PALESTINE: Between siege and 'reform'

BY AHMAD NIMER

RAMALLAH — Israel's siege of Yasser Arafat's presidential compound has brought the Palestinian plight back into world headlines alongside the impending US-led invasion of Iraq.

While the mainstream media has largely ignored the situation on the ground over the last few months, life in the West Bank and Gaza Strip has reached a level of desperation never before witnessed since the beginning of the Israeli occupation in 1967. This desperation extends to every aspect of Palestinian society — economic, political and social.

According to the latest figures from the World Bank, close to 70% of the Palestinian population is living on less than US$2 per day. Nearly 80% of the population relies on handouts from the UN in order to survive.

The reason for this dire economic situation is clear — Israel's unprecedented regime of curfews and closures. Nearly 500,000 people — virtually the entire West Bank urban population — are confined to their homes at gunpoint around the clock. Israeli tanks and jeeps patrol the streets of every West Bank town except Bethlehem and Jericho, forcing all residents to remain in their houses. It is impossible to work, go to school, buy food or visit friends.

This regime of curfews has been in place since April. During the last three months, residents of the northern West Bank cities of Nablus and Tulkarem have been permitted out of their houses for only four days and 18 days respectively. The major West Bank town of Ramallah has only been open for six hours in the last eight days.

Israel has placed virtually the entire West Bank under house arrest with no hope of release.

In addition, there has been no let up in Israeli military attacks on the Palestinian civilian population. On a nightly basis, the sound of tank fire, shelling and machine guns can be heard throughout all Palestinian cities. These are the not sounds of “exchange of fire” or battles with Palestinian militants, but the sounds of unprovoked Israeli attacks on the Palestinian population. In the last two months, 94 Palestinians have been killed by the Israeli military or settlers, almost all of them civilians.

Trapped in their houses with no work and subject to daily bombardments by the Israeli military, the population lives in an environment of unrelenting fear. Psychologists report a massive increase in children suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) — afraid to sleep at night, unable to concentrate, aggressive behaviour and unpredictable mood swings.

Death toll

Since the beginning of the second intifada in September 2000, Israeli forces and settlers have killed 1639 Palestinians, including 336 children. At least 103 Palestinians have been extra-judicially killed in state-sponsored assassinations.

More than 550 Palestinians have been killed due to Israeli attacks on homes, schools, government infrastructure and other places. An additional number of Palestinians have been killed at checkpoints and due to prevention of medical access or restrictions of movement.

More than 19,711 Palestinians have been injured, leaving more than 2000 permanently disabled.

Over the same period, more than 985 Palestinian homes have been demolished. Israel has arbitrarily detained 7015 Palestinians, including 59 women and 330 children, who are held in detention camps which do not meet basic international standards. Torture and ill-treatment is systematic and widespread.

While the Israeli government claims that such measures are necessary for “security reasons”, it is clear to every Palestinian living in the West Bank that this phrase is merely a smokescreen for collective punishment on a vast scale. Israel is deliberately targeting civilians, aiming to demoralise and demobilise the Palestinian population by consciously fostering despair.

This strategy is designed to bring about the submission of the Palestinian population and force an agreement to accept Palestinian bantustans — isolated pieces of land ruled by the Palestinian Authority (PA), dependent upon Israel for its power. This has been the intention of the Israeli government since the beginning of the Oslo “peace process” in 1993 and it remains so today.

On June 16, the Israeli government began building a massive wall in the north of the West Bank that marks the contours of the Palestinian bantustan. The first part of the wall is expected to be completed by June 2003 and will be 116 kilometres long, composed of stone, electric fences, trenches and security patrols.

According to official Israeli maps, the first stage of the wall will completely surround the city of Qalqilya, leaving only one entrance for residents that will be guarded by the Israeli military. The wall will make Qalqilya a separate canton, divided from the rest of the West Bank.

The land between the wall and the official Israeli border shall be a closed military zone, where 11,000 Palestinians reside. Israel claims that special permits shall be issued to allow Palestinians living in this area to enter the West Bank, with 30 permanent checkpoints inside the wall. Palestinians living beyond the wall must apply for special permits to enter the closed military zone, as do all Palestinians wishing to enter these areas, for whatever reason.

This is the first stage in a wall that will ultimately extend the full 350-km length of the West Bank. Together with Israeli settlements that already divide Palestinian towns from one another, the wall is intended to mark the official borders of the Palestinian canton-state.

PA reform?

While Israel is taking these measures on the ground, the US and the European Union are busy restructuring the PA to eventually rule as a proxy for Israel in these areas. Over the last few months, PA representatives have been meeting with Israeli officials under the auspices of the US and EU in order to agree upon the necessary “reforms” for this to take place.

On August 22, the so-called Task Force on Palestinian Reform, composed of representatives of the US, EU, Russia, the UN secretary general, Norway, Japan, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, met in Paris. This was the second meeting of the TFPR, which met for the first time in London on July 10. PA ministers and Israeli government representatives also participated in the discussions in Paris.

According to documents from the meetings, the TFPR has as a central responsibility the task of ensuring that “the PA can deliver good and effective governance and can act as a trustworthy and capable partner in the peace process”.

In reality, this means that the TFPR aims to ensure that the PA will accept an agreement that was decisively rejected by the Palestinian people during the intifada. One of the gains of the intifada has been the widespread understanding that the “peace process” was never about peace or Palestinian independence but rather was designed to bring about the bantustanisation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

A major emphasis of the TFPR is opening the West Bank and Gaza Strip to Israeli and international capital. To this end, one of the seven key areas identified by the TFPR is developing the “market economy”. The aim of this plank of the “reform process” is to quickly push the PA into enacting economic laws that would make it easier for international capital to enter the West Bank and Gaza Strip and make use of their cheap labour and lax environmental standards.

The TFPR is also concerned with issues of law and the judicial system. Despite pretences towards “promoting the rule of law”, reality on the ground indicates exactly what the US-EU-Israeli bloc intends in this area. Over the last month, the CIA has been openly training Palestinian security troops in Jericho with the aim of returning these forces to those Palestinian areas that the Israeli army will eventually withdraw from. Jordanian and Egyptian security experts — notorious for their brutality towards their own populations — have also been involved in this training.

The siege of Arafat's compound has provoked widespread mobilisations in all areas of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. In Ramallah, hundreds of people have been breaking the curfew at night to confront Israeli soldiers with pots and pans.

While these demonstrations have ostensibly protested the siege of Arafat, it is quite clear that they represent something much more than that — an outpouring of anger against the intolerable regime of curfews and collective punishment.

Arafat's siege must be seen in this context. Despite what some Palestinian and Israeli commentators have claimed, it is highly unlikely that Israel intends to kill or exile the PA leadership. Rather, this appears to be another step towards pushing the PA towards accepting the US-EU-Israeli “reform process” and agreeing to the eventual bantustanisation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

From Green Left Weekly, October 2, 2002.
Visit the Green Left Weekly home page.