 |
Al-Ahram Weekly 13 - 19 May 1999 Issue No. 429 
|
||
Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
 |
 |
|
|
Al-Ahram Weekly 13 - 19 May 1999 Issue No. 429
|
||
| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
|
|
|
Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Profile Features Books Travel Living Sports People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters Orient House confrontation deferred
By Khaled Amayreh
Faisal Husseini (l) talks with Azmi Bishara, the only Arab Israeli candidate in next week's Israeli general elections, after Israel's High Court ordered the government to delay closing offices at the Orient House (photo: Reuters) Hundreds of Palestinians let off fire-crackers, sang nationalist songs and danced in the streets on Tuesday when news broke out that the Israeli High Court had ordered Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to delay closing three offices at Orient House, the Palestinian multi-activity community centre in East Jerusalem, for at least a week, defusing the crisis until after Monday's general elections in Israel.
In the latest Israeli cabinet meeting on Sunday, right-wing Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu instructed his internal security minister, Avigodor Kahlani, to make sure that an earlier cabinet decision to close down three Palestinian offices in Orient House is carried out "with or without the consent of the Palestinians". The three offices in question have in fact been operating at Orient House for many years, with successive Israeli governments choosing not to force a showdown with Palestinians over the issue.
However, it seems that Netanyahu has decided to turn Orient House into a test case, if only to demonstrate his "strong leadership" before the Israeli electorate at a time when opinion polls show him lagging behind his main rival, Labour Party leader Ehud Barak.
The Israeli High Court judges on Tuesday gave the Likud government and the Palestinians until 18 May to respond to a petition filed by the Israeli peace group, Ir Shalem, or a Whole City. Their petition said the premier's closure order was motivated by electoral considerations and could ignite violence.
"I think the court decision lowers the spectre of confrontation which had been imminent. We hope the final decision will be to cancel the orders altogether," said Faisal Husseini, member of the Palestinian Authority (PA) responsible for the Jerusalem file.
Israel issued the closure order on Monday, contending that the PA was conducting activity in the three offices in violation of peace deals.
European consuls visited Orient House shortly after the Israeli court's decision to congratulate Husseini, who has been staying overnight at his office in order to deter the Israeli police from using force to carry out the closure order.
The logic behind prolonging the crisis over Orient House, perhaps until election day, is that Netanyahu will keep his place in the spotlight thus enabling Likud to pick up votes from security conscious voters. "If the Palestinians want, they will close the offices with their agreement, and if not, the offices will be closed without their agreement," said the Israeli premier, with characteristic arrogance before a group of Likud supporters earlier this week.
Netanyahu's attempt to close Orient House is by no means the only or even the most important recent Israeli provocation against Palestinians. The Israeli government decided in the same session on Sunday to allocate $100 million to strengthen Jewish control of Jerusalem and increase Jewish population in the town's eastern sector. According to Israeli sources, the money will be used in building a new network of roads, tunnels, and bridges bypassing Arab population centres on Jerusalem's southern and southeastern outskirts.
With this elaborate urban planning Israel aims to further throttle Arab demographic growth and push many of the already hard-pressed Palestinians of Jerusalem to leave the city. This would be a direct result of Israel's quiet but multi-facetted policy of ethnic cleansing. This policy is designed, as three ex-advisers to former Jerusalem mayor Teddy Collek admitted in a new book published recently, "to move as many Jews as possible into Jerusalem and move as many Arabs as possible out of the city entirely."
This deliberate attempt to limit and constrain the living spaces of Palestinians in Jerusalem and in the West Bank is an integral part of Israel's expansion of its control over Arab land. Jewish settlers, with apparent connivance from the Netanyahu government, have been taking over Palestinian hill-tops and grabbing large areas of land on a scale unprecedented since the government of Yitzhak Shamir in the mid and late 1980s.
Palestinian sources estimate that at least 25 settlements have been established by the settlers since the signing of the Wye Plantation Agreement on 23 October. This will bring the number of Jewish settlements in the West Bank and Gaza Strip to a total of 220 which represents over 50 per cent of the Palestinian land grabbed by Israel in 1967.
Strangely enough, apart from some public denunciations of the "ghoul of land grab", PA reactions to the intended closure of Orient House, the onslaught of settlement expansion in Jerusalem and the rest of the West Bank have been extraordinarily cautious and circumspect. Palestinian sources intimated that PA leader Yasser Arafat was careful not to allow Netanyahu to drag the PA and the Palestinian people on the eve of the Israeli general elections into a showdown that only Netanyahu would win. "This man [Netanyahu] thrives on crises and violence; we are not going to give him what he wants," said a close confidant to Arafat on condition of anonymity.
This opinion however doesn't really reflect public feeling throughout the Occupied Territories. Indeed, while most Palestinians agree that "One Israel" prime ministerial candidate Ehud Barak may be the lesser of two evils, very few of them seem willing to buy the widely-held theory that a Barak victory would make much of a difference. Hence their scepticism regarding the PA's "do-nothing, say-nothing" until the Israeli elections take place. "Netanyahu and Barak," as one Palestinian journalist put it, "are like tweedledum and tweedledee," given their respective stances on final status issues such as Jerusalem, the refugees, the settlements and land.
"What difference will it make if Barak or Netanyahu wins, when the bulk of the West Bank is already congested with Jewish settlements and when Jerusalem has already become a predominantly Jewish town?" argued one Fatah official. Undoubtedly, this question is going to face Arafat immediately after the results of the Israeli elections are announced on 18 May regardless of who becomes prime minister.
Pundits here contend that Arafat will come under strong public pressure to declare Palestinian statehood if Netanyahu is reelected. "It would be foolish on our part to give Netanyahu the benefit of the doubt yet again after all he has done," said Abbas Zaki, an influential Legislative Council member.
The vital question, however, is whether Arafat will be willing or even able to act against the wishes of the United States with regard to statehood given that President Clinton has asked him not to take any unilateral action, irrespective of who will become Israel's next prime minister, until 4 May 2000.
