Hebron for Beginners + Update

http://www.antiwar.com/hacohen/?articleid=8404
Hebron for Beginners = January 21, 2006
By Ran HaCohen

Hebron is again in the headlines. More than almost any other place, this divided city represents the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in a nutshell. Occupied by Israel in 1967, the Palestinian town saw its very heart taken over by Israeli settlers, whose presence there is illegal according to international law but supported by all Israeli governments. For the sake of 500 Israeli settlers, surrounded by 130,000 Palestinians, the Hebron Agreement of 1997 divided the city, with 80 percent of its area given to Palestinian policing, while the rest - in fact, the city center - remained in Israeli hands. The 30,000 Palestinian inhabitants of the center have been harassed on a daily basis by the settlers, backed by the Israeli army, which spread no less than 101 physical obstacles and 18 manned checkpoints around the Israeli-controlled area. In a clear process of ethnic cleansing, only a few thousand Palestinians still live in this part of the city (Miron Rapoport, Ha'aretz, Nov. 17, 2005).

Last week, Israel announced its intention to evict some 50 settlers who had illegally squatted Hebron's wholesale market. The settlers of Hebron took to the streets, vandalizing and attacking mostly innocent Arabs but also Israeli soldiers and police in what an Israeli daily called "a Jewish Intifada."

As usual, there are three versions about what's going on in Hebron: the nationalist story, formulated in terms of Jews against Arab Gentiles and of long historical memory; the liberal story, phrased in terms of the State, Israelis, Palestinians, and the Rule of Law; and the reality, which is concealed somewhere in the small print.

The Nationalist Story

The nationalist account is anchored in the long history of Jews versus Gentiles. Its roots are in the days of Patriarch Abraham, but we'll skip the mythic past and get to the present, which starts in 1929. Till then, the story goes, Jews and Arabs lived peacefully in Hebron, but on Aug. 1, 1929, the idyll ended when the Arabs butchered a huge number of Jews (the background and the precise number - 67 in this case - do not really matter, since they add up to all the other Jews killed in other places and times in what a great Jewish-American historian once called the "lachrymose conception of Jewish history").

The area disputed these days - Hebron's wholesale market - belonged to the Hebronite Jewish Community since 1807, so that the presence there of its self-proclaimed successors, the settlers, is all but natural. Only the heartless, defeatist, un-Jewish government of Israel fails to see that and wants to uproot the Jews from their own houses and give them back to the offspring of the 1929 murderers, letting the killers take possession.

Since the settlers' policy of "nonviolent resistance" to their "deportation" from Gaza and some West Bank settlements last August did not bear the desired fruits, now is the time to deter the government and the Israeli public by showing them that the price of any further eviction would be intolerably high. Unlike Arabs, Jews have almost every imaginable right in the Land of Israel - but not the right to evict other Jews from their homes, or to give Jewish land to Arabs.

The Liberal Story

The liberals have a shorter historical memory but a more legalist and humanist orientation. There is no denying that the wholesale market area belonged to Jews. However, in 1948, when the State of Israel was established, Israelis owned just a small percentage of the country's area. Once most of the Palestinians left (or were driven out, as better-informed liberals would add), Israel used legal, pseudo-legal, and illegal measures to take over almost all Palestinian possessions: lands, houses, and property. Even Palestinians who fled their homes and stayed inside Israel were declared "present absentees" so that their property could be taken. If property rights are to be applied to the market in Hebron, they should be applied universally. Since Jews appropriated enormous amounts of Arab possessions, the property principle in Hebron would pave the way to Arab demands in Jerusalem, Jaffa, Haifa, and in fact all over Israel.

Moreover, the wholesale market in Hebron was squatted by the settlers contrary even to Israeli law. The government admits that and repeatedly announces its intention to evict the squatters. Recently, Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz made a commitment to the High Court of Justice to remove the settlers from the market by Feb. 15. The time has come. Sharon's moderate government, now under his centrist successor Olmert, luckily understands these moral, legal, and political considerations and is at last willing to take action. The Hebron settlers are hooligans anyway, and the government should be praised for finally showing them who runs this country. It's high time Hebron's wholesale market is returned to its Palestinian merchants, another small but significant step in Israel's long-overdue return to its 1967 borders.

The Reality

Two beautiful stories indeed; alas, both of them miss reality. Remember that the squatters could take over the wholesale market simply because the Palestinian merchants had been driven out. The market had been closed by Israel in 1994 as a confidence-destroying measure following the Goldstein massacre, in which a Jewish settler murdered 29 Palestinian worshippers in the Patriarchs' Tomb in Hebron (apropos "killing and taking possession"). In the Hebron Agreement of 1997, Israel pledged to return the market to the Palestinians and let it be reopened; a wall should have separated it from the settlers' homes. However, Israel respects treaties only in extremely exceptional cases, and Hebron is not such a rare exception.

