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Now!
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's
address to both houses of Congress was perhaps the most skilled
use of Newspeak since George Orwell invented the term in his
novel /1984/. (He had help: author and Nobel Peace Prize winner
Elie Wiesel reportedly drafted large sections of the speech.)
Just as Orwell's totalitarian propagandists proclaimed WAR IS
PEACE and Israeli government signs placed at the Wall (sorry,
fence) at the entrance to Bethlehem greet Palestinians with the
blessing PEACE BE UNTO YOU, so Olmert declared in Washington:
UNILATERAL REALIGNMENT IS PEACE.
Because of Olmert's use of
Orwellian language (can anyone, including President Bush or members
of Congress, explain to us what "convergence" and "realignment"
mean?), we must listen carefully to what is said, what is not
said and what is meant.
What was said sounds fine if
taken at face value. Olmert, extending "my hand in peace
to Mahmoud Abbas, the elected president of the Palestinian Authority,"
declared Israel's willingness to negotiate with him on condition
that the Palestinians "renounce terrorism, dismantle the
terrorist infrastructure, accept previous agreements and commitments,
and recognize the right of Israel to exist." If they do
so, Olmert held out Israel's commitment to a two-state solution.
What wasn't said? While reference
to a Palestinian state sounds forthcoming, two key elements set
down in the Road Map defining that state were missing: an end
to the Israeli Occupation and the establishment of a /viable/
Palestinian state. "A settlement," says the text of
the Road Map to which Olmert and Bush constantly declare their
allegiance, "will result in the emergence of an independent,
democratic, and viable Palestinian state living side by side
in peace and security with Israel. The settlement willend the
occupation that began in 1967."
Olmert's "convergence
plan" (now renamed a "realignment plan" because
it sounds better in [Newspeak] English), based on the massive
"facts on the ground" Israel continues to impose unilaterally
with overt American support, cannot possibly give rise to a viable
Palestinian state. The "Separation Barrier," which
will be declared Israel's permanent "demographic border,"
takes 10% of the West Bank. That may not sound like much, but
consider this: It incorporates into Israel the major settlement
blocs (plus a half-million Israeli settlers) while carving the
West Bank into a number of small, disconnected, impoverished
"cantons"--hardly the basis for a viable state. It
removes from the Palestinians their richest agricultural land
and /all/ the water.
The convergence plan also creates
a "greater" Israeli Jerusalem over the entire central
portion of the West Bank, thereby cutting the economic, cultural,
religious and historic heart out of any Palestinian state. It
then sandwiches the Palestinians between the Barrier/border and
yet /another/ "security" border, the Jordan Valley,
giving Israel /two/ eastern borders. Palestinian freedom of movement
of both people and goods is thus prevented into both Israel and
Jordan but also internally, between the various cantons. Israel
will also retain control of Palestinian airspace, the electro-magnetic
sphere and even the right of a Palestinian state to conduct its
own foreign policy.
The Road Map, like international
law regarding the end of occupations in general, also insists
on a negotiated solution between the parties. Olmert made a great
issue of Palestinian terrorism (playing on American sensibilities
to this buzz-word), placing pre-conditions on negotiations. Israel
is willing to negotiate with the Palestinian Authority, he said,
of it renounces terrorism, dismantles the terrorist infrastructure,
accepts previous agreements and recognizes the right of Israel
to exist (a right Israel has not recognized /vis-à-vis/
the Palestinians). What is not mentioned is Israel's Occupation
which, regardless of an end to terror and negotiations, is being
institutionalized and made permanent. For neither security nor
terrorism are really the issue; Israel's policies of annexation
are based on a pro-active claim to the entire country. Virtually
no element of the Occupation--the establishment of some 300 settlements,
expropriation of most West Bank land, the demolition of 12,000
Palestinian homes, the uprooting of a million olive and fruit
trees, the construction of a massive system of highways to link
the settlements into Israel proper or the tortuous route of the
Barrier deep in Palestinian territory--can be explained by security.
Terrorism on /all/ sides is wrong (let it be noted that Israel
has killed four times more civilians than the Palestinians have),
but to demand that resistance cease while an occupation is being
made permanent is unconscionable.
And, finally, what was meant?
Apartheid. The "A" word was missing from Olmert's speech,
of course, but the bottom line of his convergence plan is clear:
the establishment of a permanent, institutionalized regime of
Israeli domination over Palestinians based on separation between
Jews and Arabs. Within 6-9 months, according to Olmert's timeline.
Olmert may believe that Jews can succeed where Afrikaners failed,
but history teaches us that in the end injustice is unsustainable.
And convergence/realignment is nothing if not manifest injustice.
Jeff Halper is the Coordinator of the Israeli
Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD) and a candidate,
with the Palestinian peace activist Ghassan Andoni, for the 2006
Nobel Peace Prize. He can be reached at jeff@icahd.org.
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By Michael Neumann
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