FRFI 172 April / May 2003
Since the last issue of FRFI, the Zionists have stepped up their onslaught on the Palestinian people. The wholesale destruction last year of the Palestinian economy and the infrastructure of the Palestinian Authority (PA) has allowed the Zionists to move on to the next stage of their strategy. This is to use a comprehensive system of collective punishment to force the Palestinian people to move into a small number of cantons on the West Bank and Gaza which can then be sealed off and policed by a puppet PA, itself rebuilt under a more pliant leader than Yasser Arafat. First, however, the Zionist state has to isolate and destroy the leadership of the Intifada, in particular Hamas. In the meantime, it is reducing the mass of the Palestine population to near-starvation in an effort to force the people to capitulate. ROBERT CLOUGH reports.
The Zionist strategy has the support of US and British imperialism, both of which are anxious to see the end of Palestinian resistance. Over the last two months, the number of Palestinians killed by Zionist forces has risen from 15 to nearly 30 a week. Large-scale invasions of Gaza involving dozens of tanks have taken place several times each week. Death squads have stepped up their murderous activities in both the West Bank and Gaza. Day after day children are being shot for throwing stones. Houses of families of known militants are being bulldozed or blown up at an increasing rate: in Gaza, since the start of the Intifada, 995 had been destroyed by mid-March, 230 this year alone. Every invasion of Gaza is aimed at workshops which provide crucial Palestinian employment, and at the farmland and greenhouses which provide food for a half-starving population.
Zionist policy is to eliminate Hamas in its Gaza stronghold. The immediate excuse for a series of murderous operations was a Hamas attack on 15 February which blew up a Merkava tank killing its crew of four. Zionist Defence Minister Shaul Mofaz promised retribution for this ‘terrorist act’. An invasion of Gaza on 17 March resulted in the death of four Hamas members including guerrilla leader Riyadh Abu Zeid; the previous day six Hamas fighters died in an explosion. Between 15 February and 8 March, 16 invasions of Gaza left 68 dead. There has been furious resistance, such as that during the invasion of Al Buriej on 3 March to arrest Hamas political leader Mohamed Taha. According to one community leader, Ahmed Abdallah, ‘It’s not about defeating Hamas: it’s about forcing us to surrender’ (quoted by Graham Usher in Al Ahram Weekly). Although Hamas has been singled out, all sections of the resistance are now under attack. On 19 February, separate operations led to the arrests of Taysir Khaled, deputy leader of the DFLP, and Abd Al Rahim Malouh, a member of the PFLP politburo. Both are also members of the PLO Executive Committee. On 13 March, an undercover squad murdered five Islamic Jihad members who had returned to Jenin refugee camp.
The Zionist war is economic as well. The last 27 months of the Intifada have cost $5.4bn in Palestinian national income on top of $730m in damage inflicted by Zionist military operations. Unemployment is now 50% in the West Bank and 70% in Gaza. Up to 18 Palestinians depend on the earnings of each breadwinner. Some 60% of the population live below the poverty line; now 1.3m Palestinians depend on UNRWA (United Nations Refugee Welfare Agency) handouts, compared to a few tens of thousands before the Intifada. A quarter of all children suffer from chronic or acute malnutrition; four out of five children are anaemic. UNRWA Commissioner-General Peter Hansen warned early in March that its warehouses would be empty of food within weeks unless the international community stumped up $32m; to date only $1.5m has been pledged.
By their constant acts of destruction and dispossession, the Zionists intend to wear down the Palestinian people until they have no will to oppose either the military occupation or continued settlement growth, and force them out of the countryside into the eight major urban centres of the West Bank and Gaza. These will then be enclosed by a series of walls, fences and ditches. This, the Zionists hope, will end any pretensions to a Palestinian state.
The support the Zionists receive from the US and Britain is crucial. In the lead up to the war on Iraq, both put intense pressure on Yasser Arafat to appoint a Prime Minister, making it clear that should he not agree, he would go the same way as Saddam Hussein. The appointment was part of a package of reform that the US and Zionists had demanded of the Palestinian Authority in December 2002, and was a precondition for the publication of President Bush’s so-called roadmap to peace. Neither the US nor the Zionists want to deal with Arafat. Traitor though he has been to the Palestinian people, the pressure from the people has prevented him at times from total capitulation. The imperialists want a leader who will do their bidding without the slightest complaint or delay.
The roadmap itself was agreed by the UN, EU, Russia and the PA in December. Its proclaimed goal is the establishment of a Palestinian state by 2005. But like the Powell plan before it, the precondition is the complete surrender of the Palestinian people. The first phase of the roadmap requires the PA to end the Intifada and institute all the reforms that have been demanded by the Zionists and the imperialist powers. Whilst the PA, Russia and the EU regard the roadmap as a finished document, the US and Israel see it as negotiable. A memo leaked from Sharon’s office dated 24 February states that the Israeli government ‘has many reservations and revisions to the draft that was presented to us by the American administration’. Such ‘reservations’ include any reference to an ‘independent’ Palestinian state; the Zionists would only consider descriptions such as ‘credible’, ‘law-abiding’ and possessing ‘certain attributes of sovereignty’. The Sharon government will not countenance a move to the second phase of the roadmap until there is ‘a complete cessation of violence and terrorism, full disarmament of terrorist organisations, complete collection of illegal weapons and the emergence of a new and different leadership’. Nor could there be any dismantling of the 107 settlement outposts – at most there could only be a vague commitment to ‘enforce the law in relation to the outposts.’ As for a settlement freeze, this would have to exclude the ‘natural growth’ of settlements and would only be considered ‘following a continuous and comprehensive security calm’.
