A familiar ring
THE recent signing of the Israeli-Palestinian agreement, under the auspices of the United States, has created a completely understandable impact in the media. However, upon closer inspection, once removed from the Hollywood fanfare, the accords are less original than they
International Viewpoint #249 October 1993 appear at first glance.
T should first be recalled that this type of settlement resembles former plans, such as the 1982 Reagan plan and, long before it, the plan developed twenty years previous by a segment of the Israeli establishment, including men like Allon and Peres.
This latter plan has been supported by important sections of the army since the beginning of the intifada - those sections who did not want their soldiers getting bogged down in the Gaza Strip in a dead-end situation with dangerous political and moral consequences.!
The accords signed under the auspices of the head of the White House are essentially made up of those points which did not go through earlier on. This has come about as a result, in the first place, of a regional and international evolution of the relationship of forces unfavourable to the Palestinian liberation struggle, particularly since the Gulf War. In the second place, Israeli leaders have a major additional worry: the growing influence of Islamic fundamentalism supported by countries like Iran and Iraq, which could prove to be an even more formidable adversary than the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) ever was.
It was better to deal with a heavily weakened PLO and an Arafat disposed to making major compromises. Along with a few PLO leaders who feared an even worse deterioration of the relationship of forces, Arafat further accelerated matters with the additional fear that control over the Palestinian movement was slipping out of his hands.
The agreement itself has clear and undeniable problems. Israel has recognised the PLO but has made no future commitment to take up the fundamental problems: a full withdrawal from territories occupied in 1967, the dismantling of Zionist settlements, the sovereignty of an eventual Palestinian state, the future of Jerusalem, the return of refugees and so forth.
It only provides for the establishment of zones of "self-government" in a territory which, from an economic point of view, only interests Israel as a source of cheap
- EDITORIAL labour — which it will continue to be able to use, in the same way that it can use the territory as a transit zone for Israeli products destined to Arab countries.
We can add that the Israeli army will continue to control the situation in strategic points in the West Bank and will be able to intervene more directly if, according to the government or the settlers, Israeli interests are threatened. The major advantage for
Israel is that it will no longer have to get bogged down in the Gaza swamp or in the cities and towns of the West Bank.
"Powerful"
The accords give responsibility for the maintenance of "order" over to the PLO, which has to set up a "powerful police force" (it is significant that the word "powerful" figures explicitly in the text). This police force will have to intervene in cases of unwanted mobilisations and actions against an occupation maintained and "redeployed" under the terms of the accord.
In the economic sphere the situation of the future "autonomous" territories is literally dramatic. The perspective of even a minor improvement is linked to the hope for a major influx of international capital. In the euphoria of the Washington celebrity show, we were treated to a flood of stunning promises — how much of this aid will actually materialise is another question altogether, especially given the world economic situation, the indebtedness of the major imperialist countries, and the risks to which private investors would have to expose themselves.
Indeed, the only serious possibility lies in a massive financial intervention of the Arab oil monarchies. They would do this in the hope of stopping the advance of the fundamentalists, by establishing Palestinian bourgeois layers and creating more tolerable conditions for the masses.
The perspective that is taking shape for the moment is that of the emergence of a political entity that would be a neo-colonial mini-state, or a kind of bantustan or miniprotectorate. Moreover, it does not seem likely that genuinely democratic structures will be established in the autonomous territories. One need only look at the traditional functioning of the PLO — whose leadership bodies have never had a genuine democratic legitimacy — and the ultra-bureaucratic way in which the accords have been negotiated and imposed. Unbeknownst to other
PLO leaders and, worse, to the representatives of the Occupied Territories at the
Washington negotiations, there were secret negotiations between the small core of Arafat loyalists and the Rabin-Peres team.
Genuinely democratic structures will only emerge in opposition to the Arafat leadership — linked as it is to the reactionary
Arab regimes and, through the new accords, to the Israeli government and American imperialism.
Neverthless, one question is posed: is it possible that, in spite of the accords and the projects of the Israeli government and Arafat himself, another entirely different dynamic will develop - one which would make the limited autonomy foreseen in the accords the first phase of a process that could radically change the situation?
It goes without saying that everything depends on the eventual development of mass movements, both Palestinian and Israeli. Only powerful mobilisations — with national, democratic and social objectives, and for an equitable and lasting peace between the two peoples, free from all forms of racism and oppression — would be able to break the constraints of the accords and open up new perspectives.
For the moment, we observe that the signing of the accords has had a real impact on broad sectors of the Israeli population, whose attitude towards Zionist ideology might begin to change
We can also imagine that, insofar as the PLO takes on the "normal" functions of a government, the Palestinian struggle will not be limited to the anti-Zionist dimension but will also take on democratic and social
In this edition of IV we have taken the opportunity to publish the views of three experienced Middle East militants. These articles represent an initial step in our analysis of the Oslo agreement, and its future repercussions 1. For further elaboration on these points and on the evolution of the Palestine Liberation Organisation, see the articles from 1989 which appeared in International Viewpoint, No 156 & 157.
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