The takeover of Iraq is the first step in the effective re-colonization of
West Asia, only this time by the US with Britain playing the role of
faithful batman. There are many things to be done in this regard like
ensuring long-term control of Iraq, subduing Iran, perhaps dividing up
Saudi Arabia, reasserting Israeli influence in southern Lebanon, and so on.
But at the heart of this project is 'resolving the Palestine issue'.
Without this, the region cannot be stabilized. Even before the assault
began, Blair and Bush were talking of soon unveiling a roadmap for a peace
settlement between Israel and the Palestinians. Sure enough, after the
military victory in Baghdad, pressure was put on Syria partly to dissuade
it from opposing US plans to consolidate its control over Iraq but mainly
because of the Palestine issue.
Syria is a key support base for Hizbollah, Islamic Jihad and Hamas, which
are among the leading forces organizing continued resistance to Israel in
Lebanon and within the Occupied Territories. Syria is also the only major
state in the region, which remains strongly hostile to Israel because of
the latter's unwillingness to give all of the Golan heights back in return
for a separate peace with Syria. Furthermore, the one major
military-political defeat that Israel has ever suffered was in Lebanon when
its troops finally had to pull out of the South because of the resistance
of Shiites behind the Hizbollah. Again, the key force preventing Israel/US
from fully manipulating the Lebanese government is the power and influence
of Syria within that country.
The new roadmap is meant only to get going the political process of
'negotiating' a solution to the Palestine issue, since contrary to the
original expectations of the US and Israel, the Oslo Accords process has
completely collapsed. This roadmap is meant to clear the way for a 'final
settlement' that will give nominal independence or statehood to Palestine
but will in reality mean the permanent economic, political and military
subordination of the new state to Israel, i.e., a final Bantustan-type
solution of the issue. To achieve this, it is necessary that a) Syria and
the other Arab regimes be brought into line to give their endorsement to
such a 'solution'; b) Israeli and US power be even further
institutionalized in the region as to make any other than this outcome
impossible or inconceivable; c) the Palestinian leadership be coerced and
persuaded to play its appointed role of chief Quisling.
In regard to the first condition, now that Iraq has been taken over, only
Syria and to some extent Iran, is a problem. The other regimes like Jordan,
Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Lebanon are, either so beholden to the US or so
authoritarian and deeply unpopular themselves, that the last thing they
want is a genuinely independent Palestine. This would mean the victory of
the strongest national-popular resistance anywhere in the world,
effectively sounding the death knell for their own governments because such
a victory would greatly arouse the people of the whole of the Arab world
with consequences very dangerous for these regimes. The second condition is
also being fulfilled. As for the third condition, this is what the US and
Israel are in the process of establishing.
The great tragedy of the Palestinian people and their incredible struggle
is that few other national liberation movements have had to suffer as
inept, corrupt and shameful a leadership. Yassir Arafat has an assured
place in history as once the key symbolic expression of the independent
emergence and continuity of a powerful Palestinian national liberation
movement. But his crucial political degeneration took place after the end
of the Cold War and the US victory in the First Gulf War of 1991 when he
decided that he had no other choice but to decisively compromise on the
goal of an honourable and just independence in favour of some kind of
Bantustan-type resolution that would leave him and his cohorts as
'internationally recognized' (i.e., American-endorsed) leaders. He was
supposed to see through the Oslo Accords to their final denouement.
The fundamental meaning of these Accords was that (i) Arafat should trade
in his most important political-diplomatic asset - recognition of Israel -
not for an equivalent recognition of the right of Palestinians to an
independent state but only for recognition of the PLO as the authentic
representative of the Palestinian people. (ii) The PLO, now re-christened
as the Palestinian National Authority, would get some municipal-level
powers of autonomy over limited parts of the Occupied Territories. Even the
expansion of such municipal reach would depend on Israel's agreement, i.e.
Israel judges the 'good behaviour' of the PNA and rewards or penalizes it
accordingly. Israel would control water, security (i.e., complete military
domination over the Occupied Territories) and all exit and entry points,
and even public movement within the West Bank or between it and Gaza or
Jerusalem. (iii) Informally, it was made clear that any 'realistic' final
settlement would allow most of the illegal Israeli settlements to remain
and therefore there could be no question of the new Palestine state either
having contiguous territorial control/sovereignty or getting back East
Jerusalem or having an independent armed force (this would threaten Israeli
security). Also, Israeli forces would remain in strategically designated
positions within the new configuration. Nor would Israel ever acknowledge
its guilt for ethnic cleansing and robbery of the lands and properties of
Palestinians in the 1948 exodus or for sustaining through vicious brutality
the longest illegal military occupation in modern history (since 1967). Nor
would it provide reparations for all these crimes. In short, the new
Palestine state could only enjoy limited sovereignty and Israel would never
admit the injustice it has done to the people of Palestine. This is not a
recipe for lasting peace, which requires respect for the equal dignity of
all and therefore acknowledgement of wrongdoing whether by former colonial
powers or the former upholders of apartheid or by Germany for Nazi
brutality to Jews or by Israel to the Palestinians.
But the Oslo Accords collapsed despite Arafat's commitment to making them
work because in the final analysis the Palestinian people refused to give
in to a peace without genuine justice. The Oslo Accords failure made Arafat
irrelevant to the US and Israel. With the regional and global relationship
of forces shifting even more in their favour after this Second Gulf War, a
new Oslo-type process requires a new leadership of the PLO - Mahmoud Abbas
- to push it through. Whether or not, US/Israel succeed in imposing a new
settlement of 'peace' without justice, remains to be seen. Most other
governments outside the region such as in Europe, or governments like that
of India, would be happy to wash their hands off, once and for all, over
the Palestinian issue. An internationally acknowledged 'resolution' of
this problem would then leave such governments freer to deepen their
relations with the US and Israel.
In the long run, even a Bantustan 'solution' will not bring lasting peace
precisely because it demands permanent subordination of a people. But the
US and Israel will be more than happy if it enhances their regional
dominance over several decades. So the Palestinians stand alone, as they
have had to for a long time now. Yet it is their heroic struggle against
all odds that continues to create the single greatest weak spot in the US
efforts build a global Empire.
Copyright 2003 The Telegraph
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