Israel's "easing fraud"
Back to that old autonomy
By Danny Rubinstein / Haaretz - 10 November 2003
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/358807.html
Palestinian spokesmen are sneering at Israel's announcements that the IDF is easing restrictions in Gaza and the territories. One need only look to the PA's news sheet, Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, from last Friday, where the lead headline on the story about what happened in Gaza and the West Bank a day earlier was, "The easing fraud."
The story read, "A woman who was shot by occupation soldiers bled to death in her home in Nablus, and an engineer was murdered when he drove by the Tul Karm checkpoint, while four people were injured by the bombing of Khan Yunis and 20 others were arrested in the West Bank." The reports have been accompanied daily by pictures of demolished homes, uprooted and burned olive trees, barbed-wire fences and women and children clearly exposed to rifles.
Last weekend, 12 Palestinians were killed, among them activists from Hamas and Islamic Jihad, but also a child from the Balata refugee camp and another from Gaza.
In Ramallah, they warmly welcomed the removal of the Ein Arik checkpoint, which had closed the western exit from the city. This is a significant easing for the city's residents, who are also waiting for the Sorda checkpoint, which is blocking movement north from Ramallah, to fall. But Arafat Khalef, the mayor of Bitoonyah, where the Ein Arik checkpoint is located, said he has experience with these checkpoints. Some months ago, he said, there was talk of easing the closure, and Israeli tractors tore down the checkpoint, but the easing lasted only three or four days.
The Ein Arik checkpoint is one of 163 in the West Bank (according to a Palestinian count), and Palestinian reports on its removal were alongside dozens of reports on how tight the closure is, the curfew, and other restrictions on movement that were imposed once construction of the separation fence started. In other words, not only has it not been made easier for Palestinians to move in the West Bank, but the opposite is actually true - it is harder and harder to go from place to place.
It is actually doubtful if there were ever harsher restrictions on traveling to the Al-Aqsa mosque on Fridays during the month of Ramadan. Every road into East Jerusalem last Friday was blocked with checkpoints and hundreds of police officers and soldiers, if not more. In effect, it made it impossible for anyone from the territories to get to the mosque, even if they had the necessary permits. A Jerusalem police spokesman said some 180,000 people reached the mosque, though Waqf management said the number was much lower and most were Israelis.
The Palestinians are also deriding the number of permits granted to enter Israel to work. According to the Palestinian Labor Ministry, this is misleading, because the figures are still trifling compared to the numbers permitted before the intifada. What really stood out last Saturday was a report that 50-year-old Ibrahim Darduna from Gaza had died in Tel Hashomer hospital after being beaten to death by unknown assailants in his place of work in Petah Tikva.
So where is all this leading? Many years ago, Israeli plans for granting Palestinians autonomy were circulating. The best known of these plans was drafted in 1977 by Menachem Begin after he was elected prime minister. The autonomy plan (for residents, not the territories) led the Israeli government and the military rule in the territories to set up settlements, capturing land and spreading the IDF around. The Palestinians rejected the plans, and every Palestinian mayor resigned in 1981, saying they didn't want to serve as tools of the Israeli occupation.
What is happening now in the territories is more or less the Israeli imposition of such a plan of autonomy. And there is no chance it will last.
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