The Gaza strip is a perfect realization of the Israeli vision of” separation ” . Surrounded with electric fences and army posts, completelysealed off the outside world, Gaza has become a huge prison. Aboutonethirdof its land was confiscated for the 7,000 Israeli settlers living there(and their defense array), while over a million Palestinians are crowdedinthe remaining areas of the prison. With no work or sources of income,about80% of its residents depend, for their living, on UNRWA, or contributionsfrom Arab states and charity organizations. Now Israel is considering theimprisonment there of families of suicide bombers from the West Bank (1).As a senior Israeli analyst stated, Gaza can now serve as ” the penalcolony ” of Israel its ” devils island, Alcatraz ” . (Nahum Barnea, YediotAharonot June 21, 2002).
This is the future that Sharon and the Israeli army designate for theWest Bank as well. While the external fence is presently being built, Israel’scurrent military operation is set to be the final step in theimplementation the IDF plans for reestablishing full military rule (whichwas abolished in large parts of the West Bank during the Oslo process).Though Israel describes everything it does as a spontaneous reaction toterror, the plan was fully spelled out in the Israeli media already backin March 2001, soon after Sharon entered office. Alex Fishman, military andstrategic analyst of Yediot Aharonot, explained at the time that sinceOslo, ” the IDF regarded the occupied territories as if they were oneterritorial cell ” , and this placed some constraints on the IDF and enableda certain amount of freedom for the PA and the Palestinian population. Thenew plan is a return to the concept of the military administration duringthe preOslo years: the occupied territories will be divided into tens ofisolated ” territorial cells ” , each of which will be assigned a specialmilitary force, ” and the local commander will have freedom to use hisdiscretion ” as to when and who to shoot. (Yediot Ahronot weekendsupplement, March 9.2001).
The first stage of this plan the destruction of the institutions of thePalestinian Authority was completed in the previous ‘Operation DefensiveShield’ in April of this year. In practice, from that time on, the townsand villages of the West Bank have been completely sealed. Even exit byfoot, which was possible up to that point, became blocked, and movementbetween the ” territorial cells ” now requires formal permits from theIsraeli military authorities. Soldiers and snipers prevent any” unauthorized ” walking to agricultural fields, to places of work andstudy, or for medical treatment.
However, unlike the preOslo period of Israeli military rule, the armymakes it clear that there is no intention to construct any civil administrationthat will take care of the basic daily needs of the two millionPalestinians, such as food supplies, health services, garbage and sewage.For these tasks, some form of a Palestinian Authority will be maintained,though in practice it will not be allowed to function.
As a ‘military source’ told Ha’aretz, ” Internal conclusions of thesecurity echelons, following operation ‘Defensive Shield’, assessed that thefunctioning of the civil branches of the Palestinian Authority had reachedan unprecedented nadir, mainly due to the destruction the IDF operationleft behind in Ramallah (including the systematic destruction of computersand databases)… Combined with the severe restrictions on movement, thePalestinian population is becoming, as the military source defined it,’poor, dependent, unemployed, rather hungry, and extreme’… The financialreserves of the Palestinian authority are reaching the bottom… In afuture not far off, the majority of Palestinians will only be able tomaintain a reasonable life through the help of international aid. “(Ha’aretz Hebrew edition, June 23, 2002, Amos Har’el). Thus, the West Bankis being driven to the level of poverty of the Gaza strip.
Nevertheless, at the same time that Israel deprives the Palestinians oftheir means of income, it also makes a substantial effort to diminish orblock international aid, under the pretext that the aid is used to supportterrorists or their families. At the outset of its new ‘operation’, Israel” decided to stop the flow of foodaid and medicine from Iran and Iraq toPalestinians in the territories ” (Ha’aretz, June 24, 2002, Amos Har’el).Iranian and Iraqi aid is an easy target for Israel, as these countriesbelong to the ” Axis of Evil ” . However, Israel started launching a moreambitious campaign: The EU the largest PA donor is under constantpressure from Israel to cut its aid, which is used, inter alia to pay thesalaries of teachers and health workers. The tactics are always the same:Israel provides some documents presumably linking the PA to terror. Anyaid to the PA is, therefore, aid to terror (2).UNRWA’s aid is the next target. The U.N. Relief and Works Agency forPalestinians in the Near East (UNRWA) has become a major source of foodfor Palestinians in the besieged territories. Its food supplies are nowdelivered not only to the refugee camps, but also in towns and villages.The amount of food UNRWA supplies has increased fourfold in two years (3).
