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>From http://www.normanfinkelstein.com/id122.htm
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First the Carrot, Then the Stick: Behind the Carnage in Palestine
Norman G. Finkelstein
14 April 2002
During the June 1967 war, Israel occupied the West Bank and Gaza, completing the
Zionist conquest of British-mandated Palestine. In the war's aftermath, the United
Nations debated the modalities for settling the Arab-Israeli conflict. At the Fifth
Emergency Session of the General Assembly convening in the war's immediate
aftermath, there was "near unanimity" on "the withdrawal of the armed forces from
the territory of neighboring Arab states occupied during the recent war" since
"everyone agrees that there should be no territorial gains by military conquest."
(Secretary-General U Thant, summarizing the G.A. debate) In subsequent Security
Council deliberations, the same demand for a full Israeli withdrawal in accordance
with the principle of "the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war" was
inscribed in United Nations Resolution 242, alongside the right of "every state in the
region" to have its sovereignty respected. A still- classified State Department study
concludes that the US supported the "inadmissibility" clause of 242, making
allowance for only "minor " and "mutual" border adjustments. (Nina J. Noring and
Walter B. Smith II, "The Withdrawal Clause in UN Security Council Resolution 242 of
1967") Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Dayan later warned Cabinet ministers not to
endorse 242 because "it means withdrawal to the 4 June boundaries, and because
we are in conflict with the Security Council on that resolution."
Beginning in the mid-1970s a modification of UN Resolution 242 to resolve the
Israel-Palestine conflict provided for the creation of a Palestinian state in the West
Bank and Gaza once Israel withdrew to its pre- June 1967 borders. Except for the
United States and Israel (and occasionally a US client state), an international
consensus has backed, for the past quarter century, the full-withdrawal/full
recognition formula or what is called the "two-state" settlement. The United States
cast the lone veto of Security Council resolutions in 1976 and 1980 calling for a two-
state settlement that was endorsed by the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO)
and front-line Arab states. A December 1989 General Assembly resolution along
similar lines passed 151-3 (no abstentions), the three negative votes cast by Israel,
the United States, and Dominica.
>From early on, Israel consistently opposed full withdrawal from the Occupied
Territories, offering the Palestinians instead a South African-style Bantustan. The
PLO., having endorsed the international consensus, couldn't be dismissed, however,
as "rejectionist" and pressure mounted on Israel to accept the two-state settlement.
Accordingly, in June 1982 Israel invaded Lebanon, where the PLO was
headquartered, to fend off what an Israeli strategic analyst called the PLO's "peace
offensive." (Avner Yaniv, Dilemmas of Security)
In December 1987 Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza rose up in a basically
non-violent civil revolt (intifada) against the Israeli occupation. Israel's brutal
repression (extra-judicial killings, mass detentions, house demolitions, indiscriminate
torture, deportations, and so on ) eventually crushed the uprising. Compounding the
defeat of the intifada, the PLO suffered yet a further decline in its fortunes with the
destruction of Iraq, the implosion of the Soviet Union, and the suspension of funding
from the Gulf states. The US and Israel seized this occasion to recruit the already
venal and now desperate PLO leadership as surrogates of Israeli power. This is the
real meaning of the "peace process" inaugurated at Oslo in September 1993: to
create a Palestinian Bantustan by dangling before the PLO the perquisites of power
and privilege.
"The occupation continued" after Oslo, a seasoned Israeli commentator observed,
"albeit by remote control, and with the consent of the Palestinian people, represented
by their `sole representative,' the PLO." And again: "It goes without saying that
`cooperation' based on the current power relationship is no more than permanent
Israeli domination in disguise, and that Palestinian self-rule is merely a euphemism
for Bantustanization." (Meron Benvenisti, Intimate Enemies)
After seven years of on-again, off-again negotiations and a succession of new
agreements that managed to rob the Palestinians of the few crumbs thrown from the
master's table at Oslo (the population of Jewish settlers in the Occupied Territories
had fully doubled in the meanwhile), the moment of truth arrived at Camp David in
July 2000. President Clinton and Prime Minister Barak delivered Arafat the
ultimatum of formally acquiescing in a Bantustan or bearing full responsibility for the
collapse of the "peace process." As it happened, Arafat refused. Contrary to the
myth spun by Barak-Clinton as well as a compliant media, in fact "Barak offered the
trappings of Palestinian sovereignty," a special adviser at the British Foreign Office
reports, "while perpetuating the subjugation of the Palestinians." (The Guardian, 10
April l 2002; for details and the critical background, see Roane Carey, ed., The New
Intifada)
Consider in this regard Israel's response to the recent Saudi peace plan. An Israeli
commentator writing in Haaretz observes that the Saudi plan is "surprisingly similar
to what Barak claims to have proposed two years ago." Were Israel really intent on a
full withdrawal in exchange for normalization with the Arab world, the Saudi plan and
its unanimous endorsement by the Arab League summit should have been met with
euphoria. In fact, it elicited a deafening silence in Israel. (Aviv Lavie, 5 April
2002)
Nonetheless, Barak's - and Clinton's - fraud that Palestinians at Camp David rejected
a maximally generous Israeli offer provided crucial moral cover for the horrors that
ensued.
