By Uri Avnery, 14.10.06
IS IT possible to force
a whole people to submit to foreign occupation by starving it?
That is, certainly, an
interesting question. So interesting, indeed, that the governments of Israel
and the United States, in close cooperation with Europe, are now engaged in a
rigorous scientific experiment in order to obtain a definitive answer.
The laboratory for the
experiment is the Gaza Strip, and the guinea pigs are the million and a quarter
Palestinians living there.
IN ORDER to meet the
required scientific standards, it was necessary first of all to prepare the
laboratory.
That was done in the
following way: First, Ariel Sharon uprooted the Israeli settlements that were
stuck there. After all, you can't conduct a proper experiment with pets roaming
around the laboratory. It was done with "determination and
sensitivity", tears flowed like water, the soldiers kissed and embraced
the evicted settlers, and again it was shown that the Israeli army is the most-most
in the world.
With the laboratory
cleaned, the next phase could begin: all entrances and exits were hermetically
sealed, in order to eliminate disturbing influences from the world outside.
That was done without difficulty. Successive Israeli governments have prevented
the building of a harbor in Gaza, and the Israeli navy sees to it that no ship
approaches the shore. The splendid international airport, built during the Oslo
days, was bombed and shut down. The entire Strip was closed off by a highly
effective fence, and only a few crossings remained, all but one controlled by
the Israeli army.
There remained a sole
connection with the outside world: the Rafah border crossing to Egypt. It could
not just be sealed off, because that would have exposed the Egyptian regime as
a collaborator with Israel. A sophisticated solution was found: to all
appearances the Israeli army left the crossing and turned it over to an
international supervision team. Its members are nice guys, full of good
intentions, but in practice they are totally dependent on the Israeli army,
which oversees the crossing from a nearby control room. The international
supervisors live in an Israeli kibbutz and can reach the crossing only with
Israeli consent.
So everything was ready
for the experiment.
THE SIGNAL for its
beginning was given after the Palestinians had held spotlessly democratic
elections, under the supervision of former President Jimmy Carter. George Bush
was enthusiastic: his vision of bringing democracy to the Middle East was
coming true.
But the Palestinians
flunked the test. Instead of electing "good Arabs", devotees of the
United States, they voted for very bad Arabs, devotees of Allah. Bush felt
insulted. But the Israeli government was ecstatic: after the Hamas victory, the
Americans and Europeans were ready to take part in the experiment. It could
start:
The United States and
the European Union announced the stoppage of all donations to the Palestinian
Authority, since it was "controlled by terrorists". Simultaneously,
the Israeli government cut off the flow of money.
To understand the
significance of this: according to the "Paris Protocol" (the economic
annex of the Oslo agreement) the Palestinian economy is part of the Israeli
customs system. This means that Israel collects the duties for all the goods
that pass through Israel to the Palestinian territories - actually, there is no
other route. After deducting a fat commission, Israel is obligated to turn the
money over to the Palestinian Authority.
When the Israeli
government refuses to pass on this money, which belongs to the Palestinians, it
is, simply put, robbery in broad daylight. But when one robs
"terrorists", who is going to complain?
The Palestinian
Authority - both in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip - needs this money like
air for breathing. This fact also requires some explanation: in the 19 years
when Jordan occupied the West Bank and Egypt the Gaza Strip, from 1948 to 1967,
not a single important factory was built there. The Jordanians wanted all
economic activity to take place in Jordan proper, east of the river, and the
Egyptians neglected the strip altogether.
Then came the Israeli
occupation, and the situation became even worse. The occupied territories
became a captive market for Israeli industry, and the military government
prevented the establishment of any enterprise that could conceivably compete
with an Israeli one.
The Palestinian workers
were compelled to work in Israel for hunger wages (by Israeli standards). From
these, the Israeli government deducted all the social payments levied on
Israeli workers, without the Palestinian workers enjoying any social benefits.
This way the government robbed these exploited workers of tens of billions of
dollars, which disappeared somehow in the bottomless barrel of the government.
When the intifada
broke out, the Israeli captains of industry and agriculture discovered that it
was possible to get along without the Palestinian workers. Indeed, it was even
more profitable. Workers brought in from Thailand, Romania and other poor
countries were ready to work for even lower wages and in conditions bordering
on slavery. The Palestinian workers lost their jobs.
That was the situation
at the beginning of the experiment: the Palestinian infrastructure destroyed,
practically no means of production, no work for the workers. All in all, an
ideal setting for the great "experiment in hunger".
