

The 1994 Paris Protocol, one of the most important annexes to the Oslo Accords, was intended to define economic relations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. But it has been hijacked by Israel for the benefit of its businesses. The Protocol requires the Palestinian Authority to peg prices of certain goods and its rate of value-added tax to Israel’s; forces Palestinians to use Israel’s currency; and regulates customs procedures at border crossings with Jordan and Egypt.

The Palestinian-Israeli conflict, now at least 45 years old, is not a complicated problem; on the contrary, it can be summed up quite succinctly: to paraphrase the American political operative James Carville, “It’s the occupation, stupid.”

Eventually, Abbas will gain the UN General Assembly’s acceptance of Palestinian statehood – his final accomplishment before leaving politics, as he has confided to his top aides. After his departure, Israel will miss his firm opposition to violence and his support for security cooperation.

The symbolic decision on statehood, followed by Abbas’s exit, will mark the end of the process that began in Oslo, and that has been undermining Palestinian aspirations for nearly two decades. With the Oslo Process now clearly dead, two options remain: chaos, extremism, and violence, or a new peace process – ideally one that can end the occupation and allow for Palestinian independence and freedom alongside a safe and secure Israel.

Daoud Kuttab, former Professor of Journalism at Princeton University, is General Manager of the Community Media Network in Amman.

Daoud Kuttab: 奧斯陸之後的以色列和巴勒斯坦

拉馬拉—1993年9月13日，西蒙·佩雷斯（Shimon Peres）和馬哈茂德·阿巴斯（Mahmoud Abbas）在白宮南草坪會面，並簽署了《以色列-巴解組織原則宣言》（Israel-PLO Declaration of Principles），這就是奧斯陸協定。隨後，巴解組織領導人阿拉法特和以色列總理拉賓進行了歷史性的握手，並將協議封存。

奧斯陸協定——由挪威政府推動、並在該國首都舉行的秘密談判的結果——呼籲制定一個五年的過渡期，在此期間，以色列逐漸從加沙地帶和約旦河西岸未定區域撤軍，而巴方則建立巴勒斯坦權力機構。伴隨該協定而生的還有巴解組織和以色列互相承認的信件。該協定的最終目標——儘管從未明言——是在1967年邊境內建立巴勒斯坦國。

但奧斯陸協定中所提出的目標至今仍未實現。事實上，89歲的佩雷斯和77歲的阿巴斯（他們分別為現以色列總統和巴勒斯坦權力機構主席）尚未離世，而奧斯率協定已經隨風而逝了。幾大原因破壞了持續和平的前景。

也許最重要的因素是以色列在巴勒斯坦被佔區的定居活動一直沒有停止過，有時還有加速之勢。約旦河西岸和加沙地帶的不少巴勒斯坦人對於奧斯陸協定沒有，明確要求以色列停止非法定居點建設活動極為不滿。但是，由於巴解組織的弱勢，以及缺乏阿拉伯世界的支持（因為它拒絕反對伊拉克入侵科威特），其領導人接受了有缺陷的協定，指出巴勒斯坦國邊境將在過渡期協商確定。

但是，19年後，華盛頓中東和平基金會（Foundation for Middle East Peace）報告說，自奧斯陸協定以來，巴勒斯坦領土被佔區上的猶太人定居點協定達成前更多了。結果，要求以色列凍結定居活動成了國際社會——而不僅是巴勒斯坦——所要求的有效和平談判的前提。

另一個關鍵因素是持續的暴力。自拉賓和阿拉法特握手以來，大約7500巴勒斯坦人和1400以色列人被殺，受傷和被監禁的更是不計其數。以色列摧毀巴勒斯坦家園的單方面政策已經造成大量巴勒斯坦人流離失所，耶路撒冷、希伯倫、約旦河谷和其他地方無家可歸者無數。盡管殺戮在近幾年有了大幅減少，但暴力活動幾乎沒有一天不存在，且通常針對包括兒童在內的平民。

