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Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the Jan. 16, 1997
issue of Workers World newspaper
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As Israel expands settlement

U.S., Israel try to squeeze Palestinians

By Richard Becker

The U.S. and Israeli governments have stepped up pressure to extract new concessions from the Palestinian Authority in Middle East negotiations in recent weeks. U.S. State Department special envoy Dennis Ross returned to Jerusalem on Dec. 21, raising speculation in the media that an agreement was about to be signed.

While U.S. "leaks" to the press have suggested that PA president Yasir Arafat was blocking the agreement, the real cause is the Israeli demand for new Palestinian concessions. Since Benjamin Netanyahu was elected Israeli prime minister in May 1996, the Israeli government has been reneging on the Oslo Accords, signed by the two sides the previous year.

Then, on the morning of Jan. 1, a uniformed Israeli soldier without warning opened fire on Palestinians shopping in the marketplace of Hebron, the city which has been the focal point of disagreement.

Seven Palestinian civilians were wounded by gunfire from the soldier, Noam Friedman, who was predictably described in the media here as "a psychologically troubled loner." After the 1994 massacre of 29 Palestinians praying at the Mosque of Ibrahim in Hebron, the gunman, Baruch Goldstein, was described in similar terms.

Both Friedman and Goldstein were extreme right-wing, anti-Arab racists, who lived in settlements near Hebron. Their actions were carefully planned attacks. The description of both as "psychologically troubled" and "delusional" covers up the fascist reality of the settler movement.

Palestinian Minister of Information Yasir Abed Rabbo responded by asking: "If these claims that the settler is psychologically ill, which is something that is repeated every time there is a criminal act against Palestinians, are true, why do they insist on arming these psychological patients?"

The Israeli gunman was more forthcoming about his motivation. Friedman told police that he had acted to prevent any part of Hebron from being turned over to the Palestinians, which, according to the Oslo Accord, was to have taken place in March, 1996. He expressed regrets that none of his victims had died. And he said, "I protest being tried in a secular court and by a woman [judge]."

Although the shooting was completely unprovoked, the Israeli soldiers on the scene-after whisking Friedman to safety-"charged the marketplace in the first minutes following the attack." A dozen more Palestinians required hospitalization from serious injuries suffered in this charge.

Later, Palestinians took to the streets, burning tires and throwing rocks at the soldiers. The 150,000 Hebron Palestinians were all placed under 24-hour curfew, with the threat of being shot if seen on the street. The 500 Israeli settlers were "advised to stay at home."

Israeli fascists are clearly encouraged to carry out such actions by the government's policies. On the same day as Friedman's attempted massacre, the parliament passed a new budget, cutting $2.2 billion from social programs, and shifting hundreds of millions of dollars to new settlement building. These new settlements are another violation of the Oslo Accord.

The accords, signed in Washington in September 1995, provide for limited Palestinian autonomy in parts of the West Bank and Gaza. In exchange, the PLO agreed to recognize the Israeli state which had expelled most Palestinians from their land in 1948, as well as making many other concessions.

Since Netanyahu took office, and even before, the Israeli government has been reneging on parts of the accord. After refusing to leave Hebron, the Israelis also failed to meet a deadline in September to begin withdrawal from rural areas of the West Bank. Scheduled releases of Palestinian women prisoners have also been canceled.

In the latest negotiations, the Israelis, with U.S. support, demanded that they retain 20 percent of Hebron for the settlers, who make up one-third of one percent of the city's population. They refused to set any dates for withdrawal from the rural areas. And they insisted on going forward with a major expansion of settlements on Palestinian lands.

A provision of the Oslo agreement states that neither party will take steps to "change the status of the West Bank and Gaza" until final status talks take place next year. Clearly, the expansion of Israeli settlements violates this provision.

These are the real reasons why no agreement has been signed as of this writing. Yet, the U.S. government and media blame the Palestinians, as an additional form of pressure.

After the shootings in Hebron, Clinton, according to the Washington Post, menacingly told Arafat to "bear down and get done with it [the agreement] before the situation grows worse."

Slap on wrist for Israeli killer cops

Another form of official encouragement for would-be racist mass murderers like Noam Friedman, was a November 18 trial verdict in Jaffa. On that day, an Israeli military court sentenced four Israeli undercover cops to one hour in jail and fined them each one agora (about 1/3 of a cent) for assassinating a Palestinian, in a case of mistaken identity.

Could the real attitude of the Israeli high command toward Palestinians be communicated any more clearly to their troops?

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