Israel Past & Present — A Post Settler-Colonial Apartheid State - Part 2
Part 2 of the historic account continues the story.
The Arab-Israeli Conflict
The following map shows the partition boundaries agreed by UNSCOP prior to Israel's formation (Source: BBC):
This was the situation before:
In an official cablegram from the Secretary-General of the League of Arab States to the UN Secretary-General on May 15, 1948, this public statement was made (Clause 10(e)):
The recent disturbances in Palestine further constitute a serious and direct threat to peace and security within the territories of the Arab States themselves. For these reasons, and considering that the security of Palestine is a sacred trust for them, and out of anxiousness to check the further deterioration of the prevailing conditions and to prevent the spread of disorder and lawlessness into the neighbouring Arab lands, and in order to fill the vacuum created by the termination of the Mandate and the failure to replace it by any legally constituted authority, the Arab Governments find themselves compelled to intervene for the sole purpose of restoring peace and security and establishing law and order in Palestine.
The reason for Arab intervention is further outlined in Clause 10(b), (links added):
Peace and order have been completely upset in Palestine, and, in consequence of Jewish aggression, approximately over a quarter of a million of the Arab population have been compelled to leave their homes and emigrate to neighbouring Arab countries. The prevailing events in Palestine exposed the concealed aggressive intentions of the Zionists and their imperialistic motives, as clearly shown in their acts committed upon those peaceful Arabs and villagers of Deer Yasheen, Tiberias, and other places, as well as by their encroachment upon the building and bodies of the inviolable consular codes, manifested by their attack upon the Consulate in Jerusalem.
At the end of the war the 1949 Armistice Agreements were set and established Armistice Demarcation Lines between Israeli forces and the forces in Jordanian-held West Bank, also known as the Green Line:
On 25 May 1950 the United States, Britain, and France jointly issued the Tripartite Declaration, which guaranteed the territorial status quo determined by Arab - Israeli armistice agreements and stipulated close consultation among the three powers with a view to limiting the Arab - Israeli arms race. The aim of the Western powers was to contain the Arab - Israeli conflict in order to focus the attention of the states of the Middle East on anti-Soviet defense plans.
It would also ensure the free flow of oil resources to the west. The truce held until the 1967 six day war.
The consequences of increased tension in the region following the end of World War 2, was a rise of antisemitism. As the situation deteriorated with the rise of Zionist terrorist incursions, a situation emerged that was similar to the Jewish diaspora. This is explored in some detail in the Global Exchange article the Palestinian diaspora:
The Palestinian refugee population is one of the largest in the world. There are now at least 6 million refugees, the oldest of whom have been waiting for more than 50 years to return home.
The forced expulsion of Palestinians from their homeland in 1948 resulted from the birth of the state of Israel and is a core injury at the heart of the dispute between Palestinians and Israelis. Acknowledgement and a just resolution of these injuries will be at the heart of any lasting peace between Palestinians and Israelis.
In 2013, Al Jazeera broadcast 'Al Nakba', a 4 part documentary that traced the events leading up to Israel's creation. It also charted the campaign waged by the Igrun and Stern Gang in Palestine that resulted in the wholesale ethnic cleansing and displacement of thousands of Palestinians, creating a massive refugee crisis, with an estimated 700,000 Palestinians expelled from the region.
One of the key contributors to the documentary was Ilan Pappé, who has written extensively about the topic. He sums up the issue in the article Calling a Spade a Spade: The 1948 Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine. He argues that the term 'ethnic cleansing' should be used instead of 'Nakba':
The term Nakba does not directly imply any reference to who is behind the catastrophe - anything can cause the destruction of Palestine, even the Palestinians themselves.
Not so when the term ethnic cleansing is used. It implies an accusation and reference to the culprits of/for the events that took place not only in the past but happen also in the present. Far more importantly, it connects policies, such as ones used to destroy Palestine in 1948, to an ideology which continues to guide Israel's policies towards the Palestinians: the Nakba continues, or more forcefully and accurately, the ethnic cleansing rages on.
He describes what actually happened during the process of ethnic cleansing:
In Plan Dalet, adopted in March 1948 by the high command of the Hagana (the main Jewish underground in the pre-state days), the Israeli objective of 1948 is clear. The goal was to take over as much as possible of the territory of Mandatory Palestine and remove most of the Palestinian villages and urban neighborhoods from the coveted territory which would constitute the future Jewish State. The execution was even more systematic and comprehensive than the plan anticipated. In a matter of seven months, 531 villages were destroyed and 11 urban neighborhoods emptied. The mass expulsion was accompanied by massacres, rape and imprisonment of men (defined as males above the age of ten) in labor camps for periods over a year. All these characteristics in the year of 2006 can be only attributed to Ethnic Cleansing policy; namely a policy that, according to the UN definition, aims at transforming a mixed ethnic area into a pure ethnic space, where all means are justified. Such a policy is defined under international law as a crime against humanity which the US State Department believes can only be rectified by the repatriation of all the people who left or were expelled as a result of the ethnic cleansing operations.
