[WCUSP] Crocodile tears, Uri Averny

[yvonne simmons]

16/06/07
 
     Crocodile Tears 

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http://zope.gush-shalom.org/home/he/channels/avnery/1181993439/


WHAT HAPPENS when one and a half million human beings
are imprisoned in a tiny, arid territory, cut off from
their compatriots and from any contact with the
outside world, starved by an economic blockade and
unable to feed their families?

Some months ago, I described this situation as a
sociological experiment set up by Israel, the United
States and the European Union. The population of the
Gaza Strip as guinea pigs.

This week, the experiment showed results. They proved
that human beings react exactly like other animals:
when too many of them are crowded into a small area in
miserable conditions, they become aggressive, and even
murderous. The organizers of the experiment in
Jerusalem, Washington, Berlin, Oslo, Ottawa and other
capitals could rub their hands in satisfaction. The
subjects of the experiment reacted as foreseen. Many
of them even died in the interests of science.

But the experiment is not yet over. The scientists
want to know what happens if the blockade is tightened
still further.

WHAT HAS caused the present explosion in the Gaza
Strip?

The timing of Hamas' decision to take over the Strip
by force was not accidental. Hamas had many good
reasons to avoid it. The organization is unable to
feed the population. It has no interest in provoking
the Egyptian regime, which is busy fighting the Muslim
Brotherhood, the mother-organization of Hamas. Also,
the organization has no interest in providing Israel
with a pretext for tightening the blockade.

But the Hamas leaders decided that they had no
alternative but to destroy the armed organizations
that are tied to Fatah and take their orders from
President Mahmoud Abbas. The US has ordered Israel to
supply these organizations with large quantities of
weapons, in order to enable them to fight Hamas. The
Israeli army chiefs did not like the idea, fearing
that the arms might end up in the hands of Hamas (as
is actually happening now). But our government obeyed
American orders, as usual.

The American aim is clear. President Bush has chosen a
local leader for every Muslim country, who will rule
it under American protection and follow American
orders. In Iraq, in Lebanon, in Afghanistan, and also
in Palestine.

Hamas believes that the man marked for this job in
Gaza is Mohammed Dahlan. For years it has looked as if
he was being groomed for this position. The American
and Israeli media have been singing his praises,
describing him as a strong, determined leader,
"moderate" (i.e. obedient to American orders) and
"pragmatic" (i.e. obedient to Israeli orders). And the
more the Americans and Israelis lauded Dahlan, the
more they undermined his standing among the
Palestinians. Especially as Dahlan was away in Cairo,
as if waiting for his men to receive the promised
arms.

In the eyes of Hamas, the attack on the Fatah
strongholds in the Gaza Strip is a preventive war. The
organizations of Abbas and Dahlan melted like snow in
the Palestinian sun. Hamas has easily taken over the
whole Gaza Strip.

How could the American and Israeli generals
miscalculate so badly? They are able to think only in
strictly military terms: so-and-so many soldiers,
so-and-so many machine guns. But in interior struggles
in particular, quantitative calculations are
secondary. The morale of the fighters and public
sentiment are far more important. The members of the
Fatah organizations do not know what they are fighting
for. The Gaza population supports Hamas, because they
believe that it is fighting the Israeli occupier.
Their opponents look like collaborators of the
occupation. The American statements about their
intention of arming them with Israeli weapons have
finally condemned them.

That is not a matter of Islamic fundamentalism. In
this respect all nations are the same: they hate
collaborators of a foreign occupier, whether they are
Norwegian (Quisling), French (Petain) or Palestinian.

IN WASHINGTON and Jerusalem, politicians are bemoaning
the "weakness of Mahmoud Abbas".

They see now that the only person who could prevent
anarchy in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank was Yasser
Arafat. He had a natural authority. The masses adored
him. Even his adversaries, like Hamas, respected him.
He created several security apparatuses that competed
with each other, in order to prevent any single
apparatus from carrying out a coup-d'etat. Arafat was
able to negotiate, sign a peace agreement and get his
people to accept it.

But Arafat was pilloried by Israel as a monster,
imprisoned in the Mukata'ah and, in the end, murdered.
The Palestinian public elected Mahmoud Abbas as his
successor, hoping that he would get from the Americans
and the Israelis what they had refused to give to
Arafat.

If the leaders in Washington and Jerusalem had indeed
been interested in peace, they would have hastened to
sign a peace agreement with Abbas, who had declared
that he was ready to accept the same far-reaching
compromise as Arafat. The Americans and the Israelis
heaped on him all conceivable praise and rebuffed him
on every concrete issue.

They did not allow Abbas even the slightest and most
miserable achievement. Ariel Sharon plucked his
feathers and then sneered at him as "a featherless
chicken". After the Palestinian public had patiently
waited in vain for Bush to move, it voted for Hamas,
in the desperate hope of achieving by violence what
Abbas has been unable to achieve by diplomacy.

