[Peace-discuss] Jeff Halper in Counterpunch

[David Green]

Jeff Halper is an American-Israeli who will be
speaking in C-U on November 17th (Thursday).

Counterpunch
Weekend Edition
October 8 / 9, 2005

Yet Another "Generous Offer" from Sharon
Setting Up Abbas

By JEFF HALPER


>From Sharon's point of view it's a done deal. Israel
has won its century-old conflict with the
Palestinians. Surveying the landscape - physical and
political alike - the Israeli Prime Minister has
finally fulfilled the task with which he was charged
38 years ago by Menachem Begin: ensure permanent
Israel control over the entire Land of Israel while
foreclosing the emergence of a viable Palestinian
state.

With unlimited resources at his disposal, Sharon set
out to establish irreversible "facts on the ground"
that would preempt any process of negotiations.
Supported by both Likud and Labor governments, he
oversaw the establishment of some 200 settlements
(almost 400 if you include the "outposts") on land
expropriated from Palestinians in the West Bank, East
Jerusalem and Gaza. Today almost a half million
Israelis live across the 1967 border. With financial
backing of the Clinton Administration, a system of
twenty-nine highways was constructed in the Occupied
Territories to incorporate the settlements into Israel
proper. In the meantime 96% of the Palestinians were
locked into what Sharon calls "cantons," dozens of
tiny enclaves, deprived of the right to move freely
and now being literally imprisoned behind concrete
walls twice as high as the Berlin Wall and electrified
fence. Although comprising half the population of the
country between the Mediterranean and the Jordan
River, the Palestinians - including those with Israeli
citizenship - are confined to just 15% of the country.

In order to secure permanent Israeli control, however,
the "facts on the ground" had to be legitimized as
permanent political facts. International law defines
occupation as a temporary situation resolvable only
through negotiations. It prohibits an Occupying Power
from taking any steps that make its control permanent,
specifically transferring one's population into an
occupied territory and building settlements. Indeed,
international law holds an Occupying Power such as
Israel responsible for the well-being of the civilian
population under its control. For help in by-passing
international law and transforming Israel's Occupation
into a permanent reality, Sharon turned to Israel's
one and only patron in such matters, the US, which
promptly obliged. In April, 2004, the Bush
Administration formally recognized Israel's settlement
blocs - euphemistically called "major population
centers" - thus unilaterally removing from the
Palestinians 20-30% of the already truncated area in
which they wished to establish a small state of their
own. It was tantamount to Mexico requesting that Spain
return Bush's Texas. Israel's annexation of its
settlement blocs was subsequently approved almost
unanimously by Congress: in the House by a vote of
407-9, in the Senate by 95-3.

Still, Israel needs a Palestinian state. Although the
annexation of the settlement blocs gives Israel
complete control over the entire country between the
Mediterranean and the Jordan River, it needs to "get
rid of" the almost four million Palestinian residents
of the Occupied Territories to which it can neither
give citizenship nor keep in a state of permanent
bondage. What Sharon seeks, and what Bush has agreed
to, is a truncated Palestinian mini-state, a
Bantustan, a prison-state on 10-15% of the country
that relieves Israel of the Palestinian population
while leaving it firmly in control of the country and
its resources. Whether or not we like the term, this
amounts to full-blown apartheid, the permanent and
institutionalized domination of one people over
another.

Having created irreversible "facts of the ground" and
gotten American political recognition of an expanded
Israel, Sharon lacks just one last piece to make
Israeli apartheid official: either the signature of a
Palestinian quisling-leader agreeing to a mini-state,
or an excuse to unilaterally impose it. Arafat refused
to play that role. Now it is Palestinian President
Mahmoud Abbas' turn. When, just this week, Sharon's
advisor on strategy, Eyal Arad, raised the possibility
of turning unilateral disengagement into a strategy
that would allow Israel to draw its own borders, the
message to Abbas was clear: Either you cooperate or
lose any input whatsoever into a political resolution
of the conflict.

Sharon, in short, is priming Abbas for a set up,
another "generous offer." It worked well for Barak,
why not try it again, this time for the whole pot?
What would Abbas say if Sharon offered Gaza, 70-80% of
the West Bank and a symbolic presence in East
Jerusalem? True, it is not a just or viable solution.
The Palestinians would be confined to five or six
cantons on 15% of the entire country or less, with no
control of their borders, their water, even their
airspace. Jerusalem, now encased in a massive Israeli
"Greater Jerusalem," would be denied them, thereby
removing the political, cultural, religious and
economic heart of any Palestinian state. Israel would
retain its settlement blocs and 80% of its settlers.
But Sharon's "generous offer" would look good on the
map and, he believes, viability is simply too
complicated a concept for most people, including
decision-makers, to grasp. But for Abbas it sets up a
no-win situation. Say "yes" and you will be the
quisling leader Israel has been looking for all these
years, the one who agreed to a non-viable mini-state,
to apartheid. Say "no" and Sharon will pounce: "See?!
The Palestinians have refused yet another Generous
Offer! They obviously do not want peace!" And Israel,
off the hook, will be free to expand its control of
the Occupied Territories for years to come, protected
from criticism by American-backed annexation of the
settlement blocs.

Israeli unilateralism means only one thing: it has
nothing to offer the Palestinians, nothing worth
negotiating over. The Road Map asserts that only a
true end of the Occupation and the establishment of a
viable Palestinian state will finally see the end of
this conflict with its global implications. A genuine
two-state solution may already be dead, the victim of
Israeli expansionism. A two-state "solution" based on
apartheid cannot be an alternative accepted by any of
us. Yet apartheid is upon us once again. Sharon must
act fast to complete his life's work before his term
of office expires within the next year. This is the
crunch. We cannot afford to have our attention
deflected by any other issue, important as it may be.
It is either a just and viable solution now or
apartheid now. We may well be facing the prospect of
another full-fledged anti-apartheid struggle just a
decade and a half after the fall of apartheid in South
Africa. In my view, the next three to six months will
tell.

Jeff Halper is the Coordinator of the Israeli
Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD). He can be
reached at icahd at zahav.net.il 





		
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