Both the nationalist and the liberal stories are wrong on the most crucial point: they both err to believe that Israel intends to give the market back to the Palestinians. Israel has nothing of the kind in mind. All Israel needs now is a good show that looks like the liberal fantasy; especially on the eve of the general elections, it is desirable to be portrayed as a resolute, moderate, and law-abiding government. But it's the nationalist, colonialist fantasy that is being realized. In a combined effort of Israel's government, police, army, and settlers, Israel had a major success in ethnically cleansing Hebron's center of its Palestinian inhabitants. Reopening the market might revive trade at the heart of the city and reverse Israel's achievement.

What's the solution? Attentive Ha'aretz readers could find it out just days before the issue got to the headlines (Jan. 5, 2006):

"The Defense Ministry has terminated the lease with the Hebron municipality that enabled the Palestinian merchants to work in the city's wholesale market. This means that the merchants from the wholesale market will not be able to return to their shops even if the Israel Defense Forces do evict the settlers squatting there."

So that's what Israel is up to: to get the High Court of Justice off its back, the State would simply replace the squatters by "authorized" settlers. The Civil Administration already commented that "The announcement was given the Hebron municipality in keeping with the state's reaction to the petition to the High Court of Justice." Indeed, Ha'aretz adds, "It is not clear whether the lease may be legally terminated, and it is possible that doing so will open a prolonged legal debate that could last years" - but this only means years in which the settlers and the army can drive out the rest of the Palestinians from the center of Hebron.

And why, you may wonder, do the settlers take to the street? In addition to the broader background of the young, radicalized generation of settlers, which feels humiliated after the disengagement and is eager to vandalize and terrorize, Ha'aretz gives a more specific reason:

"The settlers in Hebron did not reject the possibility of evacuating the squatters from the wholesale market if other Jewish settlers, who rent the shops and buildings legally, take their place. However, the settlers are demanding that the new families move in as soon as the old ones leave, to make sure the shops are inhabited at all times, [...] but [...] the settlers have not received a written compromise proposal to this effect."

So all the actors get their fair show: the High Court can be portrayed as defender of justice. The settlers can be portrayed as fanatic zealots who lose in the end. The government can be portrayed as strong and pro-peace. And while the whole world salutes, Israel can further dispossess the Palestinians.

Postscript

The success of the present fake show seems to exceed all expectations. The whole world interprets the swap of one group of settlers for another as a great step toward peace. Consequently, Ha'aretz's Hebrew edition of Jan. 17 quotes senior Israeli army officers saying that "they have not yet received instructions from the political echelon regarding when to evict the settlers from Hebron wholesale market. They estimate that it won't happen before the Palestinian elections next week." After all, if the world can be deceived so easily, why should Israel stop the game of tears?
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[JPN Commentary: Hamas is moving toward a more pragmatic stance as it prepares to become a major force within, rather than outside of, the Palestinian Authority. The tone of the headline may suggest that Hamas is changing a fundamental stance, specifically the point in their charter which calls for the establishment of a Palestinian state in all of what was once Palestine under the British Mandate--i.e. including what is now Israel. This is not the case.

Indeed, the current position taken in their election platform is not actually new. Before his assassination by Israel, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, Hamas' spiritual leader, spoke of a very long term of cease-fire with Israel if a Palestinian state were to be established. This, however, is the first time that Hamas has formally entered the electoral arena, and so it is the first time that it has become an "official" stance.

For all the saber-rattling and threatening that Israel and the US have done at the prospect of Hamas becoming a major force in the PA, this is actually a very necessary development if there is ever to be real peace. For years, the PA has been dogged by corruption, a situation which has severely impacted their legitimacy among the Palestinian people. As a result, there was always the fear that any negotiated agreement made by the PA leadership would not be accepted by the Palestinian public. With Hamas and with some of the new leaders emerging in the leading Fatah party, corruption will confronted. This will have the effect of creating the most representative negotiating team Israel and the US have ever dealt with.

Further, most observers agree with Ghassan Khatib, a Palestinian cabinet minister and member of the secular Palestinian People's party, who is quoted in this article as saying that he believes that Hamas is on its way to disarming. Indeed this is quite likely if Hamas is accepted in the government and security apparatus of the PA--they have already indicated a willingness, in such a circumstance to accept the principle of "one government, one military."

