Aggression Under False Pretenses
By Ismail Haniyeh
Tuesday, July 11, 2006; Page A17
GAZA, Palestine -- As Americans commemorated their annual celebration of
independence from colonial occupation, rejoicing in their democratic
institutions, we Palestinians were yet again besieged by our occupiers, who
destroy our roads and buildings, our power stations and water plants, and
who attack our very means of civil administration. Our homes and government
offices are shelled, our parliamentarians taken prisoner and threatened with
prosecution.
The current Gaza invasion is only the latest effort to destroy the results
of fair and free elections held early this year. It is the explosive
follow-up to a five-month campaign of economic and diplomatic warfare
directed by the United States and Israel. The stated intention of that
strategy was to force the average Palestinian to "reconsider" her vote when
faced with deepening hardship; its failure was predictable, and the new
overt military aggression and collective punishment are its logical
fulfillment. The "kidnapped" Israeli Cpl. Gilad Shalit is only a pretext for
a job scheduled months ago.
In addition to removing our democratically elected government, Israel wants
to sow dissent among Palestinians by claiming that there is a serious
leadership rivalry among us. I am compelled to dispel this notion
definitively. The Palestinian leadership is firmly embedded in the concept
of Islamic shura , or mutual consultation; suffice it to say that while we
may have differing opinions, we are united in mutual respect and focused on
the goal of serving our people. Furthermore, the invasion of Gaza and the
kidnapping of our leaders and government officials are meant to undermine
the recent accords reached between the government party and our brothers and
sisters in Fatah and other factions, on achieving consensus for resolving
the conflict. Yet Israeli collective punishment only strengthens our
collective resolve to work together.
As I inspect the ruins of our infrastructure -- the largess of donor nations
and international efforts all turned to rubble once more by F-16s and
American-made missiles -- my thoughts again turn to the minds of Americans.
What do they think of this?
They think, doubtless, of the hostage soldier, taken in battle -- yet
thousands of Palestinians, including hundreds of women and children, remain
in Israeli jails for resisting the illegal, ongoing occupation that is
condemned by international law. They think of the pluck and "toughness" of
Israel, "standing up" to "terrorists." Yet a nuclear Israel possesses the
13th-largest military force on the planet, one that is used to rule an area
about the size of New Jersey and whose adversaries there have no
conventional armed forces. Who is the underdog, supposedly America's
traditional favorite, in this case?
I hope that Americans will give careful and well-informed thought to root
causes and historical realities, in which case I think they will question
why a supposedly "legitimate" state such as Israel has had to conduct
decades of war against a subject refugee population without ever achieving
its goals.
Israel's unilateral movements of the past year will not lead to peace. These
acts -- the temporary withdrawal of forces from Gaza, the walling off of the
West Bank -- are not strides toward resolution but empty, symbolic acts that
fail to address the underlying conflict. Israel's nearly complete control
over the lives of Palestinians is never in doubt, as confirmed by the
humanitarian and economic suffering of the Palestinians since the January
elections. Israel's ongoing policies of expansion, military control and
assassination mock any notion of sovereignty or bilateralism. Its
"separation barrier," running across our land, is hardly a good-faith
gesture toward future coexistence.
But there is a remedy, and while it is not easy it is consistent with our
long-held beliefs. Palestinian priorities include recognition of the core
dispute over the land of historical Palestine and the rights of all its
people; resolution of the refugee issue from 1948; reclaiming all lands
occupied in 1967; and stopping Israeli attacks, assassinations and military
expansion. Contrary to popular depictions of the crisis in the American
media, the dispute is not only about Gaza and the West Bank; it is a wider
national conflict that can be resolved only by addressing the full
dimensions of Palestinian national rights in an integrated manner. This
means statehood for the West Bank and Gaza, a capital in Arab East
Jerusalem, and resolving the 1948 Palestinian refugee issue fairly, on the
basis of international legitimacy and established law. Meaningful
negotiations with a non-expansionist, law-abiding Israel can proceed only
after this tremendous labor has begun.
Surely the American people grow weary of this folly, after 50 years and $160
billion in taxpayer support for Israel's war-making capacity -- its
"defense." Some Americans, I believe, must be asking themselves if all this
blood and treasure could not have bought more tangible results for Palestine
if only U.S. policies had been predicated from the start on historical
truth, equity and justice.
However, we do not want to live on international welfare and American
handouts. We want what Americans enjoy -- democratic rights, economic
sovereignty and justice. We thought our pride in conducting the fairest
elections in the Arab world might resonate with the United States and its
citizens. Instead, our new government was met from the very beginning by
acts of explicit, declared sabotage by the White House. Now this aggression
continues against 3.9 million civilians living in the world's largest prison
camps. America's complacency in the face of these war crimes is, as usual,
embedded in the coded rhetorical green light: "Israel has a right to defend
itself." Was Israel defending itself when it killed eight family members on
a Gaza beach last month or three members of the Hajjaj family on Saturday,
among them 6-year-old Rawan? I refuse to believe that such inhumanity sits
well with the American public.
We present this clear message: If Israel will not allow Palestinians to live
in peace, dignity and national integrity, Israelis themselves will not be
able to enjoy those same rights. Meanwhile, our right to defend ourselves
from occupying soldiers and aggression is a matter of law, as settled in the
Fourth Geneva Convention. If Israel is prepared to negotiate seriously and
fairly, and resolve the core 1948 issues, rather than the secondary ones
from 1967, a fair and permanent peace is possible. Based on a hudna
(comprehensive cessation of hostilities for an agreed time), the Holy Land
still has an opportunity to be a peaceful and stable economic powerhouse for
all the Semitic people of the region. If Americans only knew the truth,
possibility might become reality.
The writer is prime minister of the Palestinian National Authority.
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Sujatha Byravan
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