H OWEVER, for those who do not take their dreams for reality, neither the position of the Israeli peace camp in relation to this war, nor the position of the Palestinian nationalists, nor the divorce which has resulted from these contradictory positions, should be surprising.
There was absolutely no reason for the Palestinians of the occupied territories not to align themselves with Iraq in its conflict with the imperialist states and their regional allies; Arab solidarity, the Arab nationalist discourse of Saddam, the disgust provoked by the opulence of the ruling caste in Kuwait and its contempt for the Palestinians, the hypocrisy of the US administration in its role as self-appointed arbiter in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and above all the menace — real or imaginary — that Iraq represented to the state of Israel - there are more than enough reasons to explain the popular support for Iraq in the occupied territories.
As far as the militant nationalists are concerned it is necessary to add the anti-imperialist sentiment which remains alive, despite the efforts of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) over the past few years to normalize its relations with Washington and the European capitals.
### Scuds welcomed
When the Palestinians of the occupied territories got up on their roofs, despite the curfew, to applaud the Scuds directed at Tel Aviv, they expressed a real joy at seeing their enemy on the receiving end for once, knowing what it was to experience fear, what it meant to be enclosed in a house, to not be able to send their children to school, to see their houses destroyed. Because if the Israelis had a small taste of such inconveniences, they 6 have been the dar Israead of the Pales tor- • have been the daily bread of the Palestinians living under Israeli occupation, for International Viewpoint #203 • April 1, 1991 the past three years if not for longer.
The Israelis for their part did not wait for the missiles to fall on Tel Aviv to line up behind one of the two camps facing each other in the sands of the Arabian peninsula; the national unity that had been breached by the Palestinian uprising reconstituted itself behind Shamir and Bush.
The national consensus
The left returned within its walls, the peace movement disappeared. In September, the militants of the Revolutionary Communist League (RCL — section of the Fourth International in the Israeli state) published an "Open letter to a friend on the Zionist left" where they explained the motivations and the limits of the Zionist left and thus the majority of those in the Israeli peace camp:
"The crisis in the Arabian-Persian Gulf was, for the political-military establishment and the right in Israel, like a gift from heaven. On the surface, the crisis took attention off the intifada, postponed possible international pressures, and most importantly, put the topic of war back on the table — a topic which is the object of the secret, and sometimes open longing of the majority of the Israeli establishment.
"But also for you, and for many of your friends, the possible war aroused a new pleasure which you are not ready to admit, even to yourself. But the fact is, you do love wars — "unavoidable wars", of course. You love the uniform, you love the call-ups and operational preparations, you love the uplifting feeling in Israeli society when the fragrance of gun-powder rises to the nostrils. And, more than anything, you love the feeling of national fraternity which characterizes the period of preparation for war.
"You had already taken your decision before the Gulf crisis. You wanted somehas, sadly, allowed things to be clarified. MICHEL WARSHAWSKY thing to happen so that you could return to the warm embrace of the consensus and feel anguish. Once again, "shooting and crying"
"Indeed, in the Gulf war you saw to it that your truth will not only be done, but will be seen to be done; you took part in the racist and insane choir chanting "the Iraqi Hitler"; you couldn't even find it in your heart to reveal even a criticism of the hypocrisy of the American goverment, which, only a year ago, itself occupied a sovereign state in Central America, or of the cynicism of the heads of the State of Israel."
### Patriotic ex-pacifists
In an interview given to the French weekly Politis, the deputy of the Civic Rights Movement - and reserve colonel - Ran Cohen, summed up this attitude; "We are not pacifists, we are patriots and soldiers; it is as such that we choose our camp, not in accordance with abstract philosophical criteria" . And in concrete terms, the Israeli "pacifists" have certainly chosen their camp in the course of this war; left writer A.B. Yehoshua called for the use of the atomic bomb against Iraq, another writer, Dan Meron, denounced Shamir for not having used the army, Yael Dayan opposed the petition of the Womens' Movement for Peace demanding the distribution of gas masks to the inhabitants of the occupied territories, Yossi Sarid applauded the arrest of Professor Sari Nusseibeh and has used the most abusive terms to signal to the Palestinian leaders that he has more important things to do than conduct a dialogue with
such fanatics.
