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Re: ANAYLSIS ISRAELI POLICIES/SHAHAK (part 2)

Posted By: RogueButterfly
Date: Thursday, 5-Jul-2001 15:06:43
www.rumormill.news/10043

In Response To: ANAYLSIS ISRAELI POLICIES/SHAHAK (RogueButterfly)

: ----------- Israel Shahak writing 6 years ago -----------

: ANALYSIS OF ISRAELI POLICIES: THE PRIORITY OF THE IDEOLOGICAL
: FACTOR

: By Israel Shahak

(part 2)

Right now, Palestinians may or may not perceive themselves as
victims of Israeli discrimination. Many of them are too mystified
by their feudal mindset to perceive it clearly. If anything, that
mindset dictates to them an almost exclusive concern with the
loss of ancestral property. But their eventual modernization is


inevitable. It is anticipated even by the Israeli "Arabist
experts" who are no fools. As soon as it comes, the Palestinians
are bound to perceive themselves first and foremost as victims of
Israeli legal discrimination, applied against them by virtue of
their being non-Jews. When this occurs, Israel's domestic and
international position can be expected to become highly unstable.
Some Israeli decision-makers can be presumed to be aware of it.
It can even be presumed that a major reason of the Oslo process
was the hope (common for Israel and Arafat) to arrest the process
of Palestinian society's change by using force to refeudalize it.
But the Israeli experts must know that the probability of
arresting social change is very low, at least within Israel. In
other words, Israel as an imperial power is not even
contemplating to adapt itself to changing circumstances in a way
other imperial powers did with success. To return to the Druze
case: even if brigadier-general (reserves) Muhammad Kana'an who
performed to perfection the duties of military commander of the
Gaza Strip during the Intifada and who yet, as a non- Jew is as
discriminated against by Israel as any other non-Jew, is not
aware of this fact, his sons and sons of other Druze are sure to
be aware of it in a not so distant a future.

The second example concerns the two Arab villages in Galilee,
Bir'am and Ikrit. The inhabitants of both are Christians who
didn't resist Israeli forces in 1948, and who surrendered as soon
as the Israeli army was approaching. Their inhabitants were
evacuated "for two weeks only", as was solemnly promised in the
capitulation accord signed by the Israeli army. After two weeks,
however, the army reneged on its promise. In 1951 the Supreme
Court ruled in favor of the villagers' return, but its verdict
was soon overruled on the basis of the "Defense Regulations
1945". These regulations had originally been passed by the
British to be used against the Jews. Before the creation of the
State of Israel they were described by some most respected Jewish
legal authorities in Palestine as "Nazilike laws", or as "even
worse than the Nazi laws", because they provided the government
with an almost unlimited powers on the condition of exercising
them through the army. Begin's Deputy Prime Minister, Simha
Erlich, quipped that "these Regulations let a general commanding
the Jerusalem district or a Defense minister surround the Knesset
by tanks and arrest its members with perfect legality". The State
of Israel nevertheless kept them in force, applying them,
however, almost exclusively against non-Jews. In the case of
Bir'am and Ikrit Ben Gurion's was able to respond to the Supreme
Court's verdict by using the "Defense Regulations 1945" to
confiscate land belonging to the two villages and by ordering the
Airforce to bomb both villages on Christmas Eve of 1951, with the
adult male villagers rounded up and forced to watch from the
nearby hill how their houses were being demolished. Only the
churches were spared from destruction: they serve to this day as
destinations for pilgrimage for the former villagers who retain
their Israeli citizenship. The remainder of the land was
allocated to kibbutzim and moshavim, with a "left-wing" kibbutz
(which even adopted Bir'am's name) receiving a lion's share. The
Supreme Court ruled that those confiscations and demolition
orders had been perfectly legal.

Nevertheless, the inhabitants of the two villages, have been
campaigning till this very day: particularly those of Bir'am who
are all of Maronite religion and many quite right-wing
politically. Rationally speaking, their campaign could have good
chances to succeed, especially after they solemnly and repeatedly
declared that they didn't demand their farmlands, but only the
church, the neighboring cemetery and a tiny plot nearby to be
used as a museum. All pragmatic considerations would be in favor
of accepting their modest request. After all, many of them serve
in the Israeli police. They have close connections with Maronites
in Lebanon which Israel had exploited before and during its
invasion of Lebanon. Their case is supported by the Catholic
Church and other important international bodies. Yet there is no
chance that their request may be accepted, least so by the
current "peace government".