缺乏外交協定所帶來的看不到希望的感覺助長了暴力。盡管國際社會領導人和平談判之聲不絕於耳，但他們始終沒能大膽堅決地解決沖突。

比如，四年前，美國總統奧巴馬的當選重新燃起了談判的希望。但奧巴馬的和平特使喬治·米切爾（George Mitchell）卻辭職了，而四方（聯合國、歐盟、俄羅斯和美國）也退出了和平談判。與此同時，以色列總理內塔尼亞胡的有條件支持巴勒斯坦國的承諾也因以色列政府在被認為是巴勒斯坦國土內的挑舋性定居政策而失去了意義。

奧斯陸協定將被佔領土分為三個地區。巴勒斯坦獲得了人口最稠密的城市地區，以色列在最大的領地——“C區”（Area C，佔約旦河西岸的61%）保有完全的軍事和治理控制權。

許多巴勒斯坦人相信，以色列在實施其復國主義者佔領無人之地的長期陰謀。事實上，以色列定居點實際上是以色列在巴勒斯坦意欲擴為領土的領地上的擴張。結果，在沒有明確邊境協定的情況下，C區成了沖突最嚴重的地區。

奧斯陸協定也沒能把巴勒斯坦推上經濟獨立之路。據世界銀行和其他國際機構的數據，遲緩而復雜的官僚和安全程序（包括數百個檢查點）導致巴勒斯坦經濟根本無從發展。

巴勒斯坦對以色列商品的依賴惡化了這一問題，與此同時，以色列控制著流向約旦河西岸以及被封鎖的加沙地帶以及在上述兩地區之內和之間的物流和人流。

1994年巴黎協議（Paris Protocol，奧斯陸協定的最重要附加協議）試圖定義以色列和巴勒斯坦權力機構的經濟關系。但因以色列維護其商業利益而被擱置。巴黎協議要求巴勒斯坦權力機構將特定商品和增值稅率盯住以色列的水平、強迫巴勒斯坦使用以色列貨幣，並規定了約旦和埃及邊境的通關程序。

如今，巴以沖突已經進行了至少45年，它已經不再是個復雜的問題﹔相反，我們可以用美國政治家詹姆斯·卡維爾（James Carville）的話言簡意賅地予以總結：“重要的是佔領，笨蛋。”

最終，阿巴斯將贏得聯合國大會對巴勒斯坦國的承認——據他對親信所說，這是他離開政壇前的最後成就。他離職後，以色列將失去他對暴力活動的強烈反對和對安全合作的支持。

阿巴斯離職之後的象征性建國決定將標志著奧斯陸協定所開啟的進程的終結，也將標志著破壞巴勒斯坦人民雄心的20年的結束。奧斯陸進程顯而易見早已死去，擺在我們面前的有兩條路：混亂、極端主義和暴力﹔或者新的和平進程——在你理想狀況下，這一進程能夠終結佔領，讓巴勒斯坦實現獨立和自由，讓以色列感到安全和安心。

Selections from Chris Hedges

Chris Hedges: Party to Murder

December 29, 2008

Editor’s note: In light of the recent fighting in Gaza, Truthdig asked Chris Hedges, who covered the Mideast for The New York Times for seven years, to update a previous column on Gaza.

Can anyone who is following the Israeli air attacks on Gaza—the buildings blown to rubble, the children killed on their way to school, the long rows of mutilated corpses, the wailing mothers and wives, the crowds of terrified Palestinians not knowing where to flee, the hospitals so overburdened and out of supplies they cannot treat the wounded, and our studied, callous indifference to this widespread human suffering—wonder why we are hated?

The body of a Palestinian security force officer lies in the rubble after an Israeli missile strike on a building in Gaza City on Sunday.

Our self-righteous celebration of ourselves and our supposed virtue is as false as that of Israel. We have become monsters, militarized bullies, heartless and savage. We are a party to human slaughter, a flagrant war crime, and do nothing. We forget that the innocents who suffer and die in Gaza are a reflection of ourselves, of how we might have been should fate and time and geography have made the circumstances of our birth different. We forget that we are all absurd and vulnerable creatures. We all have the capacity to fear and hate and love. “Expose thyself to what wretches feel,” King Lear said, entering the mud and straw hovel of Poor Tom, “and show the heavens more just.”

