[Mb-civic] Sharon Aide Says U.S.-Backed Settlement Policy Designed to Freeze Peace Process

[Michael Butler]

Sharon Aide Says U.S.-Backed Settlement Policy Designed to Freeze Peace
Process

Friday, October 8th, 2004
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=04/10/08/1530244

As three back-to-back Sinai bombings kill dozens in a resort on the
Egyptian-Israeli border we speak with leading Middle East experts Tanya
Reinhart and Naseer Aruri about the attack, the recent Israeli offensive in
Gaza and the collapse of the "peace process." [includes rush transcript]

 Three back-to-back bombings yesterday rocked Egyptian resorts where
Israelis were vacationing during Jewish holidays, killing at least 22 people
and wounding more than 120 others. Some estimates put the death toll over
30.

 The most powerful explosion ripped through the 400-room Hilton Hotel at
Taba, a Red Sea resort just across Egypt's border with Israel.

 Israeli police sources said the blast was the work of a truck bomb that
crashed into the hotel lobby. A possible second blast was believed triggered
by a suicide bomber around the pool area. At least 39 people are missing in
the rubble and officials fear the death toll will rise. Most of the
casualties appear to be Egyptians and Israelis.

 About two hours after the attack, two other bombs went off in nearby
camping areas in Ras al Sultan and the village of Tarabeen near Nuweibi
killing at least 2 and wounding 43 others.

 The only claim of responsibility came from a previously unheard of group:
the Islamic Tawhid Brigades. Israel's Deputy Defense Minister said the
attacks bear the hallmarks of al Qaeda.

 Israeli security agencies had warned travelers against visiting Egyptian
resorts on the Red Sea following warnings of a possible attack. The
Israeli-built Taba Hilton was the scene of failed Israeli-Palestinian peace
talks in January 2001. Thousands of Israelis returned home from Sinai all
night Thursday. At the time of the attacks, there were approximately 15,000
Israelis in Sinai.

 Meanwhile, an Israeli missile strike killed two Palestinian teenagers in
the Jabalya refugee camp in the Gaza strip yesterday. The teenagers were
playing with a tube and a gasoline-filled bottle in imitation of militants
firing rockets at Israel. They were the latest youths to die in the Israeli
campaign in northern Gaza labeled "Operation Days of Penitence" which has
left more than 80 Palestinians dead. The past week has marked one of the
deadliest periods for Palestinians since the Intifada began four years ago.

 The latest deaths come a day after Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's
chief aide publicly claimed that Israel's plan to withdraw settlers from the
Gaza strip while expanding settlements on the West Bank was designed to
freeze the peace process and permanently prevent the establishment of a
Palestinian state.

 The aide, Dov Weisglass, said "When you freeze that process, you prevent
the establishment of a Palestinian state, and you prevent a discussion on
the refugees, the borders and Jerusalem." Weisglass also said the White
House backs this new policy.

 The remarks caused a political storm in Israel forcing Sharon to claimed he
still backs the U.S.-led road map which calls for a Palestinian state.

    €      Tanya Reinhart, professor of linguistics and cultural studies at
Tel Aviv University and at the University of Utrecht. She is the author of
"Israel/ Palestine: How to End the War of 1948" (Seven Stories) and is a
columnist at Israel's largest daily, Yediot Aharonot.
    €      Naseer Aruri, Professor Emeritus of Political Science at the
University of Massachusetts. He is author of the book "Dishonest broker:
America's Role in Israel and Palestine" (South End)
    €      Chris McGreal, reporter for the London Guardian.
RUSH TRANSCRIPT 

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AMY GOODMAN: We're joined by two guests. Tanya Reinhardt is with us,
Professor of Linguistics and Cultural Studies at Tel Aviv University and the
University of Utrecht in Holland. She¹s the author of the book
Israel/Palestine: How to End the War of 1948. She is also a columnist with
the Israeli newspaper, the largest daily, Yediot Ahranot. We're also joined
by Naseer Aruri. He is Professor Emeritus of Political Science at the
University of Massachusetts, author of the book Dishonest Broker: America's
Role in Israel and Palestine. And thank you very much both for coming in.
The situation is very grave. Naseer Aruri, your assessment at this point. We
see both what's happened at Taba and also the latest in Gaza.

