THERE IS NO TWO-STATE SOLUTION
The Israeli Defence force destroyed Yasser Arafat's two-helicopter squad, marooning him in the West Bank, while attacking police and other Palestine Authority (PA) buildings in Gaza and Jenin. In cabinet the Sharon government declared the PA to be a terrorist organisation, widely
interpreted as meaning that they would seek to overthrow Arafat, rather than tie him into a peace deal. According to Israel's spokesmen, the latest bombing attack from Hamas, in which 25 Israelis were killed in the space
of two days, means that Arafat can no longer be trusted as a 'partner for peace'.
The Israeli dispossession and oppression of Palestine continues unabated. The military assaults on the precarious Palestinian Authority confirm the Israelis' inability to deal in anything other than force. Yet Jewish nationalism has also taken its toll on the Israelis themselves. The Jewish state feels increasingly terrorised, insecure and out of place. It has turned out to be a bigger ghetto, a bloody trap for the Jews, where, as David Grossman has put it this week: 'We can breathe. But we cant breathe.'
Among Palestinians, the Israelis' denial of even a partial Palestinian right of self-determination is weakening support for Fatah's attempts to compromise. Support is growing for all those tendencies, secular and religious, which reject a two-state solution. Over the last year, the more brutal Israeli rule has been, the greater the support for resistance to it (even if it takes the alienated and degraded form of the suicide bombing), and the more difficult it has become for the Palestinian elite to act as a comprador class. Israelis want to believe that the harder they kick the Palestinians, the more secure Israel becomes. Elections have been won with this formula but it has left the Israelis feeling less secure and less at home than ever before. Insecurity is the other face of oppression. The more oppression is used as a tool to achieve Israeli national unity, the more
paranoid and fearful Israeli society becomes.
Only a de-zionisation of Israel can allow the Jews to have what they want: to feel secure in their homes and live in Palestine in peace. Even the end of the occupation, necessary though it is, cannot guarantee security for
the Israelis as long as Palestinian refugees are denied the right to return to what is now Israel. Palestinian nationalism cannot win this right, though it may yet win a dependent statelet in which to co-exist alongside Israel. Only a political strategy that is based on the defeat of Zionism first, followed by the return of the Palestinian refugees and the recognition of the right of self-determination for Arabs and Jews can set Palestine and the
Israelis free.
CONFLICT IN THE MIDDLE EAST - NO CRISIS FOR THE WEST
The appearance of the conflict as a tit-for-tat exchange between two septuagenarians, Sharon and Arafat, too used to fighting to move on, obscures the underlying influence of Western policy in fanning the flames. Identifying the influence of the West in the Israeli-Palestinian war is all the more difficult, since the only visible roles adopted by the United States and the European Union are those of disengaged bystanders or peacemakers. But those appearances are deceptive - the tempo and tenor of the conflict is determined at every step by developments in US and European policy. It is only by understanding the influence of Western policy on the Middle East that the conflict can be understood.
With the elimination in the 1990s of any global challenge to the West, US foreign policy interests have become the dominant force to which all the
local participants seek to respond: Israel as the USAs major client, and
the PLO as the supplicant hoping to cut a deal. The PLO had long sought to utilise international forums to find a diplomatic solution, but it was only after the Gulf War that these efforts were rewarded with serious Western
attention. The US seemed willing to push Israel into making concessions,
such as negotiating with Arafat, and, most importantly, partially withdrawing from towns in the West Bank and Gaza, to allow Palestinian autonomy.
In the 1990s, as the US sought to ally itself directly with Arab regimes in the Gulf War coalition, Israel became less of a useful instrument of US policy, and more of a hindrance. Israeli action beyond the occupied territories was reined back. However, Arab ambitions that the US would deliver Israeli support for a Palestinian state proved unrealisable. Without the forward momentum of its expansive wars against its Arab neighbours, the Israeli leadership found it difficult to maintain national cohesion. Israel's raison d'etre turned out to be making war on the Arabs, only now its aggression was focused on the occupied territories.
The main impetus to the peace process always came from the PLO's lowered aspirations, which persuaded the US that it could broker a deal.
But as president Clinton's prestige declined, efforts to resolve the Middle East conflict became less likely. In the twilight of his presidency Clinton was unable to impose a deal and he took his ally, Israeli premier Ehud Barak down with him. Into the impasse stepped Ariel Sharon, on the one hand, with his provocative invasion of the Al-Aqsa mosque, and the second intifada on the other.
