At the expense of peace

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has put the Obama administration in an awkward position by demanding a total halt to Israeli settlement construction and expansion in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. He is simply echoing Secretary of State Hillary Clinton who initially called for a complete suspension of settlement activity, including completing, to accommodate “natural growth”, the 2,500 units under construction, and housing in East Jerusalem.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, however, said “no” to a settlement freeze which would prohibit such construction. He also insists that any partial suspension should be limited to six months.

President Barack Obama, who clearly thought Israel would accept his call for a freeze, has tried to backtrack and instructed his Middle East envoy, George Mitchell, to seek a compromise. However, having originally taken a position which coincides with the Palestinians’ stance, Obama is finding it difficult to persuade them to accept less than a full freeze.

In any case, Abbas cannot afford to do so because as long as Palestinians see Israeli settlements rising on the hills of the West Bank and in East Jerusalem, they will not have any faith in negotiations or the so-called “peace process”. And if Abbas is to have any credibility at all with his people, he must bring a halt to Israeli colonisation of the land designated for a Palestinian state.

Palestinians are all too aware that Israel is building, building, building with the aim of denying them this land. Colonisation is - and has always been - the core of the Zionist enterprise.

By demanding the right to build anything - a house, a road, a school, a park or a commercial facility - in the West Bank or East Jerusalem, Netanyahu shows that he is not serious about the two-state solution. Building of any kind is intended to perpetuate the presence of half a million Israeli settlers and their colonies.

Leading US administration figures, notably Clinton, understand this and therefore, rightly, call for a total freeze. But Clinton’s words were ignored by the Israelis who are past masters at “carrying on regardless” of protestations from the US or other world powers.

The Israelis argue and build. By creating facts on the ground, they expect to win the argument. For instance, Israeli officials and politicians argue that Israel has not built any “new” settlements for 20 years. This is a flagrant fabrication. Anyone who travels in East Jerusalem or the West Bank can see the settlements springing up like mushrooms after an autumn rain. These clusters of buildings do not consist simply of construction within settlements straddling the old “Green Line” border between Israel “proper” and the West Bank.

Former Israeli premier Ariel Sharon persuaded George W. Bush that these settlements would by annexed by Israel if and when a Palestinian state is ever created and Israel would give the Palestinians territorial compensation.Nor are these settlements “illegal outposts”, allegedly slated for removal by Israel. The new settlements are full-fledged independent colonies with water, electricity, fences and army protection. These colonies are strategically located, well built and part of an overall plan to secure and occupy the whole of Palestine.

This month, Israel and his allies in the US, particularly those in Washington, DC, where they exert considerable pressure on Congress and the administration, can be expected to intensify their campaign to end the US call for a settlement freeze. One of the words Israeli propagandists are using is “Judenrien”, the cleansing of Jews from a specific piece of territory. This word was employed by the Nazis in their drive to rid Europe of its Jewish communities before and during World War II.

By picking up this particular word, Netanyahu and his minions seek to use a reference to the Holocaust to terrorise anyone who favours an end to Israeli colonisation of Palestinian territory.

Israeli lobby groups are also using it to smear anyone who dares say that Jews should not be allowed to live anywhere in Palestine - which Israelis call “the Land of Israel”. These propagandists claim that anyone who opposes Israeli settlement activity seeks to ethnically cleanse Jews from the 1967 territories.

Of course, these Israeli spokesmen do not mind if Palestinians are cleansed from their homeland by Israeli colonists. Indeed, that is the ultimate aim of Zionism.

Palestinians and Arabs know that the very existence of the Palestinians as a people is at stake in the ongoing struggle over Israeli settlements. Unless it is won by the Obama administration, the century-old war over Palestine will be lost, the Palestinians will lose their land, and there will never be peace in this region.

The Israelis are determined to win this war and, since they are politically supported, financed and armed by the US and its Western allies, Israel does not mind if the outcome of the struggle for Palestine is everlasting war in this volatile and strategic region.