For the analysis of Israeli policies in the era of the "peace
process" it is even more important to recall that by the time
Oslo Accord was signed Israel had already turned about 70% of the
West Bank land into "state land" which, like in Israel, could be
leased only to Jews. (By further confiscations this percentage
has after Oslo risen to 72% or 73% but for the purpose of this
report I will use the round figure 70%.) All the West Bank
settlements, being built on this land, are intended only for the
Jews, who don't even need to be Israeli. The Jews from the entire
world are entitled to settle on this land. Hence the Western
media are wrong (possibly even deliberately) in their persistent
use of the term "Israeli settlements". The fact is that a non-
Jewish Israeli citizen, like brigadier-general (reserves)
Muhammad Kana'an, is denied the legal right to settle in these
settlements; and so are Christians who fervently support the
cause of "Greater Israel". If we suppose that one day the Spirit
will command reverend Falwell or reverend Robertson to leave
their holy work in the U.S. in order to settle in Kiryat Arba,
they won't be allowed to as non-Jews. But if we suppose that the
Spirit will command them to convert to Judaism, they will become
legally eligible to settle in any Jewish settlement right from
the moment their conversion is finalized. This is not just a
theoretical possibility, as groups of converts to Judaism from
some obscure tribes in Peru and India have actually been brought
and settled in the Territories.

On the other hand, there have been several attempts of Druze
veterans (some of whom profess very hawkish views) to apply for
an allotment of West Bank state land in order to establish a
Druze settlement there. All such requests were firmly denied,
against best Israeli interest. Moreover, especially since the
inception of the Intifada, Palestinian collaborators living in
fear of death have persistently requested the Israeli authoritues
to let them settle in Jewish settlements of the West Bank, even
temporarily. As some of them argued, this would be highly
advantageous to Israeli intelligence since they could live close
to their former homes and be able to maintain to some extent
their former contacts. Yet again, all such requests were firmly
denied. After Oslo Israel had to remove some collaborators from
the West Bank and settle them in Israel. But even then, instead
of allotting them any state land, it rented private land or
private housing for the purpose.

Let me return to the West Bank land issue. Of 70% of its land
which became state land, only 16% has actually been allocated to
Jewish settlements. The remaining 54% stand empty. It needs to be
acknowledged that removing Jewish settlements, or perhaps even a
single one of them, may well give rise to grave political
problems, including the risk of armed clashes which may even
escalate into a civil war. (Such dangers have been repeatedly
discussed in my reports.) But the prospect of returning some or
even the whole of the 54% of the not yet settled state land back
to the Palestinian peasants carries only minimal risks. It could
have been done easily during the first 6-8 months after Oslo.
Since the attachment of the Palestinians, (not only the peasants
but of the entire nation) to the land is profound, and the well-
justified fear of being driven away from it palpable, one can
easily imagine the effect of an even partial restitution of the
empty 54% of the West Bank land on the Palestinian masses. A
better way of binding Palestinian public opinion to Israeli
interests served by the Oslo and Cairo Accords could hardly be
imagined.

The same is true for the Gaza Strip. If anything, its case is
more glaring because the number of Jewish settlers there, 5,000
when the Oslo Accord was signed, increased since to about 8,000,
is incommensurably smaller than the number of Jewish settlers in
the West Bank, 130,000 when the Oslo Accord was signed, increased
since to about 160,000, East Jerusalem excluded. Also, the
proportion of Jewish settlers to Palestinians in the Gaza Strip
(officially 800,000, in reality about million) is completely
different in scale than the proportion of the West Bank Jewish
settlers to West Bank Palestinians (officially about 1.200,000,
in reality about 1.300,000 excluding East Jerusalem.) Yet about
28% of the Strip's area duly converted to state land, was
allotted to Jewish settlers long before Oslo and after Oslo
withheld from the autonomy's jurisdiction. Also in the Strip no
empty state land was restored to Palestinian ownership. In the
case of the Gaza Strip I don't know the proportion of the empty
to the settled state lands, but I do know that the former exist.
In the single case of settlement of Netzarim (whose residents,
far from doing any farming, are for the most part engaged in
studying Talmud), detailed maps have been published in the Hebrew
press (for example, Haaretz, April 10). The maps show a large
land area attached to that settlement, necessarily empty but of
course denied to the Palestinians.