Privilege and power, especially military power, is a dangerous narcotic. Violence destroys those who bear the brunt of its force, but also those who try to use it to become gods. Over 350 Palestinians have been killed, many of them civilians, and over 1,000 have been wounded since the air attacks began on Saturday. Ehud Barak, Israel’s defense minister, said Israel is engaged in a “war to the bitter end” against Hamas in Gaza. A war? Israel uses sophisticated attack jets and naval vessels to bomb densely crowded refugee camps and slums, to attack a population that has no air force, no air defense, no navy, no heavy weapons, no artillery units, no mechanized armor, no command and control, no army, and calls it a war. It is not a war. It is murder.

The U.N. special rapporteur for human rights in the occupied Palestinian territory, former Princeton University law professor Richard Falk, has labeled what Israel is doing to the 1.5 million Palestinians in Gaza “a crime against humanity.” Falk, who is Jewish, has condemned the collective punishment of the Palestinians in Gaza as “a flagrant and massive violation of international humanitarian law as laid down in Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention.” He has asked for “the International Criminal Court to investigate the situation, and determine whether the Israeli civilian leaders and military commanders responsible for the Gaza siege should be indicted and prosecuted for violations of international criminal law.”

Falk’s unflinching honesty has enraged Israel. He was banned from entering the country on Dec. 14 during his attempt to visit Gaza and the West Bank.

“After being denied entry I was put in a holding room with about 20 others experiencing entry problems,” he said. “At this point I was treated not as a U.N. representative, but as some sort of security threat, subjected to an inch-by-inch body search, and the most meticulous luggage inspection I have ever witnessed. I was separated from my two U.N. companions, who were allowed to enter Israel. At this point I was taken to the airport detention facility a mile or so away, required to put all my bags and cell phone in a room, taken to a locked, tiny room that had five other detainees, smelled of urine and filth, and was an unwelcome invitation to claustrophobia. I spent the next 15 hours so confined, which amounted to a cram course on the miseries of prison life, including dirty sheets, inedible food, and either lights that were too bright or darkness controlled from the guard office.”

The foreign press has been, like Falk, barred by Israel from entering Gaza to report on the destruction.

Israel’s stated aim of halting homemade rockets fired from Gaza into Israel remains unfulfilled. Gaza militants have fired more than 100 rockets and mortars into Israel, killing four people and wounding nearly two dozen more, since Israel unleashed its air assault. Israel has threatened to launch a ground assault and has called up 6,500 army reservists. It has massed tanks on the Gaza border and declared the area a closed military zone.
The rocket attacks by Hamas are, as Falk points out, also criminal violations of international law. But as Falk notes, “... such Palestinian behavior does not legalize Israel’s imposition of a collective punishment of a life- and health-threatening character on the people of Gaza, and should not distract the U.N. or international society from discharging their fundamental moral and legal duty to render protection to the Palestinian people.”

“It is an unfolding humanitarian catastrophe that each day poses the entire 1.5 million Gazans to an unspeakable ordeal, to a struggle to survive in terms of their health,” Falk has said of the ongoing Israeli blockade of Gaza. “This is an increasingly precarious condition. A recent study reports that 46 percent of all Gazan children suffer from acute anemia. There are reports that the sonic booms associated with Israeli overflights have caused widespread deafness, especially among children. Gazan children need thousands of hearing aids. Malnutrition is extremely high in a number of different dimensions and affects 75 percent of Gazans. There are widespread mental disorders, especially among young people without the will to live. Over 50 percent of Gazan children under the age of 12 have been found to have no will to live.”

Before the air assaults, Gaza spent 12 hours a day without power, which can be a death sentence to the severely ill in hospitals. Most of Gaza is now without power. There are few drugs and little medicine, including no cancer or cystic fibrosis medication. Hospitals have generators but often lack fuel. Medical equipment, including one of Gaza’s three CT scanners, has been destroyed by power surges and fluctuations. Medical staff cannot control the temperature of incubators for newborns. And Israel has revoked most exit visas, meaning some of those who need specialized care, including cancer patients and those in need of kidney dialysis, have died. Of the 230 Gazans estimated to have died last year because they were denied proper medical care, several spent their final hours at Israeli crossing points where they were refused entry into Israel. The statistics gathered on children—half of Gaza’s population is under the age of 17—are increasingly grim. About 45 percent of children in Gaza have iron deficiency from a lack of fruit and vegetables, and 18 percent have stunted growth.

