No Partner for Peace
The Israeli assault on Gaza continues, with the weakest and most vulnerable of Palestinian civilians bearing the brunt of Israel’s aggression.
In response to Middle East scholar Juan Cole’s post regarding Gaza last Sunday on his blog 'Informed comment', one reader commented that:
“it seems the Israelis were/are more interested in electing leaders who are open to negotiating a solution with the Palestinians. …… the challenge for them is how do you negotiate with a government whose central identity rests on your elimination?”
This is a widespread myth that needs to be brought face to face with the facts before any serious discussion can commence. And the facts are that Israel is not remotely interested in negotiation. For even the most ardent believer in the morally pristine Israeli government Dov Weisglass’ interview with Ha'aretz two years ago lays that myth well and truly to rest. Weisglass spelled out unambiguously that his government’s central policy was the elimination of the merest prospect of a Palestine ever emerging.
Weisglass is one of the principal architects of the current disengagement plan. Recounting the interview, Le Monde Diplomatique said that "according to Weisglass, Sharon decided to give up Gaza, which he had never considered as a national interest, to save the settlements in the West Bank and, more important, to prevent any negotiated agreement with the Palestinians". Anyone still labouring under the delusion that the Gaza withdrawal was an onerous hardship that Israel had volunteered to bear for the sake of peace, or that Israel just wants to negotiate a fair settlement with the Palestinians, should carefully read Weisglass' exact words:
"There was a very difficult package of commitments that Israel was expected to accept. That package is called a political process. It included elements we will never agree to accept and elements we cannot accept at this time. But we succeeded in taking that package and sending it beyond the hills. You know, the term `political process' is a bundle of concepts and commitments. The political process is the establishment of a Palestinian state with all the security risks that entails. The political process is the evacuation of settlements, it's the return of refugees, it's the partition of Jerusalem [i.e. compliance with international law]. And all that has now been frozen.
The disengagement plan makes it possible for Israel to park conveniently in an interim situation that distances us as far as possible from political pressure. [It] is actually [suspending the political process in] formaldehyde. It supplies the amount of formaldehyde that's necessary so that there will not be a political process with the Palestinians.
It places the Palestinians under tremendous pressure. There are no more Israeli soldiers spoiling their day. And for the first time they have a slice of land with total continuity on which they can race from one end to the other in their Ferrari. And the whole world is watching them - them, not us. It is making it possible for the Americans to go to the seething and simmering international community and say to them, `What do you want?' It also transfers the initiative to our hands. It compels the world to deal with our idea, with the scenario we wrote.
[Sharon] doesn't see Gaza today as an area of national interest. He does see [the illegal West Bank settlements of] Judea and Samaria as an area of national interest. The withdrawal in Samaria is a token one. We agreed to only so it wouldn't be said that we concluded our obligation in Gaza. In regard to the large settlement blocs, thanks to the disengagement plan, we have in our hands a first-ever American statement that they will be part of Israel. Sharon can tell the leaders of the settlers that he is evacuating 10,000 settlers and in the future he will be compelled to evacuate another 10,000, but he is strengthening the other 200,000, strengthening their hold in the soil. [Sharon] can say honestly that ....out of 240,000 settlers, 190,000 will not be moved from their place. Will not be moved
I found a device, in cooperation with the management of the world [the US government], to ensure that there will be no .... timetable to implement the settlers' nightmare. I have postponed that nightmare indefinitely. Because what I effectively agreed to with the Americans was that part of the settlements would not be dealt with at all, and the rest will not be dealt with until the Palestinians turn into Finns. That is the significance of what we did. The significance is the freezing of the political process. And when you freeze that process you prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state and you prevent a discussion about the refugees, the borders and Jerusalem. Effectively, this whole package that is called the Palestinian state, with all that it entails, has been removed from our agenda indefinitely. And all this with authority and permission. All with a presidential blessing and the ratification of both houses of Congress. What more could have been anticipated? What more could have been given to the settlers? They should have danced around and around the Prime Minister's Office." (Ha’aretz, Tel Aviv, 8 October 2004)
(Weisglass’ jokes that Palestinians “can race from one end to the other [of the Gaza strip] in their Ferrari”. Of course, he knows full well the levels of extreme poverty, child malnutrition, etc that Gazans suffer from as a result of his government’s policies – as demonstrated by his expressed wish to put Palestinians on a “diet”. Note that this rock-solid ally of the west, friend of Condoleeza Rice, enjoyer of unrivalled access to the US Government, is an unashamedly out-and-out racist who relishes Palestinian suffering as a source of great amusement).