Nevertheless, Rabin hasn't even contemplated giving back to
Palestinian peasants, or even to the Palestinian Authority, a few
symbolic dunums of the state land around Netzarim. True, some
Zionist "peaceniks" are advocating the removal of the whole
settlement of Netzarim as causing loss of too many Jewish lives.
As mentioned above, this is regarded as a factor which may
temporarily override ideological considerations. But no Zionist
"peace lover" has as yet advocated the return of an empty state
land for the sake of a mere political advantage. This can be
generalized. The peace process was "sold" to Israeli Jews public
not only as an effectual means of guaranteeing their security,
but also as a potential for profits from trade with Arab states
expected in its wake to expand. Nevertheless, just as in the case
discussed above, no Zionist has ever dared to propose that the
ideology of discriminating against non-Jews be for once
sacrificed for the sake of advancing the Oslo process and thus
enhancing Israel's power and wealth. To the best of my
recollection, Israel (or Zionist Movement before Israel's
inception) has never sacrificed its ideology on the altar of
merely political considerations or economic interests.

In other words, empirical evidence (valid as anything in politics
can be valid) shows that Israeli policies are primarily
ideologically motivated and that the ideology by which they are
motivated is totalitarian in nature. This ideology can be easily
known since it is enshrined in the writings of the founders of
Labor Zionism, and it can be easily inferred from Israeli laws,
regulations and pursued policies. Those who, like Arafat, his
henchmen and most Palestinian intellectuals, have through all
these years failed to make an intellectual effort to seriously
study this ideology, have only themselves to blame for being
stunned by all the developments of the 20 months after Oslo.
Whoever after Oslo stopped denouncing Israeli "imperialism" for
the sake of a meaningless "peace of the brave" slogan, only
showed that he learned nothing and forgot nothing. Their blunder
is all the greater since Israel has by no means been unique in
pursuing ideologically determined policies. Strict ideological
considerations determine policies in plenty of other past and
present states. In other cases an ideology underlying a given
policy, however, is not only openly admitted by a state
concerned, but also well-known and discussed beyond its borders.
Israel is indeed unique in that the discriminatory Jewish
ideology dictating its policies is hardly ever discussed beyond
its borders, due to the fear of offending the Jews of the
diaspora and of being labelled by their powerful organizations as
an "anti-Semite" or "Jewish self-hater". At the same time in
Israel the ideology of discriminating against all non-Jews is not
only openly admitted but also advocated as guaranteeing the
character of Israel as a "Jewish state" mandated to preserve its
"Jewish character". The Jewish supporters of Israeli
discriminatory practices freely admit that they thus want to
preserve the "Jewish character" of Israel, conceived of by them
and by the majority of Israeli Jews, as legacy of historical
Judaism. Indeed, if we overlook the modern times, there is
sufficient truth in this claim. Until the advent of modern times
all Jews firmly believed that non-Jews should be discriminated
against whenever possible. It now turns out that the Jewish
Enlightenment failed to change the attitudes of all, or perhaps
even of most, Jews in this respect. Many completely irreligious
Jews still believe that for the sake of the Jewish religious law
and tradition which commanded to discriminate the non-Jews the
latter should be discriminated in the "Jewish state" forever.
This is professed in spite, or perhaps even because of the
undeniable fact that this discrimination has the same character
as that which the anti-Semites want to apply against the Jews.

In the light of the impact of the ideology upon the actual
Israeli policies the critiques of the latter by Reinhart,
Benvenisti and Rabinovitz discussed at the beginning of this
report are valid, yet in one crucial respect inadequate. For all
their superiority to the "experts in Israeli affairs" from the
Western press, the named authors seem always puzzled by the
policies Israel is pursuing. They never cease offering the
Israeli government "good advice" of how it can gain in its
relations with the Arabs by "being moderate". Analysis and
experience show that offering such an advice amounts to an
exercise in futility. Numerous historical analogies, including
the recent collapse of Communist regimes in Europe, show
conclusively that a real change is impossible as long as a party
representing no matter how flexibly a state ideology stays in
power. In Israel power is firmly in the hand of the Security
System and of the Zionist parties whose deep commitment to the
Zionist ideology has not been challenged. On the other hand, the
mentioned analogies show that once the power of a state ideology
is challenged in public, it means that a real change is on its
way. Eventually, such a change may materialize by a sudden
disintegration of the state ideology and the state apparatus
supporting it. This is what happened since the late 1970s in
Poland. KOR and Solidarity which challenged the ideological basis
of the state were the true harbingers of the fall of the entire
European communism; whereas the plethora of reforms imposed by
the Polish Communist party from above amounted to no more than
palliatives which changed nothing. The Israeli ideology which has
been only slightly undermined in the period of 1974-1993, has
been again revitalized in the aftermath of Oslo. Due to its
social cohesiveness, military and particularly nuclear power and
the increasing support of the U.S. Israel feels at present too
strong to offer even palliative concessions to Palestinians.
Under those conditions ideological considerations can remain to
be predominant, except when Jewish lives are lost.