The historical record is unequivocal. The Jewish militias driven by Zionist political ideology had enacted ethnic cleansing and genocide in order to clear the way for the establishment of the new Zionist state. This process continues today with the complicity of western Governments, including the US and the UK.
The Six Day War
The outbreak of the six day war in June 1967 would ultimately define the geopolitics of the region. Following the Suez Crisis in 1956, Egypt agreed to the stationing of a United Nations Emergency Force (UNEF) in the Sinai to ensure all parties would continue to comply with the 1949 Armistice Agreements. A dispute between Israel and its Arab neighbours over water provisions from the River Jordan, was the spark that led to the six day war. The timeline is documented in the article The Disaster of 1967:
In early 1963, Israel announced its intention to divert part of the Jordan River waters to irrigate the Naqab Desert (also known as the Negev Desert). In response, Arab leaders decided at a 1964 Cairo summit to reduce the flow of water into Lake Tiberias by diverting some tributaries in Lebanon and Syria.
The crunch move came on May 19, 1967 that was reminiscent of the Suez crisis. Egypt under President Nasser ejected the UNEF observers, mobilised troops in the region and implemented a blockade of Israeli shipping:
President Nasser announced… that the United Arab Republic has decided to close the Gulf of Aqaba - Israel's southern outlet to the sea - to all ships flying Israel flags or carrying strategic materials.
He stated that, "We are now face to face with Israel and if they want to try their luck without Britain and France, we await them," he said. "The Israel flag will not pass through Aqaba Gulf and our sovereignty over the Gulf entrance is not negotiable. If Israel wants to threaten us with war they are welcome."
On June 5, Israel launched a surprise attack on Egypt. The Israeli Air Force (IAF) destroyed most of the Egyptian Air Force in the process, then turned east to destroy the Jordanian, Syrian and Iraqi air forces. This strike was the crucial element in Israel's victory in the Six-Day War. At the war's end, Israel had gained control of the Sinai Peninsula, the Gaza Strip, the West Bank (including East Jerusalem), Shebaa farms, and the Golan Heights.
From a military perspective, the preemptive Israeli strike was a tactical masterplan. It effectively routed the Arab challenge. By June 10, Israel had completed its final offensive in the Golan Heights, and a ceasefire was signed the day after. Overall, Israel's territory grew by a factor of three, including about one million Arabs placed under Israel's direct control in the newly captured territories. The map below (BBC) shows the state of affairs after 1967:
The political importance of the 1967 War was immense; Israel demonstrated that it was able and willing to initiate strategic strikes that could change the regional balance. Egypt and Syria learned tactical lessons and would launch an attack in 1973 in an attempt to reclaim their lost territory.
The so-called Yom Kippur war on 6 October 1973, took Israel by surprise. But despite this initial setback, Israel held off the Arab forces. This conflict was significant with respect to the fact that it indirectly involved the two superpowers at the time, with the US backing Israel and the Soviets behind the Arab states. There was also another dimension to the conflict. Had the Arabs managed to get the upper hand, there was the real threat of Israel going on nuclear alert.
After a ceasefire was brokered and UN peacekeepers were reinstalled in the area, the Camp David Accords followed. A peace treaty was signed in March 1979. Under its terms, the Sinai Peninsula returned to Egyptian hands, and the Gaza Strip remained under Israeli control, to be included in a future Palestinian state. The agreement also provided for the free passage of Israeli ships through the Suez Canal and recognition of the Straits of Tiran and the Gulf of Aqaba as international waterways.
However Camp David entailed consequences that still reverberate today. In retrospect, the Framework for Peace in the Middle East could have gone further. The Framework was rejected by the UN General Assembly on the grounds that it did not comply with the Palestinian right of return, of self-determination and to national independence and sovereignty. A second framework was developed to address peace between Israel and Egypt.
Since 1979, US aid to Israel has increased markedly, particularly military aid. Ominously there was a significant increase during the George W. Bush administration. This account by the PLO sums up the concerns left by Camp David. There was also the small question of a Nobel Peace prize…
Underlying any prospective peace process is UN Resolution 194, which was adopted on December 11, 1948, near the end of the 1948 war. The Resolution defined principles for reaching a final settlement and returning Palestinian refugees to their homes. It states:
refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbours should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date, and that compensation should be paid for the property of those choosing not to return and for loss of or damage to property which, under principles of international law or equity, should be made good by the Governments or authorities responsible.
It established a U.N. Conciliation Commission to facilitate peace between Israel and Arab states. Since then, the UN has continued to re-affirm Resolution 194, along with other key Resolutions calling for a resolve of the issue.
