Israel's sinister attacks on Abbas

There is something very sinister about Israel’s attacks on Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. They bring back memories of the campaign that preceded the demise of the late Yasser Arafat. Egged on by George Bush, Arafat’s nemesis, Ariel Sharon, had decided that the PLO leader was no longer a partner for peace. To all intents and purposes they interned him in his Ramallah compound and the rest is history. Arafat, it now appears, was poisoned to death with polonium.

Israel’s foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman, thus could not have chosen a more solemn occasion to remind the Ramallah authority of their current leader’s possible fate. In a week when there were loud calls for an independent inquiry into Arafat’s death, Lieberman told his Australian counterpart Bob Carr, “There will be neither diplomatic progress nor an accord with the Palestinians as long as Abbas remains in power.”

Lieberman’s remarks drew swift condemnation from the presidential spokesman, Nabil Abu Rudeina, who described them as “dangerous incitement”. He pointed out that what Lieberman said bore a sinister resemblance to those made by Sharon when he openly called for the murder of Arafat.

It is ironic that the same Abbas who is now being so badly maligned was actually the darling of the Americans and Israelis shortly before Arafat was dumped from the political stage. Until then, it seemed they had good reason to patronise him. He had, by his own admission, masterminded the controversial Oslo Accord and signed the Declaration of Principles on behalf of the PLO on the White House lawn on 13 September 1993.

Apart from Lieberman’s veiled threat, there are other disturbing signs that the curtains are about to be drawn on the Abbas era. When US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton decided last month to meet PA Prime Minister Salam Fayad in occupied Jerusalem, instead of making the short journey to Ramallah, it was interpreted widely as a direct snub and warning to Abbas. It was the Americans’ way of communicating their displeasure at his refusal to return to the negotiating table. In the words of the Israelis he, like Arafat before him, had not only become irrelevant but also an ‘obstacle to peace’.

At the heart of this public fall out is Abbas’s insistence that Israel must first stop building settlements in the occupied Palestinian lands before formal negotiations can resume. Back in 1993 when Abbas signed the Oslo accords there were 100,000 Jewish settlers living illegally in the occupied territories; today there are close to 700,000 and that figure is growing at a rate three times faster than the Jewish population in Israel itself. The occupation has now grabbed 62 per cent of the West Bank along with most of its water resources. Palestinians consume just one-fifth as much water as the settlers, far below the World Health Organisation’s recommended daily consumption rate per person.

It goes without saying that the US and Israel have driven Abbas to explore other options. Recently, he announced his intention to go back to the UN to rally support for Palestine’s membership of the world body. His attempt to convene a meeting of Non-Aligned ministers in Ramallah earlier this month was undoubtedly part of this initiative. The meeting was, however, aborted after the Israeli occupation authorities denied entry to the envoys from Indonesia, Cuba, Malaysia and Bangladesh.

Israel’s sabotage of the NAM meeting was a humiliation of the highest order. It was a crude reminder to Abbas that while he may have some limited ‘authority’ over his people, he has absolutely no say about who enters and who leaves the occupied Palestinian territories.

The script is all too familiar. Palestinians would be excused if they conclude that Abbas, like his predecessor, is treated like a basic consumer product. He has past his “use by date” and his fair weather friends are now ready to ditch him.

The tragic reality of all this is that the Palestinian Authority led by Abbas is unable to feed the 2.5 million Palestinians it governs in the West Bank. The only notable exceptions are employees of the security agencies and political hangers-on. Meanwhile, public sector workers are called upon to do without their salaries for months on end, and in some cases are only then paid half their wages. The situation has become so dire that it was left to Stanley Fischer, the Governor of the Bank of Israel, to appeal to the World Bank for an emergency $100 million bailout package for the PA.

Palestinians in the West Bank may not be able or willing to put up with this situation for much longer. Both the Israelis and Americans are acutely aware of this. Their worst fear is a popular eruption the likes of which has been seen in other parts of the Middle East. With almost 700,000 illegal settlers scattered across the West Bank, Israel could ill-afford such a scenario. Hence, it appears that they have decided to change Abbas before he is changed by his own people. How this will be done is still unclear. It could be in the same way as Yasser Arafat or through a sham election to ease in a more compliant puppet. Either way, this would only make matters worse.

What neither the Americans nor the Israelis seem to be capable of grasping is that they cannot manipulate Palestinian politics to suit themselves indefinitely. Sooner or later they are going to have to address the core issue which really is very simple: it’s the occupation, stupid.