Recently, ” Israel has begun a campaign in the United States and the UnitedNations to urge a reconsideration of the way the UN Relief and WorksAgency, which runs the Palestinian refugee camps in the West Bank andGaza, operates. Israel charges that UNRWA workers simply ignored the fact thatPalestinian organizations were turning the camps into terrorist bases andit is demanding the agency start reporting all military or terroristactions within the camps to the UN…. Meanwhile, Jewish and proIsraelilobbyists in the U.S. are waging a parallel campaign … American Jewishlobbyists are basing their efforts on the fact that the U.S. currentlycontributes some 30 percent of UNRWA’s $400 million a year budget, and istherefore in a position to influence the agency: A congressional refusalto approve UNRWA’s funding could seriously disrupt its operations. (Ha’aretzJune 29, 2002, Nathan Guttman). The campaign is not yet demanding cuttingUNRWA’s aid and presence altogether, but raising the impossible demandthat UNRWA should serve as an active force in ” the war against terror “( ” reporting military or terrorist actions ” ) is the first step towards sucha demand.(4) Since September 11, Sharon has been constructingan analogy between the occupied territories and Afghanistan(with the PA as Al Qaeda). He keeps declaring that the solution toPalestinian terror, and the required ‘reforms’,should be along the lines set in Afghanistan. The analogy isfrighteningly revealing: As it established the ‘reforms’ in Afghanistan,the US forced starvation upon millions of people. This is how Noam Chomskydescribed it: ” On Sept. 16, the New York Times reported that ‘Washingtonhas also demanded [from Pakistan] a cutoff of fuel supplies…and theelimination of truck convoys that provide much of the food and othersupplies to Afghanistan’s civilian population.’ Astonishingly, that reportelicited no detectable reaction in the West, a grim reminder of the natureof the Western civilization that leaders and elite commentators claim touphold. In the following days, those demands were implemented… ‘Thecountry was on a lifeline,’ one evacuated aid worker reports, ‘and we justcut the line’ (NY times Magazine, September 30). According to the world’sleading newspaper, then, Washington demanded that Pakistan ensures thedeath of enormous numbers of Afghans, millions of them already on thebrink of starvation, by cutting off the limited sustenance thatwas keeping them alive. ” (Interview with Michael Albert, reprinted in
Noam Chomsky, 911, Seven Stories, 2002). Arundhati Roy,summarized this at the time: ” Witness the infinite justice of the new century.Civilians starving to death while they’re waiting to be killed ” (Guardian, Sept. 29).
The new stage of Israel’s ‘separation’ can no longer be compared to theApartheid of South Africa. As Ronnie Kasrils, South Africa’s Minister ofWater Affairs, said in an Interview with Al Ahram Weekly, ” the SouthAfrican apartheid regime never engaged in the sort of repression Israel isinflicting on the Palestinians ” (Issue of March 28 April 3, 2002). Weare witnessing the daily invisible killing of the sick and wounded beingdeprived of medical care, the weak who cannot survive in the new povertyconditions, and those who are bound to reach starvation.
Nevertheless, the public debate in Israel revolves around questions ofefficiency: Is it possible to stop terror in such methods. Let us supposeeven that it is. Is it allowed? Is this what we (Israelis) want to be?One people stole the ‘Lamb of its poor neighbor'(5): Gaza and the WestBank are 22% of the land of IsraelPalestine, where the Palestinians lived inthe past. On this small piece of land, three million people live, with hopes,needs and dreams, just like ours. Since Oslo, they have been lured withpromises that we are about to evacuate the settlements and give them backtheir land, at the very same time that we have been imprisoning them inGaza, stealing more of their land in the West Bank, and leaving them nohope whatsoever. The Palestinian people are fighting for their freedom.
The crimes of Palestinian terror do not remove our culpability for our owncrimes. Before Oslo, as well, there was a wave of horrible terrorattacks. But at that time, after each such attack, the call was heard get outof the territories! Then it was still understood that when you leave people nohope, there is no way to stop the madness of suicide bombing. It is nottoo late to get out of the territories.