It's the occupation.
That's the complete summation of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. In 1967,
Israel occupied the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip. For 34 years,
Palestinians have lived under Israeli military rule. They are now determined to
be free of it.
Unfortunately, the Palestinians have only the facts, morality and international
law on their side. The Israelis have a powerful army and the U.S. government,
which not only gives Israel an annual $3 billion subsidy but also blocks any and
all international efforts to make Israel comply with United Nations resolutions
and the Geneva Convention.
(Americans ought to ask themselves why their children are expected to die to
enforce U.N. Security Council resolutions directed at other countries if the
United States is going to block enforcement of all those directed at Israel.)
Right now the Israelis are spinning the line that they made a generous offer and
that, because the Palestinians rejected it, why, they must not want peace. The
fly drowning in that glob of salad dressing is that it wasn't a generous offer.
It was, in fact, an offer that no Palestinian could have accepted.
First, Palestinians would have had to kiss goodbye West Bank and Gaza land
already confiscated by the Israelis. They would have had no control over their
borders or the water under their feet. They would have had to endure Israeli
"military supervision" for an indefinite period. They would have had
to write off the rights of Palestinian refugees, acknowledge Jewish ownership of
the land underneath the third holiest site in Islam, and they would have gotten,
in return, a non-viable country cut into giblets and at the mercy of the
Israelis.
In fact, the only thing to be negotiated is the timetable for Israel's complete
withdrawal and dismantling of all the Jewish settlements. Palestinians already
have conceded 78 percent of their country. They are not going to concede hunks
of the remaining 22 percent.
Furthermore, the Palestinians are daily victims of war crimes. The score card,
according to Dr. Mustafa Barghouthi, director of the Health, Development,
Information and Policy Institute, runs thus since the intifada started:
More than 500 Palestinians killed, a third of them children; 27,000 trees
uprooted; 12,000 dunums of land (a dunum is 1,000 square meters) leveled in the
Gaza Strip; 3,200 buildings destroyed, of which 1,200 were homes; and 23,000
Palestinians wounded. In comparison, he said, 106 Israelis have been killed and
760 injured. The numbers may have changed since he addressed the Center for
Policy Analysis on Palestine, a Washington think tank. I've never seen in the
Middle East any two sets of numbers that agree, but you can verify the
approximate accuracy of these with Amnesty International and the U.N. Commission
on Human Rights.
It's not fair to call Palestinians terrorists. It is not they who have used
tanks, advanced war planes and helicopter gunships against civilians; it is not
they who use death squads and assassinations; it is not they who imposed
collective punishments on innocent civilians. The Israelis are doing all of
these things, which are war crimes, to the Palestinians with American-made
military equipment.
I know that it's hard for Americans to undo so many years of pro-Israeli
brainwashing. Just remember that the Palestinians, like the Founding Fathers of
this country, are trying to throw off a foreign occupier of their homeland.
It is equally absurd to say the Palestinians don't want an end to the conflict.
It is they, not the Israelis, who are suffering. Israel has become a rich
country; the West Bank and Gaza are incredibly poor. Some of the Jewish
settlements have plush lawns, gardens and even a swimming pool while, at the
bottom of the hill, Palestinians have to get water from a communal pump for
cooking and washing.
Israelis live in houses, apartments and villas. Millions of Palestinians are
jammed in sordid refugee camps. Other than the loss of tourist business, a loss
they deserve given the destruction they've laid on the Palestinians, Israelis
are leading normal lives behind the green line. If they're nervous because of an
occasional suicide bomber, they should think how nervous they would be if they
had to face tanks, helicopter gunships and assassins.
I'm sorry our government is an accessory to war crimes and is such a world-class
hypocrite. So long as we ignore the terrible plight of the Palestinians, no
American should open his or her mouth about human rights, the rule of law or
democracy. Such hypocrisy stinks in the nostrils of every sensible man and woman
in the world.
One day God will free the Palestinians. I wonder what he will do to us. At least
those who had the courage to stand up for human rights and justice will be able
to look at themselves in a mirror without gagging.
Reach Charley Reese at 407-420-5315 or [email protected].