It should be noted that there is every reason to believe that the smaller, less political Islamic Jihad will accelerate their own violent actions in the absence of Hamas' participation, and the unsettled situation within the Fatah party likely means that the al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigade will also continue with its operations for the time being. But a legitimate government, truly representing and supporting the Palestinian populace, would have the political will and, more important, the means to stop such attacks if Israel and the US negotiate in good faith.

It has often been said that one does not make peace with a friend or partner, but with an enemy. Rather than wailing about Hamas being part of the Palestinian government, Israel and the US should seize this opportunity to dive, in a substantive way not possible before, into negotiations with the new Palestinian "government." Early indications are that, instead, Israel and the US will use Hamas' presence in the PA as an excuse not to negotiate and to continue in the Sharon tradition of unilateralism. Someone might want to remind Israel of the "terrorist" backgrounds of some of its past Prime Ministers, such as Menachem Begin and, in particular, Yitzhak Shamir. One should not forget that suicide bombings targeting civilians are war crimes which go well beyond the permissible boundaries of armed opposition to an occupation. But one should recognize that there can be no peace with only some Palestinians. If Hamas represents enough of the Palestinian population to be a close second in representation in the Palestinian Legislative Council, then they must be dealt with. Refusal to do so only forces Hamas back to the bombs. -- MP]

[JPN Commentary: Close to two decades behind the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), with which talks were previously outlawed by former Israeli legislatures, the fundamentalist Palestinian Hamas organization has now dropped destruction of the state of Israel from its manifesto. This article by Chris McGreal, provides both an overview of and responses to this potentially significant step, as the planned date of general elections in Palestine draws near.

McGreal reports that Palestinian cabinet minister Ghassan Khatib, of the secular Palestinian People's party, believes Hamas has had to face reality and will have to embrace a negotiated settlement with Israel. He welcomes Hamas' entry into the electoral system as "a positive development whereby they [will] have to abide by the rules of the majority and respect the arguments of the administration they are part of, which includes a state built on 1967 borders. It will take time but Hamas will no longer have their own militia. It will be solely a political force."

The article quotes Gazi Hamad, a Hamas candidate in the Gaza Strip, as stating that, "The policy is to maintain the armed struggle but it is not our first priority. We know that first of all we have to put more effort into resolving the internal problems, dealing with corruption, blackmail, chaos."

True to the pattern adopted by Israel's parliaments and governments in the seventies and eighties, when contacts with the PLO were declared illegal and prosecuted, Israel's current government has meanwhile banned Hamas candidates from running and declared its refusal to recognize the results of elections should they include such candidates. -- RM]
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http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/679476.html
Last update - 18:26 06/02/2006    

Peace Now: No new West Bank outposts, but more settlers in 2005
By Nadav Shragai, Haaretz Correspondent

No new West Bank settlement outposts were established in the West Bank but the overall number of settlers did increase in 2005, an annual Peace Now report released on Monday has revealed.

In 33 out of the 102 illegal outposts in the West Bank, construction of permanent structures was undertaken during the past year.

According to Peace now, 52 of the 102 outposts were established since March 2001.

"The Government of Israel continues to avoid fulfilling its obligations from two main aspects: The first is that of enforcing the law regarding the settlers, who continue to reside in, and even continue construction in a considerable number of outposts, in clear violation of the law," the report read.

The government had also promised the United States it would remove all the illegal outposts established after March 2001.

The report, which was based on data collected by the government's Central Bureau of Statistics, also revealed that 12,000 new residents moved into West Bank settlements in 2005. This occurred despite the fact that some 9,000 settlers were evacuated from the Gaza Strip and northern West Bank last year.

The annual report concluded that the number of settlers increased in 2005 despite the evacuation of 21 settlements. There are now 250,000 settlers, compared to 243,000 by the end of 2004.

According to the report, the Jewish population in the territories continues to increase at an average annual rate of 5.5 percent - compared to a 1.8 percent growth rate for the overall Israeli population.

The government also continues to pave new bypass roads throughout the West Bank.

"The Za'atara bypass road is apparently the largest infrastructure project being carried out by the State of Israel in the West Bank today," the report said. The road connects southeast Jerusalem with the isolated settlement of Nokdim.

In the first six months of 2005, construction began on 1,097 housing units compared to just 860 during the first half of 2004.

Most of the construction in West Bank settlements is done at the initiative of the Housing Ministry and focuses on settlements located west of the separation fence.

However, construction on a smaller scale also continues in the settlements and outposts located east of the planned line of the separation fence.
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