The war has put back on the agenda the concept of transfer, that is the mass deportation of the Palestinians. This constitutive element of Zionist policy has always existed in the plans of the leaders of the Israeli state, although it had become clear from the beginning of the 1970s that a "cold transfer" was no longer a realistic option. Only a war could furnish both the pretext and the smokescreen necessary to the realization of this crime.
The prospect of war in the region has furnished the occasion to bring the old plans out of their drawers, excite the imagination of Israeli progressives and provoke panic amongst Palestinians.
The Revolutionary Communist League has been the only organization to warn against a catastrophism which would concentrate attention on a single possibility — the most extreme — and neglect what was more probable, namely the exploitation of the war to terrorize the population of the occupied territories, change the relationship of forces with the Palestinian national liberation movement and attempt to crush the intifada. And this is exactly what has happened.
Palestinian economy hit
Over a period of more than a month and a half the population of the occupied territories has experienced the toughest and longest curfew since the beginning of the occupation. Beyond the individual repression and the hunger, the deaths, the wounded, the destroyed houses and the innumerable annoyances, it is the Palestinian economy in its entirety which has been hit, especially in agriculture. In the longer term, the curfew has been the opportunity to implement the policy of "separation" advocated for several months by Defence Minister Moshe Arens and by a part of the Zionist left. This policy signifies, in practice, cutting a great part of the Palestinians off from their sources of income in Israel, and their replacement by Jewish workers -Soviet immigrants in particular — or even foreigners.
Even after the protests of the entrepreneurs and agricultural proprietors, the number of Arab workers who have regained their jobs is estimated at 35% at the maximum. Exactly as in South Africa, a policy of "pass laws" has been introduced, forbidding the majority of Palestinians not only from entering Israeli territory, but even from leaving the region in which they are registered. It amounts to a structural change in the nature of the occupation, which under the appearance of a so-called separation of Israelis and Palestinians, encloses the Palestinian population, and them alone, in ghetto regions, zones of residence, Bantustans. If one adds to this the massive dismissals, it is possible to grasp the extent of the deterioration of the living conditions of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians.
And yet the Israeli left has not flinched. With the exception of a campaign against the curfew and the hunger and some food convoys for the refugee camps organized by a group of progressive rabbis and militant anti-Zionists, among them the RCL, no expression of solidarity, no act of protest. It is easy to understand the disappointment and the anger of Palestinian militants, in particular those at the forefront of the Israeli-Palestinian dialogue.
"That they are against Iraq is understandable; that they venerate the Americans, we are used to it, but that they have not a word for the defence of our rights as human beings. No, decidedly, this Israeli left has nothing in common with what is called the left in other countries. These people are not even liberals....." Mary Khas, a well known leader in the Gaza Strip, a former member of the Israeli Communist Party before she decided, before 1967, to leave Israel for Gaza, said to me with unaffected anger.
This woman who has on several occasions guided Yossi Sarid and the other Zionist left leaders through . the refugee camps, who at the beginning of the intifada had visited the Israeli schools, the youth movements, the conferences and the other places of Israeli-Palestinian dialogue no longer wishes to hear of it, and she is far from being alone. When I reminded her that Yossi Sarid had also told his Palestinian interlocutors no longer to telephone him, she replied "so much the better. We no longer have anything to say to each other"
### Dialogue continues
Yet there remain, on the two sides of the demarcation line, leaders who do not despair of dialogue. Faisal Husseini, the most prominent Palestinian leader in the occupied territories:
"It is going to be necessary to renew the dialogue, and it will renew itself. There have been some misunderstandings, but it is us, and us alone, that is the Palestinians and the Israeli peace movement, who can unblock the situation and move forward to a peaceful solution" And, in echo, deputy Ran Cohen; "I do not agree with Yossi Sarid when he says it is not worth telephoning me'. Whether you like it or not, it is necessary to renew the Israeli-Palestinian dialogue, including with the PLO if that is what the Palestinians want"
The problem is that the leaders have lost much of their credibility, and if on the Israeli side a part of the peace camp has chosen to follow Yossi Sarid in his policy of "war now" , amongst the Pales-
CHON ISRAEL tinians, the intransigent line of the Islamic fundamentalist Hamas movement is gaining popularity.