“It is macabre,” Falk said of the blockade. “I don’t know of anything that exactly fits this situation. People have been referring to the Warsaw ghetto as the nearest analog in modern times.”

“There is no structure of an occupation that endured for decades and involved this kind of oppressive circumstances,” the rapporteur added. “The magnitude, the deliberateness, the violations of international humanitarian law, the impact on the health, lives and survival and the overall conditions warrant the characterization of a crime against humanity. This occupation is the direct intention by the Israeli military and civilian authorities. They are responsible and should be held accountable.”

The point of the Israeli attack, ostensibly, is to break Hamas, the radical Islamic group that was elected to power in 2007. But Hamas has repeatedly proposed long-term truces with Israel and offered to negotiate a permanent truce. During the last cease-fire, established through Egyptian intermediaries in July, Hamas upheld the truce although Israel refused to ease the blockade. It was Israel that, on Nov. 4, initiated an armed attack that violated the truce and killed six Palestinians. It was only then that Hamas resumed firing rockets at Israel.

 “This is a crime of survival,” Falk said of the rocket attacks by Palestinians. “Israel has put the Gazans in a set of circumstances where they either have to accept whatever is imposed on them or resist in any way available to them. That is a horrible dilemma to impose upon a people. This does not alleviate the Palestinians, and Gazans in particular, for accountability for doing these acts involving rocket fire, but it also imposes some responsibility on Israel for creating these circumstances.”

Israel seeks to break the will of the Palestinians to resist. The Israeli government has demonstrated little interest in diplomacy or a peaceful solution. The rapid expansion of Jewish settlements on the West Bank is an effort to thwart the possibility of a two-state solution by gobbling up vast tracts of Palestinian real estate. Israel also appears to want to thrust the impoverished Gaza Strip onto Egypt. Dozens of tunnels had been the principal means for food and goods, connecting Gaza to Egypt. Israel had permitted the tunnels to operate, most likely as part of an effort to further cut Gaza off from Israel. This ended, however, on Sunday when Israeli fighter jets bombed over 40 tunnels along Gaza’s border with Egypt. The Israeli military said that the tunnels, on the Gaza side of the border, were used for smuggling weapons, explosives and fugitives. Egypt has sealed its border and refused to let distraught Palestinians enter its territory.

“Israel, all along, has not been prepared to enter into diplomatic process that gives the Palestinians a viable state,” Falk said. “They [the Israelis] feel time is on their side. They feel they can create enough facts on the ground so people will come to the conclusion a viable state cannot emerge.”

The use of terror and hunger to break a hostile population is one of the oldest forms of warfare. I watched the Bosnian Serbs employ the same tactic in Sarajevo. Those who orchestrate such sieges do not grasp the terrible rage born of long humiliation, indiscriminate violence and abuse. A father or a mother whose child dies because of a lack of vaccines or proper medical care does not forget. A boy whose ill grandmother dies while detained at an Israel checkpoint does not forget. A family that loses a child in an airstrike does not forget. All who endure humiliation, abuse and the murder of family members do not forget. This rage becomes a virus within those who, eventually, stumble out into the daylight. Is it any wonder that 71 percent of children interviewed at a school in Gaza recently said they wanted to be a “martyr”?

The Israelis in Gaza, like the American forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, are foolishly breeding the next generation of militants and Islamic radicals. Jihadists, enraged by the injustices done by Israel and the United States, seek to carry out reciprocal acts of savagery, even at the cost of their own lives. The violence unleashed on Palestinian children will, one day, be the violence unleashed on Israeli children. This is the tragedy of Gaza. This is the tragedy of Israel. 

