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<font face="Verdana" size="2"> <font size="4">The Great Experiment</font></font>
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<div align="left"><font face="Verdana" size="2">IS IT possible to force a
whole people to submit to foreign occupation by starving it?</font></div>
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<div align="left"><font face="Verdana" size="2">That is, certainly, an interesting
question. So interesting, indeed, that the governments of Israel and the
United States, in close cooperation with Europe, are now engaged in a rigorous
scientific experiment in order to obtain a definitive answer.</font></div>
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<div align="left"><font face="Verdana" size="2">The laboratory for the experiment
is the Gaza Strip, and the guinea pigs are the million and a quarter Palestinians
living there.</font></div>
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<div align="left">IN ORDER to meet the required scientific standards, it
was necessary first of all to prepare the laboratory.</div>
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<div align="left">That was done in the following way: First, Ariel Sharon
uprooted the Israeli settlements that were stuck there. After all, you can't
conduct a proper experiment with pets roaming around the laboratory. It was
done with "determination and sensitivity", tears flowed like water, the soldiers
kissed and embraced the evicted settlers, and again it was shown that the
Israeli army is the most-most in the world.</div>
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<div align="left">With the laboratory cleaned, the next phase could begin:
all entrances and exits were hermetically sealed, in order to eliminate disturbing
influences from the world outside. That was done without difficulty. Successive
Israeli governments have prevented the building of a harbor in Gaza, and
the Israeli navy sees to it that no ship approaches the shore. The splendid
international airport, built during the Oslo days, was bombed and shut down.
The entire Strip was closed off by a highly effective fence, and only a few
crossings remained, all but one controlled by the Israeli army.</div>
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<div align="left">There remained a sole connection with the outside world:
the Rafah border crossing to Egypt. It could not just be sealed off, because
that would have exposed the Egyptian regime as a collaborator with Israel.
A sophisticated solution was found: to all appearances the Israeli army left
the crossing and turned it over to an international supervision team. Its
members are nice guys, full of good intentions, but in practice they are
totally dependent on the Israeli army, which oversees the crossing from a
nearby control room. The international supervisors live in an Israeli kibbutz
and can reach the crossing only with Israeli consent.</div>
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<div align="left">So everything was ready for the experiment.</div>
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THE SIGNAL for its beginning was given after the Palestinians had held spotlessly
democratic elections, under the supervision of former President Jimmy Carter.
George Bush was enthusiastic: his vision of bringing democracy to the Middle
East was coming true.</div>
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<div align="left">But the Palestinians flunked the test. Instead of electing
"good Arabs", devotees of the United States, they voted for very bad Arabs,
devotees of Allah. Bush felt insulted. But the Israeli government was ecstatic:
after the Hamas victory, the Americans and Europeans were ready to take part
in the experiment. It could start:</div>
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<div align="left">The United States and the European Union announced the
stoppage of all donations to the Palestinian Authority, since it was "controlled
by terrorists". Simultaneously, the Israeli government cut off the flow of
money.</div>
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<div align="left">To understand the significance of this: according to the
"Paris Protocol" (the economic annex of the Oslo agreement) the Palestinian
economy is part of the Israeli customs system. This means that Israel collects
the duties for all the goods that pass through Israel to the Palestinian
territories - actually, there is no other route. After deducting a fat commission,
Israel is obligated to turn the money over to the Palestinian Authority.</div>
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<div align="left">When the Israeli government refuses to pass on this money,
which belongs to the Palestinians, it is, simply put, robbery in broad daylight.
But when one robs "terrorists", who is going to complain?</div>
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<div align="left">The Palestinian Authority - both in the West Bank and the
Gaza Strip - needs this money like air for breathing. This fact also requires
some explanation: in the 19 years when Jordan occupied the West Bank and
Egypt the Gaza Strip, from 1948 to 1967, not a single important factory was
built there. The Jordanians wanted all economic activity to take place in
Jordan proper, east of the river, and the Egyptians neglected the strip altogether.</div>
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<div align="left">Then came the Israeli occupation, and the situation became
even worse. The occupied territories became a captive market for Israeli
industry, and the military government prevented the establishment of any
enterprise that could conceivably compete with an Israeli one.</div>
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<div align="left">The Palestinian workers were compelled to work in Israel
for hunger wages (by Israeli standards). From these, the Israeli government
deducted all the social payments levied on Israeli workers, without the Palestinian
workers enjoying any social benefits. This way the government robbed these
exploited workers of tens of billions of dollars, which disappeared somehow
in the bottomless barrel of the government.</div>
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<div align="left">When the intifada broke out, the Israeli captains of industry
and agriculture discovered that it was possible to get along without the
Palestinian workers. Indeed, it was even more profitable. Workers brought
in from Thailand, Romania and other poor countries were ready to work for
even lower wages and in conditions bordering on slavery. The Palestinian
workers lost their jobs.</div>
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<div align="left">That was the situation at the beginning of the experiment:
the Palestinian infrastructure destroyed, practically no means of production,
no work for the workers. All in all, an ideal setting for the great "experiment
in hunger".</div>
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THE IMPLEMENTATION started, as mentioned, with the stoppage of payments.</div>
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<div align="left">The passage between Gaza and Egypt was closed in practice.
