20 - 26 December 2001
Issue No.565
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Al-Ahram Weekly Online 20 - 26 December 2001 Issue No.565 |
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History repeated
Taking no cue from Arafat's conciliatory Eid speech, Sharon may have bigger dreams than tossing out the defunct peace process, reports Khaled Amayreh from Jerusalem
Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat declared in his address on 16 December, the Eid holiday, that the PA would do all it could to prevent armed resistance, particularly suicide bombings, against Israel. Arafat vowed to arrest and prosecute perpetrators and planners of such attacks, but he also called on the Israeli government to make his task easier by halting its policy of assassination, which he hinted would only trigger more retaliatory suicidal bombings on the part of Palestinian resistance groups, particularly Hamas and the Islamic Jihad.
The speech was preceded by a set of harsh measures against the two organisations, including the closure of some 35 Islamist-run educational, cultural and charitable institutions. The closed institutions, a PA official admitted, had no connections with the military wings of Hamas and Islamic Jihad. Nonetheless, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon was not appeased by Arafat's conciliatory actions. He admitted on 17 December that he didn't care much about what Arafat said in his speech, adding, rather scornfully, that "I should admit I haven't heard all his words."
On the ground, far from reciprocating Arafat's gestures by relaxing a claustrophobic blockade of Palestinian towns and villages, the Israeli army continued its overtly aggressive measures throughout the holiday of Eid Al- Fitr, which marks the end of the holy month of Ramadan. Palestinians living in these areas complain that the blockades have reduced their population centres to virtual concentration camps.
It soon became clear that this policy of aggression would continue unabated. Three Palestinians, including an 11-year-old boy from Khan Younis, were killed on 17 December by Israeli forces. The army claimed the boy was caught in cross-fire, but locals insist that this was not the case. His family says the child was blowing balloons and playing with toys he had received for the Eid when Israeli snipers stationed at a nearby outpost shot him in the head. An Israeli reserve soldier admitted on Israeli TV on 16 December that "these days we shoot them in the head and no questions are asked."
Rather than celebrating Eid Al-Fitr, another Palestinian family was mourning their son. Meanwhile, while residents were exchanging Eid greetings and visits in Hebron, an Israeli death squad slipped into a PA- administered part of the town and assassinated 28-year- old Yaccoub Edkadek, an Islamist activist who had been jailed several times in Israel for his political views. The Israeli army claimed that Edkadek had been killed trying to evade arrest, but the attack meant that he was riddled with bullets as his family looked on.
The early-morning assassination infuriated the Islamic movement in Hebron which vowed to respond in kind. "If we seek to defend ourselves, we will be killed. If we obey Arafat's cease-fire call, we will also be killed," said a Hamas resistance leader in Hebron, speaking on condition of anonymity. "If this is the case, it makes no sense to obey Arafat."
A third Palestinian, a PA policeman, was also shot on the same day, on his way to visit his sister in the northern West Bank in Nablus. The Israeli army said the man was riding in an unmarked car and was travelling on a dirt road to bypass Israeli roadblocks in the area.
Palestinians have effectively been banned from travelling, even on foot, within an area that covers up to 75 per cent of the West Bank. The result is that an estimated 3.2 million Palestinians are under "town-arrest." Palestinians caught walking or travelling outside their immediate population centres are subject to beatings and other humiliations -- a practice reminiscent of Nazi treatment of Jews during World War II.
One of the most notorious forms of humiliation allegedly employed by the Israeli army is that of "stripping." Widely-reported in the Palestinian press, many Palestinians have testified under oath that Israeli officers routinely force civilians to take off all their clothes, save the underwear, at gunpoint. The men are usually stranded for several hours, usually near Israeli roadblocks and checkpoints, before they are ordered to return home, naked.
The Israeli army has readily admitted -- even boasted -- about the practice, arguing that these measures are necessary to fight terrorism. The logic is faulty, however, since such measures tap into pent-up anger that can ultimately boomerang in the form of deadly suicide bomb attacks.
But this might be exactly what Sharon and his hawks want. Increased suicide bombings against Israelis, especially civilians and settlers -- and, particularly, by Hamas and the Islamic Jihad -- would serve as a pretext for Sharon to step up an already aggressive campaign against the Palestinian Authority. It may also serve to justify targeting Arafat.
Indeed, Sharon seems conspicuously eager to reach this goal. After declaring Arafat "irrelevant" last week, and after destroying and bulldozing much of the PA security and political infrastructure -- including the PA official radio station, the Voice of Palestine, in Ramallah -- Sharon told a German newspaper on 18 December that Arafat was "history."
The Israeli prime minister may be clearing up unfinished business with Arafat from their Beirut days. As Israel's defence minister, Sharon oversaw the massacre at Sabra and Shatila, where more than 2,000 Palestinian refugees were killed by proxy Israeli militias. In fact, the present Israeli siege of Arafat in Ramallah has been seen by many as a latter-day re-enactment of the bloodier 1982 Beirut siege. Sharon had then wanted to destroy the PLO and annex the West Bank to make possible the realisation of Erez Yisrael, the greater land of Israel.
Sharon failed to achieve this goal, though he saw to the destruction of much of Lebanon and the deaths of some 20,000 Lebanese and Palestinians, mostly civilians, in the course of his efforts. His present goals do not seem to differ much from his goals then. If there is ever a difference, it is in form, not in substance. Now enjoying almost unlimited support from an American president poorly versed in Middle East politics, Sharon must be entertaining the idea of "getting the job done," albeit belatedly.
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