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Al-Ahram Weekly 3 - 9 June 1999 Issue No. 432 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 3 - 9 June 1999 Issue No. 432
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Profile Interview Travel Sports People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters Likud's death rattle
By Graham UsherStanding beside the reinforced steel fence and bulldozers that ring the site of the new 132 unit Jewish settlement at Ras Al-Amud, Palestinian Legislative Council member for Jerusalem, Hanan Ashrawi, last week described what for her is the most "dangerous phenomena" currently assailing the Oslo "peace" process. It is that "the settlers will exploit the transition between [Israel's] old and new governments to create a whole new set of volatile facts on the ground".
But Ashrawi's prognosis has turned out to be only partially true. The most "dangerous phenomena" is less the actions of ever diminishing bands of settlers than the death rattle of the outgoing Likud-led coalition. This is evidenced not only in the recent approval granted by Jerusalem's Likud-led municipality to commence construction at Ras Al-Amud and for the new Har Homa settlement at Jebel Abu Ghneim; nor in the quiet governmental support provided to settlers in "grabbing" 23 hilltop settlements since the Wye agreement was signed in October 1998.
Likud's final (and potentially most lethal) sting in the tail came on 28 May when the Israeli press reported that outgoing Defence Minister, Moshe Arens, had approved a master plan that would extend the "judicial boundaries" of the Maale Adumin settlement by some 12,000 dunums (or 2,500 acres), making the settlement's overall "municipal area" a colossal 53,000 dunums. By way of comparison, the municipal area for Tel Aviv is 51,000 dunums.
Maale Adumin lies mid-way between Jerusalem and Jericho and, with 24,000 settlers, is the largest settlement in the occupied territories. The master plan not only absorbs the last remaining land reserves belonging to East Jerusalem's Palestinian villages of Al-Zaim, Al-Izzariya, Issawiya, Abu Dis and Anata (which have a combined population of over 50,000 but a "master plan" of just 4,600 dunums). If realised, it would territorially connect Maale Adumin to "annexed" East Jerusalem and pull the latter's borders so far eastwards as to divide the West Bank into two separate "northern" and "southern" cantons. Or -- as Arens put it in an interview with Israel's Maariv newspaper in February -- the present goal of Israel's settlement policies is to "determine the final status borders" ahead of the final status negotiations.
The Palestinian Authority responded with predictable fury, denouncing the decision as the work of a "crazed government" whose intent is "not only to destroy the peace process but to lay mines complicating [the policies] of the next government". It has also called on the US and European Union to intercede with Israel to have the decision rescinded, a plea that has been received with some sympathy by the Americans.
US Embassy spokesman in Israel, Larry Schwartz, criticised the Maale Adumin expansion as "a provocative act by an outgoing government" that "would not only sour the environment, (but also) unquestionably complicate negotiations". Similar disapproval was voiced by prospective Israeli coalition members and ministers in the next Israeli government such as Meretz and Yossi Beilin, who also bemoaned the Maale Adumin decision as a "provocation" aimed at "dragging the country into conflict".
But -- as yet -- there has been nothing except the most deafening silence on Maale Adumin from the leader of that government, Ehud Barak. As news of Arens' decision broke, Barak spokesman, David Ziso, warded off all enquiries with the statement that Israel's prime minister elect "will not be dealing with diplomatic issues until he has completed the task of setting up his government".
Palestinian nerves would be better assuaged if the emerging guidelines of that government were more conciliatory to their aspirations. But Palestinian hopes appear currently to lie at the very bottom of Barak's agenda. According to Israel Radio --and presumably to square the conflicting demands of the "leftist" Meretz bloc and "rightist" National Religious Party --Barak is currently working on a "formula" for settlements which would "honour" all settlement expansions decided by the Netanyahu government until its fall in December 1998, but would "re-examine" all decisions taken thereafter. This may mean that Barak would freeze the Maale Adumin expansion, but it also suggests that other decisions -- like the one to build Har Homa (which Barak supported as Labour opposition leader) -- will be left intact.
Alarmed perhaps by Barak's "silence", the Maale Adumin expansion has at least galvanised the PA into action at levels other than the diplomatic. On 30 May, a "National Popular Conference on Confronting Settlements" held in Ramallah declared Thursday 3 June "a day of anger" against Israel's settlement policies, pledging marches throughout the occupied territories and protests at settlement sites. "We must strengthen the popular opposition to the settlement offensive and translate our anger into confrontations that can put an end to the settlements that threaten to erase our existence," said PA General-Secretary, Tayib Abdul-Rahim, in Ramallah.
Given the PA's endorsement, there will doubtless be protests and even confrontations on the day. But the prevailing mood on the Palestinian street is that such actions are a case of too little, too late. The apathy is compounded by a recent wave of Palestinian protests in East Jerusalem that have garnered few results and even fewer protesters. One West Bank Fatah leader (who declined to be attributed) explained this apparent popular indifference to the settlements as born from a "double crisis" of faith in the PA leadership and the "peace process" it espouses. "It is important to confront settlements", he says. "But our resistance has to be more than this. We have to again instil in the Israelis the fear that negotiations are not our final or only option".
The problem is that the essence of Oslo -- with its "strategic commitment" to peace and PA-Israeli "security cooperation" -- has long denuded the present Palestinian leadership of any "option" other than negotiations and the prayer that they will deliver something. If that deliverance refuses to come, then the Palestinian struggle against settlements may well presuppose another -- the struggle against a leadership that has proved so ineffectual in resisting their expansion.