Once every few days or weeks it was opened for some hours, for appearances'
sake, so that some of the sick and dead or dying could get home or reach
Egyptian hospitals. </div>
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<div align="left">The crossings between the Strip and Israel were closed
"for urgent security reasons". Always, at the right moment, "warnings of
an imminent terrorist attack" appeared. Palestinian agricultural products
destined for export rot at the crossing. Medicines and foodstuffs cannot
get in, except for short periods from time to time, also for appearances,
whenever somebody important abroad voices some protest. Then comes another
"urgent security warning" and the situation is back to normal.</div>
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<div align="left">To round off the picture, the Israeli Air Force bombed
the only power station in the Strip, so that for a part of the day there
is no electricity, and the water supply (which depends on electric pumps)
stops also. Even on the hottest days, with temperatures of over 30 degrees
centigrade in the shade, there is no electricity for refrigerators, air conditioning,
the water supply or other needs.</div>
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<div align="left">In the West Bank, a territory much larger than the Gaza
Strip (which makes up only 6% of the occupied Palestinian territories but
holds 40% of the inhabitants), the situation is not quite so desperate. But
in the Strip, more than half of the population lives beneath the Palestinian
"poverty line", which lies of course very, very far below the Israeli "poverty
line". Many Gaza residents can only dream of being considered poor in the
nearby Israeli town of Sderot.</div>
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<div align="left">What are the governments of Israel and the US trying to
tell the Palestinians? The message is clear: You will reach the brink of
hunger, and even beyond, if you do not surrender. You must remove the Hamas
government and elect candidates approved by Israel and the US. And, most
importantly: you must be satisfied with a Palestinian state consisting of
several enclaves, each of which will be utterly dependent on the tender mercies
of Israel. </div>
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AT THE moment, the directors of the scientific experiment are pondering a
puzzling question: how on earth do the Palestinians still hold out, in spite
of everything? According to all the rules, they should have been broken long
ago!</div>
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<div align="left">Indeed, there are some encouraging signs. The general atmosphere
of frustration and desperation creates tension between Hamas and Fatah. Here
and there clashes have broken out, people were killed and wounded, but in
each case the deterioration was halted before it became a civil war. The
thousands of hidden Israeli collaborators are also helping to stir things
up. But contrary to all expectations, the resistance did not evaporate. Even
the captured Israeli soldier has not been released. </div>
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<div align="left">One of the explanations has to do with the structure of
Palestinian society. The Hamulah (extended family) plays a central role there.
As long as one person in the family is working, the relatives, too, do not
die of hunger, even if there is widespread malnutrition. Everyone who has
any income shares it with all his brothers and sisters, parents, grandparents,
cousins and their children. That is a primitive system, but quite effective
in such circumstances. It seems that the planners of the experiment did not
take this into account.</div>
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<div align="left">In order to quicken the process, the whole might of the
Israeli army is now being used again, as from this week. For three months
the army was busy with the Second Lebanon War. It became apparent that the
army, which for the last 39 years has been employed mainly as a colonial
police force, does not function very well when suddenly confronted with a
trained and armed opponent that can fight back. Hizbullah used deadly anti-tank
weapons against the armored forces, and rockets rained down on Northern Israel.
The army has long ago forgotten how to deal with such an enemy. And the campaign
did not end well.</div>
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<div align="left">Now the army returns to the war it knows. The Palestinians
in the Strip do not (yet) have effective anti-tank weapons, and the Qassam
rockets cause only limited damage. The army can again use tanks against the
population without hindrance. The Air Force, which in Lebanon was afraid
to send in helicopters to remove the wounded, can now fire missiles at the
houses of "wanted persons", their families and neighbors, at leisure. If
in the last three months "only" 100 Palestinians were killed per month, we
are now witnessing a dramatic rise in the number of Palestinians killed and
wounded.</div>
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<div align="left">How can a population that is hit by hunger, lacking medicaments
and equipment for its primitive hospitals and exposed to attacks on land,
from sea and from the air, hold out? Will it break? Will it go down on its
knees and beg for mercy? Or will it find inhuman strength and stand the test?
</div>
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<div align="left">In short: What and how much is needed to get a population
to surrender?</div>
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<div align="left">All the scientists taking part in the experiment - Ehud
Olmert and Condoleezza Rice, Amir Peretz and Angela Merkel, Dan Halutz and
George Bush, not to mention Nobel Peace Price laureate Shimon Peres - are
bent over the microscopes and waiting for an answer, which undoubtedly will
be an important contribution to political science. </div>
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<div align="left">I hope the Nobel Committee is watching.</div>
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