>From high abstraction let me again pass to concretes. Omitting
facts already presented in report 151, let me now show how the
actual Israeli policies in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank draw
from the ideology of continuous discrimination by means more
effectual than beforehand. Let me first deal with the Gaza Strip.
Detailed maps of the Strip often published by the Hebrew press
(but never by the Palestinian press!) show how it is criss-
crossed by "military roads" which according to Cairo Accords
remain under Israeli jurisdiction. Those roads are constantly
patrolled by the Israeli army, either separately or jointly with
the Palestinian police. The Israeli army has the right to close
any section of any such road to all Palestinian traffic, even if
it runs deep within the autonomy, and it actually uses this right
after any Palestinian assault. For example, Haaretz (April 11)
reported that the Israeli army closed "until further notice" two
road sections deep inside the autonomy "to all Palestinian
vehicles" after two assaults which occurred two days earlier.
Appended to the report was a map showing the Strip's roads. One
of them, called "Gaza city bypassing road", traverses the entire
length of the Strip, carefully bypassing the cities and refugee
camps. A military road and a narrow strip of land not included in
the autonomy cuts it off from Egypt. A number of parallel roads
traverse the Strip's autonomous area from the Israeli border on
its east side to the sea or a Jewish settlement block on the
west. All authorized entry points to the autonomy are located at
the beginning of military roads.

One such road is the Netzarim road. It begins at an authorized
entry point to the autonomy at Nahal Oz. From there it runs
westward, skirting all Palestinian localities. After crossing the
"Gaza city bypassing road" it reaches Netzarim. It does not end
there, however, but continues to a military fortress on the sea
shore. It thus cuts the Gaza Strip into two parts. A sector of
that road which approaches Netzarim is closed to all Palestinian
traffic. The obvious effect of that closure is to encourage
Hamas' assaults, as there is no risk that a Palestinian vehicle
may be hit there by mistake. This case is the best illustration
of the extent to which an ideological consideration can override
even elementary security precautions!

The overall effect is that the autonomous part of the Gaza Strip
is sliced into enclaves controlled by the bypassing roads. The
role of the Jewish settlements is not only to guard state land,
but also to serve as pivots of the road grid devised to ensure a
perpetual Israeli control of the Strip under a new and more
effectual form. This new form of control, referred to by Rabin
and other Labor politicians as "control from outside" allows the
army to dominate the Strip (and to reconquer it with a minimum
effort if need be) without having to commit large manpower for
constant patrolling and pacifying the Strip's towns and refugee
camps "from inside". The latter task is now being undertaken on
Israel's behalf by various uniformed and secret polices under
Arafat's command.

Let me proceed to discussing the West Bank. The task of the
"Rainbow of Colors" is to eventually produce results similar to
those already existing in the Gaza Strip. The conditions may
there even turn out worse, due to a much larger number of
settlers and to the extensive construction of the separate
networks of roads, electricity and water supplies for the
settlers which cannot but pass near or through the Palestinian
enclaves. (In the Gaza Strip, with few exceptions electricity and
water for the settlers are supplied either from Israel or from
the sites close to settlements.) Moreover, the West Bank includes
the "Greater Jerusalem" area in which the apartheid is practiced
more strictly than elsewhere. "Greater Jerusalem" officially
extends from Ramallah to the south of Bethlehem, but in the
future it can be assumed to grow. To make the matters worse, as
mentioned in report 151, the Palestinians from the Territories
are to be forever barred from crossing to Israel. Their labor
force is instead to be employed in "industrial parks" exporting
mostly to the U.S. Even at its worst South African apartheid was
not as all-inclusive as what is planned for the West Bank and
what already exists in the Gaza Strip.

