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SUPPORT FOR PALESTINE IS GROWING
By Jack A. Smith
Judging by news coverage in the corporate mass media, the attitude of a huge majority in Congress, and the actions of the U.S. government, it would appear that virtually everyone in Israel and the United States stands behind right-wing Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and his suppression of the Palestinian people. But it simply isn’t true.
In Israel a few days ago, between 60,000 and 100,000 people demonstrated for peace in Tel Aviv, a magnificent turnout under the present conditions. And a public opinion poll commissioned by peace groups showed that “the possibility of unilateral withdrawal of the IDF [Israeli Defense Force] from the [occupied] territories with redeployment along the Green Line [pre-1967 border] was the formula which most raises the hopes [for peace] of close to 67% of the public. Some 59% believe that a withdrawal which includes evacuation of most of the settlements will lead to a renewed peace process.”
In addition, a number of Israeli human rights and peace groups such as B’Tselem, Gush Shalom, Yesh G’vul, Peace Now and many more have strongly opposed the government’s recent actions against the Palestinians. At the same time, the number of army reservists who have announced their conscientious refusal to serve in the occupied territories is inching up toward 500.
Clearly there is a vibrant movement of people in Israel willing to go far beyond Sharon and his extreme ultra-right Likud Party to support the concept of a Palestinian state as a means of resolving the world’s most outstanding colonial question. Although Sharon earlier recognized that such a state was politically inevitable, though too “premature” to even be discussed at this point, Likud reaffirmed its steadfast opposition to creation of a Palestinian state May 12. Waiting in Likud’s wings to replace Sharon some day is the evidently even more reactionary Benjamin Netanyahu, a former prime minister.
At this stage, Likud remains the main tactical roadblock to peace in the region. Immediately after the important move by the Arab League several weeks ago to come to terms with Israel -- offering to recognize the State of Israel in return for withdrawal from the territories illegally occupied since 1967 and the formation of a Palestinian state -- Sharon responded by invading the West Bank and setting about to destroy the Palestinian Authority. Likewise, hours after the leaders of Egypt, Syria and Saudi Arabia met May 12 to reaffirm the offer of normal relations, Likud announced its permanent opposition to Palestinian statehood.
In the U.S. April 20, up to 100,000 people in Washington (including some 30,000 Palestinians, Arab-Americans and Muslims) and 35,000 in San Francisco demonstrated their opposition to Sharon’s brutal invasion of the West Bank -- the first time that nearly the entire antiwar movement and the left joined on behalf of the Palestinian people in a mass protest. This was an extraordinarily important political phenomenon, representative of much deeper support for the Palestinians cause than heretofore suspected. Also, a number of Jewish-American organizations are speaking up on behalf of a fair deal for the Palestinians as a means of bringing peace to the region, including such groups as American Jews for a Just Peace (www.junity.org), Jewish Voices Against the Occupation (www.JVAO.org), Not In My Name (Info at NIMN.org), and Tikkun (www.Tikkun.org). During the invasion, a Time/CNN poll showed that 60% of the American people agreed the U.S. should suspend all or some of its generous aid to Israel to force Sharon’s army to halt its invasion.
Support for the struggle of the Palestinian people is becoming conspicuous on U.S. college campuses, a development virtually unheard of a year ago. The Chronicle of Higher Education reported the following in its current issue: “As violence in the Middle East has escalated in recent weeks, pro-Palestinian groups at many colleges have increased their efforts to promote their cause, organizing demonstrations and national campaigns to condemn U.S. policy toward Israel. The groups have generated far greater support than antiwar activists were able to drum up during the U.S. bombing of Afghanistan last fall. Even some students who were uncomfortable denouncing the United States after September 11 are now picking up the flag for Palestine on dozens of campuses, staging sit-in protests, setting up information tables, and helping to organize a movement that aims to force colleges to stop investing in corporations that do business with Israel.”
On May 8, the UN General Assembly voted 74-4 (with 54 abstentions) to condemn Israel’s actions at the Jenin refugee camp. In addition, a number of mainstream human rights organizations have been strongly critical of the Israeli government and army for the recent invasion and the deportment of the troops.