Palestinians experienced the incoming Bush presidency as a return to the
old alliance. Certainly the foreign policy hawks around Bush were hostile to the Clinton presidency for chummying up with the 'terrorist' Arafat, and did not replace Clinton's Middle East peace envoy, leaving Sharon to act with impunity against the new intifada.
However, after September 11, the Bush team pointedly refused Sharon's offer to join the coalition against terror, and - initially - Sharons identification of Arafat and Osama bin Laden. Instead, in a sop to Arab opinion, of which the Americans were initially uncertain, President Bush
declared his support for a Palestinian state. A new peace envoy, Anthony
Zinni, was appointed.
Following the Haifa and Jerusalem bombings though, US policy was seen once again to turn through 180 degrees. This time, with the 'coalition against terror' on an even keel, Washington did accept Sharon's equation
of Palestinian attacks with Al-Qaida, and pointedly expressed support for Israel's punitive assaults on the PLO leader and his Palestine Authority.
The sheer preponderance of US influence has made the hegemon capricious. Western policy appears to oscillate, from reining in Israel, to uncritically supporting its war-like stance according to whether at that
moment American anxieties about the Arabs outweigh their basic political
affinity with the Israelis (as prosperous Western militarists 'victimised' by Islamic terrorists). But these fluctuations in Western policy, ironically, only indicate the reduced importance that Israel has in American strategy in the region. Both American policies of advancing the peace process on the one
hand, and supporting their ally in Israel coexist uneasily. At the same time, differences with the European Union appear to open up whenever conflict increases - though in point of fact the real policy difference is a division of labour with the Europeans helping to keep Arab hopes of a deal alive.
This indecisive policy mix tends to provoke the worst fears and wildest hopes of both participants. Israeli leaders are forced to react to fears of betrayal under forced concessions by constantly adopting the toughest negotiating strategy. Similarly Palestinians have been on a roller-coaster ride, with self-government and diplomatic recognition one year, military
occupation and aerial bombardment the next. Under these influences, it is only surprising that the conflict has been as restrained as it has.
WAR FACTS: TIT FOR TAT TAT TAT TAT
Annual US support for Israel: $840m civilian, $1.98bn military. Annual EU support for Palestine $200m. Since the beginning of the Intifada last October 189 Israelis and 755 Palestinians have been killed (as at 28 October - update)
US-ISRAELI RELATIONS IN PERSPECTIVE
The Cold War period: Israel acts as US proxy against Arab nationalism
1949 US recognises the state of Israel. 1956 British and French influence in the region weakened by US disapproval of Suez invasion. 1967 Six Day War: Israel's decisive defeat of Arab nations earns it increased American patronage as regional a proxy. 1973 Yom Kippur War: Henry Kissinger records American satisfaction at the superiority of US to Soviet weaponry, as wielded by their Israeli and Arab proxies in the region - Israel emerges as a key US asset in the global Cold War. 1976 US persuades Egyptian premier Anwar Sadat to recognise Israel, fracturing the pan-Arab alliance.
The 'second Cold War': America re-militarises conflict in the Middle East
1978 At America's behest, Israel invades the Lebanon overthrowing the cross-ethnic nationalist government. 1982 Israel clears the PLO out of Lebanon, leaving the way for the slaughter of refugees at Sabra and Chatila. 1987 The first 'intifada' erupts on the occupied West Bank, as the PLO's
diplomatic strategy produces scant results
The 'peace process': Arab nationalism defeated, Israel de-prioritised
1990 Operation Desert Storm against Iraq: The US shuns Israel to make direct links with Arab regimes, such as Syria, that no longer have Soviet ties. 1993 Arafat and Israeli premier Yitzhak Rabin sign up for a US brokered peace. 1995 Rabin assassinated by religious extremist; Benjamin Natanyahu's incoming government stalls the peace process. 1998 Ehud Barak's election leads to reopening of peace negotiations. 2000, May, Israeli backed South Lebanese Army collapses after Israel withdraws from Lebanon. 2000, September, with one eye on the elections in the US, and the other on those in Israel, Ariel Sharon makes his bid for the leadership of the right by leading an invasion of the Al Aqsa mosque. The 'second intifada' begins, as Palestinian hopes for concessions fade. 2000 November, George Bush Jnr declared US president. 2001, February, Sharon elected in Israel. 2001, 11 September, twin towers in New York and Pentagon attacked by Islamic fundamentalists. 2001, 3 October, George Bush declares for Palestinian state. Sharon likens attempts to woo Arabs for the coalition against terror as 'appeasement', only to be forced to withdraw the comment. 2001, 3 December, White House approves Israeli air-strikes on Arafat as self-defence against terrorism
-- James Heartfield