property. some of the ideological and Most of these events are socio-economic collectivist not reported to the police or dimensions of traditional even to Human Rights Zionism, which may be an organisations, mainly due to obstacle to a wild free marthe lack of confidence in ket, and to the ideology legal authorities, which have which legitimises it. been strengthened in the Within this inner contrarecent demonstrations. diction in the policy and In small way the ideology of the political responsibility lies on the establishment in Israel, the shoulders of the Zionist classic Zionist trend of Left, which assumed it was 'Blood and Soil', of conquest possible to reach the realisa- and direct brutal opprestion of the Oslo Agreements sion, has so far won over. It by convincing the Israeli indeed seems that Barak and public with arguments such his followers in the Labour as "security" and "separa- party have decided to distion", - but without any connect themselves from the change in the prevailing dis- unholv alliance with the course justifying Zionism Israeli big industrialists who and without recognising the areir dreats destruction of impact of the their dreams of the Palestinians call Naqba ( Middle East". the impact of the defeat of They are now trying to 1948). protest against Barak's We have indeed witnessed attempts to unite with supposedly new trends of Sharon and are calling upon 'Post Zionism', which pre- him to establish a coalition sented a local version of neo- with Shas (an ultra-ortholiberal and multi-cultural- dox party representing ism ideology of the capitalist largely n African Jews) - the globalisation era. same Shas of which, at the The representatives of the time Barak's government new bourgeoisie which was being formed, the same emerged with the develop- people repeatedly cried, ment of the Israeli economy, "Anybody but Shas!" and their mouthpieces - the A wide consensus is now Party and the left emerging around the conZionist party Meretz - who tinuation of the Zionist proinitiated the Oslo ject in its year 2000 version, Agreements nave mean- which is no less brutal than while failed to achieve the its previous goal of ensuring political However, the unity between and 'security' stability. Right and 'Left' will It should be noted that inevitably widen the cracks large parts of this new bour- in the Israeli-American progeoisie, (including profes- ject: it will strengthen the sionals and academics, the opposition of the Palestinian majority of whom are people on both sides of the Ashkenazim) are the biolog- Green Line, and within ical and ideological off- Israeli society will hopefully spring of the Zionist Labour create a solid core which movement that founded the will be able to disconnect state of Israel. itself from the new nationalThere is a structured con- istic alliance. tradiction between their This may well ignite the class interests regarding a fire of true solidarity with free economy and privatisa- the Palestinian people lon - and their Zionist among the masses in the commitment to the exis- Arab world - all of which tence of a Jewish state, to threaten American imperialrule over the entire area of ism and its Israeli clients in historic Palestine. The latter the region. demands the continuity of This is a slightly edited version of an article in the first edition of Between the Lines. a new monthly magazine produced from Jerusalem by the former editors of News From Within.
Between the Lines "aims to continue the political perspective of a categorical rejection of the Osio process, and the Apartheid reality Which has been established in its wake in the 67 Occupied: Terntones and strengthened within Israel The first ed tor a so coma rs arces o. Granam Usher.
Sraom Chetnit. Heidar Ec. an a Orare tais daccao, in arra Subersa=.
Statement on Palestine from the International Executive Committee of the Fourth International, October 2000 THE BLOODY autumn unleashed by the provocation committed by general Ariel Sharon, supervisor of the massacres at Sabra and Chatila in Lebanon in 1982 - with the escort graciously provided for him by general Ehud Barak, "Labour" prime minse are more than ever dominated by the military - already constitutes one of the most brutal episodes of the long history of criminal violence perpetrated by the Zionist enterprise against the Palestinian people.
The entire world has seen yel again to wral point the discourse of the imperialist powers on human rights and the rights of peoples is variable according to the interests of their world hegemony: intensive bombardments and murderous embargos for Iraq and Serbia, "rogue states"; unequalled levels of military aid and friendly advice for Israel, key member of the strategic apparatus of imperialist domination in this major oil-producing area of the world and in any case non-recognition of national rights, whether of Palestinians or Kosovars.
Sharon's provocation was nonetheless only the drop of water that made a cup that had been full to the brim for a very long time run over. It shattered the process opened up by the Oslo accords and their signature in Washington, on the White House lawn, in September 1993. It is the consequence of the over-accumulation of frustrations in the course of the seven years since then, during which the economic and social position of the Palestinian people have worsened.
Fraudulent
In signing these accords, general Rabin offered the Palestinians a fraudulent deal. He could proceed to the withdrawal of Israeli troops from inside the zones of Palestinian population in the territories occupied in 1967 - a withdrawal which Israel's military top brass had demanded since the Intifada in 1988, motivated ova concen to desave Ise noral of their armv and worried about the consequences of its being bogged down in the tasks of repression in the West Bank and Gaza Strip on its state of general preparation in relation to the Arab environment.