In an announcement on 14 March, Bush made clear that he too regarded the roadmap as negotiable, stating that ‘immediately upon confirmation’ of a Palestinian prime minister with ‘real authority – the roadmap for peace will be given to Israel and the Palestinians.’ He added: ‘Once this roadmap is delivered, we will expect and welcome contributions from Israel and the Palestinians to this document that will advance true peace.’ On 18 March, following Arafat’s agreement to appoint Mahmoud Abbas (whose nom de guerre is Abu Mazen) as prime minister, and in a cynical ploy to placate Arab regimes in advance of the war on Iraq, Tony Blair announced that the roadmap could be published immediately. The US disagreed, and on 22 March confirmed that it would be made public only once the war on Iraq was finished. Three days later, Jack Straw conceded that its content would be open to negotiation, telling MPs that ‘it is a framework, yes, some of its detail may be changed over time, but what we cannot see is any change to its fundamental principles’.
The expectations of the US, Britain and the Zionists are clear: the PA will have to make even further concessions in a process that will leave them as distant from a Palestinian state as they were after the Oslo agreement in 1993. This is why they need an even more pliable leader than Arafat. Mahmoud Abbas is exactly the person they need. For decades he has been seen as Arafat’s number two, so he has always been part of the ‘failed leadership’ that the US and Zionists claimed they wanted to remove. However, he has always been an outspoken opponent of the Intifada. It was he who led the PA delegation in talks with the resistance movement in Cairo demanding that it lay down its arms (see FRFI 171). He has been an enthusiastic supporter for all the various peace proposals that would keep the occupation in place under a different name. It was he who proposed that the village of Abu Dis be renamed Al Quds (Jerusalem) so that the city proper could be handed over to the Zionists, and he has publicly repudiated the right of Palestinian return. He is among those who benefited from the post-Oslo plunder. Soon after the PA was established in Gaza, construction started on a $1.5 million villa for Abbas with unknown funding. The then Minister of Commerce and Economy, Nasser Sarraj, argued: ‘Who says he doesn’t have the right to live in a villa worth $1.5m or even $10m? Those who say he doesn’t are spies and collaborators for Israel’ (New York Times 2 February 1997).
By an overwhelming vote the Palestinian Legislative Council supported Abbas’ appointment, confirming the spinelessness of the Palestinian comprador bourgeoisie. On behalf of Bush, Assistant Secretary Richard Armitage told reporters that Abbas was the US’s choice because he would speak ‘authoritatively for the Palestinian people’. Meanwhile, the resistance denounced the ‘imposition’ of a prime minister by ‘external forces’. Abbas will take over the running of the PA and will present a cabinet shortly. A rumoured candidate for Interior Minister is Mohammed Dahlan, a former chief of security in Gaza where he was a determined opponent of Hamas and the Intifada and actively co-operated with the CIA and the Zionists. The expectations the imperialists and the Zionists have of the new PA government are quite clear: crush the Intifada, and negotiate the end of any hopes for a Palestinian state. There is no sign that the mass of the Palestinian people will accept such a capitulation.
Victory to the Intifada!
Intifada: the facts
27 February to 5 March:
28 Palestinians killed, including six children, two old men and two women, one of whom was pregnant. Incidents included:
• 2 March: Abd Al-Rahman Jadallah, aged 9, shot dead during a funeral procession in Khan Younis in Gaza.
• 3 March: An invasion of Al Boreij camp left eight civilians dead including a pregnant woman who died when her house was demolished. On the same day, Mohammed Isa was arrested in Nablus, handcuffed and then executed as he lay on the ground.
6-12 March:
23 Palestinians killed including four children, a woman and an old man. Incidents included:
• 6 March: Invasion of Jabalya Camp in Gaza. 12 Palestinians killed including eight civilians; 75 injured. Five of the dead were hit by shrapnel from a flechette shell fired by a tank, one of them a fireman. In addition, a 14-year-old boy killed by a bullet in the head.
• 8 March: The continuing assassination policy claimed the lives of four Hamas members when their car was hit by four missiles from a helicopter.
13-19 March:
27 killed, including seven children and peace activist Rachel Corrie. Incidents included:
• 13/14 March: Undercover death squads killed five in Tammoun and four more including two children in Jenin. The commander of these death squads claims the unit killed 79 Palestinians in 2002 alone.
• 14 March: 17-year-old shot dead for throwing stones at troops in Qalqilya.
• 17 March: 11 Palestinians including three children killed in Nusseirat camp and Beit Lahia in Gaza; one of these was four-year-old Ilham Al Assar.
(Information drawn from Palestine Campaign for Human Rights)