The fact is that, with the full backing of the US, Israel has consistently refused to negotiate anything other than the terms of Palestinian subjugation. See this article by Noam Chomsky for the full, miserable record. Israel must have been terrified by the emergence of a Hamas government, which could not be bribed into collaboration like Fatah, and which has for some time been making clear its willingness to negotiate a two-state solution on the basis of the 67 borders, in accordance with international law and the international consensus. Its latest agreement signed with Fatah which implicitly recognises Israel goes farther than it has gone before and would be a clear basis for a fair settlement, if that was what Israel wanted. But instead, yet another Israeli government has rejected a generous offer of peace and embraced terrorism as a means, not to peace, but to victory.
In response to Middle East scholar Juan Cole’s post regarding Gaza last Sunday on his blog 'Informed comment', one reader commented that:
“it seems the Israelis were/are more interested in electing leaders who are open to negotiating a solution with the Palestinians. …… the challenge for them is how do you negotiate with a government whose central identity rests on your elimination?”
This is a widespread myth that needs to be brought face to face with the facts before any serious discussion can commence. And the facts are that Israel is not remotely interested in negotiation. For even the most ardent believer in the morally pristine Israeli government Dov Weisglass’ interview with Ha'aretz two years ago lays that myth well and truly to rest. Weisglass spelled out unambiguously that his government’s central policy was the elimination of the merest prospect of a Palestine ever emerging.
Weisglass is one of the principal architects of the current disengagement plan. Recounting the interview, Le Monde Diplomatique said that "according to Weisglass, Sharon decided to give up Gaza, which he had never considered as a national interest, to save the settlements in the West Bank and, more important, to prevent any negotiated agreement with the Palestinians". Anyone still labouring under the delusion that the Gaza withdrawal was an onerous hardship that Israel had volunteered to bear for the sake of peace, or that Israel just wants to negotiate a fair settlement with the Palestinians, should carefully read Weisglass' exact words:
"There was a very difficult package of commitments that Israel was expected to accept. That package is called a political process. It included elements we will never agree to accept and elements we cannot accept at this time. But we succeeded in taking that package and sending it beyond the hills. You know, the term `political process' is a bundle of concepts and commitments. The political process is the establishment of a Palestinian state with all the security risks that entails. The political process is the evacuation of settlements, it's the return of refugees, it's the partition of Jerusalem [i.e. compliance with international law]. And all that has now been frozen.
The disengagement plan makes it possible for Israel to park conveniently in an interim situation that distances us as far as possible from political pressure. [It] is actually [suspending the political process in] formaldehyde. It supplies the amount of formaldehyde that's necessary so that there will not be a political process with the Palestinians.
It places the Palestinians under tremendous pressure. There are no more Israeli soldiers spoiling their day. And for the first time they have a slice of land with total continuity on which they can race from one end to the other in their Ferrari. And the whole world is watching them - them, not us. It is making it possible for the Americans to go to the seething and simmering international community and say to them, `What do you want?' It also transfers the initiative to our hands. It compels the world to deal with our idea, with the scenario we wrote.
[Sharon] doesn't see Gaza today as an area of national interest. He does see [the illegal West Bank settlements of] Judea and Samaria as an area of national interest. The withdrawal in Samaria is a token one. We agreed to only so it wouldn't be said that we concluded our obligation in Gaza. In regard to the large settlement blocs, thanks to the disengagement plan, we have in our hands a first-ever American statement that they will be part of Israel. Sharon can tell the leaders of the settlers that he is evacuating 10,000 settlers and in the future he will be compelled to evacuate another 10,000, but he is strengthening the other 200,000, strengthening their hold in the soil. [Sharon] can say honestly that ....out of 240,000 settlers, 190,000 will not be moved from their place. Will not be moved
I found a device, in cooperation with the management of the world [the US government], to ensure that there will be no .... timetable to implement the settlers' nightmare. I have postponed that nightmare indefinitely. Because what I effectively agreed to with the Americans was that part of the settlements would not be dealt with at all, and the rest will not be dealt with until the Palestinians turn into Finns. That is the significance of what we did. The significance is the freezing of the political process. And when you freeze that process you prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state and you prevent a discussion about the refugees, the borders and Jerusalem. Effectively, this whole package that is called the Palestinian state, with all that it entails, has been removed from our agenda indefinitely. And all this with authority and permission. All with a presidential blessing and the ratification of both houses of Congress. What more could have been anticipated? What more could have been given to the settlers? They should have danced around and around the Prime Minister's Office." (Ha’aretz, Tel Aviv, 8 October 2004)
(Weisglass’ jokes that Palestinians “can race from one end to the other [of the Gaza strip] in their Ferrari”. Of course, he knows full well the levels of extreme poverty, child malnutrition, etc that Gazans suffer from as a result of his government’s policies – as demonstrated by his expressed wish to put Palestinians on a “diet”. Note that this rock-solid ally of the west, friend of Condoleeza Rice, enjoyer of unrivalled access to the US Government, is an unashamedly out-and-out racist who relishes Palestinian suffering as a source of great amusement).
