28 March - 3 April 2002
Issue No.579
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Al-Ahram Weekly Online 28 March - 3 April 2002 Issue No.579 |
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Rings around reality
You can pretend it's a land without people, but what about the people the new maps ignored? Abdelwahab Elmessiri* remarks on resilience
Seven years was all it took. Between 1993 and 1990 (the Oslo accords and the Intifada), the Israelis thought they had it made. They could finally tighten their grip on the Palestinian people and land through a Palestinian Authority (PA) stripped of both sovereignty and actual power. They could corrupt and bribe the PA into suppressing Palestinian politics and liquidating lingering national aspirations. National and religious sentiment would surely atrophy, and the Palestinian people would become mindless consumers, concerned solely about their standard of living, forgetting dignity and their right to a homeland. The essence of Peres's vision of a new Middle East was to lull or bully the Palestinians into mindless consumerism. It failed.
The West and the Zionists made promises. Palestine and Israel (and Jordan) would become the Singapore and Hong Kong of the Middle East: small populations, high productivity, booming standards of living, and no sense of history. Anyone who challenged this vision would be tamed or conveniently liquidated, if necessary, by the PA security forces.
The Zionists hoped they could use Oslo to achieve their colonialist dreams. The Israeli state would be the imperial master using the occupied country to its advantage, either through direct military force or through the collaboration of the ruling elite. The PA functionaries, in the role of native lackeys, would, for a few crumbs, manipulate the Palestinian public into carrying out their masters' designs.
The formula was perfect from the occupiers' point of view. The Israelis would get what they wanted and give little or nothing in return. They could keep on building and expanding colonies, adding luxury fittings; the rest was just a matter of marketing. Just before the Intifada, the regional council of the Jordan Valley settlements published a map that made no mention of Arab towns or villages. The Jordan Valley was depicted as virtually empty -- the safest place on earth.
Zionism is colonialism taken to its logical extreme. It survives by stealing land from others. Israel was created in 1948 on the larger part of Palestine. The rest was seized in 1967. Since then, Israel has been regularly confiscating land in the West Bank and Gaza to create settlements. In the beginning, the main thrust of settlement activities was in the Jordan Valley and the areas close to the Green Line. Then Israel began creating settlements inside densely populated Palestinian areas. Some, like Ma'ale Adumim, have become recognised towns.
The Likud government (1977-1984) brought the total number of settlements to 90. Under the Likud-Labour coalition (1984-1990), 15 more were built. Shamir's government (1990-1992) added 14. Netanyahu (1996-1999) created 40 minor settlements. Ehud Barak promised at first to freeze settlement activities, but ended up creating more than Netanyahu's right-wing government had.
In the last year of Netanyahu's government, and throughout the Barak period, settlements were enlarged and linked with ring roads encircling Palestinian areas and dismembering Palestinian land. The aim was to create clusters of settlements that could be used as so many bargaining chips in the final status talks. The area of settlements in the West Bank and Gaza doubled between 1993 and 2000. In 1993, settlements covered an area of 77 square km, or 3.1 per cent of the entire West Bank. In 2000, the total area of settlements was 150 square km, or 6.2 per cent of the West Bank. Settlement clusters now dominate about 50 per cent of the combined area of the West Bank and Gaza Strip (60 per cent of the West Bank, 32 per cent of the Gaza Strip). In the second half of 2001, settlers numbered 208,000.
Many saw Barak's election as the beginning of the end of a long conflict. The technology boom revived Israel's hopes for a place among leading Western economies. Residents of the Jordan Valley settlements were optimistic about the future. One of their local radio stations organised a marketing campaign to attract settlers. An Israeli singer was invited to move to the Jordan Valley and help with the campaign. The pitch stressed the calm, independent life and rustic beauty of the Jordan Valley.
The settlement of Yafit sought to attract families to settle in the area. Plans were made to build more condos and an organic farm. One new resident was exuberant about the psychic energy emanating from the "abandoned house" she decided to move into. Some were less upbeat, for the settlement still lacked a full-sized shopping mall. Eight families moved into the build-your-own-house section. Their children loved the experience so much that they vowed to return after their military service. Some 130 houses were sold in all. Social life thrived, the elderly discovered new forms of entertainment. Files of cars converged on road 90 every morning, motorists pausing just long enough to fill up and grab a quick breakfast before heading to work.
Then the Intifada broke out. The land that was supposed to be empty of people sprouted children and adolescents, men and women, who just would not roll over and die. The mass of humanity that the Zionists had ignored heaved to life. The Palestinians decided not to let the Zionists have their way. Sharon came to power, helped by the settlers' vote, on a promise to finish off the Intifada within 100 days. Hundreds of days have passed since then, and his policies are more dead-locked than ever. The circuitous roads of colonialism may have circumvented Arab towns, but they are taking the Israelis nowhere.
The writer is professor emeritus of philosophy at Ain Shams University.
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