Altalena versus Altalena.
Well written article comparing ( not morally ) the occupation with the ongoing attacks.
By Akiva Eldar - Harratz Daily
The face of the senior Civil Administration officer
expressed sincere anger at the terrorist who blew
himself up at the entrance to the liaison and
coordination office in Tul Karm. The officer
complained of the Palestinians' ingratitude in
targeting the good will of "the State of Israel to
provide them with solutions." In other words,
taken from the lexicon of classical colonialism,
the enlightened ruler is the solution and the
naughty natives, who bite his kind hand, are the
problem.
The "solutions" that the Israeli
government is producing (very
sparingly, it should be noted)
for the Palestinians are aimed
at overcoming problems that are
created by the Israeli
occupation. Where else does a
cancer patient have to stand
for many long hours in line and
plead with a foreign soldier to
give him a transit permit to a hospital in a
neighboring city?
The remarks of the Civil Administration official
express the Israeli approach, which, since
September 11, has acquired currency in the
White House as well: The terrorists are the
root of the problem. Only after root-canal
treatment of this problem will it be the turn
of other problems, like the humiliation and the
economic distress that derive from the Israeli
occupation. Even the illegal outposts and the
fence will have to wait until terror is
eliminated.
U.S. President George W. Bush told King Abdullah
of Jordan that Palestinian Authority Chairman
Yasser Arafat is "a loser" because he is not
fighting terror. Therefore, he said, it was not
his intention to invest his political capital
in him.
Indeed, the premeditated murder of people who go
out to eat in a restaurant is not morally
identical to the evils of the occupation;
however, the leader of the free world is not in
charge of the morality department. Bush is
obligated to diplomatic documents that, even if
they turn out not to be a safe political
investment, do bear the signature of the United
States. In the prologue to the road map it is
clearly stated that the occupation, like
terror, is part of the problem and that ending
the occupation, like ending terror, is part of
the solution.
According to the document: "A two-state solution
to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will only
be achieved through an end to violence and
terrorism (when the Palestinian people have a
leadership acting decisively against terror and
willing and able to build a practicing
democracy based on tolerance and liberty) and
through Israel's readiness to do what is
necessary for a democratic Palestinian state to
be established, and a clear, unambiguous
acceptance by both parties of the goal of a
negotiated settlement."
According to this map, in the first stage the
government of Israel "immediately dismantles
settlement outposts erected since March 2001,"
and in addition, in accordance with the
Mitchell Report, "freezes all settlement
activity (including natural growth of
settlements)."
If it were not enough that the government of
Israel is not dismantling outposts and is
publishing tenders for new construction in the
settlements, the latest State Comptroller's
Report reveals a phenomenon of approval and
funding of projects, including the positioning
of new mobile homes, on private Palestinian
land.
The way out that is proposed by the Israeli
government of the right and its friends in
Washington is that the Palestinians make an
Altalena for themselves. If the Altalena is a
model worth following, why don't Prime Minister
Ariel Sharon, Housing Minister Effi Eitam and
Transportation Minister Avigdor Lieberman,
settlers both, lead the Israel Defense Forces
into the outposts of which the Comptroller's
Report (as well as as an official Defense
Ministry document) says that the inhabitants
trespassed on land that is not their own?
On the principle of the Altalena, the United
States can formulate a precise key and a
detailed timetable for implementing the road
map. Thus, for example, at the end of the first
week, the Palestinian Authority will arrest
five murderers of Israelis and at the same time
Israel will release 50 administrative
detainees; at the end of the second week, the
PA will arrest 10 heads of the military arms of
Hamas and Islamic Jihad, and Israel will
dismantle five outposts; in the third week, the
PA will confiscate 1,000 rifles and Israel will
remove 50 roadblocks from the roads of the West
Bank; in the fourth week, the Palestinians will
declare an end to the violent intifada and
Israel will withdraw to the lines of September,
2000.
A basic condition for the success of the plan is
that each side, jointly and severally, together
with the American mediator, internalizes the
causal (though, it must be stressed, not moral)
connection between the violence and the
occupation. As long as the Palestinians do not
internalize the fact that the violence is a
problem and not a solution, its cessation will
be perceived as a submission to the occupation,
and thus the violence will continue - and with
it, the occupation. As long as the Israelis do
not accept the basic assumption that the
occupation is a problem and not a solution, its
cessation will be considered a submission to
the violence and the occupation will continue -
and with it, the violence. |