How come the experts of the Israeli government expect
acquiescence to this situation on the part of the Palestinians
(including the Israeli citizens among them, whose influence in
Knesset can be considerable) and on the part of international
public opinion? The two questions seem to have a single answer.
Israeli experts and the government apparently anticipate to make
those realities palatable for both as long as Israel confines
itself only to "control from outside", while leaving "control
from inside", (i.e. the job of actually enforcing order) in the
hands of Israel's Palestinian proxies who will be granted a
semblance of an independent authority. (I am not going to discuss
international public opinion separately, because Latin American
and African precedents make me convinced that the response of the
world at large to the "control from inside" will be as tame and
as acquiescent as in Palestine.) Much as I abhor the Israeli
government's plans on moral grounds, this anticipation strikes me
as well-grounded. After all, a large majority of Palestinians
have tamely acquiesced to the numerous violations of human rights
committed directly by Arafat's regime in the Gaza Strip and by
his secret polices in the West Bank. (The potentially violent
dispute between Arafat and Hamas is about power rather than about
human or any other rights.)

The utmost the Palestinian opposition to Arafat is capable of
doing, is to send loyal petitions to "His Excellency, the
President", in which he is humbly requested to reconsider such
and such a decision of his. While a death of a Palestinian under
interrogation carried out by Israeli Shabak continues to be
fiercely resented, a death of a Palestinian under interrogation
carried out by Palestinian Shabak elicits only polite requests
for "an investigation". If "His Excellency" agrees to open an
investigation, he is complimented by everybody concerned: even if
the promised "investigation" does not materialize for months.
Quite numerous instances of killing the Palestinians by Arafat's
forces, let alone the routine beatings and humiliations pass with
hardly a notice. Even a sentence of death recently imposed by
Arafat's military court failed to provoke an outrage, and nothing
indicated a prospect of an outrageous response if it is actually
carried out.

Let me give a concrete example. When John Major visited Arafat in
Gaza, a Palestinian policeman killed a child aged 11. The killing
was, of course, officially described as an "accident"; an
"investigation" (which hasn't yet materialized) was promised,
exactly as had been customary when Israel had controlled the Gaza
Strip "from inside". But in terms of the impact of the child's
death on the Palestinian public in general and on the Gazan one
in particular the contrast couldn't be greater. Under Arafat's
rule, John Major's visit continued undisturbed. The official
explanation of "accidental death" was accepted by everyone,
except for the child's family. In the end even the family, when
firmly ordered "to shut its mouth" by Palestinian secret police,
did so, whereas since the inception of the Intifada similar
Israeli orders had been ignored. There were none of the usual
protests which had used to occur in the Strip when a child had
been killed by an Israeli soldier.

This is the place to recall that the standard of life in the
Strip has decreased by about 60% since Arafat arrived there. Of
course, the main responsibility for this state of affairs is
Israel's, although Arafat's contribution to it through his
corruption and inefficiency shouldn't be overlooked. But the
point I am trying to make is not at all economic. To keep the
Palestinians as poor as possible has always been an aim of
Israeli policy, in my view also in order to arrest social change
in their society. With Arafat's complicity Israel now can achieve
this aim without eliciting any strong protests, and without
spending much of its manpower on suppressing such protests. In
other words, it can impoverish the Palestinians cheaply and
effectually. Bureaucracies tend to believe that their successes
can be stretched indefinitely, and the Israeli Security System is
no exception. No wonder it believes that if a solution tested in
the Gaza Strip has worked well there, it would also work well
when "Rainbow of Colors" is implemented in the West Bank.
Likewise, the Security System probably believes that if the
Palestinian uniformed and secret polices obey Arafat's orders so
faithfully, they will continue to do so when commanded by
somebody else.

Those hypotheses about the Israeli Security System's modes of
thinking can be confirmed by facts. For example, while much land
is now being confiscated in the West Bank for the purpose of
constructing the bypassing roads, there have been few if any
popular protests against those confiscations. The protests of the
Palestinian Authority against the recent confiscations of land in
East Jerusalem stand in glaring contrast to its silence in cases
of the much more massive land confiscations currently going on
elsewhere in the West Bank. Danny Rubinstein (Haaretz, May 12)
explains that in case of Jerusalem Arafat is constrained to
protest by the leaders of Arab and Muslim states, for whose
publics Jerusalem is a particularly sensitive religious issue.
The same leaders, however, couldn't care less about the West
Bank. Rubinstein reports that "many delegations from West Bank
localities came recently to Arafat. Their grievances were many,
but they particularly emphasized that their lands were being
confiscated. Arafat did his best to mollify those delegations.
For example, a delegation of inhabitants of [the town of] Al-
Birah, located near Ramallah, who received land confiscation
orders from Israeli authorities intending to build a road
bypassing their town to serve the needs of the settlement of
Psagot, recently requested Arafat to intervene to make these
orders annulled. One delegate told me how stunned he was by
Arafat's response. Arafat told them: 'Forget this matter. This is
only a minor confiscation. It is preferable to have this land
confiscated than Psagot settlers driving through your town and
causing trouble. Owing to this confiscation, the settlers will at
least be able to bypass your town'". Rubinstein says that Arafat
is giving such "advice whenever he fears that his opposition to
an Israeli measure may result in cancellation of his negotiations
with Israel". I can confirm Rubinstein's view by information from
my own sources, both Israeli and Palestinian. Moreover, Arafat's
"advice" works, because it is backed by the people's fright of
his thugs. This is why most attempts to organize popular protests
against the confiscation of land have been stifled. Israel cannot
expect a support for its apartheid policies more effectual than
Arafat's.

