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What
Peace Process?
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The
funeral of Noran Iyad Deeb, 10, in Rafah refugee camp. Noran
was killed by Israeli army gunfire in a schoolyard in the
southern Gaza strip Monday, January 31, 2005 (Reuters
photo).
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How
strange it is for people in the Gaza Strip to see Israeli Prime
Minister Ariel Sharon hailed by the international media as a man of
peace! In the last two weeks, his soldiers shot and killed
10-year-old Noran Iyad Deeb as she lined up for class in the fenced
schoolyard of an UNRWA school in Rafah; a few days before, an
elderly man was killed by Israeli soldiers in a Rafah border
neighborhood; a day earlier, Israeli snipers shot and paralyzed a
young man in Gaza City. And while all this is happening in Gaza,
Sharon shakes hands with visiting diplomats, smiles, and makes
hopeful statements about the peace process—statements that get
duly reported in the media and acclaimed by the world.
Peace
process! The words are tainted with irony for the people of Rafah.
How, where, and when will this elusive peace come about? Who will
create it? Can we look to Ariel Sharon for peace? The same man who
has been giving orders to his army to shoot at random into civilian
neighborhoods; target children in their houses, classrooms, and
playgrounds; demolish houses by the hundreds; block roads; and
destroy fields, farms, olive and citrus groves, as well as
electricity and sewer and water systems. How exactly, people ask
here, can this be considered peace? The people of Rafah can perhaps
be forgiven if they are less than optimistic about the landmark
meeting between President Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Sharon in
Egypt on Tuesday, February 8.
Can
we look to Ariel Sharon for peace? |
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It
has many echoes of Abbas’s brief, unhappy tenure as Prime
Minister, when he smiled for the cameras, met Sharon and Bush, and
everyone spoke of “progress,” then nothing changed.
Nonetheless,
senior Palestinian and Israeli officials met last Thursday to lay
the groundwork for Tuesday’s landmark Middle East summit. The
summit meeting itself was largely ceremonial; the agreements had
already been hammered out privately before Abbas and Sharon met at
the Egyptian resort of Sharm El-Sheikh. The Palestinian negotiating
team was headed by Saeb Erekat, who met with Sharon’s top
advisors. Before the actual meeting, highly-placed Israeli officials
stated on condition of anonymity that the two heads of state would
declare an official cease-fire, that is, cessation of both Israeli
military operations and Palestinian resistance.
Actually,
President Abbas, in the few weeks since his election, had already
persuaded the resistance factions to observe a “cooling down”
period, although there has been little reciprocity from the Israeli
forces. Further, he deployed 4000 members of the Palestinian
Security Forces throughout Gaza to prevent militant rocket attacks
on the Gaza settlements and Israeli towns in the Negev, close to
Gaza.
The
summit is, so far, the clearest sign of tangible progress in the
peace process, which had completely stalled since the September
2000 outbreak of the Palestinian Intifada. From his election in
February 2001, Sharon completely refused contact with
then-Palestinian President Yasser Arafat, until, under heavy
international pressure, Arafat appointed Mahmoud Abbas as his Prime
Minister. Despite some pleasant photo ops and a meeting with US
President Bush, Abbas resigned after three months, having
accomplished virtually nothing.
Matters
were further inflamed when Israel started a program of
“extrajudicial assassinations” of Hamas leaders, and violence
continued unabated through the death of Arafat in November of 2004.
Abbas, elected to the presidency last month with a large majority,
reached out to the militant factions during his campaign, both in
his public appearances and private meetings. Although he has
declared that he believes continued violence to be counterproductive
to long-term Palestinian interests, he has refused—to the
consternation of hard-line factions in the Israeli government—to
launch an all-out crackdown on the armed resistance, preferring,
instead, to win their cooperation through negotiation.
“I
don't believe what’s written in the newspapers or shown on
television. I only believe what I see on the ground.” |
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He
succeeded in achieving considerable calm; yet, the lack of mass
arrests and forced disarmament has left some Israeli officials
dissatisfied. On their part, Palestinians hoped that their new
president would succeed—at the summit—in negotiating the release
of a significant number of the 8000 Palestinian prisoners held by
Israel. Another issue of immediate importance is the transfer
of security control in the West Bank to Palestinian forces.
