(I wrote this as an analytical piece to put the current
violence in the

Middle East in a wider political perspective. What is missing is a call to

action, a mobilization of all international forces - governments, the UN,

NGOs, faith-based organizations, media, academics, concerned individuals -

to bring about an immediate cessation of hostilities. But this is not

enough. Such a call MUST be based upon a commitment of the United States

and Europe that negotiations aimed explicitly at completely ending Israeli

occupation and ensuring the emergence of a viable and truly sovereign

Palestinian state are inaugurated within a defined period of time. This is

our only agenda at this fateful moment, and it is impossible to

overemphasize the urgency of our efforts. Unless we act now and

effectively, this Human Rights Day of 2001, we will witness in the next few

weeks or months the victory of occupation over the fight for independence

and the emergence of yet another apartheid situation.)





THE FINAL PUSH TO DEFEAT THE PALESTINIANS



By Jeff Halper



The whirlwind unleashed on the Palestinians by the Israeli government

following the Ze'evi assassination in October and now, in early December,

on the heels of the suicide attacks in Jerusalem, Haifa, Afula and

elsewhere, goes far beyond mere retaliation against terrorism. Viewed in

the context of Bush's attempts to build a "coalition against terror,"
it is

a last desperate effort to bring "industrial quiet" to what's been
called

the Second Front, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, a precondition for

building any sustained coalition that includes Arab and Muslim countries.

This can be accomplished in one of two ways. Either a satisfactory

political solution can be imposed on the parties with a lot of arm-twisting

and sweetening, or the Palestinians can be made to submit to

Israeli-American dictates.



The first, preferred by the Americans as a resolution of the conflict, have

met fundamental obstacles on both the Israeli and Palestinian sides. The

Israelis steadfastly refuse to dismantle their occupation and relinquish

control to a degree that would permit a viable and truly sovereign

Palestinian state to emerge. For his part, Arafat has failed to produce a

coherent program for negotiations, and has squandered the opportunity given

him by the Intifada to reframe the negotiations in a more equitable way.

Faced with a unfocused resistance movement with no political program and

fueled by ever more violent attacks against Israeli civilian targets, the

American government seems to have been persuaded by Sharon and Peres to

choose the second option: defeating the Palestinians outright.



Given their tight time-line for coalition-building and military actions,

the Americans are looking for a quick fix, a reasonable period of

industrial quiet in the Middle East. Allowing themselves to be persuaded

that Israel can bring the Palestinian Authority to its knees within a

matter of weeks, thereby reopening the "peace process" on terms
favorable

to Israel, has its attractions. It is in keeping with the long-standing

American bias strongly in favor of Israel, it avoids conflicts with a

solidly pro-Israeli Congress (89 senators issued a letter recently warning

Bush against compromising Israel's interests), and it can be "sold"
as

legitimate retaliation against "Palestinian terrorism" - thus
legitimizing

Sharon's attempts to link Arafat and the Palestinians integrally with Bin

Laden and anti-American/anti-"civilization" world terrorism. Given
the

weak, almost incoherent, political position of the Palestinians, this

option seems the most workable in the short run.



Sharon, then, has received a "green light" from Bush to bring quiet
to the

region through military means, to be followed (no hurry here) by

negotiations that will give the Palestinians a mini-state while leaving

Israel in control of the area between the Jordan River and the

Mediteranean. (It was reported on the Channel One news on Friday night,

December 7, that Sharon promised Bush not to kill or harm Arafat, to which

Bush replied: "Just promise me you won't kill him.")



The strategy of Sharon, Peres and the others of the "National Unity"

government has five main elements:

1. Massive military actions. Besiegement, military strikes against the

fragile Palestinian infrastructure and assassinations of key political and

resistance figures - the kind of attacks employing heavy American weapons

we are witnessing now (early December) -- are fundamental to browbeating

the Palestinians into submissiveness. But overt military actions must be

carefully framed in order to maintain Israel's image as a mere

peace-seeking "victim" and to avert attention from its ongoing,
deepening

and ever more brutal Occupation. Following violent acts against Israel,

they are cast as part of a "war against terrorism," indeed as part of

Israel's "natural right" to defend its people. Having removed the
response

from its political context - a struggle against an illegal occupation -

Israel is then free to unleash its entire arsenal (nuclear aside) against

whatever targets it wishes for as prolonged a period as it desires.

Whatever we may think of Palestinian terrorism as a legitimate political

and military tool, casting its military strikes as "retaliatory,"

justifying its massive destruction as part of a "war" with the
Palestinians

and concealing its Occupation allows Israel to engage in both political

repression and state terrorism without being held accountable. Indeed, the

entire chain of cause-and-effect is lost as Israel presents each

Palestinian attack as a new and separate incident, divorced from the

Occupation or previous Israel actions. The disproportionality of the

attacks in October and December show clearly how specific incidents are

used for far-reaching political and military gains.