Ran Cohen and Faisal Husseini also have a similar view of what is going to happen now that the Gulf War is over. "The Americans will, in the context of the new order, force the hand of the government and oblige it to negotiate with the Palestinians. Including, if there is no other choice, with the PLO. Certainly, it will be slower than six months ago, with very many intermediary stages before the formation of a Palestinian state and more guarantees" says Cohen, and Husseini confirms it; "The merit of Saddam is to have put the Palestinian question on the agenda, and taken it out of the rut where the Shamir government had stuck it. It could be necessary to pass through stages, but eventually, the negotiations that the Americans are going to initiate will lead to the Palestinian state". It is in this belief that the Palestinian leader agreed to meet the US secretary of state during his visit to Jerusalem, and this despite the firm opposition of currents close to the PFLP and DFLP (Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine — the two leading components of the left within the PLO), which have distributed leaflets in the occupicd territories threatening reprisals against anyone who meets a representative of the US administration while this latter refuses to recognize the PLO as the sole representative of the Palestinian people.
Obviously, the problem is to know to what extent the US is really interested in forcing Shamir's hand. That the Israeli left believes this is hardly astonishing; for it, Washington is the guarantor, not only of order - and they revere order - but also of law and of justice. The Palestinian leaders, on the contrary, have a rich experience of "US peace plans" which have remained dead letters, leaving the Israeli leaders a free hand to continue the occupation and the dispossession of the Palestinian people. Left journalist Uri Avneri is one of the rare Israelis who has no illusions:
"Washington statesmen might decide that, for the sake of maintaining a continuing US presence in the region, it would be better that the Israeli-Arab conflict not disappear, but be kept simmering over a low flame. The existence of a strong and frightening Israel certainly increases the dependency of the Arab states on America. Every beginner in Washington understands that there will be no true peace without the establishment of a Palestinian state alongside Israel. To that end it is necessary to involve the PLO in the pro- 7 cess. But the Gulf War supplied a wonApril 1, 1991 • #203 International Viewpoint
ISRAEL / JORDAN derful excuse for avoiding this. On the other hand, Baker could attempt to achieve a sort of Camp David 2 between Israel and Syria, thereby also binding Damascus conclusively to the American sphere of influence. Shamir can return the Golan just as Begin returned the Sinai. According to the Irgun map, "Only Thus". neither of them is part of the land of Israel.
"This will not bring about peace. The open sore of the Palestinian tragedy will continue to secrete pus and to poison the whole region. Within a few years the seed of calamity sown by the Gulf war will germinate and a new Arab generation will emerge." (Ha' aretz, March 6, 1991).
### Dismantling the bomb
But even assuming that President Bush has indeed decided to dismantle the Palestinian bomb, it remains unknown to what extent a formula can be worked out which will satisfy at the same time the Palestinian minimum and the Israeli maximum.
For Shamir and his government, it is "no to the PLO, no to a Palestinian state", the best that can be negotiated would be the best that can be negotiated would be some form of autonomy, and the negotiations will be with the leaders in the occupied territories. Husseini: "We are a people, that is why one does not negotiate with a self-styled local leadership, but with our national leadership, that is the PLO. And a people has a right to self-determination, that is a state. These two elements are not negotiable"
The militants of the Palestinian left in the occupied territories are less categorical. One among them told us: "In the PLO there are some currents ready to play the game of autonomy, as a provisional solution obviously, and who would not hesitate to give the green light to local notables, more or less influenced by the nationalist right, to negotiate in the name of the PLO".
In the last analysis what will determine the next stages, including the limits of the compromise realizable by the PLO and the diverse currents of the Palestinian national movement, will be the capacity for struggle of the Palestinians, in the occupied territories, but also in Jordan, in Lebanon and throughout the Arab region. Indeed on this plane, the perspectives are clear; the intifada continues, and is likely to become even more radical, if only because of the dramatic economic situation in which the inhabitants of the occupied territories are living, a situation which, as a renowned orientalist recently explained "creates an atmosphere reminiscent of 1987, when the feeling of impasse and no longer having anything to lose made the intifada explode and reduced to dust the status quo and the 8 analyses of the experts and the politicians". International Viewpoint #203 • April 1, 1991