The Palestine Liberation Organisation
The Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) was formed following the Cairo Arab League summit of 1964. Following its inception, the PLO issued The Palestinian National Charter (which was revised in 1968 and again in 1996 in order to facilitate the PLO's agreements with Israel).
Article 9 makes clear the PLO's commitment to armed struggle against Israel:
Armed struggle is the only way to liberate Palestine. This it is the overall strategy, not merely a tactical phase. The Palestinian Arab people assert their absolute determination and firm resolution to continue their armed struggle and to work for an armed popular revolution for the liberation of their country and their return to it. They also assert their right to normal life in Palestine and to exercise their right to self-determination and sovereignty over it.
The Forth Geneva Convention recognises the right of resistance movements to act as armed combatants:
…resistance movements, [which] are placed in the same category as the regular armed forces under Article 4, sub-paragraphs (2), (3) and (6), of the Third Geneva Convention of 1949 (Article 29).
This provision was updated in Article 43, Protocol 1 of the Geneva Conventions (1977).
Article 22 of the PLO Charter defines Israel within the context of a Zionist state:
Zionism is a political movement organically associated with international imperialism and antagonistic to all action for liberation and to progressive movements in the world. It is racist and fanatic in its nature, aggressive, expansionist, and colonial in its aims, and fascist in its methods. Israel is the instrument of the Zionist movement, and geographical base for world imperialism placed strategically in the midst of the Arab homeland to combat the hopes of the Arab nation for liberation, unity, and progress. Israel is a constant source of threat vis-a-vis peace in the Middle East and the whole world. Since the liberation of Palestine will destroy the Zionist and imperialist presence and will contribute to the establishment of peace in the Middle East, the Palestinian people look for the support of all the progressive and peaceful forces and urge them all, irrespective of their affiliations and beliefs, to offer the Palestinian people all aid and support in their just struggle for the liberation of their homeland.
The PLO's key role was to act as an overall governing body for Palestinian national interests:
It is a broad national front, or an umbrella organization, comprised of numerous organizations of the resistance movement, political parties, popular organizations, and independent personalities and figures from all sectors of life. The Arab Summit in 1974 recognized the PLO as the "sole and legitimate representative of the Palestinian people" and since then the PLO has represented Palestine at the United Nations, the Movement of Non-Aligned Countries (NAM), the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), and in many other fora. In addition to its broad national and political goals, the PLO has dealt with numerous tasks with regard to the life of the Palestinian people in their main communities and throughout the world through the establishment of several institutions in such realms as health, education and social services. As such, the PLO is more than a national liberation movement striving to achieve the national goals of the Palestinian people, including the independence of the State of Palestine with East Jerusalem as its capital.
The Palestine National Council (PLC) is the overarching decision making body of the PLO and acts as a parliamentary body representing Palestine. This was complimented by the establishment of the Central Council in 1973. The Executive Committee carries out the policies of the PLO and also represents the organisation internationally. The armed wing of the PLO was the Palestinian Liberation Army:
The Palestine Liberation Army (PLA) was established as the official military branch of the PLO in 1964, in accordance with the resolutions of the 1st Palestinian Conference (the 1st PNC). At that time, three brigades were established: Ein Jalut in Gaza and Egypt, Kadissiyah in Iraq, and Hiteen in Syria. In practice, those brigades were dominated by the general command of the armed forces of their respective host countries. Over time, however, changes were made to the PLA's structure, including, for instance, the establishment in 1968 of commando units in Gaza to fight against the Israeli occupation, known as Kuwat al-Tahrir Al-Sha'biya (Popular Liberation Troops). With the establishment of the Palestine National Authority (PA) in the mid 1990's, important parts of those brigades were absorbed into the PA security forces.
Today, the PLO still technically remains the overarching representative of Palestine. However its role is not as straight forward as it used to be. This stems from the creation of the Palestinian Authority during the Oslo peace Accords in 1993. The history of the creation of the PA and its relationship with the PLO is covered in the PASSIA (Palestinian Academic Society for the Study of International Affairs) paper PLO vs. PA:
The PA was established as a temporary, transitional body as part of the Palestinian-Israeli Declaration of Principles on Interim Self-Government Arrangements, signed on 13 September 1993, as the first document of what is referred to today as the "Oslo Accords". As the representative of the Palestinians, the PLO was authorized to form a council to deal with the powers and areas transferred to it by Israel. The PLO Central Council assigned the PLO Executive Committee this task and appointed the late Yasser Arafat as chairman of the new entity. The subsequent Oslo I and II Accords of 1994 and 1995 provided for the establishment of limited Palestinian autonomy in the West Bank and Gaza, gradually extending the geographic scope of the emerging PA and its competencies insecurity and civil affairs pending the negotiations on final status issues. While the PLO signed all the agreements with Israel, implementation was delegated to the newly established PA, which thus functions as an arm of the PLO. The PA was granted partial administrative and security responsibility over "Areas A and B" (excluding settlers and settlements, borders, airspace, water, and other spheres), as set forth in the Oslo Accords for the five-year interim period of negotiations with Israel, to end with the conclusion of permanent status talks (planned for 1999), at which point it would be replaced by a government of the Palestinian state.