Formalizing Israel’s Land Grab

Aug 16, 2010

Time is running out for Israel. And the Israeli government knows it. The Jewish Diaspora, especially the young, has a waning emotional and ideological investment in Israel. The demographic boom means that Palestinians in Israel and the occupied territories will soon outnumber Jews. And Israel’s increasing status as a pariah nation means that informal and eventually formal state sanctions against the country are probably inevitable.

Desperate Israeli politicians, watching opposition to their apartheid state mount, have proposed a perverted form of what they term “the one-state solution.” It is the latest tool to thwart a Palestinian state and allow Israel to retain its huge settlement complexes and land seizures in East Jerusalem and the West Bank. The idea of a single state was backed by Moshe Arens, a former defense minister and foreign minister from the Likud Party, in a column he wrote last month in the newspaper Haaretz asking “Is There Another Option?” Arens has been joined by several other Israeli politicians including Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin.

The Israeli vision, however, does not include a state with equal rights for Jewish and Palestinians citizens. The call for a single state appears to include pushing Gaza into the unwilling arms of Egypt and incorporating the West Bank and East Jerusalem into Israel. Palestinians within Israeli-controlled territory, however, will remain burdened with crippling travel, work and security restrictions already in place. Palestinians in the occupied territories, for example, cannot reclaim lost property or acquire Israeli citizenship, yet watch as Jews born outside of Israel and with no prior tie to the country become Israeli citizens and receive government-subsidized housing. Palestinians in the West Bank live in a series of roughly eight squalid, ringed ghettos and are governed by military courts. Jews living in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, like all full Israeli citizens, are subject to Israeli civilian law and constitutional protection. Palestinians cannot serve in the armed forces or the security services, while Jewish settlers are issued automatic weapons and protected by the Israel Defense Force.

If Israel sheds Gaza, which has 1.5 million Palestinians, the Jewish state will be left with 5.8 million Jews and 3.8 million Arabs. And, at least in the near future, Jews will remain the majority. This seems to be the main attraction of the plan.

The landscape of the West Bank and East Jerusalem, known as “facts on the ground,” has altered dramatically since I first went to Jerusalem over two decades ago. Huge fortress-like apartment complexes ring East Jerusalem and dominate the hillsides in the West Bank. The settler population is now more than 462,000, with 271,400 living in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, and 191,000 living in and around Jerusalem. The settler population has grown at the rate of 4.6 percent per year since 1990 while the Israeli society taken as a whole has grown at 1.5 percent. 

The net effect of the Israeli seizure of land in East Jerusalem, which includes recent approval for an additional 9,000 housing units, and the West Bank is to promulgate a form of administrative ethnic cleansing. Palestinian families are being pushed off land they have owned for generations and evicted from their homes by Israeli authorities. Dozens of families, tossed out of dwellings they have occupied in East Jerusalem for decades, have been forced onto the streets. Groups such as Ateret Cohanim, an ultra-Orthodox Jewish private organization that collects funds from abroad, purchases Palestinian properties and pursues legal strategies to evict families that have long resided in East Jerusalem. Israel’s judicial system and police, in violation of international law, facilitate and enforce these evictions and land seizures.

Heavily armed settlers carry out frequent unprovoked attacks and ad hoc raids and house evictions to supplement the terror imposed by the police and military. They are the civilian arm of the occupation.

“This acquiescence in settler violence is particularly objectionable from the perspective of international humanitarian law because the settlers are already unlawfully present in occupied territory, making it perverse to victimize those who should be protected—the Palestinians—and offer protection to those who are lawbreakers—the settlers,” said Richard Falk when we spoke a few days ago. Falk is the U.N. special rapporteur who was denied entry into the occupied territories by the Israeli government.

Falk said that incorporating Palestinians in East Jerusalem and the West Bank into a single Israeli state would see Israel impose gradations of citizenship.

“If the Palestinians in pre-’67 Israel enjoy second-class citizenship, those in the West Bank and East Jerusalem will be given a third-class citizenship,” Falk said. “The real proposal, the envisioned outcome of this kind of proposal, is an extension of Israeli control over the occupied territory as a permanent reality. It is presently a de facto annexation. The creation of a single state would give the arrangement a more legalistic cover. It would seek to resolve the issue of occupied territory without the bother of international negotiations.”

