The following article is extracted from the
July-August 1997 issue of
THE OTHER ISRAELThe Real War
By Uri Avnery
The haunting images are broadcast on television. Thousands of Israeli
mothers watch in horror as explosives blow up under the legs of one of their
sons. Hundreds of millions around the globe watch an Arab youth get shot to
death near the settlement of Morag. They watch as undercover agents in Hebron
drag an unconscious Arab youth on the ground like a sack of flour.
But the real war is not waged on Shuhada Street in Hebron, and its weapons
are not Molotov cocktails or rubber bullets. The real war is being waged on
dozens of battlefields across the entire West Bank, Gaza Strip, and Jerusalem,
and its weapons are made of paper: maps, decisions and decrees. It is a war
which will determine the fate of millions of Israelis and Palestinians.
The war dates back 115 years, when the first Zionist pioneers set foot in the
land. In this ongoing war, the Jewish side seeks to take control of as much land
as possible for its settlements, while the Palestinians struggle to hold onto
their land and to repel the assaults.
While the Israeli media preoccupies itself with Minister David Levy's most
recent temper tantrum, and Israelis gossip about "what exactly did Sara
(Netanyahu) say" in the censored TV-interview, some of the best minds in Israel
are busy creating ways to take control of more lands. An entire army of clerks,
legislators, politicians, officers, settlers, and architects works tirelessly to
devise ever more subterfuges.
The most recent one: Oranit, a settlement which runs through the Green Line, was
unified with a few other settlements as an "administrative step." The entire
territory now automatically falls under Israeli jurisdiction. This territory
happens to include two complete Palestinian villages, Beit Amin and Azun Atmah,
as well as portions of half a dozen other Palestinian villages. A piece of
paper, an administrative decision, and presto -- a large block of the West Bank
is annexed to Israel.
The war is waged across the length and breadth of the Occupied Territories, from
Morag in the south to Jenin in the north. New settlements are built under the
guise of "expanding" existing ones. Settlements are built on "Har Homa", in Ras
el Amud, in any open space still left in annexed East Jerusalem.
The Bedouins are expelled, in stages, from all the area between Jerusalem and
the Jordan River. Fences are erected "to protect the settlements", and in the
process, another chunk of Palestinian land is swallowed. More and more "state
lands" are discovered (common village land which, at the time, was registered in
the name of the Turkish Sultan, in order to preserve it for future use -- as a
land reserve). There is no limit to the conniving. No acre of Palestinian land
is safe from the next Israeli pretext for annexation.
The laughable "peace maps" which are published from time to time --
Allon-Plus, Sharon-Plus, Netanyahu-Plus, etc. -- are nothing more than schemes
for the annexation of much of the West Bank land.
There is not a chance
in the world that the Palestinian people and the entire Arab World would ever
accept such ethnic cleansing, which would leave the Palestinians with 10% of
their original homeland between the Mediterranean and the Jordan.
Yitzchak Rabin, who had dedicated his life to the conquest of the
land, came to understand this fact late in his life. He comprehended that the
conflict must end; otherwise Jew and Palestinian alike will be consumed in a
cataclysm of Biblical proportions.
In the Oslo Accords, Rabin left open the possibility of territorial
additions. However, the further he progressed in the peace process, the better
he understood the inherent danger of continued annexation. In his last Knesset
speech, Rabin acknowledged this for the first time. "We did not come to
an empty land!" It was for this realization that he was assassinated.
Is it possible to end this war of annexation? A pessimist would argue that
the lust for taking over and occupying the land is too deeply rooted in the soul
of the Israeli society -- a society which was born and came of age throughout
this war. An optimist would counter that if Rabin could succeed in weaning
himself, then anyone can.
As an optimist one has just to hope that it will not take too long.
THE OTHER ISRAEL
is the newsletter of the
Israeli Council for Israeli-Palestinian Peace
P.O.Box 2542
58125 Holon, Israel.
Phone/Fax: (03) 5565804
Editor: Adam Keller
Coeditor: Beate Zilversmidt
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