Given that the Oslo process had effectively failed, this poses the question concerning the validity of the PA. But even if the PA was dissolved, how much power does the PLO possess? The article notes:
In light of the stalemate in the peace process and the complete lack of political perspectives for Palestinians, there have been repeated calls over recent years to declare an end to the Oslo process and dismantle the PA, returning daily control of the OPT [Occupied Palestinian Territories] and responsibility for the fate of over four million Palestinians to Israel. Should this ever happen, the "external" PLO would remain the only address and may grow in strength, especially if Hamas and other factions eventually joined. The main question is if Hamas would agree to a PLO membership based on proportional representation through elections, rather than insisting on a fixed quota of representation in all PLO bodies.
The debate is picked up by Muftah in the article The PLO and the Crisis of Representation. The article notes that:
the Oslo Process, which created the Palestinian Authority, ultimately marked the beginning of the PLO's decline, as the PA came to replace the PLO as the prime Palestinian political institution.
In a wider context, there is a pattern emerging of an ineffective Palestinian leadership. This sits in contrast with the emergence of the PLO - especially after the 1967 war - when it ramped up its resistance against the Israeli occupation:
Because of the top down nature of the organization, the PLO was soon overtaken by the military factions that swept the Palestinian scene after the 1967 war, which were more in touch with the grassroots. Those factions, led by Fateh, overtook the PLO in the late 1960s, transforming it into a broad based organization at the forefront of the Palestinian struggle.
These factions became the center of Palestinian political activity and, through the PLO, they imposed themselves onto the Arab states, as well as the international community. Their success was a result of their popular base, revolutionary fervor, preference for armed struggle [the zeitgeist of that era] and their presence within the population centres of Palestinian refugees. Some modest military successes for these factions (and the PLO by extension), especially after Israel's quick defeat of the Arab armies in 1967, significantly increased the popularity of these groups, as well as the PLO, even amongst the (non-Palestinian) masses of the Arab states. As a result, the PLO gained popular legitimacy, and Palestinians worldwide began to view the PLO as representing them and speaking in their name.
In 1974 the PLO was officially recognised as the legitimate representative of the Palestinian people. However following Oslo, the PLO abandoned its armed struggle and so it would seem many Palestinians also. Eventually:
the PLO transformed into an empty shell, subsumed under the growing power of the PA. While the PLO continued to enjoy political legitimacy and the reputation of a glorious revolutionary past, actual executive power and money were firmly in the PA's hands.
Under the leadership of Mahmoud Abbas, the PA's effectiveness has been called into question. His negotiating stance with Israel has received widespread criticism, in which the PA:
engaged in a wave of repression that culminated in its sabotage of a public meeting in which members of the Executive Committee were due to participate, in order to express their opposition to the negotiations.
The article states in conclusion:
Public discussions amongst Palestinians about the future role of the PLO have been gaining more momentum, particularly within the diaspora. A consensus is emerging that unless it is reformed and made more democratic the PLO will lose what is left of its legitimacy and ability to speak and act on behalf of the Palestinian people.
The debate was further picked up by an article from Middle East Eye. The article argues that the recent International recognition of Palestine is purely symbolic. Indeed the emerging most effective tool against the Israeli occupation appears to be the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement. When Abbas stands up and says "We do not support the boycott of Israel. We don't ask anyone to boycott Israel," people are naturally going to doubt the legitimacy of the PA. 'Meanwhile, Palestinian and international human rights groups condemn the PA's continued crackdown on dissent.'
A paper published in the Journal Israel Affairs, The Palestinian Authority: the dangerous transition from failing entity to failing state, by Kobi Michael (Institute for National Security Studies, Tel-Aviv University), delves further into the background of the PA.
Given that the PA was initially set up as a semi-state entity, who’s remit was to form the foundation of a new Palestinian state under Oslo, it’s clear that that’s no longer viable. On its inception, the PA was headed by Yasser Arafat in a parallel role to that of the PLO. Michael notes:
His control of all state apparatus was viewed as legitimate and even Hamas, which saw itself as Arafat’s opposition, recognized his leadership and unique historic place.
Arafat’s tenure with the PA was fraught with difficulties, with efforts to gain concessions from Israel. Hamas’ success in taking power in the Gaza Strip in 2006 created divisions within the Palestinian leadership. The result being that the PA no longer has a presence in Gaza:
Hamas, which opposes any significant PA responsibility or presence in the Gaza Strip, is also challenging the PA’s legitimacy in the West Bank, and is working systematically to expand and cement its infrastructures in the West Bank in order to topple the PA.