The Israeli leaders, both military and political, were
overjoyed. They were interested in undermining Abbas,
because he enjoyed Bush's confidence and because his
stated position made it harder to justify their
refusal to enter substantive negotiations. They did
everything to demolish Fatah. To ensure this, they
arrested Marwan Barghouti, the only person capable of
keeping Fatah together.

The victory of Hamas suited their aims completely.
With Hamas one does not have to talk, to offer
withdrawal from the occupied territories and the
dismantling of settlements. Hamas is that contemporary
monster, a "terrorist" organization, and with
terrorists there is nothing to discuss.

SO WHY were people in Jerusalem not satisfied this
week? And why did they decide "not to interfere"?

True, the media and the politicians, who have helped
for years to incite the Palestinian organizations
against each other, showed their satisfaction and
boasted "we told you so". Look how the Arabs kill each
other. Ehud Barak was right, when he said years ago
that our country is "a villa in the jungle".

But behind the scenes, voices of embarrassment, even
anxiety, could be heard.

The turning of the Gaza Strip into Hamastan has
created a situation for which our leaders were not
ready. What to do now? To cut off Gaza altogether and
let the people there starve to death? To establish
contacts with Hamas? To occupy Gaza again, now that it
has become one big tank trap? To ask the UN to station
international troops there - and if so, how many
countries would be crazy enough to risk their soldiers
in this hell?

Our government has worked for years to destroy Fatah,
in order to avoid the need to negotiate an agreement
that would inevitably lead to the withdrawal from the
occupied territories and the settlements there. Now,
when it seems that this aim has been achieved, they
have no idea what to do about the Hamas victory.

They comfort themselves with the thought that it
cannot happen in the West Bank. There, Fatah reigns.
There Hamas has no foothold. There our army has
already arrested most of Hamas' political leaders.
There Abbas is still in power.

Thus speak the generals, with the generals' logic. But
in the West Bank, too, Hamas did win a majority in the
last elections. There, too, it is only a matter of
time before the population loses its patience. They
see the expansion of the settlements, the Wall, the
incursions of our army, the targeted assassinations,
the nightly arrests. They will explode.

Successive Israeli governments have destroyed Fatah
systematically, cut off the feet of Abbas and prepared
the way for Hamas. They can't pretend to be surprised.

WHAT TO DO? To go on boycotting Abbas or to provide
him with arms, to enable him to fight for us against
Hamas? To go on depriving him of any political
achievement or to throw him some crumbs at long last?
And anyway, isn't it too late?

(And on the Syrian front: to go on paying lip service
to peace while sabotaging all the efforts of Bashar
Assad to start negotiations? To negotiate secretly,
despite American objections? Or continue doing nothing
at all?)

At present, there is no policy, and no government
which could determine a policy.

So who will save us? Ehud Barak?

Barak's victory in this week's Labor Party leadership
run-off has turned him almost automatically into the
next Minister of Defense. His strong personality and
his experience as Chief of Staff and Prime Minister
assure him of a dominant position in the restructured
government. Olmert will deal with the area in which he
is an unmatched master - party machinations. But Barak
will have a decisive influence on policy.

In the government of the two Ehuds, Ehud Barak will
decide on matters of war and peace.

Until now, practically all his actions have had
negative results. He came very close to an agreement
with Assad the father and escaped at the last moment.
He withdrew the Israeli army from South Lebanon, but
without speaking with Hizbullah, which took over. He
compelled Arafat to come to Camp David, insulted him
there and declared that we have no partner for peace.
This dealt a death blow to the chances of peace, a
blow which still paralyzes the Israeli public. He has
boasted that his real intention was to "unmask"
Arafat. He was more of a failed Napoleon than an
Israeli de Gaulle.

Will the Ethiopian change his skin, the leopard his
spots? Hard to believe.

IN THE dramas of William Shakespeare, there is
frequently a comic interlude at tense moments. And not
only there.

Shimon Peres, the person who in 55 years of political
activity had never won an election, did the impossible
this week: he got elected President of Israel.

Many years ago, I entitled an article about him "Mr.
Sisyphus", because again and again he had almost
reached the threshold of success, and success had
evaded him. Now he might feel like thumbing his nose
at the gods after reaching the summit, but - alas -
without the boulder. The office of the president is
devoid of content and jurisdiction. A hollow
politician in a hollow position.

Now everybody expects a flurry of activity at the
president's palace. There will certainly be peace
conferences, meetings of personalities, high-sounding
declarations and illustrious plans. In short - much
ado about nothing.

The practical result is that Olmert's position has
been strengthened. He has succeeded in installing
Peres in the President's office and Barak in the
Ministry of Defense. In the short term, Olmert's
position is assured.

And in the meantime, the experiment in Gaza continues,
Hamas is taking over and the trio - Ehud 1, Ehud 2 and
Shimon Peres are shedding crocodile tears.

http://zope.gush-shalom.org/home/en/channels/avnery/1181993272/

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