A non-partner

Olmert's assertions of power in Israel spell bleak days for the Palestinians, Khaled Amayreh writes

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Despite occasional half-hearted assertions of commitment to the roadmap plan, it is growing increasingly clear under the leadership of Kadima Chairman Ehud Olmert that Israel is effectively abandoning the erstwhile peace plan. Some Israeli officials and politicians have already started referring to the American-backed plan as "moribund" and "dead". Meanwhile the Israeli media have come to consider it "no longer relevant" given the outcomes of Palestinian and Israeli elections, and strident unilateral measures taken by the Israeli government in the West Bank.

Now more than ever, it appears that in fact Israel was never truly committed to the roadmap. To begin with, the Israeli cabinet had attached 14 reservations to the acceptance decision, each of which was significant enough to render the plan void of substance. With the United States distracted by the Iranian nuclear issue, and with much of the world shunning the recently elected Hamas-led government, Olmert believes the time is right to draw up a roadmap of his own. New plans could effectively lead to the annexation of more than 50 per cent of the West Bank, while truncating the remaining territories into enclaves, bantustans and townships, cut off from each other and isolated from the outside world.

Indeed Olmert is already translating his own plan into facts on the ground in the West Bank. Israel has confiscated tens of thousands of acres of Arab land in the Jerusalem region and declared the Jordan River area off-limits to non-Jews. Moreover, the Israeli government has practically sealed off Jerusalem from the West Bank and turned former checkpoints on the road to Ramallah in the north and Bethlehem in the south into permanent so-called international border-terminals.

Concomitant to this is an ongoing murder campaign against Gazans, who have lived for years at the mercy of Israeli whim regarding border controls, which determine food transportation and mobility. In just three days this week, more than 20 people have been killed. On 9 April, an Israeli tank fired an artillery shell at a home in Beit Lahya in northern Gaza, killing a 10-year-old girl and injuring her entire family of 10 as well as six neighbours. Most of the victims were minors. Some Israeli officials claimed the bombardment was at least in part designed to make things harder for the Hamas-led government. In other words, Israel is not only seeking to starve the Palestinians -- it also intends to maim and kill them in its bid to force them to regret having voted Hamas in.

Meanwhile, Olmert has continued to pursue his efforts to form a new government, which will conceivably include a cacophony of manifestly fascist, ultra-religious, centre-right and centre-left parties that must all embrace his "convergence plan". The plan entails the transfer of some 70,000 Jewish settlers from the "small and isolated settlements" east of the apartheid wall into settlements on the Israeli side of the wall. In other words, the wall, which Israeli leaders including Olmert repeatedly stress is a "security barrier", would become Israel's effective border.

One of the more expressly racist parties that is expected to join the next Israeli government is Israel Beitinu (Israel is our home), headed by former Russian immigrant Avigdor Leiberman. As minister in the Ariel Sharon government, Leiberman once called for the bombing of the Aswan High Dam in Egypt and Tehran. He also reportedly suggested during a cabinet session that Israel should carpet-bomb Palestinian streets, banks, commercial centres and "leave the border crossings open". What is particularly worrying about Leiberman, who could become Israel's next minister of police, is that he brazenly calls for the expulsion of entire Arab towns in Israel in order to ensure that Israel remains a pure Jewish state with a clear Jewish majority. Given his fascistic outlook, one can easily predict how, given power, he would deal with non-Jews, especially Israel's Arab minority, which constitutes more than one-fifth of Israel's population.

Interestingly, when asked why he was seeking to include an indisputably racist party in his coalition government, Olmert replied that he wanted to make sure he had a Jewish majority in the Knesset. The inherently problematic inclusion of Leiberman and the ostracism of Israeli Arab MPs have not been condemned by Western leaders. In stark contrast to reactions to the election of Hamas, nobody is asking why a party that does not recognise the right of a Palestinian state to exist is allowed to join the Israeli government. Indeed the Bush administration's posture towards Israel's policy of unilateralism and its effective abandoning of the roadmap is ranging from tacit acquiescence to a reasserted yet somewhat vague commitment to the roadmap.

US Ambassador to Israel Richard Jones clearly manifested this indecisiveness during a press conference in Tel Aviv this week. Jones reportedly said, "if Olmert took unilateral actions after it became clear that Israel didn't have a partner for peace, that would be understandable." He added: "we support the roadmap and we continue to support negotiations because we believe it is the only way to solve the conflict. My understanding is that this is the approach of Olmert and Kadima as well, that they also would prefer to reach an agreement."

Clearly Jones is either ignorant or lying. It is blatant that Olmert and Kadima do not prefer a negotiated agreement with the Palestinians since such an agreement would have to be based on United Nations resolutions that require the implementation of the land-for-peace formula and the creation of a viable Palestinian state in the West Bank. None of this can be achieved without the dismantling of large Jewish settlements in the heart of the West Bank, such as Maali Adomim and Ariel.

Further, this week Olmert ordered all contact with the Palestinian Authority, including President Mahmoud Abbas to be ceased. Abbas's inclusion in the blacklist is ironic in that he issued three statements in as many days this week, voicing his willingness to immediately resume talks with Israel to start work on implementing the roadmap.

Publicly, Olmert would claim that the PA is a non-partner because Hamas does not recognise Israel's right to exist and because it has failed to fight "terror". Questions on whether Israel recognises Palestine's right to exist, and on who is terrorising who remain open. However, it is clear that Olmert and his allies in the Kadima Party -- including former Mossad agent Foreign Minister Tsibi Livni, and former Shin Beth head Avi Dichter -- view any Palestinian leader who is not willing to surrender to Israeli designs as non-partner.