Socialist Action /December 2001
Israel Tightens Noose on Arafat
By GERRY FOLEY
As Yasir Arafat has been risking his regime and perhaps even his life
to meet the demands of Israel and the United States, going to the brink
of opening up a civil war among the Palestinian people, the Israeli army
has been continuing to shoot at his police and the offices of his government.
And while Arafat has been under fire, the United States, which has been
offering him an assurance of a negotiated settlement with Israel and even
the prospect of a Palestinian state, has only been tut-tutting the Israeli
rulers at the same time as endorsing Israel's "right of self-defense."
As long as Arafat continues to seek a deal with Israel, he has no choice
but to hope that the United States will restrain the right-wing Israeli
government from launching escalating attacks on the Palestinian people and
their organizations.
However, Washington's more and more obvious double game provoked an outburst
during an appearance by Arafat on Israeli TV in which he tried to convince
the Israeli public that he was doing everything possible to suppress the
Palestinian militants.
When the interviewer told him that the U.S. authorities considered his
crackdown on militants a sham, he exploded: " Who cares about the Americans?
The Americans are on your side and they gave you everything. Who gave you
the planes? ... Who gave you the tanks? ... Who gave you all the money?''
The Palestinian Authority chief had argued that he has already arrested
17 of a list of 33 alleged terrorists given him by U.S. authorities. In
total, he has already jailed 180 Islamist activists and put their most prominent
leader, Ahmed Yassin, under house arrest.
When a crowd gathered to protest the Islamist leader's confinement, Palestinian
Authority police fired on the assemblage, killing one demonstrator. This
is not the first time that PA police have fired on an Islamist demonstration.
It seems to be a harbinger of much worse inter-Palestinian bloodshed to
come if Arafat continues to try to meet the demands of the Zionists and
their imperialist patrons.
It seems that the Zionist rulers of Israel are demanding nothing less
from Arafat than that he launch a civil war among Palestinians. It does
not make much sense to criticize the Palestinian Authority police for not
rounding up the militants, when the Israel army is shooting down Palestinian
police and wrecking their headquarters. Or perhaps the demands on Arafat
are only a cover for launching a general war on the Palestinian people.
In its Dec. 8 issue, the London Guardian reported that a poll published
in the right-wing Israel daily Maariv indicated that 54 percent of Israelis
thought that Arafat should be removed, and 51 to 42 percent that the Palestinian
Authority should be abolished.
The second position is in fact the logical corollary of the first. No
one believes that the Zionists or the imperialists can find any other Palestinian
leader who could play the role they expect of Arafat.
The second logical corollary, not mentioned in the poll, is all-out war
to crush or expel the Palestinian population. What else could abandonment
of compromise mean?
Public opinion polls are often, notoriously, self-fulfilling prophesies.
In this case, the poll certainly reflects the attitudes encouraged by the
Zionist chiefs, their attempt to whip up support for a "final solution"
to the Palestinian problem. However, the tactics of the Islamists have played
into their hands.
The suicide bombings organized by Hamas and Islamic Jihad aimed indiscriminately
at Israel civilians have clearly had the effect of convincing many Israelis
that the Palestinian militants want a communal war to the death, and therefore
it is "us or them." The proposal of an Islamic state also rules
out coexistence with the Jews.
The suicide bombings reflect the essential political cards of the Islamist
movement, the idea that it can achieve its objectives through the determination
and fearlessness of its activists, who are not afraid to die and are convinced
that God will give them victory. From this stance, it is difficult for the
Islamists to offer any compromise with the Jews. The minute they begin to
bend, their mystique crumbles.
However, it is not only Islamists who have carried out suicide attacks.
Suicidal assaults have also been mounted by radical factions of the Palestinian
Liberation Organization, although not directed to indiscriminate mass killing.
The problem is that the Israeli repression of the Palestinian population
has created such desperation that suicidal attacks seem the only way to
make protests that will be noticed. Since the start of the new upsurge of
the Palestinian struggle in September 2000, the Israeli authorities have
implemented a policy of closures and fragmentation of the Palestinian areas
that has condemned them to slow strangulation.
Unemployment in the West Bank and Gaza has climbed to 70 percent. Ten
percent of Palestinian families reported that they had lost their entire
income since the start of the new struggle. Some 50 percent reported that
they have lost half their income in the last six months.
Students have been prevented from attending classes and final exams.
In violation of Article 55 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which guarantees
the right to medical care for the population of occupied territories, the
Israeli closures and raids have virtually destroyed the Palestinian medical
services.
According to the Palestinian Authority Ministry of Health, 68 percent
of Palestinians live in rural areas where the closures have prevented access
to medical care. The Palestinian Red Crescent has reported that as of June
15, there had been 237 attacks on its ambulances, damaging 73 percent of
its fleet. Then there is the constant insecurity created by Israeli raids
and shelling of Palestinian towns and refugee camps.
In these conditions, it is hardly surprising that Palestinian young men
are willing to die to protest and their deaths are received with thanksgiving
by the Palestinian population, even by their bereaved relatives. This is
a virtually inevitable human reaction to such a brutal occupation, as has
been seen in other places-notably the Warsaw ghetto.
A central problem is the political isolation of the Palestinians, who
face the overwhelming military and economic power of imperialism. The Palestinian
people risk division and annihilation unless they can find a strategy that
can win broad international sympathy for their struggle.
The most effective political strategy that the Palestinian movement has
produced is the call for a democratic secular Palestine in which all those
who want to live in Palestine would have equal democratic rights.
That slogan offers the basis for exposing the fundamentally reactionary
nature of the idea of a Jewish state, which is a state based fundamentally
on a religious community that has inevitably tended to become more and more
theocratic and reactionary. The concept of an Islamic state of Palestine
is like a mirror reflection of the idea of a Jewish state.
A democratic secular state was the program of the PLO in its most radical
period. It was abandoned as the leadership began to bend to imperialist
pressure and more and more to orient to some sort of compromise with Zionism.
The experience of 10 years of an attempt to achieve peace through compromise
has now shown clearly that no compromise with Zionism is possible.
The rise of the Islamist movement and the demand for an Islamic state
has been a reaction to the capitulation of the Palestinian nationalist movement.
It has offered a subjective escape from it, the idea that determination
and self-sacrifice could win where compromise failed.
The rise of Islamism has reflected the desire of the Palestinian people
to struggle. But it is leading them into a blind ally where they risk serious
defeats. In a sort of vicious circle it can also eventually revive support
for a compromise line based on the idea that even small concessions are
better than catastrophic defeat.
Socialist Action /December 2001 |