Egyptian
President Hosni Mubarak was the official host of the summit, which
was also attended by Jordan’s King Abdullah II. US Secretary of
State Condoleezza Rice met with Sharon and Abbas separately just
days before the summit, and there were rumors she would be at the
Egyptian meeting as well. Secretary Rice, however, said she would
not attend because the US felt it was better for the regional
powers to resolve matters on their own, promising, nonetheless, that
the Bush Administration would be “very involved” in implementing
the peace process. The day before the Egyptian summit, she
appointed Lt. General William Ward, a serving general with many
foreign tours to his credit, as special “security envoy,” who
will work with the Palestinian Authority in reorganizing its police
and coordinating security contacts with Israeli forces. In the past,
such US “special envoys” attempted a diplomatic role; this
appointment seems more pragmatic, and focused on satisfying
Israel’s constant demand to “dismantle the terrorist
infrastructure.”
Despite
official pronouncements, the recent shooting of a 10-year-old
schoolgirl in Rafah has only deepened the skepticism of Gaza’s
citizens. Whatever the politicians say to the press, the only thing
that will impress the beleaguered people of Gaza is a real
improvement in everyday conditions. “I don't believe in what I
hear from the summit,” said a 42-year-old Gaza City resident. “I
don't believe what’s written in the newspapers or shown on
television. I only believe what I see on the ground,” he added.
Hani
Habib, a Palestinian political analyst who teaches at Al Azhar
University and writes for Gazan and Arabic newspapers, said
that this Sharm El-Sheikh summit might differ from the past meetings
that accomplished little. “This one,” he said, “has taken
place against a background of very different conditions in
Palestine, Israel and the US. America is going through difficulties
in Iraq; its image in the Arab world is at an all-time low. If the
Bush administration can restart peace negotiations and play a role
in bringing about a Palestinian state, that will be to its advantage
in the region. As for the Palestinians, they have a new president
widely perceived as a moderate. Of course, Sharon’s declared
intention to evacuate the Gaza settlements is a new factor. I think
he has been surprised at the strength of the hard-line settlers’
opposition. Of course, this meeting in Egypt in and of itself
won’t bring peace to Palestine, but it’s a start for laying out
issues to be negotiated.”
Many
are questioning whether Sharon and his advisors embraced Egypt’s
invitation to a summit with Abbas to further the Israeli-Egyptian
relationship more than Palestinian-Israeli relations. Mubarak has
reversed past statements and is now declaring Sharon to be a man
with whom the Palestinians can make peace, not to mention signing
trade agreements with Israel.
The
militant factions seem to view the summit with caution.
Damascus-based Hamas political leader Khaled Meshal said that while
his group is willing to maintain temporary calm, “the ball is in
the Israeli court and what we are requesting is that Israel commits
to stopping the aggression and freeing the detainees.” He
emphasized that resistance groups in general, not just Hamas, are
ready to accept a period of calm or a temporary truce. “However,”
he said at a press conference, “given our earlier experiences, we
don’t believe in Israeli commitments. In 2003, Israeli aggressions
led to the failure of a three-month cease-fire declared by
Palestinian factions,” Meshal
told IslamOnline.net.
Abbas’s
efforts to protect the illegal settlements in Gaza are massively
expensive to the cash-strapped Palestinian authority, and it remains
to be seen what Israel will actually do in return. Abbas’s
cease-fire, Mubarak’s invitation, Sharon’s acceptance,
Abdullah’s blessing, and Bush’s moral and financial
support—all make for impressive photo ops and feel-good sound
bites, but they have left untouched the most difficult issues the
Israeli government has been carefully neglecting for years: The
borders of a future Palestinian state, a just solution for the
Palestinian refugees, the release of Palestinian prisoners, and the
status of Jerusalem.
Khaled
Ali is a freelance writer and photographer based in
Palestine.
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