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Al-Ahram Weekly On-line 16 - 22 November 2000 Issue No.508 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly On-line 16 - 22 November 2000 Issue No.508
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Focus Travel Living Sports Profile People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters Partners, not prisoners
By Salah Montasser
The problem of Arab relations with Israel, has little to do with who rules in Israel -- Barak, Sharon, Shamir, Netanyahu or Peres -- but has much to do with the misconceptions deeply ingrained in the minds of all Israeli leaders and their insistence that things could not be otherwise. Having realised that eradicating the Palestinian nation and uprooting the population is not as easy as they anticipated, Israeli leaders seem to be coming to terms with the inevitability of coexistence, but in their own way. They seem resolved to coexist -- but with the Palestinians as their prisoners, not partners or neighbours.
On the ground, this policy means that Palestinians move in and out of their territory through guarded gates and fortified posts, under strict Israeli military control. They are forbidden access to their workplaces within Israel, so they are left to suffer unemployment, deprivation, hunger and humiliation. The settlements are built in the very midst of Arab towns and villages. The few dozens of settlers, however, dominate the Arab majority, which is constantly made to feel that its very life depends on appeasing the settlers.
Nor are the prisoners allowed to object to mistreatment in Israeli prisons. Prison law is harsh, and any complaint a rebellion to be curbed firmly. Israelis deny the Palestinians even the right to react or express anger at Sharon's defiling of Al-Aqsa Mosque. Barak therefore sees nothing wrong with shooting children and bombarding the civilian population with missiles. A prisoner has no right to be angry or throw stones at his tormentor; he may only pray that God will grant him another day's life.
If Israeli children had thrown stones at the Israeli troops, would Barak have ordered them to be shot? Would he have mowed them down with his tanks and helicopters? The most the soldiers would have done was to disperse them by hosing them down, lobbing a couple of canisters of tear gas in their direction or, at most, firing a few warning shots in the air. But Palestinian and Israeli children are not the same, for Israelis do not consider Palestinians human beings. Palestinian teenagers are dying every day; they are as addicted to martyrdom, it seems, as the Israelis are to murder.
The Intifada today is very different from the movement that broke out in Gaza in 1987-'88. Gaza and the entire West Bank at the time were under full Israeli control. The Israelis at the time did not react to the stone throwing with the violence and brutality we see today, although then as now Palestinian youngsters were throwing the stones. Back in the '80s, the Palestinians were considered "Israel's population;" this time, they are its prisoners in Palestine. Not a single one of the young stone-throwers saw Palestine before the occupation. They were all born and bred under occupation and dispossession. Yet Palestine remains vivid in their minds, and they have never compromised on their identity.
As a result of the first Intifada, Israel gave the Palestinians the right to administer their affairs in Gaza and the West Bank, which would relieve it of several cumbersome administrative burdens. While the Palestinians accepted the idea, believing that they would be living in their own sovereign state, the Israelis had already planned that the "area" to be allocated to the Palestinians would be, quite literally, a prison. Sharon, the butcher of Sabra and Shatila; Peres, who ordered the Qana slaughter; Netanyahu, implicated in the Al-Aqsa tunnel massacre; and now Barak and the new massacre: all these have decided to keep the Palestinians on as prisoners. No peace is conceivable between prisoner and jailer, however -- no peace, indeed, is possible until these roles are changed.
Israel has failed to wipe out the Palestinian identity. While the first Intifada proved to the world that the Palestinians were determined to live in Palestine, the second may establish the fact that they are born to live as partners, not prisoners.
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