FRFI 215 June/ July 2010

The so-called Proximity Talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority (PA), brokered by the US, started at the beginning of May. They had been postponed from March following Israel’s announcement of plans to build 1,600 new homes for Jewish settlers in East Jerusalem while US Vice-President Biden was visiting the country. BOB SHEPHERD reports.

This time there were no such diplomatic gaffes, although Peace Now, the Israeli peace group, revealed that the construction of 14 housing units in Ma’aleh David, a Jewish settlement in East Jerusalem, had been approved just before the talks got underway.

The open arrogance of the Israelis and their contempt for the Palestinians and the Proximity Talks was apparent in Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s declaration on 12 May (the anniversary of the occupation of East Jerusalem by Israel) that: ‘We will never divide Jerusalem...we will continue to build and draw our strength in Jerusalem, we will continue to plan, develop and create’. On the same day the Israeli Internal Security Minister, Yitzhak Aharonovitich, answering a question in the Israeli Knesset on the demolition of Palestinian homes in East Jerusalem, said, ‘Police are under no instructions to refrain from carrying out the demolitions. They will be carried out in the coming days...there were times when the political echelon thought the timing for implementing the orders was inappropriate because of diplomatic processes. The orders were not cancelled but were delayed.’

The talks themselves are a cynical farce and involve the US mediator George Mitchell travelling between Tel Aviv and Ramallah to hold separate discussions with Abbas and Netanyahu. The talks are supposed to cover all aspects of the Israeli occupation, the right of return of Palestinian refugees and the establishment of a Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital. They have been given a maximum of four months and will then be followed by face-to-face talks. All those involved know that no fundamental agreements will be made; the US’s agenda is to be seen to promote the peace talks as part of its wider imperialist strategy in the Middle East and Central Asia. For Abbas and the PA, the continued delivery of millions of dollars in US ‘aid’ was made conditional on their participation, and they received $150 million once Abbas had agreed. This means the PA has received $650 million from the US over the past three years. As Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum put it, it made the aid no more than a bribe. As the talks got under way the EU weighed in, declaring that their ‘aid programme’, which includes payment of PA salaries and pensions, would be under threat if the talks broke down.

Abbas and his Fatah allies in the PA are up to their necks in corruption and are hand in glove with the Israeli military in attacking and arresting supporters of the Palestinian resistance in the West Bank. Over the past few months many supporters of Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the PFLP have been arrested, imprisoned and tortured by PA militia in the West Bank; amongst them are many students, as Abbas and his cronies clamp down on protest on university campuses.

To reassure Israel the White House announced on 13 May that US President Obama had asked Congress to approve an additional $205 million to continue the development of Israel’s Iron Dome anti-missile system. Congress then voted overwhelmingly, 401-8, in favour of funding the project.  ‘The president recognises the threat missiles and rockets fired by Hamas and Hizbullah pose to Israelis, and has therefore decided to seek funding from Congress to support the production of Israel’s short-range rocket defence system called Iron Dome,’ White House spokesman Tommy Vietor said.

Alongside its ongoing plans for settlement construction and expansion in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, Israel is laying the basis for the ‘legal’ expulsion – ethnic cleansing – of thousands of Palestinians. On 13 April Israel enacted two new military orders, Orders 1649 and 1650, which could enable it to deport thousands of Palestinians from the West Bank and East Jerusalem. The Orders expand the definition of an ‘infiltrator’ from someone entering Israel from an ‘enemy’ state to just about any Palestinian living in the West Bank without unspecified Israeli permission. According to the Gisha Centre for Freedom of Movement, one of a number of Israeli human rights organisations that are challenging the Orders, they will most likely be directed against three main groups: Palestinian residents who hold Palestinian ID cards with Gaza addresses, persons ‘without status’ (mainly spouses of Palestinians living in the occupied West Bank) and non-Israeli foreign nationals working or living there. The Palestinian Office of Civilian Affairs in Ramallah estimates that there are approximately 25,000 people with registered Gaza addresses living in the West Bank.

Israel began to prohibit Palestinians with Gaza addresses on their IDs from being in the occupied West Bank back in 2003, even if they had been resident for many years. Since the new Orders were enacted, the number of deportations from the West Bank has increased. One victim has been Hamas Palestinian Legislative Council member Abu Tier, who was deported from East Jerusalem on 23 May 2010. The Orders have not interrupted Abbas’ talks: money speaks much louder than the fate of ordinary Palestinians.

STOP PRESS

ISRAELI ATTACK ON AID CONVOY

The murderous assault by Israeli commandos on the Gaza aid convoy on 31 May is the latest act of a fascist, barbaric Zionist state. The convoy was carrying humanitarian aid to the Gazan people kept on the verge of starvation by Israel’s continuing blockade. The fact that Israeli forces attacked the ships 40 miles out to sea shows Israel's utter contempt for international law. Their claim that they were fired upon first will be proven a complete fiction to justify acts of cold-blooded murder.

Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! urges its readers to join protests against this massacre as they are organised.

Free Palestine! Isolate the

Zionist state! Sanctions now!