Mahmoud Abbas, who became Chair of the PLO in November 2004 and PA president since January 2005, was supposed to oversee elections scheduled for 8 October 2016. But:
Once the Palestinian leadership understood that they might lose the elections to Hamas and given their inability to unify Fatah, they found a legal excuse to delay the elections.
The overall result is chaos. As Michael puts it:
By most common parameters, the PA is a failed entity. Should a Palestinian state be established, it will almost certainly become a failed state unless there is fundamental change.
The paper goes on to examine the phenomenon of the failed state, within the context of the PA, using the fate of Libya, Iraq and Afghanistan as failed comparisons. However according Michael’s analysis, the characteristics of the failed state would also apply to Israel itself, a state that has been kept on life support by the US since its inception. This makes the point:
The process of state collapse can also be observed by neighbouring states as well as distant ones that have significant vested interests in that state and can therefore be prone to increase their intervention in it. This means that the political space of the failing state is of necessity larger than its sovereign territory, and that the process of collapse has an effect far beyond the state’s own borders.
The paper makes reference to a Middle East Monitor report that exposes widespread corruption within the PA. This is based on an EU report that:
cited a sum of $2 billion of the total amount of aid transferred to the West Bank and Gaza Strip in 2008–2012 that basically disappeared without a trace.
It would appear that corruption has been endemic within the PA since its inception. This has been corroborated by the Palestinian outlet Al-Shabaka. The article explains that corruption within the PA was inherited from the PLO and that it has been endemic within the Palestinian political system before Oslo. It is connected to “patron-clientelism”, which stems from the Palestinian tribal/clan system, where large important families in particular can find an elitist position within the system. Needless to say a certain amount of dark money has changed hands. The article notes that:
during the 1980s, the PLO leadership used the Sumud (steadfastness) Fund, in the occupied Palestinian territory (OPT) - which was formally channeled through the Palestinian-Jordanian joint committee - to award their supporters and exclude others. This approach encouraged manipulation and monopolies and introduced corrupt practices and duplication of development projects. It also contributed to expanded client networks to serve the political projects of Fatah and the Jordanian leadership. While the stated objective of the Sumud Fund was to support the education, agriculture, health and housing sectors, in reality the main beneficiaries were “the big landlords of the Jordan Valley, the industrialists, the Jordanian civil service (in the West Bank), and professional groups who received generous housing loans.”
Israel wasn’t complaining. Much of the money being funneled into the Palestinian system came from Israel via international donors. Oslo would allow Israel to control Palestine as a client state. In addition, Israel fuels the corruption and runs “secret accounts” in the Israeli bank Leumi, accommodating high level Palestinian officials. All this helps to undermine any political opposition by imposing appropriate favours. In short:
They were offered privileges, advantages, and access to prestigious posts in the public in exchange for political loyalty. In fact, some of those coopted personalities have become key actors in PA politics.
Some of the elites misappropriated millions:
According to the first Palestinian audit conducted in 1997, nearly 40% of the PA budget - approximately US$ 326 million - had been misappropriated.
Polls have indicated that many Palestinians are aware of the corruption and that this effectively undermines any realistic progress on Palestinian liberation within the current system. Even Hamas and Fatah have been accused of corruption. It is perhaps one of those insoluble situations as a result of the occupation, one that suits Israel. This raises questions of what would transpire if a Palestinian state did at some point emerge from the occupation. There would certainly be a power struggle between the different factions within Palestinian society. Also Michael’s paper on failed states presents a useful conceptual framework, despite a narrow focus and the lack of some important context.
Intifada
In December 1987, the First Intifada (Arabic intifāḍa, literally, the act of shaking off) began. It was a mass Palestinian uprising against Israeli rule in the Palestinian territories.
Tensions had been building up for some time. But the spark came when an IDF truck struck a civilian car, killing four Palestinians. Rumours that the crash was deliberate quickly spread throughout Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem. In response to general strikes, boycotts of Israeli civil administration institutions in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, civil disobedience in the face of army orders, and an economic boycott consisting of refusal to work in Israeli settlements on Israeli products, refusal to pay taxes, refusal to drive Palestinian cars with Israeli licenses, graffiti, barricading, and widespread throwing of stones and Molotov cocktails at the IDF and its infrastructure within the Palestinian territories. Israel, deploying some 80,000 soldiers and initially firing live rounds, killed a large number of Palestinians.
Israel and the PLO, which was in exile following its ousting by Israel during the Lebanon war, were taken by surprise by the sudden outbreak of hostilities. As PASSIA notes:
The exodus from Lebanon in 1982 distanced the PLO from the Palestinian base and weakened it generally, leading to a shift in the centre of gravity in Palestinian politics, as well as in the balance of power within the PLO, from the Diaspora to Palestinians living in the OPT. This process was accelerated by the outbreak of the first Intifada in late 1987, which prompted the foundation of the Unified National Leadership of the Uprising (UNLU) - made up of representatives of different factions who organized strikes, demonstrations, and grassroots mobilization. While the UNLU was soon incorporated into the PLO, its leaders originated from Palestinians "internal" to the OPT. This was a major challenge to the PLO and coincided with the emergence of Hamas and Islamic Jihad as distinct groups that posed a challenge to the monopoly of the PLO as representatives of Palestinian interests, positions and needs.
