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There Will Be No Middle East Peace Without Justice; At No Point<br>
Yesterday Did Anyone Mention Occupation<br><br>
By Robert Fisk<br>
The Independent, 9 February 2005<br>
<a href="http://news.independent.co.uk/world/fisk/story.jsp?story=609177" eudora="autourl">http://news.independent.co.uk/world/fisk/story.jsp?story=609177<br><br>
</a>So, the Palestinians will end their occupation of Israel. No
more<br>
will Palestinian tanks smash their way into Haifa and Tel Aviv. No<br>
more will Palestinian F-18s bomb Israeli population centres. No<br>
more will Palestinian Apache helicopters carry out "targeted<br>
killings" - ie: murders - of Israeli military leaders.<br><br>
The Palestinians have promised to end all "acts of
violence"<br>
against Israelis while Israel has promised to end all
"military<br>
activity" against Palestinians. So that's it, then. Peace in
our<br>
time.<br><br>
A Martian - even a well-educated Martian - would have gathered<br>
that this was the message, supposing he dropped in on the fantasy<br>
world of Sharm el-Sheikh yesterday. The Palestinians had been<br>
committing "violence", the Israelis carrying out
"innocent"<br>
operations. Palestinian "violence" or "terror and
violence" - the<br>
latter a more popular phrase since it carried the stigma of 11<br>
September 2001 - was now at an end. Mahmoud Abbas - who told a<br>
close Lebanese friend this year that he wore a suit and tie so<br>
that he would look "different" to Yasser Arafat - went along
with<br>
all this. Just which people were occupying the homes of which<br>
other people remained a mystery.<br><br>
Silver-haired and wisdom-burdened, Mahmoud Abbas looked the part.<br>
We had to forget that it was this same Abbas who wrote the Oslo<br>
Accords, who in 1,000 pages failed to use - even once - the word<br>
"occupation", and who talked not of Israeli
"withdrawal" from<br>
Palestinian territory, but of "redeployment".<br><br>
At no point yesterday did anyone mention occupation. Like sex,<br>
"occupation" had to be censored out of the historical
narrative.<br>
As usual - as in Oslo - the real issues were put back to a later<br>
date. Refugees, the "right of return", East Jerusalem as
a<br>
Palestinian capital: let's deal with them later.<br><br>
Never before have we been in such need of the caustic voice of the<br>
late Edward Said. Settlements - Jewish colonies for Jews, and Jews<br>
only, on Arab land - were not, of course, discussed yesterday. Nor<br>
was East Jerusalem. Nor was the "right of return" of 1948<br>
refugees. These are the "unrealistic dreams" that were referred
to<br>
by the Israelis yesterday.<br><br>
All this will be discussed "later" - as they were supposed to
be<br>
in Abbas's hopeless Oslo agreement. As long as you can postpone<br>
the real causes of war, that's OK. "An end to violence," that
has<br>
cost 4,000 deaths - it was all said yesterday, minus the<br>
all-important equation that two-thirds of these were Palestinian<br>
lives. Peace, peace, peace. It was like terrorism, terrorism,<br>
terrorism. It was the sort of stuff you could buy off a<br>
supermarket shelf. If only.<br><br>
At the end of the day the issues were these. Will the Israelis<br>
close down their massive settlements in the West Bank, including<br>
those which surround Jerusalem? No mention of this yesterday. Will<br>
they end the expansion of Jewish settlements - for Jews, and Jews<br>
only, across the Palestinian West Bank? No mention of this<br>
yesterday. Will they allow the Palestinians to have a capital in<br>
Arab East Jerusalem? No mention of this yesterday. Will the<br>
Palestinians truly end their "intifada" - including their<br>
murderous suicide bombings - as a result of these non-existent<br>
promises?<br><br>
Like the Iraqi elections - which were also held under foreign<br>
occupation - the Israeli-Palestinian talks were historic because<br>
they were "historic". US Secretary of State, Condoleezza
Rice,<br>
"warned" Palestinians that they must "control
violence" but there<br>
was, as usual, no request to "control" the violence of the
Israeli<br>
army.<br><br>
Because the sine qua non of the equation was that the Palestinians<br>
were guilty. That the Palestinians were the "violent" party
-<br>
hence the admonition that the Palestinians must end
"violence"<br>
while the Israelis would merely end "operations". The<br>
Palestinians, it seems, are generically violent. The Israelis<br>
generically law-abiding; the latter carry out
"operations".<br>
Mahmoud Abbas went along with this nonsense.<br><br>
It was all too clear in the reporting of yesterday's events. What<br>
was on offer, said CNN, was "an end to all violence" - as
if<br>
occupation and illegal colonisation was not a form of violence.<br>
The American Associated Press news agency talked gutlessly about<br>
"towns that, for now, continue to be under Israeli security<br>
control" - in other words, under Israeli occupation, although
they<br>
would not tell their readers this.<br><br>
So Mahmoud Abbas is going to be the Hamid Karzai of Palestine, his<br>
tie the equivalent of Karzai's green gown, "our" new man
in<br>
Palestine, the "tsunami" that has washed away the contamination
of<br>
Yasser Arafat, whose grave Condoleezza Rice managed to avoid. But<br>
the tank-traps remain: East Jerusalem, Jewish settlements and the<br>
"right of return" of 1948 Palestinians to the homes they
lost.<br><br>
If we are going to clap our hands like the Sharm El-Sheikh<br>
"peacemakers" yesterday, we'd better realise that unless we
are<br>
going to resolve these great issues of injustice now, this new act<br>
of "peacemaking" will prove to be as bloody as Oslo. Ask
Mahmoud<br>
Abbas. He was the author of that first fatal agreement.<br>
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