Issue No. 605
Region
Previous issue
Site map
|
|
26 Sept. - 2 October 2002 Issue No. 605 Region |
Current issue Previous issue Site map | |
| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 | Recommend this page | ||
Ignored and repressed
Palestinians fear another wave of Israeli repression as soon as the US launches its war against Iraq, Talal Jabari reports from Jerusalem
A little over one year ago, Israeli army tanks were parked in the fields and hills surrounding the West Bank city of Jenin, occasionally shelling the outskirts of the city, and staging small-scale incursions.
That was the same month two airplanes crashed into the World Trade Center in New York, and the third into the Pentagon in Washington, killing approximately 3,000 people. An isolated few Palestinians took to the streets honking their horns, celebrating an attack on a country they saw as biased against their cause. The majority watched in shock and braced for what they knew was the inevitable.
Immediately following the September attacks, Israel embarked on Operation Dull Blade, the first of its larger-scale operations, in which the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) reconquered Jenin along with most of the Palestinian Authority territory. Israel said its campaign in the Palestinian territories was in response to suicide bombs that targeted Israeli civilians. Palestinians asserted that the suicide bombs came in response to the reoccupation and targeted assassinations of Palestinian militants.
It was a bloody cycle that left dozens dead on both sides of the divide. And as the US's "war against terrorism" expanded in Afghanistan, so did Israel's military campaign in the West Bank. Now, a year later, Israeli citizens are flocking to distribution centres in the basements of malls around the country to collect their free gas mask kits. Their government has told them there will be a war against Iraq in November, and they fear Iraq will attack Israel with non-conventional weapons.
During the last Gulf War, which came in 1991 in the midst of the first Intifada, Iraq launched 39 Scud Missiles with conventional warheads at Israeli cities as Palestinians stood on their rooftops and cheered. Some Palestinians saw the missile attacks as a route to victory in their own plight.
Now, in the midst of another Palestinian Intifada, and with the prospect of yet another war looming overhead, Palestinians feel that with the media spotlight once again shifted away from them, this time towards Iraq, the United States has given Sharon's government a freehand to do as it pleases in the Palestinian territories. The humiliating siege and continuos shelling of Palestinian President Yasser Arafat's headquarters in Ramallah over the weekend was met with mysterious Arab and US indifference, which confirmed Palestinian fears of being abandoned.
"The day after the attack against Iraq we are going to be forgotten," said Dr Mahdi Abdel Hadi, director of PASSIA, a Palestinian think tank in Jerusalem.
Palestinian Authority officials committed to the pledges they made as part of the Gaza-Bethlehem First agreement, by which the IDF redeployed out of Bethlehem last month, are concerned that the provocation might come from their side.
"We are worried about setbacks in the case of a war in Iraq," said Ghassan Khatib, Palestinian labour minister. They wonder just how long they can hold off the militants if war is to break out. So far, the PA has seen its success in restraining militants in the town as a way of regaining credibility with the Bush Administration. "The way of handling this issue, hopefully will help reduce the level of hostility in the US Administration towards the Palestinian leadership," said Khatib.
But their concerns are justified. A recent poll conducted by the Palestinian Centre for Public Opinion (PCPO) found that nearly 80 per cent of Palestinians believed they should support Iraq if it were to be attacked. The fear is that action by Palestinian militants would trigger harsh Israeli action.
Palestinians know war is inevitable and they are already expecting harsher military operations from the IDF than those that coincided with the war in Afghanistan.
"The war will mean a nightmare in Palestine. The Sharon government will implement its old agenda of Transfer... transfer(ing) the refugee camps to Jordan," said Hadi.
People on the Palestinian street draw similarities between what is happening on the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and what would happen in Iraq. Both Arafat and Iraqi President Saddam Hussein have been labeled irrelevant by Israel and the US respectively. And some believe that the current Israeli reoccupation is a model for what US troops will do in Iraqi cities.
Hadi says the end result of the war in Iraq will be uncertainty for Palestinians and Iraqis alike. He foresees a violent end to Hamas in Gaza, and the continuation of the Israeli military occupation of Palestinian territories similar to that which existed in the pre-Oslo days. "All agree that we are going to be the real victims of the military attack against Iraq."
|
 |
|
|||||||||||||||||
| ARCHIVES Letter from the Editor Editorial Board Subscription Advertise! |
WEEKLY ONLINE: www.ahram.org.eg/weekly Updated every Saturday at 11.00 GMT, 2pm local time weeklyweb@ahram.org.eg |
 Al-Ahram Organisation |