The confrontations continued for 6 years resulting in the deaths of over 1200 Palestinians and led to Israel imposing more control over the occupied territories. But the intifada ended Israel's innocence. The uprising had brought into focus a reality that was perhaps less evident in the past. Pictures beamed around the Globe of Palestinian youths throwing stones at Israeli solders and then being shot with live ammunition as part of Israel's 'break the bones' policy, which was documented in a video.
The Lebanon war in 1982 had given the world a glimpse of the 'real' Israel. The focal point was a massacre at the Sabra and the Shatila refugee camp in the Beirut area between 16 and 18 September by Lebanese militia acting under the auspices of the IDF. The UN declared (A/RES/37/123D) that the attack was an act of genocide and that Israel bore responsibility. As a result of the massacre, Arial Sharon - serving as Israeli defence minister at the time - was forced to resign. After the war, Israel agreed a peace treaty with Egypt that returned previous occupied territories back to Egypt:
By the time the intifada had ended, Israel's descent to pariah state had begun. As Electric Intifada noted:
If nothing else, the people's non-violent mass civil disobedience strategy had attracted media coverage and journalist Thomas Friedman commented that "the presence of the foreign media really forced Israelis to look at the true brutality of their occupation." That is, until Israel found other more sinister ways to turn around public opinion.
During this period, Israel was strongly condemned by the UN, here, here and here. Its disregard for International law and Convention would become a routine habit. Only one country was prepared to defend Israel all the way in the face of such overwhelming evidence against it - the US.
In 1993, following the mutual recognition of Israel by the PLO and Israel's recognition of the PLO as legitimate representatives of the Palestinian people, the Oslo Peace Accords were signed by both parties. The aim of the Accords was greater autonomy for Palestinians within the occupied territories over a period of 5 years. A section from the book Conflict in the Holy Land: From Ancient Times to the Arab-Israeli Conflicts, outlines the process. The agreement technically:
formally recognized Israel’s right to exist and Israel’s sovereignty over 78 percent of historic Palestine, as well as pledging to end military actions against Israel. Israel, while failing to recognize Palestinian statehood, did recognize Palestinian nationhood, including the right of self-determination, and the PLO’s role as the Palestinians’ legitimate representatives.
The US role was that of guarantor and did not directly participate in the process that would follow. With Norway acting as an arbiter, secret negotiations took place without the knowledge of the US, that would eventually lead to a deal being brokered. Despite both parties agreeing, the deal was always going to be lopsided. However it did lead to the withdrawal of Israeli forces from the Gaza strip and around 40 percent of the West Bank, which would be administered by the new Palestinian Authority. But Israel began imposing restrictions in the movement of Palestinians and opened up territory to settlers and:
refused to withdraw from as much territory as promised in the U.S.- brokered disengagement agreements. In addition, the United States tended to side with the Israelis on most issues during talks regarding the disengagement process, even after a right-wing coalition that had opposed the Oslo Accords came to power in Israel in 1996. This alienated many Palestinians from the peace process and hardened anti-Israeli attitudes.
The newly appointed PA was next to useless. The Palestinians had expected the Accords to comply with international law, which:
forbids the expansion of any country’s territory by military force and prohibits occupying powers from transferring their civilian population into occupied land
Not to mention a raft of UN resolutions that seemed to fade into obscurity. The Accords ultimately hit the rocks following negotiations at Camp David in 2000.
The Accords broke down due to a combination of 'business as usual' by Israel, and continued resistance by the Palestinians ultimately led to the second intifada in 2000. An article from Executive Intelligence Review details how Israel in cahoots with the US, systematically dismantled the entire peace process:
The Oslo peace accord of September 1993 failed, because powerful Israeli interests and their U.S.-based allies caused it to fail. In an interview that September, U.S. Presidential pre-candidate Lyndon LaRouche forecast prophetically, that, unless immediate progress were made on the economic aspects of the peace agreements, "enemies of progress and enemies of the human race, such as Henry Kissinger and his friends, will be successful, through people like Ariel Sharon's buddies, in intervening to drown this agreement in chaos and blood."
That is, in short, what happened. By handing control over economic development programs appended to the Oslo treaty to the World Bank, Kissinger's friends ensured that no large-scale infrastructure would be built. Instead of enjoying a peace dividend in terms of better living conditions, the Palestinians would experience a deterioration of their already disastrous conditions. This would generate demoralization, and rage - the primary ingredients for radicalization - particularly among youth, rendering them vulnerable to recruitment into extremist organizations, such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad, which are opposed to peace.
