Socialist Outlook May 1997
Thirty years on, Israeli military rule over the Palestinian territories occupied during the 1967 war (the West Bank, Gaza and Jerusalem), as well as over the Syrian Golan Heights, continues without let-up. Despite the deal made in Madrid and Oslo, and finally signed in Washington, most Palestinians see little real improvement in their situation.
According to US academic Sara Roy, the author of The Gaza Strip: The Politics of De-development, economic, social and political conditions in the Occupied Territories have sharply deteriorated since the Oslo agreement. Between 1992 and 1996, per capita GNP fell by almost 40%, to $1500 a year in the West Bank and $700 in Gaza. Malnutrition is rising, and there are increasing reports of begging, sifting through rubbish for food, sale of body organs to Israeli hospitals, and prostitution. In a recent book, Drinking the Sea at Gaza, Israeli activist Amira Hass notes that 15% of the children in Gaza suffer from malnutrition, 60% of the babies have anaemia, and 90% have intestinal parasites.
The frequent closures, which restrict or ban free movement within and between areas, have severely damaged the economy. In 1996, there were over 100 days of total closure, and countless periods of partial closure. Unemployment is rising, totalling 29% of the 540,000 labour force when closures are lifted. In Gaza, where unemployment reaches 40%, over 40% of the families have sold property in order to buy food. At the same time, there is a large increase in child labour. Land confiscation for Israeli settlements, military bases and roads also continues, with 44% of Gaza and 78% of the West Bank now in Israeli hands.
Meanwhile, the Arafat regime becomes daily more brutal and autocratic. Nearly every day, further reports are received of the arbitrary and undemocratic way in which Arafat and his cohorts carry out their task as Israel’s surrogates in the slums and refugee camps of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Human rights activists, such as researcher Bassam el-Eid and psychologist Eyyad el-Sarraj, have spent lengthy periods in Arafat’s prisons. Twenty-four political prisoners - one of them a lawyer - are reportedly held at the Interrogation Center for the General Intelligence in Jericho, and denied the right to see their lawyers and, in many cases, their families. Several detainees have died under interrogation and torture in these prisons, often at the hands of gaolers who had themselves suffered similar techniques in Israeli prisons.
During the early years of the Intifada, Israel arrested teachers for teaching, which had been forbidden. Now, they are arrested for union activity. On 21 April, the Palestinian Authority arrested over 30 teachers leading a strike demanding better wages and conditions. For several months, teachers had been demanding a 100% increase in their salaries, which now average about $300 a month. Despite claims of their release, human rights activists report that teachers are still in prison and that the strike continues.
The assault on democracy and on the institutions of civil society painstakingly developed by Palestinian activists through the first two decades of Israeli occupation and the early years of the Intifada serves the interests of the Israeli and Palestinian regimes alike. As Israeli Professor Tanya Reinhart noted recently, "It takes at least 30 thousand ’policemen’ and a spy in every house to oppress the Palestinians struggle for independence. The Israeli army just does not have the 30 thousand soldiers needed to replace, daily, Arafat’s policemen". According to Professor Edward Said, "Arafat and his ’Palestine authority’ have become collaborators with the military occupation, a sort of Vichy government for Palestinians...Far from bringing peace, it brought greater suffering for Palestinians".
Striking evidence of this collaboration was provided in the recent disclosure of Arafat’s private slush fund at the Israeli National Bank in Tel-Aviv. Over the past three years, Israel has transferred at least $150 million to this account in Tel Aviv, access to which is limited to Arafat and his senior economic advisor Muhmad Rashid. Much of the money comes from the levies imposed by Israel on all exports from and imports to the Occupied Territories. Arafat is believed to have other secret accounts in Cairo, Riyadh, and Amman, though these might not be available to him if he were overthrown. The purpose of the fund in Israel is to enable Arafat to establish a government in exile if necessary; it also ensures that such a ’government’ would continue to be loyal to Israeli policy. The irony is that, having originally fostered and encouraged Hamas as a counter to the secular nationalism of Arafat and the PLO, Israel is now reinforcing Arafat as a counter to Hamas and other Islamist groups. In neither case, of course, was Israel interested in the opinions and needs of the Palestinian masses. This meddling is a classic example of imperialist "divide and rule"; Israel has apparently learned well from the British experience.
So, after thirty years of military occupation, and ten years after the start of the Intifada, which for a while threatened both Israel and the Arab regimes, the Palestinian people are more oppressed, more immiserated, and more lacking in leadership than at any time since the great disasters of 1948 and 1967. Israeli settlers continue their racist provocations, the Israeli army continues its undercover operations, the Israeli government continues to expropriate land and to build homes and roads for Jews only, and the Palestinian Authority plunders and tortures the masses who struggled for their return and rule.
When the Intifada erupted, in December 1987, the Israeli government and many commentators who accepted the official line were surprised. They should not have been. There had already been several small uprisings, and it was clear to most independent observers that a major uprising was likely, though the date and form could not have been predicted. A similar situation is developing now. The clashes over the tunnel under the Old City of Jerusalem and over the settlement at Jabal Abu Ghneim were bloody but short-lived. They are unlikely to be the last. Under a brutal double occupation, forgotten by the world and abandoned by most of their erstwhile allies, Palestine is a bomb waiting to explode. Hamas and its allies appear ready to offer a different leadership and a different goal, while much of the nationalist left seems to have abandoned the struggle. The responsibility of Palestinian socialists, and of socialists in the Arab world as a whole, has never been greater.