Having failed in its carrot policy, Israel now reached for the big stick. Two
preconditions had to be met, however, before Israel could bring to bear its
overwhelming military superiority: a "green light" from the U.S. and a sufficient
pretext. Already in summer 2000, the authoritative Jane's Information Group
reported that Israel had completed planning for a massive and bloody invasion of the
Occupied Territories. But the US vetoed the plan and Europe made equally plain its
opposition. After 11 September, however, the US came on board. Indeed, Sharon's
goal of crushing the Palestinians basically fit in with the US administration's goal of
exploiting the World Trade Center atrocity to eliminate the last remnants of Arab
resistance to total US domination. Through sheer exertion of will and despite a
monumentally corrupt leadership, Palestinians have proven to be the most resilient
and recalcitrant popular force in the Arab world. Bringing them to their knees would
deal a devastating psychological blow throughout the region.
With a green light from the US, all Israel now needed was the pretext. Predictably it
escalated the assassinations of Palestinian leaders following each lull in Palestinian
terrorist attacks. "After the destruction of the houses in Rafah and Jerusalem, the
Palestinians continued to act with restraint," Shulamith Aloni of Israel's Meretz party
observed. "Sharon and his army minister, apparently fearing that they would have to
return to the negotiating table, decided to do something and they liquidated Raad
Karmi. They knew that there would be a response, and that we would pay the price
in the blood of our citizens." (Yediot Aharonot, 18 January 2002) Indeed, Israel
desperately sought this sanguinary response. Once the Palestinian terrorist attacks
crossed the desired threshold, Sharon was able to declare war and proceed to
annihilate the basically defenseless civilian Palestinian population.
Only the willfully blind can miss noticing that Israel's current invasion of the West
Bank is an exact replay of the June 1982 invasion of Lebanon. To crush the
Palestinians' goal of an independent state alongside Israel - the PLO's "peace
offensive" - Israel laid plans in August 1981 to invade Lebanon. In order to launch
the invasion, however, it needed the green light from the Reagan administration and
a pretext. Much to its chagrin and despite multiple provocations, Israel was unable to
elicit a Palestinian attack on its northern border. It accordingly escalated the air
assaults on southern Lebanon and after a particularly murderous attack that left two
hundred civilians dead (including 60 occupants of a Palestinian children's hospital),
the PLO finally retaliated killing one Israeli. With the pretext in hand and a green
light
now forthcoming from the Reagan administration, Israel invaded. Using the same
slogan of "rooting out Palestinian terror," Israel proceeded to massacre a
defenseless population, killing some 20,000 Palestinians and Lebanese, almost all
civilians.
The problem with the Bush administration, we are repeatedly told, is that it has been
insufficiently engaged with the Middle East, a diplomatic void Colin Powell's mission
is supposed to fill. But who gave the green light for Israel to commit the massacres?
Who supplied the F-16s and Apache helicopters to Israel? Who vetoed the Security
Council resolutions calling for international monitors to supervise the reduction of
violence? And who just blocked the proposal of the United Nation's top human rights
official, Mary Robinson, to merely send a fact-finding team to the Palestinian
territories? (IPS, 3 April 2002)
Consider this scenario. A and B stand accused of murder. The evidence shows that
A provided B with the murder weapon, A gave B the "all-clear" signal, and A
prevented onlookers from answering the victim's screams. Would the verdict be that
A was insufficiently engaged or that A was every bit as guilty as B of murder?
To repress Palestinian resistance, a senior Israeli officer earlier this year urged the
army to "analyze and internalize the lessons of�how the German army fought in the
Warsaw ghetto." (Haaretz, 25 January 2002, 1 February 2002) Judging by the
recent Israeli carnage in the West Bank - the targeting of Palestinian ambulances
and medical personnel, the targeting of journalists, the killing of Palestinian
children
"for sport" (Chris Hedges, New York Times former Cairo bureau chief), the rounding
up, handcuffing and blindfolding of all Palestinian males between the ages 15 and
50, and affixing of numbers on their wrists, the indiscriminate torture of Palestinian
detainees, the denial of food, water, electricity, and medical assistance to the
Palestinian civilian population, the indiscriminate air assaults on Palestinian
neighborhoods, the use of Palestinian civilians as human shields, the bulldozing of
Palestinian homes with the occupants huddled inside - it appears that the Israeli
army is following the officer's advice. Dismissing all criticism as motivated by anti-
Semitism, Elie Wiesel - chief spokesman for the Holocaust Industry - lent
unconditional support to Israel, stressing the "great pain and anguish" endured by its
rampaging army. (Reuters, 11 April; CNN, 14 April)
Meanwhile, the Portuguese Nobel laureate in literature, Jose Saramago, invoked the
"spirit of Auschwitz" in depicting the horrors inflicted by Israel, while a Belgian
parliamentarian avowed that Israel was "making a concentration camp out of the
West Bank." (The Observer, 7 April 2002) Israelis across the political spectrum
recoil in outrage at such comparisons. Yet, if Israelis don't want to stand accused of
being Nazis they should simply stop acting like Nazis.
14 April 2002
End<{{{
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