“The effect is to fragment the Palestinian people in such defining ways as to make it almost impossible to envision the emergence of a viable Palestinian sovereign state,” said Falk. “The longer it continues, the more difficult it is to overcome, and the more serious are the abridgement of fundamental Palestinian rights.”

Falk, who taught international law at Princeton University, will issue a report to the United Nations this fall in which he will assert that the Israeli process of colonialism and apartheid has accelerated over the past three years. He will call in the report for the U.N. to consider unilaterally declaring Palestine an independent state, as it did with Kosovo. Falk cites as examples of Israeli colonialism the official 121 Jewish settlements, as well as roughly 100 “illegal outposts” in the West Bank, and the extensive network of roads reserved exclusively for Jews that connects the settlements to one another and to Israel behind the green line. He estimates, when “all restrictions on Palestinian control and development are taken into account,” that Israel has effectively seized 38 to 40 percent of the West Bank.

The punishing conditions imposed by the Israeli blockade of the 1.5 million Palestinians living in Gaza have been replicated for the roughly 40,000 Palestinians who live in “Area C,” the 60 percent of the West Bank that remains under complete Israeli military control. Save the Children, UK (STCUK), in a recent report called “Life on the Edge” argues that Israeli policies of land confiscation, expanding settlements, lack of basic services such as food, water, shelter and medical clinics are at “a crisis point.” The report concludes that food security problems are even worse than in Gaza. According to the report, “ ... Seventy-nine percent of communities surveyed recently don’t have enough nutritious food; this is higher than in blockaded Gaza where the rate is 61 percent.” Palestinian children growing up in Area C experience, according to the report, malnutrition and stunted growth at double the level of children in Gaza. Forty-four percent of these children were found to suffer from diarrhea, often with lethal effects. STCUK writes that “Israel’s restrictions on Palestinian access to and development of agricultural land—in an area where almost all families are herders—mean that thousands of children are going hungry and are vulnerable to killer illnesses like diarrhea and pneumonia.”

“Children are being forced to cross settlement areas and risk beatings and harassment by settlers, or walk for hours, just to get to school ... many children are losing hope in the future,” Jihad al-Shommali of the Defense for Children International Palestine Section was recently quoted as saying with reference to the problems of children in Area C.

Falk said, “This overall pattern suggests systematic violations by Israel of Article 55 of Geneva IV and Article 69 of the First Geneva Protocol of 1977 that delimits Israel’s obligations to ensure adequate provision of the basic needs of people living under its occupation, especially in Area C where it exercises undivided control.”

The annexation of Palestinian territory has been reinforced by the construction of 85 percent of the separation wall—256 of a planned 435 miles has been completed—on occupied Palestinian territory. The barrier cuts the West Bank off from Israel and has been built in a configuration which plunges deep into the West Bank. The settlements and the land to the west of the wall, which makes up 9.4 percent of the West Bank, have already been absorbed into Israel. The seizure of nearly 40 percent of the West Bank includes Israeli control of most of the Palestinians’ water supply. The Jewish settlers in the West Bank are allotted per capita four to five times the amount of water allotted to Palestinians by the Israeli government.

The settlements in East Jerusalem and the West Bank violate Article 49(6) of Geneva IV, which prohibits the transfer of the population of an occupying power to the territory temporarily occupied. Israel’s stubborn rejection of the demand of Security Council Resolution 242 that it withdraw from Palestinian territories it occupied in 1967 creates, as Falk said, “a background that resembles, and in some dimensions exceeds, in important respects the situation confronting the government of Kosovo.”

“Lengthy negotiations have not resolved the issue of the status of Palestine, nor do they give any reasonable prospect that any resolution by negotiation or unilateral withdrawal will soon occur,” he said. “Under these circumstances, it would seem that one option available to the Palestine Liberation Organization [the Oslo Agreement empowered the PLO to negotiate international status issues] acting on its own or by way of the Palestinian Authority under international law would be to issue a unilateral declaration of status, seeking independence, diplomatic recognition and membership in the United Nations. The recent Kosovo advisory opinion of the World Court in The Hague provides a well-reasoned legal precedent for such an option.”