2. A campaign of attrition. Certainly military attacks are part of an

Israeli campaign of attrition designed to wear down Palestinian resistance

over time. But long-term policies, less visible and less dramatic, are no

less effective. House demolitions, land expropriation, permanent closure

and prolonged curfews, restrictions on freedom of movement, induced

impoverishment, economic warfare of various kinds (such as clearing

agricultural fields, uprooting thousands of olive and fruit trees,

prohibiting harvests, confiscating livestock and preventing the marketing

of produce), "quiet" bureaucratic deportations and a dirty war
employing

collaborators - all these and more undermine the fabric of Palestinian

society and weaken its ability to withstand the Occupation. The campaign is

designed not only to break the will of the Palestinian people but to

undermine its support for the Palestinian Authority, hopefully giving rise

to a more compliant leadership.



3. Creating irreversible "facts" on the ground. The grand project of

expanding Israel's control over the Occupied Territories, systematically

pursued according to the "master plan" presented by Sharon to Begin
in

1977, is nearing completion. The Mitchell Commission's recommendations that

settlement construction be frozen, which the Palestinians and others seem

to think will be effective in halting the Occupation, is already

irrelevant. Israel has enough land and settlements already: 60% of the West

Bank and another 60% of Gaza are firmly under its control. 400,000 settlers

live in some 200 settlements across the "Green Line. Now its efforts are

dedicated to completing the infrastructural work needed to consolidate its

hold on the Territories. Almost unnoticed is the construction of 450

kilometers of highways and "by-pass" roads which link the settlements
but

create massive barriers to Palestinian movement. Since these major

infrastructure projects have been agreed to - and funded -- by the

Americans, they fall outside the Mitchell Committee's "freeze." They

constitute the last key element in the Matrix of Control Israel has laid

over the Occupied Territories, and bulldozers are working ceaselessly to

complete the system.



4. Delaying tactics. Sharon's demand for "seven days of quiet" before

implementing the Mitchell Report has already delayed the resumption of

negotiations by months. Time and again "crises" are manufactured
(often

following unprovoked assassinations, house demolitions or other acts on the

part of Israel), which that provide a pretext for not implementing

agreements or restarting negotiations. Broad hints by Israeli political

leaders that they will seek only long-term "interim agreements"
rather than

a final status settlement will leave Israel in de facto control of the

Occupied Territories - or at least in control long enough to complete its

irreversible Matrix of Control.



5. Delegitimizing the Palestinian Authority. Since September 11 the Israeli

government has worked tirelessly to cast the Palestinian Authority as an

integral part of "world terrorism." Sharon has called Arafat
"our Bin

Laden," and following the attacks in Jerusalem and Haifa the Israeli

government officially labeled the Palestinian Authority as a

"terror-sponsoring entity" - obviously hoping to impart to the
Palestinians

the same international delegitimacy attached to other recognized terrorist

organizations.



This is the program that unites the broad coalition of Israel's National

Unity government, from the Labor party on the "left" through the
Likud, the

religious and the parties of the extreme right. At its base lies the

rock-bottom refusal to truly share the country with the Palestinians, in

either one state or in two. Yet - and this is the catch -- Israel needs a

Palestinian state to "relieve it" of the three and a half million

Palestinians of the Occupied Territories it can neither absorb (giving

citizenship to this population would nullify a Jewish-dominated state) nor

control forever by force. While the Palestinians strive for political

independence in a viable state alongside Israel, Israel is striving for

what is calls "autonomy-plus/independence-minus," a kind of

occupation-by-consent that leaves in it in control of the entire country

yet rids it of the Palestinian population. This, in a nutshell, describes

what the Oslo "peace process" was all about.



Since occupation-by-consent will not be willingly accepted by the

Palestinians, but a just peace based on true Palestinian independence is

unacceptable to Israel, Israel must force it upon the Palestinians. For

Israel, too, the time-line is tight. Bush's green light" is good for a
couple weeks –

perhaps somewhat longer if "justified"
by further attacks on Israeli civilians - but it

 will eventually run into major obstacles: the recommendations
of the Mitchell

Committee and CIA chief Tenet which await implementation, General Zinni's

mission to achieve a cease-fire, and the overarching need to sustain a

coalition including the Arab and Muslim countries. Hence the ferocity of

Israel's attacks, the final push to defeat the Palestinians once and for all.



It is one minute to midnight. Already Israel has largely completed its

physical incorporation of the West Bank into Israel proper, foreclosing any

possibility of a viable Palestinian state. If the current campaign of

repression succeeds, occupation will be followed by the creation of a

dependent Palestinian mini-state - a permanent occupation-by-consent not of

the Palestinians, but of the US and a compliant Europe. These are the

fateful days of reckoning: a just peace based on two viable and sovereign

states, or the emergence of a Palestinian bantustan under Israeli control,

a new apartheid.



(Jeff Halper is the Coordinator of the Israeli Committee Against House

Demolitions (ICAHD). He can be reached at < href="mailto:[email protected]">[email protected].)