Beyond this redeployment, Rabin offered no concession of a nature to satisfy the elementary demands of the Palestinians: dismantling of the Zionist settlements in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, total withdrawal of the Israeli army from the territories occupied in 1967, establishment of a Palestinian state on the whole of these territories, including East Jerusalem, and the return to Palestine of the refugees of 1948 and 1967.
It only held out the possi bility of accepting a largely truncated and perverted version of Palestinian aspirations, on the express condition that the Palestinian Authority (PA) headed by Yasser Arafat fulfilled its part of the deal, by showing that it was capable of bringing the population of the West Bank and Gaza Strip to heel efficiently and on a lasting basis.
Concessions
This fraudulent deal very quickly came up against a major contradiction: successive Zionist governments, those of Rabin, Peres, Netanyahu and Barak, conceded to the Palestinians only some of the promises of Oslo, with an eyedropper and increasingly late, demanding each time that the PA increase its proxy repression as condition for the following stage.
Their "security"-fixated mentally, iner chauvinist arrogance and their racist. contempt for the Palestinians meant that their priority concern was pandering to the most reactionary fringe of Israeli public opinion. Meanwhile, they have carried out a policy of development of the Zionist colonies and a military and intrastructural barcellization of the Palestinian territories, which has been humiliating and revolting to the highest point for the population of these territories. In such conditions, it was totally predictable that the PA, confronted with the exasperation of the inhabitants of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, would experience a lot of difficulty in muzzling Palestinian society completely, despite its efforts to do so. Moroever, Yasser Arafat and his lieutenants were much less inclined to push the repressive escalation further given that, on the one hand, they knew that in losing all legitimacy in the eyes of their population, indeed in the eyes of a section of their troops, they weakened themselves in relation to Israel; while on The Middle East '"'' 9 2000 GARY VARVEL THE INDIANAPOLIS STAR the other, they feel increasingly that they have been duped.
This increasingly obvious impasse determined the recent explosion and the bloody autumn which has resulted from it and which is still going on. These events illustrate in a cruel manner the total bankruptcy of the strategic choice of the Arafat leadership, consisting in counting on the benevolence of the Zionist state and the so-called arbitration or washington so as to obtain a Bantustan in the 1967 territories. The increasingly evident bankruptcy of this strategy only fostered the growth of Islamic fundamentalism among the Palestinian population.
Zionist unity
Barak, who is trying to win the participation of Ariel Sharon in a government of Zionist unity, proclaims today nis intention to go back to the initial project of the Israeli military leadership, as it was conceived in 1988: to carry out unilaterally the redeployment of the Israeli army in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, in such a way as to consolidate strategic Israeli control of these territories and their external frontiers, placing the enclaves of Palestinian population under permanent siege, reduced to the situation of vast self-managed concentration came con. stantly threatened with being asphyxiated by a retightening of the Israeli blockade The first difference between this perspective and the Israeli interpretation of the Oslo accords would be the absence of direct collaboration between the Palestinian leadership and the Zionist government and a contemptous indifference on the part of the latter as to the internal management of the Palestinian territories.
Faced with this, the only progressive perspective which is offered to the Palestinian people would be to develop anew the forms of self-organisation which charactersea te early days of the Intifada, instead of the repressive and highly corrupt administration set up in the framework of the Oslo accords. The Palestinian population of the West Bank and Gaza Strip does not have the means on its own to free itself from the Israeli yoke. The relationship of forces is unfavourable to it in a crushing way. It can hope to change it only by finding the points of support which until now have been cruelly lacking:
• in the pressure of the popular movement of solidarity on the Arab governments to force them to give the Palestinians the diplomatic support and economic aid which are indispensable to them;
• in the pressure of the movement of international solidarity for the recognition of the right of the Palestinians to a state, for an emergency international aid, to stop the state of Israel from pursuing its policy of strangulation of the Palestinian territories and to cut off all military and related aid. One of the conditions for an effective movement of solidarity with the Palestinian people is to forcefully reject any expressions of antisemitism;
• inside the state of Israel itself, where the outburst of violence of which those Palestinians holding a second class Israeli citizenship have been the victims has shown to what depths Israeli society could plunge.
It is to be hoped that this fearful perspective could impel a large number of Israelis to mobilise to force their government to stop starving the Palestinians and to recognise their right to a sovereign state on the whole of their territories occupied in 1967, as an indispensable element on the road to a just settlement on the principle of equal rights of all people Arabs and Jews, without which this region of the world would have no perspective of the future other than murderous violence and permanent insecurity.
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