I AM A JEW (Part III)

This is a multi-part series on the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. If you have not done so, please read the earlier installments, "I AM A JEW (Part I)" and "I AM A Jew (Part II)" before reading this. The titles are active links, so you can access them simply by clicking on them.

A long time ago I read John Steinbeck’s short novel, "The Moon is Down." It is the story of an invasion of an island and its occupation. Even though Steinbeck doesn’t specify who the invader and occupier was, I always assumed that he was referring to the Nazis. This is further confirmed by its copyright of 1942.

But as I reread the novella again more recently, it struck me that he never specifies who the occupier is, and that it has a much broader application, as most great novels do. It applies to all peoples under occupation.

It is about 80 pages long and it is worth reading. It is timeless. It can be bought from Amazon in paperback here, for Kindle here and at Barnes and Noble here. It can be read on the web for nothing here.

The point is that people under occupation will resist by any means available, no matter what the cost, and the people on the West Bank are clearly under occupation, even if they have the appearance of their own government in the form of the P.L.O., for the P.L.O., like the Vichy government of the Second World War, is serving the Israeli government. Its main task is to keep order in the West Bank, so that Israel wouldn’t have to do it, and it does it because it knows that if it does not, Israel will do it in a much more brutal way.

But it has no independent existence. It is not sovereign. One of the basic rights of sovereignty is the power to tax. But that power has been retained by Israel, which collect taxes from the Palestinians and at its own discretion makes it available to the P.L.O. “They (Israel) say taxes collected on behalf of the PA will be frozen, with limited access to bank deposits in Israel” whenever the P.L.O. does anything that dis-pleases the Israeli authorities (See here). In this case the P.L.O.s “crime” was to make an appeal to the U.N.

We keep hearing "Israel has the right to defend itself." But where is the even more fundamental right of a people to resist occupation?

Actually, resistance from the West Bank has been minimal for a long time. It may be that the P.L.O.’s. lack of resistance is giving Hamas increasing support as the last line of resistance.

The history of the P.L.O.’s terrorist activities is ably set forth in a blog of the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews, (see here) and it is quite a list. However, a careful reading shows, accoring to the website, that the last time the P.L.O. committed a terrorist act was in 2004, a decade ago, when “hijacking of a cruise ship off the coast of Egypt by a P.L.O. group” took place that resulted in the “murder(ed) (of) a disabled American passenger and threw his body overboard.” Apparently, the website is referring to the infamous Achille Lauro highjacking, but it has its dates wrong since that event took place in 1985, three decades ago. See here. 

The last time Israel faced an external military threat was in the 1967 war when “Israel seized control of the West Bank, East Jerusalem, the Gaza Strip, the Sinai Peninsula, and the Golan Heights. Israel permanently annexed East Jerusalem and set up military administrations in the occupied territories.” See here. At that time, however, “Israel let it be known that Gaza, the West Bank, the Golan Heights, and the Sinai might be returned in exchange for Arab recognition of the right of Israel to exist and guarantees against future attack.”

Twelve years later, part of that objective was reached when Israel signed a peace treaty with Egypt in 1979 under which it returned the Sinai to Egypt (Ibid).

It took fifteen more years, but in 1994 Jordan and Israel signed (a) peace treaty. See here and here.

Henceforth Israel’s security would never again be threatened by external enemies.

But peace has not arrived for the people of Palestine. That applies to the people of Israel and even more it applies to the people of the occupied territories, who have now lived under Israeli occupation for well over three generations, for more than six decades. It is the longest occupation of any people in modern history.

But it didn’t and it doesn’t have to be that way. In 1993 The Oslo Accords were signed by then Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. It didn’t go nearly far enough. It “fell short of the promise of an independent Palestinian state. Oslo II created the Areas A, B and C in the West Bank. The Palestinian Authority was given some limited powers and responsibilities in the Areas A and B and a prospect of negotiations on a final settlement based on Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338. The Accord was officially signed on 28 September 1995.” See here.

Nevertheless, it was bitterly opposed by Likud and Benjamin Netanyahu.

On November 6^th 1995 Rabin was assassinated. See here.

What led up to the assassination?

In the 1990s, while leader of the Likud party in opposition, Benjamin Netanyahu was one of the most prominent critics of the series of agreements between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) that became known as the Oslo Accords, which began under the Labor party government of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. Following Rabin’s assassination in 1995 by a right-wing Jewish extremist, some Israelis, including members of Rabin’s family, even blamed Netanyahu for being complicit in Rabin’s murder by fanning the flames of incitement against him. In particular, his critics point to rallies that Netanyahu addressed at which Rabin was portrayed on signs in a Nazi uniform and accused of being a traitor. See here. 

What happened after the assassination?

•                Taking power in 1996 for his first term (1996-1999) shortly after Rabin’s death, Prime Minister Netanyahu proceeded to drag out the negotiations begun by the previous government while delaying or refusing to implement provisions of already-signed agreements, including redeployments of Israeli troops, antagonizing Palestinian negotiators as well as US President Bill Clinton. Following his first meeting with Netanyahu, in 1996, a frustrated Clinton exclaimed angrily to his aides: “Who the f--k does he think he is? Who's the f---ing superpower here?"

•                While drawing out talks with Palestinian negotiators, Netanyahu increased settlement construction, following the advice of his Likud predecessor, Yitzhak Shamir, who said after losing power in 1992 that if he had remained prime minister: “I would have conducted negotiations on autonomy for 10 years and in the meantime we would have reached half a million [settlers in the occupied West Bank].”

•                In 2001, back in the opposition, Netanyahu was caught on video bragging to a group of Jewish settlers that he had undermined the Oslo process while prime minister, stating: "I de facto put an end to the Oslo Accords.” Regarding pressure from the US, Netanyahu said: "America is a thing you can move very easily." In the video he also told the settlers that the way to deal with Palestinians is to "beat them up, not once but repeatedly, beat them up so it hurts so badly, until it's unbearable."

•                In 2005, then-Finance Minister Netanyahu resigned from his post in Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s Likud government in protest of Sharon’s plan to withdraw settlers and soldiers from Gaza and four small Jewish settlements in the West Bank. Remaining on the fence until the last minute, Netanyahu resigned despite the fact that Sharon assured his right-wing critics that the withdrawal from Gaza would actually help prevent the creation of a Palestinian state rather than hasten it, by alleviating international pressure and allowing Israel to continue settlement expansion in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. As top Sharon advisor Dov Weisglass put it in 2004, the Gaza withdrawal supplied the “formaldehyde that is necessary so there will not be a political process with the Palestinians… until the Palestinians turn into Finns.” (Ibid) 

I have received some additional comments, but will not publish any until this series is complete. I hope that there will be many at the end of the series.