Yet in two factual points I differ from the Israeli Security
System's assessments of Arafat's role. First, they ignore the
impact of Arafat's behavior on Jewish public in Israel. In order
to let Arafat serve Israeli interests effectually Israel must
salvage his dwindling prestige among the Palestinians, and for
that purpose leaves him a considerable freedom of expression,
never granted Palestinian collaborators before. Arafat takes
advantage of this privilege to indulge in the most outrageous
lies and to make the most provocative attacks on Israel. As an
example of the former one can give his oft-repeated assertion
that Israel (or Israeli army officers, or Shabak's agents)
conspired with Hamas to carry out the Beit-Lid terror assault. As
an example of the latter one can give his frequent assertion that
the entire Jerusalem (not only its Eastern part) belongs to the
Arabs or to the Muslims. While neither Rabin nor Peres dare to
expose Arafat as a liar or to denounce his position on Jerusalem
as incompatible with that of all Zionist parties (even Meretz
supports the so-called "unification of Jerusalem"), the Hebrew
press often does so, and so do the opposition's politicians.
Rabin's dwindling credibility and popularity can be attributed to
Jewish public's outrage at his condonement of Arafat's lies and
antics. To a much greater degree the same is the case of Peres
and the entire Israeli "peace camp" which seem to be losing
whatever political clout they once had. In other words, the
advantages of the "control from outside" are being neutralized by
domestic drawbacks of using Arafat. As the 1996 elections are
approaching, the latter factor can be assumed to increasingly
outweigh the former in importance.

The second point where I differ from the Israeli Security
System's assessments concerns the "Rainbow of Colors". The
Israeli experts assume it can last forever, whereas I think it is
bound to be rather short-lived. Even if Arafat commits
indescribable atrocities in smashing all opposition to his rule,
I doubt if he can keep the Palestinian population inside their
enclaves under his effective control. After all, the facts on the
ground will be all too tangible for the Palestinians, and the
arguments of the opposition particularly of Hamas, (unless
destroyed by Arafat's victory in a civil war) will be bound to
undermine Arafat's standing in a relatively short period of time.
So far his attempts to suppress the opposition, half-hearted at
best, have alternated with attempts to make a compromise with it.
His oppression can be said to have intimidated individuals and
small groups like the PDFL, but it has made Hamas stronger, more
influential and more outraged than before. It is impossible to
say whether Arafat will decide to accede to Israel's demands to
smash the opposition, or continue to play the same game of
serving Israel covertly and to opposing it in words. In any
event, however, the Palestinian masses see with increasing
clarity that their situation is rapidly deteriorating. At present
it is only Arafat's vestigial prestige which prevents them from
beginning to organize a popular resistance movement. Once all his
credibility is gone, which may occur quite soon, the only Israeli
alternative for still exercising "control from outside" would be
through a naked Palestinian dictatorship, whether Arafat's or
somebody else's. Oppression then unleashed is bound to surpass
anything experienced in the period of "control from inside".

I am fully conscious of the immense human suffering which such an
oppression is bound to cause. Yet I do not attribute much
political importance to the question whether it can succeed and
for how long. In any event, it will mark the failure of the
"control from outside" scheme as an easy and cheap method of
domination, which can be "sold", Peres-style, to the
international public. In the last analysis the failure of the
"control from outside" cannot but mark the end of Israeli
policies based on the absolute priority of Zionist ideology.

May 1995

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Articles In This Thread

ISRAEL SHAHAK DIES! CALAMITY HE FORSAW APPROACHES
RogueButterfly -- Thursday, 5-Jul-2001 15:01:24
ANAYLSIS ISRAELI POLICIES/SHAHAK
RogueButterfly -- Thursday, 5-Jul-2001 15:05:26
Re: ANAYLSIS ISRAELI POLICIES/SHAHAK (part 2)
RogueButterfly -- Thursday, 5-Jul-2001 15:06:43

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