FRFI 167 June / July 2002
15 May was the anniversary of the Nakbah – the mass expulsion of Palestinians in 1948 from the 78% of their land which is now Israel. Over 750,000 were driven from their homes and land; 530 Palestinian towns and villages were depopulated, 89% as a result of the direct military operations of the Zionist army. Today, Israel is preparing a second Nakbah for the Palestinian people.
Since the end of February 2002, the Zionists have slaughtered over 500 Palestinians, all in the name of the ‘war on terrorism’. The first phase of the onslaught started at the end of February; the second phase began at the end of March.
The toll was dreadful: 80 died in Nablus as helicopter gunships destroyed the historic Qasbah. Untold numbers died in Jenin, pulverised by tanks and bulldozers. Dozens more were killed in Ramallah as the Zionists strained to sweep Yasser Arafat aside. Zionist troops used Palestinian civilians as human shields. They targeted ambulances and medical personnel, denying them access to the wounded, many of whom died as a consequence. Snipers shot down women and children. Soldiers looted property, vandalising and daubing racist graffiti as they moved from house to house wreaking gratuitous destruction. Palestinian Authority institutions in Ramallah, such as the Ministries for Health and Education, were devastated. Israeli Chief of Staff General Shaul Mofaz declared that the army would no longer recognise the division of the West Bank into Areas A, B and C. The Oslo ‘peace agreement’ is dead; the ‘war on terrorism’ has become a war to destroy the Palestinian people, to break them completely and utterly, to abolish once and for all their demand for freedom. It is the war of a colonial power, backed by the world’s single super-power, against a risen people.
In March 2001, Ariel Sharon promised to crush the Intifada in 100 days. The rabid racist failed. Once again he stands accused of war crimes, a charge to which he is no stranger. His bloody career dates back to 1953 when his 101 Commando unit massacred 69 civilians in Qibya. It takes in the mass murder of Egyptian prisoners of war in 1956. Most infamously it includes the carnage of Beirut in 1982: 25,000 dead in an adventure which included the massacres at Sabrah and Shattilah.
Yet the Palestinian people will not be put down. The history of Zionism is also the history of the Palestinian struggle for freedom. For four years, from 1987 to 1991, they fought alone in the first Intifada. In the end they were defeated, not militarily, but because their inept leadership accepted the 1993 Oslo ‘peace agreement’. In the seven years that followed, the neo-colonial character of the ‘agreement’ became evident. The West Bank remained a tapestry of Palestinian enclaves surrounded by an ever-expanding network of Zionist settlements. The number of settlers has doubled since 1993 to over 400,000; their seizures of Palestinian land have continued. Precious water resources in the West Bank have been siphoned off to support the Israeli economy. A corrupt Palestinian Authority policed the agreement brutally, torturing and murdering opponents. In July 2000, the Barak government, supported by President Clinton, tried to impose a final agreement. Settlements in the West Bank would be annexed to Israel, with the Palestinian areas divided into three apartheid-style bantustans. The illusion that the Oslo ‘peace agreement’ would lead to an independent homeland was exposed. Arafat had to reject the deal for fear of an explosion at home. That explosion came anyway on 28 September 2000 when the Zionist army gunned down unarmed demonstrators on the day after Sharon’s infamous visit to the Al Aqsa mosque.
Despite every effort, the Zionists have failed to crush the second Intifada because its unity has remained unbroken. The Palestinian working class has imposed a unity on the Islamic and nationalist forces which Zionist terror has failed to break. The Popular Resistance Committees have become the authentic organisations of the Intifada. Joint organisation and joint action have been the hallmark of the struggle. The Zionist escalation at the end of February was a result of the military successes of the united resistance against the army of occupation. And for all the talk of the ‘terror’ of suicide attacks, it was the assassination of Tourism Minister Ze’evi in October 2001 which most outraged the Zionists, followed by a series of successful ambushes on Israeli army units in January and February this year.
Now the struggle has entered a new and dangerous phase. The Zionists have undoubtedly inflicted a serious defeat on the resistance. The US has proved once again a vital ally in sabotaging the proposed UN investigation of war crimes in Jenin. Arab leaders have shown they are more concerned about the security of their own regimes than the plight of the Palestinian people. The British government echoes the US position, and continues to sell arms to the
Zionists. Yasser Arafat has secured a meaningless freedom. But Zionist opinion is now hardening in favour of the ethnic cleansing of the West Bank and of Palestinians resident in Israel itself. This is now the recommendation of one of Israel’s most prestigious academic centres, the Centre for Interdisciplinary Studies in Herzliya, which advises the government. The Israeli Labour Party has presented it as a policy proposal to the government. Very few in Israel now condemn it. With the steady expansion of Israeli settlements and the massive destruction of Palestinian Authority infrastructure, Sharon is now in a position to repeat the ethnic cleansing of 1948. According to Martin van Creveld, a prominent Israeli military analyst, Sharon is waiting for the day when he can expel the Palestinians: ‘It is not so very difficult…I think he wants to escalate the situation…and he is just waiting for the opportunity to throw them out.’ With the support of leading US reactionaries such as Dick Armey as well as members of Sharon’s government, this is no longer the fantasy of a deranged minority.
Defend the Intifada!
Robert Clough
