***** Yitzhak Laor
The Tears of Zion
Public opinion in Europe and America is principally informed about developments within Israel by a select group of spokesmen, whose voices are heard over and over again. It represents itself as an enlightened opposition to mainstream prejudices, critical of much in Israeli political and intellectual life from a progressive point of view. The reality is quite different. Intellectuals of the Zionist Left play a crucial part in sustaining the oppression and exclusion of the Arab populations of Palestine. A look at the period from the collapse of the Camp David negotiations at the end of July 2000, through the outbreak of the second Intifada in October, up to the Israeli elections of February, 2001, offers a graphic demonstration of this role.
The starting-point of the Zionist Left was the assumption that there was only one central contradiction in Israeli politics -- the rivalry between Labour and Likud, or the contrast between peace and war. Its intellectuals expected the Palestinians to accept this presupposition, and assist 'the good to overcome the evil'. In the year 2000, what this meant was to help Ehud Barak overcome Ariel Sharon. Everything boiled down to just this one choice. Or in slightly more theoretical language: the sum of contradictions 'among us' is the only totality, everything else is secondary and insignificant; therefore, the focal contradiction in our lives has to become central in theirs, too.
The repression of the contradiction between Palestinian interests and the Israeli occupation, between the occupation and Palestinians' lives under it, has been a long process, of which the Oslo Accords were a culmination. But it has since continued with the transformation of Meretz from a centre-left to simply an 'anti-religious' party, followed by the disappearance of Peace Now. [1] Its next stage was the 'obligation' of the Left -- and even of the Palestinians -- to assist Ehud Barak to be re-elected as Prime Minister. . . .
(_New Left Review_ 10, July-August 2001, <http://www.newleftreview.net/NLR24403.shtml> & <http://www.newleftreview.net/PDFarticles/NLR24403.pdf>) *****
***** Sharon's Appendix: The bankruptcy of Israel's "Peace Camp" Ali Abunimah, The Electronic Intifada, 7 November 2002
It is the traditional role of the Israeli Labor party to pose as the "peace party," a notion that in the past some Palestinians, "moderate" Arab states, and the wider international community have accepted out of a mixture of naivete, wishful thinking and political expediency. Whenever Labor wins, however, lofty words, are replaced with policies that more resemble than contrast with the "hard-line" they were supposed to replace.
In 1992, Yitzhak Rabin became prime minister, following the "hawkish" Yitzhak Shamir. This lead to the signing of the Oslo accords, but it also heralded the biggest colony construction binge since Israel's occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip began, designed to solidify Israel's control. For Palestinians it marked the beginning of the period in which Israel was free to continue all the practices of military occupation, except now with a veneer international legitimacy. . . .
<http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article854.shtml> *****
MOTECK1457 at aol.com MOTECK1457 at aol.com, Thu Apr 8 20:37:39 PDT 2004:
>I support the Geneva Accord
***** A disastrous dead end: the Geneva Accord Ali Abunimah, The Electronic Intifada, 28 October 2003
Because of the Oslo process, the basis for a viable and minimally fair two-state solution has been completely destroyed. The Israeli "peace camp" and the Palestinian leadership ought to have learned from the calamities they helped bring about and changed their ways. The so-called "Geneva Accord," an informal agreement prepared by Israelis, led by former Labor Justice Minister Yossi Beilin and other Oslo-era luminaries, and Palestinians close to Yasser Arafat, demonstrates a determination to repeat the tragic errors of the past.
Oslo allowed Israel to double the number of colonists on occupied Palestinian land, while the PLO transformed itself into a Palestinian Authority whose mandate was to protect Israel from the victims of the ongoing colonization. There is no better account of the bad faith with which Israel's leaders approached the peace process than Tanya Reinhart's book Israel/Palestine: How to End the War of 1948. It is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand how Palestinians and Israelis reached the bloody impasse they are in today.
While its creators have tried to sell the Geneva Accord as some sort of breakthrough, it is nothing of the sort. The document recycles the unworkable arrangements that Israel and the United States tried to impose at Camp David in July 2000. A Palestinian "state" would be established in the West Bank and Gaza, but without sovereignty or control of its own borders or airspace. Israel would be permitted to keep military forces in it forever, while the Palestinian "state" would not be allowed to defend itself. The Palestinian state would be occupied by a "Multinational Force" that could only be withdrawn with Israeli agreement, and so on.
Israel would annex most of its West Bank settlements, including vast swathes of territory in and around Jerusalem and other major cities, a simple endorsement of most of the illegal territorial conquests Israel made since 1967. Crucially, the document completely cancels the basic rights of Palestinian refugees by giving Israel an absolute veto on the return of even a single person to his or her home.
That the Geneva "negotiators," freed from any real accountability, could not come up with anything better than they did, underscores the utter bankruptcy of the glacial "step-by-step" approach toward a two-state solution, while that two-state-solution has galloped away because of Israeli colonization. The authors seem to believe that the Palestinian people are like a donkey that will forever chase after a carrot dangling from a stick attached to its own head. They fail to recognize that the intifada was foremost a rejection of such manipulation.
Should anyone feel that this presentation is overly negative, just look at how Amram Mitzna, the "dovish" former general who led the Labor Party to massive defeat at the last Israeli election, and one of the authors of the document, presents it to Israelis. In an October 16 Ha'aretz commentary, Mitzna claimed that: "For the first time in history, the Palestinians explicitly and officially recognized the state of Israel as the state of the Jewish people forever. They gave up the right of return to the state of Israel and a solid, stable Jewish majority was guaranteed. The Western Wall, the Jewish Quarter (of Jerusalem) and David's Tower will all remain in our hands. The suffocating ring was lifted from over Jerusalem and the entire ring of settlements around it -- Givat Zeev, old and new Givon, Maale Adumim, Gush Etzion, Neve Yaacov, Pisgat Zeev, French Hill, Ramot, Gilo and Armon Hanatziv will be part of the expanded city, forever. None of the settlers in those areas will have to leave their homes."
Since these settlements account for the largest land expropriations in the most dense Palestinian areas, and for a majority of the Jewish settlers in the West Bank, Mitzna is simply following the Labor Party tradition of assuring Israelis that they can enjoy peace, international legitimacy and the spoils of conquest all at the same time. They cannot. . . .
<http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article2110.shtml> ***** -- Yoshie
* Bring Them Home Now! <http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/> * Calendars of Events in Columbus: <http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/calendar.html>, <http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php>, & <http://www.cpanews.org/> * Student International Forum: <http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/> * Committee for Justice in Palestine: <http://www.osudivest.org/> * Al-Awda-Ohio: <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio> * Solidarity: <http://www.solidarity-us.org/>