, written and oral, allow Israeli sol- 31
True and false naïvity
International Viewpoint #255 April 1994
THE massacre perpetrated at Hebron on 25 February by Zionist settler, Baruch Goldstein, has provoked tremendous discomfort in the ranks of Palestinians who supported the Accords signed in Washington on 13 September 1993. SALAH JABER - 28 March 1994
Interviewed on Cable Network News (CNN), a few days after the massacre, Faisal al-Husseini — a Palestinian notable from Jerusalem, heir of a well-known aristocratic family, and an official representative of Yasser Arafat in the Occupied Territories — declared in a falsely naive tone that "life has introduced a new factor into the situation." He said that it was necessary to settle the question of the Zionist settlements before the peace process could proceed any further.
Did it really require the criminal act of a far-right Zionist fanatic to "introduce" the need to deal with a question as flagrant as that of the Zionist settlements in the Palestinian territories occupied in 1967?
### Future negotiations
The question was actually addressed in the Washington accords. They stipulated that the settlements would be the object of future negotiations, at the very latest by the end of the three year period which is supposed to be inaugurated by the partial withdrawal of the Israeli army from the Gaza strip and Jericho. In the meantime, the "Palestinian authority" has no right of observation over these settlements. As such, the accords are meant to set up a Palestinian administration that controls Palestinians in the Occupied Territories with the help of a "powerful police force" working in tandem with the Israeli army of occupation. This, it was said, would need to take place before any negotiations began on the status of Zionist settlements and the presence of the occupying army.
In such conditions, the Palestinian opposition argued, these agreements could only lead to the setting up of Ban32
### PALESTINE tustans in which the Palestinian police would be given the responsibility of putting down the struggles of those who fight for the dismantling of the settlements and the total withdrawal of the occupation force. Not even Bantustans, an Israeli leader cynically added, because that would mean an "independent
, whereas even this has been denied to the Palestinian "authority" in
So, better late than never? Has the PLO leadership discovered in good time that it is necessary to "settle" the problem of the colonies before going ahead with its co-operation with the army of occupation? One would really have to be naïve to believe so. For anyone who thought that the Arafat leadership was finally going to demand the dismantling of the settlements, Faisal al-Husseini insisted in the CNN interview that he merely wanted "protection of the settlements to be the task of the Israeli army alone" and not of the settlers themselves). From Tunis, Arafat added that it was imperative that international observers be sent to the Territories, in accordance with the 13 September accords.
It is difficult to determine which is greater, the PLO leadership's bureaucratic corruption or its political capitulation to the enemies of its people. On the eve of the Hebron massacre, this leadership reached an agreement with Rabin-Peres on Israeli withdrawal from Gaza which allowed not only for the continuation of Zionist settlements and farming operations in this territory but also for the continued presence of the occupying army in order to protect them.
### Symbol
This same leadership also acquiesced to Israeli control over the access route to the land under its "authority" from Jordan — a symbol if ever there was one of the status of concentration camps with an internal police that the Zionist government has reserved for the territories from which it is partially withdrawing its army.
The Arafat leadership has just provided proof, if one was necessary, that those who are counting on a "dynamic" that would lead it to "surpass" - in the direction of Palestinian national rights
- the framework of the accords signed with Rabin, Peres and Clinton, are entertaining illusions.
As a matter of fact, the majority of the inhabitants of the territories occupied in 1967 had a profusion of illusions after the signing of the accords. Arafat - a smooth talker as always — promised them that they were an immediate prelude to an "independent and sovereign State". He guaranteed them a shining future, with dollars abundantly flowing in under the supervision of the World Bank. In short, paradise in the shadow of Pax Americana.
Should one have been surprised by the naivety of the gullible or, worse, base oneself on it in order to continue supporting the Arafat leadership? Had people forgotten the huge illusions of the Egyptian masses that triumphantly greeted Sadat when he returned from his "peace initiatives" - and then shed not a single tear of remorse when the same Sadat was assassinated by fundamentalists?
### Exile
Even still, that meant ignoring the great majority of Palestinians living in the exile camps who, from the beginning and with good reason, felt betrayed by the PLO leadership. Today, it is in the Occupied Territories themselves that Arafat's popularity and credibility rating is in a free fall. Actually this rating has not stopped its fall since the first snags that followed the signing of the accords.
Recently, Faisal al-Husseini was heckled by the inhabitants of Hebron, while portraits of Arafat were burned, for the first time, at demonstrations inside the Occupied Territories.
In the 14 March edtion of Newsweek magazine Yasser Arafat was asked, "You seem powerless. What can you do?" Arafat replied, "It is enough for me to go to the streets and to speak frankly to the Arab people, to the Islamic people, to the Palestinians everywhere, that I have been deceived. It is enough. And see what will happen." The fine confession of a charlatan who knows he is not telling the truth and - like his predecessor Sadat - still entertains great illusions regarding the affection which the people hold for him. *