Palestinians obey the truce, Israel continues to slaughter Palestinians - the familiar pattern.
Precarious Hudna
Amid rising Palestinian anger over Israel's foot-dragging on the prisoners'
issue, resistance groups threaten to end their truce with Israel. Khaled
Amayreh reports from Ramallah
Palestinian Authority (PA) leaders, like most Palestinians, reacted coolly to the Israeli
decision to free some 424 Palestinian prisoners. PA Chairman Yasser Arafat
described the decision as a "scandalous deception".
"This is a scandalous deception. They [Israel] arrested twice as many people during
the past few days, 239 in Hebron alone," said Arafat, while addressing supporters in
Ramallah on Monday.
Even the usually more circumspect PA Premier Mahmoud Abbas criticised "this
modus operandi of deception and cheating" on Israel's part. "They are equivocating
and bluffing which means they are not sincere about implementing the roadmap," he
said.
Indeed, among the 424 prisoners slated to be released on Wednesday, 82 had been
convicted of criminal offences, including car theft and entering Israel without
possessing a valid permit. Of the remaining 342 prisoners, 159 are actually
administrative detainees who have been detained without charge or trial in violation of
international law.
Meanwhile, Israel continues to hold as many as 1,100 administrative detainees.
What is irking the Palestinians most, however, is the fact that the jail terms of nearly
all the 183 convicted prisoners Israel has agreed to free have either expired or are
about to expire.
According to Issa Qaraqi, director of the Palestinian Prisoner Club, of the 183 due to
be freed, there is only one prisoner whose jail term will expire a year from now, with
the jail terms of the rest (182) due to expire in a few days or a few weeks.
Palestinian official Hisham Abdul-Razzaq, who is in charge of the Prisoners Portfolio
in the Abbas government, is furious at the way Israel has dealt with the issue. "They
didn't even consult with us, they are ignoring us completely. The way they deal with
us is unacceptable," he said.
Israel's conspicuous parsimony and perceived deception on an issue as sensitive and
emotional as the release of Palestinian prisoners seem to be galvanising the Palestinian
public anew.
Indeed, for the past two weeks, Palestinian towns in the West Bank and Gaza have
been witnessing daily protests and demonstrations demanding the release of "all" the
prisoners, without discrimination due to political affiliation. While Israel and the
United States are the usual villains, the reformist Palestinian government has been
increasingly blamed for not doing enough to free the prisoners and especially for
"succumbing to Israeli deception".
Sensing the growing public impatience and indignation over the prisoners' plight as
well as the continuation of crippling Israeli restrictions within the West Bank, Abbas
reportedly decided to cancel a proposed meeting with Sharon, which was to take
place Wednesday.
The symbolic and desperate step will not do much to soothe mounting public anger
which is also forcing the resistance groups, including Hamas, to "reconsider" the
suspension of "resistance activities," a reference to the three-month hudna (or
cease-fire) declared on 29 June.
According to Islamist sources in Gaza, Hamas and Islamic Jihad plan to hold
"intensive meetings" in Gaza in the coming days to reevaluate their posture in light of
Israel's non-compliance with truce conditions, including the refusal to withdraw the
Israeli army from Palestinian population centres in the West Bank.
This stance, declared by the Israeli Defence Minister Shaul Mofaz on Monday 4
August, coincided with what looks like a resumption of the Israeli policy of
assassination against Palestinian Intifada activists.
This week, the Israeli army killed two Palestinians near Tulkarm in what eyewitnesses
described as "cold- blooded murder". The new killings brought to 10 the number of
Palestinians, mostly civilians, killed by the Israeli army since the conclusion of the
truce on 29 June. As many as a hundred other Palestinians were injured by Israeli
army bullets in the same period. Last week, an Israeli soldier in the northern West
Bank "accidentally" opened fire from a heavy machinegun mounted on an armoured
personnel carrier on Palestinian cars at an army roadblock, instantly killing a
five-year-old child and wounding his six and seven- year-old sisters.
In an apparent reaction to the killing and other Israeli provocations, Palestinian
guerillas on 3 August opened fire on a settler car near the Jewish settlement of Gilo
south of Jerusalem, wounding four settlers. Capitalising on this seemingly isolated
incident, Israel demanded a "sustained and effective operation against those involved
in terrorism".
The Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, the armed branch of Fatah, claimed responsibility for
the attack, saying it came as a warning to Israel against "continuing to hound and
target our fighters".
Israel had been pressuring the PA to send some 20 activists from the armed
resistance group to the desert town of Jericho or to Gaza as a precondition for an
Israeli pullback from Ramallah which would ease Yasser Arafat's 19-month
confinement.
Initially, Arafat agreed to confine the 20 "wanted" activists to a single room to stave
off a threat by the Al- Aqsa Martyrs Brigade to break the hudna in case they were
transferred to Jericho.
However, 19 of the 20 men were eventually quietly transferred to a Jericho prison in
accordance with a tacit understanding with representatives of the sponsors of the
roadmap (US, UN, EU and Russia).
Moreover, Israel's continued construction of the "apartheid wall" in the West Bank,
despite ostensibly disingenuous American objections, is effectively killing the
roadmap and evaporating whatever modicum of hope among Palestinians that the
Bush administration will rein in Israel.
The Palestinians had hoped that Bush's public criticisms of the wall, voiced during
Abbas's visit to the White House on 25 July, would be translated into a meaningful
pressure on Israel to stop construction on the wall. However, Bush's remarks during
his joint press conference with visiting Ariel Sharon last week, in which he spoke of a
"fence" rather than a "wall" showed that the American president was adopting the
Israeli position.
As Israel continues to build the wall and create new realities on the ground, and with
Israeli roadblocks and checkpoints strangulating the daily lives of Palestinians, a fresh
incendiary atmosphere is being fostered in the occupied territories.
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