The following paragraph effectively sums up in a nutshell the true nature of the 'peace' process in the region and the true intentions of the protagonists:
The assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin on Nov. 4, 1995, by right-wing Israeli extremist networks, was the political inflection point, intersecting the economic crisis. Rabin's Foreign Minister, a terrified Shimon Peres then threw the 1996 elections to Likudnik Benjamin Netanyahu, who reversed whatever implementation of Oslo there had been, and embarked on a confrontation course, by expanding illegal Israeli settlements and launching provocations. His successor, Barak, continued to dismantle Oslo, which culminated in the "offer" at Camp David, that Israel should maintain sovereignty over Jerusalem, including the sites sacred to Islam - an offer that no Arab leader, no Muslim, could accept. Following the fruitless Camp David talks, the religious passions associated with Jerusalem were consciously ignited by Sharon on Sept. 28, 2000, who demonstratively took a stroll, escorted by 1,000 Israeli police, by the holiest Islamic shrine in Jerusalem, the al-Haram al-Sharif. That act, which showed just how sensitive the Jerusalem issue is (and should have clarified why Arafat could not have accepted the Camp David offer), triggered the Intifada.
This act by Sharon, is omitted from any U.S. or Israeli chronologies. Sharon's provocation was also the opening salvo to his election campaign. Once elected prime minister, by an electorate panicked by the violence that his provocation had produced, Sharon proceeded post-haste to finish off what little remained of the peace process.
The Second Intifada
Following the controversial visit by Sharon to the Al-Aqsa Mosque - also known as the Temple Mount - in September 2000, violence erupted. The Israeli response was similar to the First Intifada, with live ammunition being used in some of the confrontations that ensued. A report by Amnesty International Broken Lives - A Year of Intifada summed up the Israeli approach:
Israeli forces have killed Palestinians unlawfully by shooting them during demonstrations and at checkpoints although lives were not in danger. They have shelled residential areas and committed extrajudicial executions. Palestinian armed groups and individuals have deliberately killed Israeli civilians by placing bombs in crowded places and in drive-by shootings.
All Palestinians in the Occupied Territories - more than three million people - have been collectively punished. Almost every Palestinian town and village has been cut off by Israeli army checkpoints or physical barriers. Curfews on Palestinian areas have trapped residents in their homes for days, weeks or even months. In the name of security, hundreds of Palestinian homes have been demolished.
There was atrocities committed by Palestinian extremists, but the above account makes for familiar reading. Its an account that would be repeated up until the present day.
The second intifada is linked to the failure of the Oslo Accords and Israel's subsequent re-assertion of its authority over the Palestinians. An interesting reflection on the intifada is provided in this paper from the International Journal of Intelligence and CounterIntelligence, Israeli Intelligence, the Second Intifada, and Strategic Surprise: A Case of “Intelligence to Please”?, by Avner Barnea (Research Fellow at the National Security Study Center at the University of Haifa, and a Lecturer at Netanya Academic College and the Academic College of Tel Aviv-Yaffo in Israel. He is a former senior member of the Israeli Security Agency).
The ‘official’ position taken by Israeli Military Intelligence (IMI) was to blame Arafat for starting the riots. But the Israeli Security Agency (ISA) and the Mossad identified Sharon’s visit to the Al-Aqsa Mosque as the cause. It would be the former position that would shape the narrative, leading to a brutal and persistent retaliation by Israeli forces. The evidence though points to Arafat initially attempting to diffuse the situation. He later supported the Palestinian resistance after giving up following his failure to contain the situation. The Israeli position though was clear in the wake of Camp David:
The IMI estimates coincided with Prime Minister Barak’s attitude in the aftermath of the Camp David summit of July 2000 that Israel had “no partner” for negotiations with the Palestinians. Moreover, they confirmed existing plans of the IDF General Staff to inflict heavy casualties among Palestinian rioters should there be an uprising and undermine law and order to suppress their violence to the extent of “burning their consciousness.”
In short, intelligence would be selected to:
please the political and military leadership that justified a preplanned excessive military response by the IDF against the Palestinian rioters, which resulted in rapid escalation of events to a countrywide confrontation.
Barnea outlines how ‘decisionmakers [sic] have political agendas and will often prefer an intelligence product that supports their politics rather than one that contradicts it.’ The example of Iraq is used to illustrate the notion of “intelligence to please”:
Political influence on intelligence work was studied and defined as the manipulation of intelligence to reflect political preferences. The American military assessment that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction (WMD), which was used as an excuse for the American invasion of Iraq, later turned out to be false. The findings of two congressional investigating committees indicated that the heads of American intelligence, especially senior Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) personnel (and not the CIA analysts who claimed Saddam Hussein did not have WMD), had delivered unfounded intelligence assessments, which turned out to be biased. That was done to satisfy the political leadership (i.e., President George W. Bush and his assistants). The Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction, which, after the 11 September 2001 attacks, was eager to retaliate against Iraq, claimed Saddam was a danger to the civilized world and planned to attack using WMD.