 NASEER ARURI: Well, I think what's been happening in Gaza over the past
seven days is really much worse than what happened in Jenin in 2002, when
there was an international outcry after Israeli forces went against the camp
in Jenin and against most of the cities that were designated by Oslo as
³Area A,² meaning that they are under the authority of the Palestine
authority. This whole thing, I think, underscores the fact that there's been
a need, really, for a peace process and now the self-designated peace maker
is really on record as of 14 April, when Bush and Sharon met and discussed
the so-called disengagement plan. I think that the U.S. now is on record,
stating that -- they're really implying, I should say, that there is no need
for a peace process. It's been suspended. I think there was an agreement, I
think, in the American body politic last year that the matter should not be
discussed. I remember when Nancy Pelosi introduced a resolution saying that
we need not discuss the issue in the presidential campaign. So, there seems
to be a consensus, really, among the Sharon and the Bush people that there
is no need for the peace process and now we have it from Dov Weisglass, the
chief of staff for Mr. Sharon, saying what we have known right along. So if
this really shows anything, I think it underscores the need for negotiations
and I know it is unrealistic to expect these negotiations to be held under
international auspices, but nevertheless, I think that should be the only
way, because the U.S. had 37 1/2 years to deliver and it has not delivered
and now it is saying clearly that we may not really need to do that, let
Sharon do what he wants.

 JUAN GONZALEZ: Yet at the same time, the continuing war in Iraq, obviously,
is obscuring, at least in the United States, any sort of attention to the
continuing crisis in the Middle East. In Palestine, it is fueling really a
lot of the resentment throughout the Arab world. How do you see the ability
of the American people even to hold their own leaders accountable for the
failures in terms of Palestine and Israel?

 NASEER ARURI: Well, there seems to be no attempt, really, on the part of
the American people to hold their leaders accountable. The two issues in
Iraq and Palestine are connected. I think they really are parallel colonial
situations, whereby in Iraq it is oil, that kind of imperial -- that kind
of, you know, colonial policy, and with regard to Israel, it's colonial
settler, colonialism. There really seems to be no attempt to hold the
leaders accountable. That applies to both the Democratic Party and the
Republican Party. The two parties seem to have a consensus that we need not
really discuss this issue anymore.

 AMY GOODMAN: Tanya Reinhardt, the name of your book is Israel/Palestine:
How to End the War of 1948. What do you mean by this, and how do you end it?

 TANYA REINHARDT: Since 1967, Israel has been holding, occupying the
Palestinian territories, and the political elites in Israel have been driven
by the question how to maintain as much of the Palestinian land with minimum
of the Palestinians. And there has been one model in the history of Israel,
and that is the model of the 1948 War of Israeli Independence, the
Palestinians¹ nachba, and in that process, about half of the Palestinian
residents of Israel were expelled out of the country and isolated. And the
question seems has been how can the territories being maintained when one of
the polls, which is now the poll that dominates Israel, believes that it is
possible to repeat the 1948 solution and drive as many of the Palestinians
now occupied out of the country. So, this is the policy of Sharon and
actually of Barak, as well. And the question that I'm raising is, is it the
only way? And what I believe, like many Israelis, is that the way is to
start a new page, to get out of the occupied territories and to live side by
side with the Palestinians.

 AMY GOODMAN: What level, I should say, spectrum of debate is allowed in the
Israeli press? You're a columnist with Yediot Ahranot, the largest Israeli
daily. How does it compare to the United States, where there's very little
spectrum in mainstream media when it comes to Israel and Palestine?

 TANYA REINHARDT: On the one hand, in this area of op-eds and opinions,
there is probably more, slightly more freedom in Israel. You get a bit more
plurality in Israeli media than you would get here. But the crucial point in
my mind is not the opinion in columns, but the presentation of reality, the
news pages. And on this, you don't have any pluralism. The situation is
presented completely from the perspective of the Israeli government,
including the presentation of the Gaza peace plan as a plan ­ so for
example, very few people know that the Israeli government never has decided
of any evacuation of settlements in Gaza. It is a big faith that Sharon
intends to evacuate settlements, but no such decision ever took place. The
only decision in June in the Israeli government is to discuss the matter
again by March of next year. And still the whole media, Israeli media, like
the media in the world, is now depicting Sharon as this messenger of peace
because he has declared that he is willing to evacuate the territories, and
Sharon now is viewed as the center, the center of sanity with attacks on the
left from the whatever, but especially from the right, of the settlers that
don't want to be evacuated, and Israel is finally led by a man of peace,
respectable will, peaceful intentions. And as long as this is the
perspective, he can do whatever he wants in Gaza. He can do just the most
horrible things and it's true that the present actions of Israel in Gaza are
getting much less attention than what happened in Jenin.