THE IMPLEMENTATION
started, as mentioned, with the stoppage of payments.
The passage between Gaza
and Egypt was closed in practice. Once every few days or weeks it was opened
for some hours, for appearances' sake, so that some of the sick and dead or
dying could get home or reach Egyptian hospitals.
The crossings between
the Strip and Israel were closed "for urgent security reasons". Always,
at the right moment, "warnings of an imminent terrorist attack"
appeared. Palestinian agricultural products destined for export rot at the
crossing. Medicines and foodstuffs cannot get in, except for short periods from
time to time, also for appearances, whenever somebody important abroad voices
some protest. Then comes another "urgent security warning" and the
situation is back to normal.
To round off the
picture, the Israeli Air Force bombed the only power station in the Strip, so
that for a part of the day there is no electricity, and the water supply (which
depends on electric pumps) stops also. Even on the hottest days, with
temperatures of over 30 degrees centigrade in the shade, there is no
electricity for refrigerators, air conditioning, the water supply or other
needs.
In the West Bank, a
territory much larger than the Gaza Strip (which makes up only 6% of the
occupied Palestinian territories but holds 40% of the inhabitants), the
situation is not quite so desperate. But in the Strip, more than half of the
population lives beneath the Palestinian "poverty line", which lies
of course very, very far below the Israeli "poverty line". Many Gaza
residents can only dream of being considered poor in the nearby Israeli town of
Sderot.
What are the governments
of Israel and the US trying to tell the Palestinians? The message is clear: You
will reach the brink of hunger, and even beyond, if you do not surrender. You
must remove the Hamas government and elect candidates approved by Israel and
the US. And, most importantly: you must be satisfied with a Palestinian state
consisting of several enclaves, each of which will be utterly dependent on the
tender mercies of Israel.
AT THE moment, the
directors of the scientific experiment are pondering a puzzling question: how
on earth do the Palestinians still hold out, in spite of everything? According
to all the rules, they should have been broken long ago!
Indeed, there are some
encouraging signs. The general atmosphere of frustration and desperation
creates tension between Hamas and Fatah. Here and there clashes have broken
out, people were killed and wounded, but in each case the deterioration was
halted before it became a civil war. The thousands of hidden Israeli
collaborators are also helping to stir things up. But contrary to all
expectations, the resistance did not evaporate. Even the captured Israeli
soldier has not been released.
One of the explanations
has to do with the structure of Palestinian society. The Hamulah (extended
family) plays a central role there. As long as one person in the family is
working, the relatives, too, do not die of hunger, even if there is widespread
malnutrition. Everyone who has any income shares it with all his brothers and
sisters, parents, grandparents, cousins and their children. That is a primitive
system, but quite effective in such circumstances. It seems that the planners
of the experiment did not take this into account.
In order to quicken the
process, the whole might of the Israeli army is now being used again, as from
this week. For three months the army was busy with the Second Lebanon War. It
became apparent that the army, which for the last 39 years has been employed
mainly as a colonial police force, does not function very well when suddenly
confronted with a trained and armed opponent that can fight back. Hizbullah
used deadly anti-tank weapons against the armored forces, and rockets rained
down on Northern Israel. The army has long ago forgotten how to deal with such
an enemy. And the campaign did not end well.
Now the army returns to
the war it knows. The Palestinians in the Strip do not (yet) have effective
anti-tank weapons, and the Qassam rockets cause only limited damage. The army
can again use tanks against the population without hindrance. The Air Force,
which in Lebanon was afraid to send in helicopters to remove the wounded, can
now fire missiles at the houses of "wanted persons", their families
and neighbors, at leisure. If in the last three months "only" 100
Palestinians were killed per month, we are now witnessing a dramatic rise in
the number of Palestinians killed and wounded.
How can a population
that is hit by hunger, lacking medicaments and equipment for its primitive
hospitals and exposed to attacks on land, from sea and from the air, hold out?
Will it break? Will it go down on its knees and beg for mercy? Or will it find
inhuman strength and stand the test?
In short: What and how
much is needed to get a population to surrender?
All the scientists
taking part in the experiment - Ehud Olmert and Condoleezza Rice, Amir Peretz
and Angela Merkel, Dan Halutz and George Bush, not to mention Nobel Peace Price
laureate Shimon Peres - are bent over the microscopes and waiting for an
answer, which undoubtedly will be an important contribution to political
science.
I hope the Nobel
Committee is watching.