This paragraph lays out the systemic political biases that has become so endemic within the broader political sphere. This would come under the definition of confirmation bias, as this simple diagram illustrates.
The conflict culminated in 'Operation Defensive Shield,' the largest military operation conducted by Israel at the time since the Six-Day War. The offensive would set a precedent for subsequent attacks against the Palestinians - namely a disproportionate and extreme level of response by the IDF. A particular offensive on the Jennin refuge camp characterises the Israeli response. An article in Haaretz sums up the conflict. Defensive Shield did cause the intifada to peter out somewhat in the long run. And with Arafat’s death in November 2004, it finally ran out of steam. With Arafat replaced by Abbas, Barnea notes:
Abbas caused the riots to subside by opposing violence on principle, and there were local elected officials that forced Hamas to stop its terrorist attacks almost completely. The disengagement from the Gaza Strip and northern Samaria (2005) signaled the end of the intifada.
Investigating the roots of the intifada, it transpires that Sharon had wider political reasons for visiting the Temple Mount:
The main reason for Sharon’s political initiative was to undermine Barak’s power after the failure of the Camp David Summit and the loss of the Barak government’s majority in the Knesset. Sharon saw it as a great political opportunity to acquire the leadership of Israel.
It was clear the intifada was a spontaneous reaction to the failure of Camp David and Sharon’s fateful visit to the Temple Mount. The evidence suggests a more measured political response could have allowed Arafat to succeed in calming the situation. There were warnings from elements within Israeli intelligence that violence could erupt, but these became distorted.
Since the second intifada there have been further attacks by Israel, culminating in Operation Protective Edge in 2014, which was the most deadly attack on the Gaza strip to date. It has resulted in mounting criticism of Israel, leading to an amplification of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions initiative (BDS). The upshot of the second intifada was greater control over Palestinian affairs by Israel.
The Apartheid State
There is no dispute over Israel’s status as an apartheid state (apart from staunch Zionists of course). I’ll look at this in more detail in a future article. But a general timeline of finally recognising this state of affairs is as follows.
One of the first major reports critical of Israel, following Operation Cast Lead, was the Report of the United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict (A/HRC/12/48), published on 25 September 2009. Although the report did not explicitly mention ‘apartheid’ it made reference (p.296) to a Stop the Wall report, Repression Allowed, Resistance Denied: Israel’s suppression of the popular movement against the Apartheid Wall of Annexation. Also known as the Goldstone report, after its author Richard Goldstone, former judge of South Africa’s Constitutional Court, the first prosecutor at The Hague on behalf of the International Criminal Court for the former Yugoslavia, and anti-apartheid campaigner, as the Electronic Intifada reports. Israel panicked over the report. As a result the US was quick to join the chorus, using its veto powers to block the report, leading Goldstone to retract the report following political pressure. Prior to this report, as EI notes:
Perhaps, most damning of all the material available before the Goldstone report was the publication of a document entitled “Breaking the Silence,” containing commentaries by 30 members of the Israeli army who had taken part in Operation Cast Lead (the Israeli official name for the Gaza war). These soldiers spoke movingly about the loose rules of engagement issued by their commanders that help explain why so little care was taken to avoid civilian casualties. The sense emerges from the testimony of these Israeli soldiers who were in no sense critical of Israel or even of the Gaza war as such, that Israeli policy emerged out of a combination of efforts “to teach the people of Gaza a lesson for their support of Hamas” and to keep Israeli military casualties as close to zero as possible even if meant massive death and destruction for innocent Palestinians.
Then came the 2017 UN report Israeli Practices towards the Palestinian
People and the Question of Apartheid: Palestine and the Israeli Occupation, Issue No. 1, which put the issue of apartheid firmly on the UN agenda.
After this, the top global human rights organisations formally released reports confirming Israeli apartheid. The first of a hat trick of reports came from the Israeli human rights group B'Tselem, This is apartheid: The Israeli regime promotes and perpetuates Jewish supremacy between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River, published on 12 January 2021. Human Rights Watch followed on 3 months later on 27 April 2021, with A Threshold Crossed Israeli Authorities and the Crimes of Apartheid and Persecution. There was a final piece of the jigsaw to fall into place. Finally on 1 February 2022, Amnesty International delivered, Israel’s apartheid against Palestinians: Cruel system of domination and crime against humanity.
Is there any nails left to hammer into Israels coffin? Probably not. Like Frankenstein’s monster though, its creator will not let its creation go, even though the State is an example of a civilisation undergoing terminal decay. But that’s another story.
Keep Palestinian history alive. Check out ScottishPSC’s ‘On This Day’, which offers bite sized chunks on a daily basis.
The next article in this series explores symbolism - the Star of David, its origins and other relevant symbols.
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