By Adam Hanieh
JERUSALEM — On July 30, two bombs ripped through a crowded marketplace in west Jerusalem. Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu demanded that Palestinian President Yasser Arafat close down the organisational structures of "terror organisations". The Israeli establishment media, well accustomed to exploiting acts of this kind, published life histories of the 13 Israeli Jews killed in the blast. Most avoided mentioning that a Palestinian was amongst those killed.
The Israeli government was quick to blame the Islamic group Hamas. It claimed to have found a leaflet issued by the group at the Red Cross Office in Ramallah. The following day, the US government announced it had arrested three Hamas members in the act of planning another bomb blast at a busy subway station in New York.
However, a number of questions have come to light which suggest that the motives behind the bombing are not as clear as the Israeli and US administrations suggest.
According to the Israeli version of events, two Palestinian men, dressed in suits and carrying leather attaché cases, entered the market. At 1.12pm they gave each other a signal from opposite sides of the market and pulled the strings which detonated the bombs.
The men were Hamas activists intent on destroying the "peace process". The bombs were supposedly supplied from a factory in Beit Sahour, a town close to Bethlehem.
The link with Hamas was never clearly demonstrated. I spoke with a number of journalists who reported the "Hamas leaflet claims responsibility" story, yet admitted to never having seen the leaflet. Their information had come from faxes and e-mails supplied by the Israeli government.
At the time, leading Hamas activists denied responsibility. A few days later the leading English-language newspaper in Israel, the Jerusalem Post, admitted that "leading military sources doubted the leaflet's authenticity".
Furthermore, questions have arisen over the men arrested in New York. Palestinian journalist Nasser Shawki told Green Left, "One of the men arrested in New York was a known collaborator from Ramallah who worked for the Israeli Shabak [security forces]. Another of the men was a prominent PFLP [Popular Front] activist during the intifada who later joined Fatah. As far as anyone knows, he was not a member of Hamas."
This questioning of the original Israeli government line received support on August 6, when Israeli radio announced that the bombers were from the Ain al-Hilweh refugee camp in Lebanon and were members of Hizbullah.
Demolitions
Responsibility for the bombing has been overshadowed by dramatic Israeli actions in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. On August 3, the Israeli military demolished two homes, one in Anata and the other in al Ram, both West Bank villages under Israeli control near Jerusalem. A further five homes were demolished on August 4.
A recent report by the Israeli government claimed that 2600 Jerusalem residences have been "built illegally", signalling that they could face the same fate.
The homes were destroyed while the West Bank is still reeling from five days of "heightened closure" — a type of collective punishment which restricts the movements of all Palestinian residents and goods between the cities of the occupied territories and between the West Bank, Gaza and Israel. The siege has not affected the more than 136,000 illegal Jewish settlers living in the West Bank and Gaza.
Immediately following the bombings, Israel implemented several severe measures reminiscent of its military occupation tactics. All of the major cities under Palestinian control were sealed. The Israeli military, in collaboration with the Palestinian Authority (PA), arrested nearly 200 Palestinians.
In addition, the Israeli cabinet approved the operation of undercover units in Palestinian areas, directly challenging the sovereignty of the PA as established under the Oslo agreement.
The Israeli government also authorised the scrambling of Palestinian radio and confiscated taxes due to the PA — an amount constituting some 60% of the PA's budget. The Jordan and Egyptian borders have also been closed at Allenby and Rafiah.
The effects of the closure are dramatic. The trip between Ramallah and Bir Zeit, normally a 10-minute taxi ride, now takes 45 minutes. Taxi drivers, trucks and private cars navigate small dirt tracks as they attempt to avoid Israeli soldiers.
Checkpoints are set up at random, forcing drivers to drive across fields and through back yards. Summer courses at Bir Zeit University have been cancelled because lecturers cannot make it to class.
South of Jerusalem, the closure is even tighter. The city of Hebron is almost impossible to enter or leave, and most shops in the city have been forced to close. I witnessed four young men taken from a taxi near Bethlehem and forced to kneel with their backs to the road while they were searched by Israeli soldiers. The men were attempting to return home.
Talks
In the wake of the bombing, diplomatic activity has intensified as US, Jordanian and Egyptian representatives meet with Palestinian and Israeli leaders. Here, however, most people feel that the peace process has brought greater impoverishment to Palestinians.
A common remark from residents from the occupied territories prior to the bombing was, "It's been too quiet for too long". The feeling that an attack was inevitable says much about the Oslo peace agreement
While it is as yet unclear what the talks will bring, there is a real fear that the bombing will be used as a pretext to jump over the requirements of the interim stage (such as freedom of movement between the West Bank and Gaza and an Israeli withdrawal from most of the West Bank) and move quickly to final status negotiations.
Currently just 3% of the West Bank is under Palestinian control. This 3% is made up of isolated population centres surrounded by Israeli settlements and military. An immediate move to final status negotiations would leave all the chips in the hands of the Israeli government. The end result would be disastrous for the Palestinian people.