 JUAN GONZALEZ: Well, we were confronted in the past two weeks, we've had
two presidential -- two debates now, presidential debate and a
vice-presidential debate, both supposedly geared especially toward foreign
policy. We had the remarkable reality, a 90-minute presidential debate on
foreign policy during which not one question was asked of the candidates
about the Israeli-Palestinian situation. And only one question was asked of
the vice-presidential candidates about the situation. So, we have the press
here totally ignoring perhaps the biggest issue in the Arab world when
dealing with foreign policy. And so I think we're a little bit -- we have
got a bigger problem, much bigger problem here than even in Israel.

 TANYA REINHARDT: Yeah. Well, the biggest problem, of course, is both
candidates fully back Israel. The democrats are never different on that
issue than the republicans. So, none of what Israel has been doing would
have been possible without the stable and constant U.S. support. So, it's
been an axiom in U.S. politics that you don't touch Israel. Or if you do,
you only can mention Israel's right to exist, but not the Palestinian's
right to exist. So, although this is not a change, Israeli policy has
changed. So we're not now talking just about supporting the occupation, but
supporting the atrocities, the daily killing of Palestinians and since the
situation has changed, it would be appropriate to hear more of the
democratic candidates also criticizing Israel.

 AMY GOODMAN: I want to end on the issue of the Taba bombing. We don't
really know exactly who's responsible for it. If al Qaeda is responsible for
this attack, how does that change the Israeli-Palestinian situation, Naseer
Aruri? Or does it at all?

 NASEER ARURI: Well, I think it is going to be assumed that al Qaeda was
responsible for it, whether that can be demonstrated or not, just like it
was assumed that somehow we needed to go to Iraq and so on. So, I think that
the general public is going to factor that in. So, given that, it seems to
me that the Arab-Israeli question, or I should say the Palestine-Israel
question, is going to assume larger dimensions. It is going to be seen no
longer as an occupier and an occupant that a problem that can be dealt with,
you know, in a peace process, whether under U.S. auspices or international
auspices, but it¹s going to begin to assume, perhaps, religious dimensions,
which is going to make the conflict really more dangerous and less
predictable.

 AMY GOODMAN: We do have a report from Taba right now. We just got through
to Donald McIntyre, who is a journalist with the London Independent.
Welcome. Actually, it looks like we just got Chris McGreal, who is a
journalist with The Guardian of London in Taba. Welcome to Democracy Now!

 CHRIS McGREAL: Hello, but actually I'm not in Taba, I'm in Israel. I'm
actually in Gaza. So, but anyway.

 AMY GOODMAN: Can you tell us what you know at this point and what kind of
reaction there is there in Gaza?

 CHRIS McGREAL: Well, we know that there's about 27 people dead, Egyptians
and Israelis. Probably a bit more people than that. Some people are missing,
presumed buried under the rubble. The Israeli authorities are saying now
that they think that this is probably the work of a group associated with al
Qaeda because of the scale of the bombing, the way it was organized. It's
similar to an attack on an Israeli-owned hotel in Mombassa and to a
synagogue in Tunisia in which 21 people were killed. So their attention
right now has shifted away from any kind of Palestinian responsibility
toward al Qaeda or groups associated to it.

 AMY GOODMAN: And the reaction there?

 CHRIS McGREAL: Well, in Israel, the reaction is principally one of
resignation, I think. People are horrified, but not surprised, in the sense
that Israeli targets abroad, Israeli tourists have been targeted before. In
Gaza, there was very muted reaction. Hamas pretty swiftly said it wasn't
responsible and interestingly on the streets of Gaza City, where as in the
past when there's been the killings of significant numbers of, say, Israeli
soldiers, the mosques tend to announce it and there tends to be a certain
amount of celebration. That hadn¹t happened at all on this occasion. So,
it's been rather muted within the Palestinian territories, and there has
been quite stringent denials of any Palestinian responsibility from all
kinds of levels of Palestinian society.

 AMY GOODMAN: Chris McGreal, thanks for joining us. Chris McGreal from the
London  Guardian. Also we want to thank Tanya Reinhardt, author of
Israel/Palestinian: How to End the War of 1948, and Naseer Aruri, Professor
Emeritus of Political Science, University of Massachusetts. His book is
called Dishonest Broker: America¹s Role in Israel and Palestine. This is
Democracy Now!

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