Human Rights Watch, for instance, reports that it “found that during their incursion into the Jenin refugee camp, Israeli forces committed serious violations of international humanitarian law, some amounting prima facie to war crimes.” (For a text of the full report, see www.hrw.org.) HRW also condemned the Sharon government’s refusal to allow UN inspectors into Jenin to make an objective report.
Amnesty International reported after a delegation visited Jenin and other sites that “The evidence compiled indicated that serious breaches of international human rights and humanitarian law were committed, including war crimes.” The group called for an independent commission of inquiry to establish “the full facts and scale of these violations.” On May 13, Amnesty submitted a briefing on torture and ill-treatment of Palestinians by members of the Israeli Defense Forces and the General Security Services to the UN Committee Against Torture.
But to read the generality of the U.S. mass media, the people of the U.S. and Israel are united in supporting the actions of the Israeli government. And to observe the actions of Congress, it would appear Israel’s vicious assault amounted to little more than a humanitarian attempt to fight alongside the Bush administration in its war on terrorism.
The New York Times, probably the most influential and informative of U.S. newspapers, reported May 13, for example, that “American sympathy for Israel has been on the rise” since the Sept. 11 attack on the Pentagon and World Trade Center. Indeed, small increases in backing for Israel have become manifest in some opinion polls over the months, but this is largely attributable to several dubious circumstances, such as: slanted mass media news coverage, anti-Arab sentiment that confuses the Palestinian struggle with suicidal airplane hijackers, misidentification of Israel’s “anti-terrorist” rhetoric with Bush’s war on terrorism, intense pro-Israel propaganda from government and private lobbying sources, and the growing articulation of support for Israel in the U.S. from the political far right and the ultra-conservative evangelical Christian community.
Even while suggesting in its headline that “Americans [Are] More Supportive of Israel,” and quoting conservative and pro-Israeli sources, the Times article also noted that “by unflaggingly high margins, nearly 70% of Americans want President Bush to avoid taking sides in the conflict.” The article ignored the U.S. demonstrations of April 20 -- an extraordinary manifestation of opposition to Israel’s anti-Palestinian policies that indicates a major change in American attitudes. Omitted also were the influential criticisms from human rights organizations, the escalation of differences about the Palestine issue within the Jewish-American community, or the growth of support for the Palestinian cause on college campuses.
Both the Senate (94-2) and House (352-21, with 29 abstentions) passed resolutions May 2 strongly supporting Israel’s actions that totally ignored the 35-year military occupation of the Palestinian Territories, the continued expansion of Israeli settlements on Palestinian lands, Israel’s rejection of one critical UN resolution after another, or Sharon’s refusal to permit UN teams into Jenin to investigate alleged atrocities.
The Senate resolution, with New York’s two senators cheering from the sidelines, expressed “solidarity with Israel, a front-line state in the war against terrorism, as it takes necessary steps to provide security to its people by dismantling the terrorist infrastructure in the Palestinian areas.” The House resolution was similar to that of the Senate, but it also specifically attacked Yassir Arafat, suggesting -- in words echoing Sharon -- that the president of the Palestinian Authority was not “a viable partner for peace.” The House resolution also insisted on an increase in Washington’s annual subsidy to Israel, already the largest recipient of U.S. foreign aid.
President Bush clearly would have preferred Congress to delay action on the resolutions until he attained certain other foreign policy objectives. The White House thoroughly supports its Middle Eastern satellite, of course, but the economic, political and imperial interests of empire far transcend the narrow religio-nationalism of a Sharon or Likud Party. Washington is, after all, the dominant power in the entire oil-rich Middle East region. At this stage, as Arab masses outraged by Israel’s actions potentially threaten the stability of such U.S. clients as Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia, among others, and as Washington seeks to induce Arab backing for a war on Iraq, the Bush administration -- even while ludicrously portraying the Israeli warlord at “a man of peace” -- must convey the appearance of being at least moderately independent of Sharon’s reactionary ambitions.
Bush’s tactical considerations aside, virtually the entire ruling class, its congressional clients and mass media minions are conspiring to create the fiction that almost all the people of America and Israel stand solidly together in opposition to the “terrorist” Palestinian people. Developments in both countries in the last several months, however, suggest that popular opposition to Israel’s brutal crackdown on the Palestinians, plus support for ending the occupation and the emergence of a genuinely independent Palestinian state, is quickly gathering considerable strength.