[Peace-discuss] steve niva on israeli attacks

[Mark Enslin]

this forward is a concise and unfortunately probably accurate analysis of
Ariel Sharon's long-term strategy, and backs up suspicions I had about
Sharon's way of getting himself elected in the first place...
--mark



---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Mon, 01 Apr 2002 12:38:46 -0800
From: Arun Chandra <arunc at evergreen.edu>
To: sdas at onthejob.net
Subject: [Sdas] [Fwd:  Israeli Attacks]



-------- Original Message --------
Subject: piece on Israeli Attacks
Date: Mon, 1 Apr 2002 12:24:58 -0800
From: "Niva, Steve" <NivaS at evergreen.edu>


Friends,
Please circulate and use as you wish.
Steve

Sharon's Master Plan Dangerous to All Sides
By Steve Niva

The expanding Israeli military assault on Palestinian territories and
the seizure of Yasser Arafat's compound in Ramallah cannot be viewed as
spontaneous "acts of retaliation" to the latest wave of brutal
Palestinian suicide bombings.  This assault has been carefully planned
for some time.  It signals the final stage of Israeli Prime Minister
Ariel Sharon's master plan to topple Arafat and the Palestinian
Authority and impose a new political reality on the Palestinians through
brute military force.

Sharon's stated rationale behind this assault is to fight terrorism. Yet
Israeli military actions are systematically destroying all Palestinian
Authority infrastructures that could help in this fight.  Moreover,
invading Palestinian towns, systematically executing suspected
Palestinian militants and arresting masses of Palestinians who have
little sympathy for suicide bombers signal that Sharon is seeking to
escalate the conflict, fomenting more terrorism, not less. 20,000 army
reservists have been mobilized for this openly declared invasion of the
Occupied Palestinian Territories that Sharon has promised to be
widespread, prolonged, and bloody.

Sharon's master plan is clear.  He seeks to destroy the Palestinian
Authority, militarily reoccupy most of the West Bank and Gaza Strip and
create small and disconnected Palestinian "Bantustans" forced to make
their own separate deals with Israel on Israeli terms.  No independent
Palestinian state.  No Palestinian National Authority.  No removal of
Israeli settlements.  No territorial compromise.  This is Sharon's
solution to the one hundred year-old conflict between Israelis and
Palestinians over the historic land of Palestine.

It is a calculated plan, long in the making. Like others on the far
right, Sharon has always opposed any peace process with the
Palestinians. He was the key architect of the settlement colonization
plan for the West Bank and Gaza Strip after Israel captured these
territories in 1967. He launched the 1982 invasion of Lebanon in order
to destroy the PLO as a symbol of Palestinian national aspirations.  He
fiercely opposed the limited "concessions" that Israel made in order to
secure Palestinian compliance for the Oslo Peace Accords of 1993,
especially the establishment of Palestinian self-rule in the major
cities of the West Bank and most of the Gaza Strip.  His provocative
visit to Muslim holy sites in Jerusalem in September 2000 triggered the
latest round of fighting between Israelis and Palestinians and
eventually returned him to political power.

Upon his election as Prime Minister in February, 2001, Sharon set into
motion his plan for collapsing the Palestinian Authority and escalating
the military conflict through systematic assassinations of key political
and military leaders, bombarding Palestinian infrastructure, imprisoning
people in their villages, and creating starvation conditions. All this,
while waiting for domestic and international conditions to "ripen" for
the more advanced steps of the plan.

Many in Israel suspect that the systematic assassinations of over one
hundred Palestinians in the past eighteen months, which consistently led
to retaliatory Palestinian suicide bomb attacks, were designed precisely
to create the justification for an all out war on the Palestinians.  The
assassination of Hamas militant Mahmoud Abu Hanoud in November 2001,
just when the Hamas was respecting its ceasefire agreement with Arafat
not to attack inside Israel, was predictably followed by several suicide
bomb attacks that exacted a vicious revenge on Israeli civilians.
Similarly, the Israeli army's assassination of the Arafat-allied Fatah
militant Ra'ed Karmi in January 2002, breaking a relatively successful
cease fire, also predictably provoked Palestinian bombers.

The main factor that held Sharon back was American pressure.  After
September 11, the US quietly restrained Israel from overreaching in
order to mollify its Arab allies in the "coalition against terrorism"
and Colin Powell even spoke of the US vision of a Palestinian state
alongside Israel.

Now, however, US policy is no longer based on building coalitions or
investing in diplomatic persuasion, but on sheer force. The smashing
"victory" in Afghanistan has emboldened the Bush administration to
abandon any considerations of international law or public opinion in
determining their actions. The hawks in the Pentagon, led by Donald
Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz and Richard Perle, who are determined to expand
the war to Iraq and further, view Israel as a major strategic asset in
their arsenal.

The conditions have thus "ripened." The shift in US policy has enabled
Sharon to get his green light from Washington. Moreover, mounting public
criticism of Sharon and defections from his coalition, an impending
economic catastrophe and an unprecedented number of Israeli soldiers
refusing to serve in what they call "the war to protect the settlements"
have increased Sharon's desperation to act.

With Bush and Powell dutifully reciting Israel's mantra that Arafat
"must act to stop terror," even while he was under Israeli house arrest,
Sharon set his plan in motion.  The brutal invasion of Palestinian
refugee camps in March generated the predictable suicide bombings to
serve as the pretext.  Sharon has now made clear that Israel is
officially "at war" with Palestinians in the conventional sense of the
term and will therefore seek military victory.

What this means is that Israel will conquer remaining Palestinians
self-rule areas town by town and impose a state of siege and martial
law, leading to mass arrests and attempts to reinstate its collaborator
networks that were destroyed after 1993.  The guiding strategic vision
is to completely isolate Palestinian population centers from one another
and encourage local leaders to make their own deals with Israel as the
price for ending the state of siege.  The broader hope, openly
proclaimed by many of Sharon's key ministers, is that the violence will
encourage many Palestinians to flee their homes as part of a broader
historic pattern of "ethnic cleansing" for Israel.

There is absolutely no justification for the Palestinians' targeting of
unarmed civilians in their struggle to end the Israeli occupation and
establish a Palestinian state.  Yet Palestinian armed actions have never
posed a threat to the existence of Israel, whose military power is
unparalleled in the Middle East.

Sharon's master plan guarantees the destruction of any real chance for a
viable peace in the region.  It will likely lead to an escalation of
violence that is unprecedented in the history of the conflict.  It is a
recipe for permanent war and regional destabilization.  It will not lead
to greater security for average Israeli's and will only heighten
Palestinian desperation and support for military action as their last
defense, mirroring the violent struggle by Algerians to rid themselves
of the French colonialism.

The Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories is the root the cause
of violence between the two peoples. Without ending the occupation and
dismantling all settlements, there will be no viable peace.  If the US
is not willing to use its clout to restrain Israel, then the only
alternative is major international pressure on the Israeli government to
halt its invasion of Palestinian self-rule areas and respect the legal
and legitimate authority of the Palestinian Authority. The immediate
deployment of international observers to protect the Palestinians
against this unprecedented aggression must be the first step towards
this end.

Steve Niva teaches International Politics and Middle East Studies at the
Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington. He writes regularly for
Middle East Report (www.merip.org) and is an Associate at the Middle
East Research and Information Project (MERIP) in Washington DC.




-- 


Arun Chandra
email: arunc at evergreen.edu
phone: (360) 867-6077
   fax: (360) 866-6663
  post: COM 301
        The Evergreen State College
        Olympia, WA 98505