The fact is that, with the full backing of the US, Israel has consistently refused to negotiate anything other than the terms of Palestinian subjugation. See this article by Noam Chomsky for the full, miserable record. Israel must have been terrified by the emergence of a Hamas government, which could not be bribed into collaboration like Fatah, and which has for some time been making clear its willingness to negotiate a two-state solution on the basis of the 67 borders, in accordance with international law and the international consensus. Its latest agreement signed with Fatah which implicitly recognises Israel goes farther than it has gone before and would be a clear basis for a fair settlement, if that was what Israel wanted. But instead, yet another Israeli government has rejected a generous offer of peace and embraced terrorism as a means, not to peace, but to victory.
posted by David Wearing at 9:48 AM
4 Comments:
Hi, it has been a while
I would very much like to meet up some time when I'm back in Blighty of course.
Your analysis of the current malaise in Israel/Palestine, spot on. I would like to read what your analysis of the current crisis is too in Lebanon.
I must apologise for the brevity of this message, I have just been in a blazing row with a dinner guest on the alleged causes of the so-called Israeli-Palestine conflict and was, well, expelled from the dining room. Just to offer some context, my counterpart (dinner guest) asserted that the UN was the real fly in the water of the historical malaise in the Middle East. Perhaps affected by good wine, I demanded an explanation for such an assertion. I also retorted that I had researched the subject and found assertions like that to be somewhat, well, flimsy. My guest used my anebritation (correct spelling?) to waive my commentary and thus frame me as the only recalcitrant in the room. I was pissed off to say the least and left the room.
It is sometimes difficult to find kindred spirits in these times, but far from impossible. However, scenes such as the above are not infrequent and are perhaps a testament to a pervasive domestic debate on foreign policy issues. Let's hope so. The problem for me is that the person who made the assertion was a teacher. Is it not teh role of educationalists to, well, educate? A concept as broad as eduication should not be narrowed down in the discourse on the Iraq War or Israel/Palestine do-called conflict, but should challenge the discoures, surely???
Good will and keep in touch
Michael Walls
My email: julidad@hotmail.com
Wallsy - thanks for your comment. I'm sorry to hear your debate with this person didn't go so well. Not sure what they're precise view was but its of course entirely possible for people to be informed and intelligent and come to different conclusions. And again, not wanting to comment on an argument I haven't heard, but also its entirely possible for an educated person to simply be very good at articulating a doctrine, and less good at thinking outside of it.
Indeed, sometimes the "doctrine" becomes truth and, well, the rest becomes or is "history". The historical narrative surrounding the so-called "Peace Process" is indicative and instructive is it not? I actually carried out an analysis of a number of Social Science text books for my final PGCE thesis. It was only preliminary research , but it did reveal something: the existence of an incredible set of assumptions, both articulated and implied, concerning the nature of the Israeli/Palestinian Conflict. Building upon this Israeli/Palestinian discourse, as I defined it, students would learn about the conflict based on an array of different politically hued interpretations. What interested me the most was that even the most progressive interpretation in these texts was somehow influenced by the discourse. For example, and I can not remember everything word for word, in a section on a succession of negotiations during one of the early peace processes clearly illustrated Israeli rejectionism etc etc. The information was there to see. However, the information was not presented as rejectionism but was overidden by accounts of Palestinian violence ensuing post the negotiations; thus implying that the negotiations did not succeed because of - you guessed it - Palestinian violence. I concluded that, whilst there was a plethora of information, the narrative, the perennial narrative which supports Israel's world view, structured that information, thus emphasising only parts of the text important to sustaining the standard interpretation. Interestingly, when testing readers of these texts, I asked them which conclusions they drew from them and they were invariably more biased towards the Palestinians, DESPITE the information laid out to them. These readers were a very heterogenous group too. They had, I conluded, subsumed the narrative.
As'Ad Bukhalil pointed to something similar to this recently. I have actually mailed him in the hope of him assisting me in my research at a later date.
Wallsy
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